Dreams of Rivers and Seas Page 30

  ‘Off Shadhanad Marg,’ she said.

  ‘And where’s that?’

  ‘The road from the station to Chandni Chowk. By the railway line.’

  John knew where the railway station was. It wasn’t far from the Govind. He could walk there in fifteen minutes.

  He sat rigid, calculating. Outside there was a crack of thunder.

  Jasmeet was nervous. Timidly she asked, ‘Are you really getting married, Mr John? What is your fiancée called?’ She seemed genuinely disappointed.

  John felt clarity coming and going. It is pointless saying anything, a voice told him. The words were spoken quietly and convincingly, as if across a table in a quiet room where everything is calm and reasonable. It is pointless saying anything. John listened and saw at once how true that was. It was a wise voice. Talking is pointless. He hadn’t really been listening to the girl, after all, had he? And she hasn’t been listening to him. Why say anything? She just wants to take advantage of you. She’s been telling you lies. Elaine had certainly lied. All the messages Elaine sends are lies. Text messages were invented for lying. John soon realised that. It’s too easy. Then he was overwhelmed by an image of Sharmistha’s body, her golden nakedness swam into his mind. She is right beside him. Her lips covered his. Her hair is on his face. And he started at the touch of Heinrich’s hand.

  ‘No!’

  ‘John! Mr John!’

  John looked at Jasmeet’s yellow scarf. How had Father managed to escape through the gap between the yellow and the purple?

  ‘Okay, we’ll go back to the hotel,’ he said quickly.

  ‘Oh yes!’

  He would leave her there. He would say he was going down to reception a moment and he would walk to Mum’s clinic. By the time she realises he’s gone, it will be too late.

  Jasmeet was already sliding off the seat. She pushed back the tarpaulin and hopped out.

  As they moved beyond the relative shelter of the wall, he saw that the wide expanse of Connaught Circus was now a lake of sand flowing in fast waves, and swimming through them, head held high, body undulating in liquid ripples was a snake, a long snake. Four feet. Perhaps five. It slid effortlessly through the orangey dust, its head swaying rhythmically back and forth, sending a fluid yellowish wave rippling down the length of its body.

  John was fascinated. The creature seemed one with the dust, but streaking across it. Jasmeet hadn’t noticed. She pulled his arm. He was standing still. He recalled the drawings in the book Dad had scribbled in: snakes as lightning bolts. That was the night I asked Elaine to marry me. That was when he picked up the three elephants and went into his mother’s bedroom.

  Pulled along by Jasmeet, his eye still searching the point where the snake had disappeared, John marvelled at this astonishing flux, violent and fluid, dark and bright, and he recognised in the awful tension in his head, in this feeling of pressure and sickness but also of vistas opening, forming, dissolving, an intensification of his feeling that morning when the boy had sold him those three elephants. He must buy another set as soon as he had money in his wallet.

  In less than ten minutes they were back at the hotel. ‘You’re not well, Mr John.’ Slipping into the hallway, she smiled with puzzlement and tenderness. ‘You remind me of Albert so much. He also had bad moments.’

  John was impatient. On the stairs he thought: The girl is dragging her foot on purpose, she isn’t lame at all. It was a ploy she had thought up to get sympathy. She invented that daughter-in-law story too. It was a trap.

  ‘Room seventeen,’ he said at reception.

  There was a young man on duty. Someone he hadn’t seen before.

  ‘I’ll come down in a few moments to settle last week’s bill,’ John told the man in a loud voice. That would be his excuse for going out. Then, approaching his room, he saw that the padlock hadn’t been closed, the door was ajar. He pushed it open and knew at once that the computer was gone, yes, and his phone was gone. The pashmina shawl is gone.

  Jasmeet didn’t understand. All she saw was that her blond Englishman was shouting. He rushed to the window. The sky was black. It’s pointless saying anything, the calm voice repeats. Don’t say anything, John. It’s his father’s voice. Lightning flashed. Everything has been taken from me, he thought. Things are given to John only to tease him. Beauty is sent only to be taken from him. How Mother mocked when his girlfriends left him! How she chuckled. ‘Let’s hope it goes better this time,’ she had smiled that evening. She was mocking.

