A Suitable Boy, Page 53

  Nor had he given her much—or any—news of himself, and Lata longed for it. She wanted to know everything about him—including how well he had done in his exams. From his father’s remark it was probable that he had not done badly, but that was not the only interpretation of his remark. It might simply have meant that with the results out, even if he had merely passed, one area of uncertainty had been closed as a possible explanation for his downcast—or perhaps merely unsettled—mood. And how had he obtained her address? Surely not from Pran and Savita? From Malati perhaps? But as far as she knew Kabir did not even know Malati.

  He did not want to take any responsibility for her feelings, that was clear. If anything it was she who—according to him—should be the one to apologize. In one sentence he praised her intelligence, in another he treated her like a dunce. Lata got the sense that he was trying to jolly her along without making any commitment to her beyond ‘love’. And what was love?

  Even more than their kisses, she remembered the morning when she had followed him to the cricket field and watched him practising in the nets. She had been in a trance, she had been entranced. He had leaned his head back and burst out laughing at something. His shirt had been open at the collar; there had been a faint breeze in the bamboos; a couple of mynas were quarrelling; it had been warm.

  She read through the letter once again. Despite his injunction to her that she should not sit crying on benches, tears gathered in her eyes. Having finished the letter, she began, hardly conscious of what she was doing, to read a paragraph of the book on Egyptian mythology. But the words formed no pattern in her mind.

  She was startled by Varun’s voice, a couple of yards away.

  ‘You’d better go in, Lata, Ma is getting anxious.’

  Lata controlled herself and nodded.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, noticing that she was—or had been—in tears. ‘Have you been quarrelling with her?’

  Lata shook her head.

  Varun, glancing down at the book, saw the letter, and immediately understood who it was from.

  ‘I’ll kill him,’ said Varun with timorous ferocity.

  ‘There’s nothing to kill,’ said Lata, more angrily than sadly. ‘Just don’t tell Ma, please, Varun Bhai. It would drive both of us crazy.’

  7.5

  When Arun came back from work that day, he was in excellent spirits. He had had a productive day, and he sensed that the evening was going to go off well. Meenakshi, her domestic crisis resolved, was no longer running around nervously; indeed, so elegantly collected was she that Arun could never have guessed she had been in the least distraught. After kissing him on the cheek and giving him the benefit of her tinkly laugh, she went in to change. Aparna was delighted to see her father and bestowed a few kisses on him too but was unable to convince him to do a jigsaw puzzle with her.

  Arun thought that Lata looked a bit sulky, but then that was par for the course with Lata these days. Ma, well, Ma, there was no accounting for her moods. She looked impatient, probably because her tea had not come on time. Varun was his usual scruffy, shifty self. Why, Arun asked himself, did his brother have so little spine and initiative and why did he always dress in tattered kurta-pyjamas that looked as if they had been slept in? ‘Turn off that bloody noise,’ he shouted as he entered the drawing room and received the full power of ‘Two intoxicating eyes’.

  Varun, cowed down though he was by Arun and his bullying sophistication, occasionally raised his head, usually to have it brutally slashed off. It took time for another head to grow, but today it happened to have done so. Varun did turn off the gramophone, but his resentment smouldered. Having been subject to his brother’s authority since boyhood, he hated it—and, in fact, all authority. He had once, in a fit of anti-imperialism and xenophobia, scrawled ‘Pig’ on two Bibles at St George’s School, and had been soundly thrashed for it by the white headmaster. Arun too had bawled him out after that incident, using every possible hurtful reference to his pathetic childhood and past felonies, and Varun had duly flinched. But even while flinching before his well-built elder brother’s attack, and expecting to be slapped by him at any moment, Varun thought to himself: All he knows how to do is to suck up to the British and crawl in their tracks. Pig! Pig! He must have looked his thoughts, for he did get the slap he expected.

  Arun used to listen to Churchill’s speeches on the radio during the War and murmur, as he had heard the English murmur, ‘Good old Winnie!’ Churchill loathed Indians and made no secret of it, and spoke with contempt of Gandhi, a far greater man than he could ever aspire to be; and Varun regarded Churchill with a visceral hatred.

  ‘And change out of those crumpled pyjamas. Basil Cox will be coming within an hour and I don’t want him to think I run a third-class dharamshala.’

  ‘I’ll change into cleaner ones,’ said Varun sullenly.

  ‘You will not,’ said Arun. ‘You will change into proper clothes.’

  ‘Proper clothes!’ mumbled Varun softly in a mocking tone.

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Arun slowly and threateningly.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Varun with a scowl.

  ‘Please don’t fight like this. It isn’t good for my nerves,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra.

  ‘Ma, you keep out of this,’ said Arun, bluntly. He pointed in the direction of Varun’s small bedroom—more a storeroom than a bedroom. ‘Now get out and change.’

  ‘I planned to anyway,’ said Varun, edging out of the door.

  ‘Bloody fool,’ said Arun to himself. Then, affectionately, he turned to Lata: ‘So, what’s the matter, why are you looking so down in the mouth?’

  Lata smiled. ‘I’m fine, Arun Bhai,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll go and get ready as well.’

  Arun went in to change too. About fifteen minutes before Basil Cox and his wife were due to arrive, he came out to find everyone except Varun dressed and ready. Meenakshi emerged from the kitchen where she had been doing some last-minute supervising. The table had been laid for seven with the best glassware and crockery and cutlery, the flower arrangement was perfect, the hors d’oeuvre had been tasted and found to be fine, the whisky and sherry and campari and so forth had been taken out of the cabinet, and Aparna had been put to bed.

  ‘Where is he now?’ demanded Arun of the three women.

  ‘He hasn’t come out. He must be in his room,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘I do wish you wouldn’t shout at him.’

  ‘He should learn how to behave in a civilized household. This isn’t some dhoti-wallah’s establishment. Proper clothes indeed!’

  Varun emerged a few minutes later. He was wearing a clean kurta-pyjama, not torn exactly, but with a button missing. He had shaved in a rudimentary sort of way after his bath. He reckoned he looked presentable.

  Arun did not reckon so. His face reddened. Varun noticed it reddening, and—though he was scared—he was quite pleased as well.

  For a second Arun was so furious he could hardly speak. Then he exploded.

  ‘You bloody idiot!’ he roared. ‘Do you want to embarrass us all?’

  Varun looked at him shiftily. ‘What’s embarrassing about Indian clothes?’ he asked. ‘Can’t I wear what I want to? Ma and Lata and Bhabhiji wear saris, not dresses. Or do I have to keep imitating the whiteys even in my own house? I don’t think it’s a good idea.’

  ‘I don’t care what you bloody well think. In my house you will do as I tell you. Now you change into shirt and tie—or—or—’

  ‘Or else what, Arun Bhai?’ said Varun, cheeking his brother and enjoying his rage. ‘You won’t give me dinner with your Colin Box? Actually, I’d much rather have dinner with my own friends anyway than bow and scrape before this box-wallah and his box-walli.’

  ‘Meenakshi, tell Hanif to remove one place,’ said Arun.

  Meenakshi looked undecided.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ asked Arun in a dangerous voice.

  Meenakshi got up to do his bidding.

  ‘Now get out,’ shouted Arun. ‘Go and
have dinner with your Shamshu-drinking friends. And don’t let me see you anywhere near this house for the rest of the evening. And let me tell you here and now that I won’t put up with this sort of thing from you at all. If you live in this house, you bloody well abide by its rules.’

  Varun looked uncertainly towards his mother for support.

  ‘Darling, please do what he says. You look so much nicer in a shirt and trousers. Besides, that button is missing. These foreigners don’t understand. He’s Arun’s boss, we must make a good impression.’

  ‘He, for one, is incapable of making a good impression, no matter what he wears or does.’ Arun put the boot in. ‘I don’t want him putting Basil Cox’s back up, and he’s perfectly capable of doing so. Now, Ma, will you stop these waterworks? See—you’ve upset everyone, you blithering fool,’ said Arun, turning on Varun again.

  But Varun had slipped out already.

  7.6

  Although Arun was feeling more venomous than calm, he smiled a brave, morale-building smile and even put his arm around his mother’s shoulder. Meenakshi reflected that the seating around the oval table looked a little more symmetrical now, though there would be an even greater imbalance between men and women. Still, it was not as if any other guests had been invited. It was just the Coxes and the family.

  Basil Cox and his wife arrived punctually, and Meenakshi made small talk, interspersing comments about the weather (‘so sultry, so unbearably close it’s been these last few days, but then, this is Calcutta—’) with her chiming laugh. She asked for a sherry and sipped it with a distant look in her eyes. The cigarettes were passed around; she lit up, and so did Arun and Basil Cox.

  Basil Cox was in his late thirties, pink, shrewd, sound, and bespectacled. Patricia Cox was a small, dull sort of woman, a great contrast to the glamorous Meenakshi. She did not smoke. She drank quite rapidly however, and with a sort of desperation. She did not find Calcutta company interesting, and if there was anything she disliked more than large parties it was small ones, where she felt trapped into compulsory sociability.

  Lata had a small sherry. Mrs Rupa Mehra had a nimbu pani.

  Hanif, looking very smart in his starched white uniform, offered around the tray of hors d’oeuvre: bits of salami and cheese and asparagus on small squares of bread. If the guests had not so obviously been sahibs—office guests—he might have allowed his disgruntlement with the turn of affairs in his kitchen to be more apparent. As it was, he was at his obliging best.

  Arun had begun to hold forth with his usual savoir faire and charm on various subjects: recent plays in London, books that had just appeared and were considered to be significant, the Persian oil crisis, the Korean conflict. The Reds were being pushed back, and not a moment too soon, in Arun’s opinion, though of course the Americans, idiots that they were, would probably not make use of their tactical advantage. But then again, with this as with other matters, what could one do?

  This Arun—affable, genial, engaging and knowledgeable, even (at times) diffident—was a very different creature from the domestic tyrant and bully of half an hour ago. Basil Cox was charmed. Arun was good at his work, but Cox had not imagined that he was so widely read, indeed better read than most Englishmen of his acquaintance.

  Patricia Cox talked to Meenakshi about her little pear-shaped earrings. ‘Very pretty,’ she commented. ‘Where did you get them made?’

  Meenakshi told her and promised to take her to the shop. She cast a glance in Mrs Rupa Mehra’s direction, but noticed to her relief that she was listening, rapt, to Arun and Basil Cox. In her bedroom earlier this evening, Meenakshi had paused for a second before putting them on—but then she had said to herself: Well, sooner or later Ma will have to get used to the facts of life. I can’t always tread softly around her feelings.

  Dinner passed smoothly. It was a full four-course meal: soup, smoked hilsa, roast chicken, lemon soufflé. Basil Cox tried to bring Lata and Mrs Rupa Mehra into the conversation, but they tended to speak only when spoken to. Lata’s mind was far away. She was brought back with a start when she heard Meenakshi describing how the hilsa was smoked.

  ‘It’s a wonderful old recipe that’s been in our family for ages,’ said Meenakshi. ‘It’s smoked in a basket over a coal fire after it’s been carefully deboned, and hilsa is absolute hell to debone.’

  ‘It’s delicious, my dear,’ said Basil Cox.

  ‘Of course, the real secret,’ continued Meenakshi knowledgeably—though she had only discovered this afternoon how it was done, and that too because the Mugh cook had insisted on the correct ingredients being supplied to him—‘the real secret is in the fire. We throw puffed rice on it and crude brown sugar or jaggery—what we in this country call “gur”—’ (She rhymed it with ‘fur’.)

  As she prattled on and on Lata looked at her wonderingly.

  ‘Of course, every girl in the family learns these things at an early age.’

  For the first time Patricia Cox looked less than completely bored.

  But by the time the soufflé came around, she had lapsed into passivity.

  After dinner, coffee and liqueur, Arun brought out the cigars. He and Basil Cox talked a little about work. Arun would not have brought up the subject of the office, but Basil, having made up his mind that Arun was a thorough gentleman, wanted his opinion on a colleague. ‘Between us, you know, and strictly between us, I’ve rather begun to doubt his soundness,’ he said. Arun passed his finger around the rim of his liqueur glass, sighed a little, and confirmed his boss’s opinion, adding a reason or two of his own.

  ‘Mmm, well, yes, it’s interesting that you should think so too,’ said Basil Cox.

  Arun stared contentedly and contemplatively into the grey and comforting haze around them.

  Suddenly the untuneful and slurred notes of ‘Two intoxicating eyes’ were followed by the fumbling of the key in the front door. Varun, fortified by Shamshu, the cheap but effective Chinese spirit that he and his friends could just about afford, had returned to the fold.

  Arun started as if at Banquo’s ghost. He got up, fully intending to hustle Varun out of the house before he entered the drawing room. But he was too late.

  Varun, tilting a little, and in an exceptional display of confidence, greeted everyone. The fumes of Shamshu filled the room. He kissed Mrs Rupa Mehra. She drew back. He trembled a little when he saw Meenakshi, who was looking even more dazzlingly beautiful now that she was so horror-struck. He greeted the guests.

  ‘Hello, Mr Box, Mrs Box—er, Mrs Box, Mr Box,’ he corrected himself. He bowed, and fumbled with the buttonhole that corresponded to the missing button. The drawstring of his pyjamas hung out below his kurta.

  ‘I don’t believe we’ve met before,’ said Basil Cox, looking troubled.

  ‘Oh,’ said Arun, his fair face beet red with fury and embarrassment. ‘This is, actually, this is—well, my brother Varun. He’s a little, er—will you excuse me a minute?’ He guided Varun with mildly suppressed violence towards the door, then towards his room. ‘Not one word!’ he hissed, looking with fury straight into Varun’s puzzled eyes. ‘Not one word, or I’ll strangle you with my bare hands.’

  He locked Varun’s door from the outside.

  He was his charming self by the time he returned to the drawing room.

  ‘Well, as I was saying, he’s a little—er, well, uncontrollable at times. I’m sure you understand. Black sheep and all that. Perfectly all right, not violent or anything, but—’

  ‘It looked as if he’d been on a binge,’ said Patricia Cox, suddenly livening up.

  ‘Sent to try us, I’m afraid,’ continued Arun. ‘My father’s early death and so on. Every family has one. Has his quirks: insists on wearing those ridiculous clothes.’

  ‘Very strong, whatever it was. I can still smell it,’ said Patricia. ‘Unusual too. Is it a kind of whisky? I’d like to try it. Do you know what it is?’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s what’s known as Shamshu.’

  ‘Shamshu?’ s
aid Mrs Cox with the liveliest interest, trying the word out on her tongue three or four times. ‘Shamshu. Do you know what that is, Basil?’ She looked alive again. All her mousiness had disappeared.

  ‘I don’t believe I do, my dear,’ said her husband.

  ‘I believe it’s made from rice,’ said Arun. ‘It’s a Chinese concoction of some kind.’

  ‘Would Shaw Brothers carry it?’ asked Patricia Cox.

  ‘I rather doubt it. It ought to be available in Chinatown,’ said Arun.

  In fact Varun and his friends did get it from Chinatown, from a hole-in-the-wall sort of place at eight annas a glass.

  ‘It must be powerful stuff, whatever it is. Smoked hilsa and Shamshu—how marvellous to learn two entirely different things at dinner. One never does, you know,’ Patricia confided. ‘Usually, I’m bored as a fish.’

  Bored as a fish? thought Arun. But by now Varun had started singing to himself inside his room.

  ‘What a very interesting young man,’ continued Patricia Cox. ‘And he’s your brother, you say. What is he singing? Why didn’t he join us for dinner? We must have all of you around sometime soon. Mustn’t we, darling?’ Basil Cox looked very severely doubtful. Patricia Cox decided to take this for assent. ‘I haven’t had so much fun since I was at RADA. And do bring a bottle of Shamshu.’

  Heaven forbid, thought Basil Cox.

  Heaven forbid, thought Arun.

  7.7

  The guests were about to arrive at Mr Justice Chatterji’s house in Ballygunge. This was one of the three or four grand parties that he took it upon himself to give at short notice during the course of the year. There was a peculiar mixture of guests for two reasons. First, because of Mr Justice Chatterji himself, whose net of friendship and acquaintance was very varied. (He was an absent-minded man, who picked up friends here and there.) Secondly, because any party of this kind was invariably treated by the whole Chatterji family as an opportunity to invite all their own friends as well. Mrs Chatterji invited some of hers, and so did their children; only Tapan, who had returned for his school holidays, was considered too young to tag on his own list of invitees to a party where there would be drinking.