  John turned to Jasmeet, shouting, waving an arm. All over the walls are drawings of strange animals. There are drawings of figures with elephants’ ears, with snakes on their heads, with too many arms. There are rats and strange birds. Dad. Dad has been in here, drawing on the walls. Dad has taken his computer back. It’s his revenge because I drew him. God. Where is his drawing of Dad? Where is it?

  Jasmeet is on the bed sobbing. ‘Mr John. Mr John. Stop it!’

  When she lifts her face he sees her nose and mouth are bleeding. He backs away alarmed, then rushes to the bathroom to be sick.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘I WAS SO sure he would be here,’ the young woman repeated. Standing at the window, she was in a state of shock. ‘I thought I’d surprise him. And now … it never occurred to me … What shall I do? I don’t know what to do.’

  She stopped. The wind had fallen and it was raining hard. Beside her, Paul saw the taxi pull up in the street three floors below and Helen move quickly from the door to climb in, closing her umbrella as she did so.

  ‘I feel so stupid!’ the young woman said. ‘I was so excited about coming.’

  They had tried calling John’s phone but it was turned off. She had sent him any number of messages to say she was here. He would see them as soon as he turned on.

  She sat down. ‘I thought it would prove to him I cared. I thought he’d be so happy.’

  ‘That’s a big step,’ Paul agreed, ‘getting on a plane to India.’

  The American looked at her. She was a curious creature, almost too slim and with an odd abruptness to her movements, as if shifting quickly from one pose to the next. Then she was still, but with the tension of a cat about to spring. Above tight jeans and a few inches of bare waist, her breasts were incongruously large, more than filling a tight tee-shirt. She seemed painfully self-conscious. Paul smiled.

  ‘I hope I haven’t frightened Mrs James,’ she said.

  ‘I think it would take a bit more than that,’ he assured her. ‘She’s a tough lady.’

  It was now more than an hour since the doorbell had rung. In a matter of seconds Helen had switched from extreme mental ferment to the coolest practicality. Paul liked that.

  ‘It will be Kulwant,’ she had said, pushing her arms into a bathrobe. ‘Tell him not to do something and you can be sure he’ll do it.’

  ‘Want me to disappear?’ Twice divorced, Paul was used to the farce of adulterous affairs. He had pushed girls under beds and once been caught himself, hiding in a wardrobe.

  ‘Whatever for?’ Helen asked, already tightening the cord round her waist. She couldn’t care less what people thought.

  Then, opening the front door she found a young woman with a backpack and a Boots plastic bag.

  ‘Are you Mrs James?’ the girl asked. ‘I’m Elaine Harley, John’s girlfriend.’

  Paul had stopped at the passage door to watch the scene. There was something gently skewed about the girl’s face, as if she were speaking from one side of her mouth. She had light freckles on milky skin and a thin nose that wasn’t quite straight. Helen was polite and warm. ‘Oh, how wonderful! Yes, Elaine! Do come in!’

  She made the girl sit down. She brought her water from the fridge. She told her she must be tired. ‘What a marvellous surprise! Heavens. John spoke so much about you when he came in January. I had no idea you would be visiting.’

  Elaine’s smiles froze: ‘But isn’t he here?’ She looked around the apartment.

  Helen had just sat down:
‘Who? John?’ She saw the girl’s face. ‘No. Should he be?’

  Elaine trembled. ‘He isn’t here? Has he gone travelling somewhere?’

  ‘John is in London, isn’t he?’ Helen asked. ‘That’s the last I heard.’

  ‘Oh.’ The girl’s voice faltered. ‘Oh God …’ It was a few moments before she could bring herself to explain. One hand came up and tugged an ear lobe. John had gone off ten days ago, she eventually said. ‘Quite suddenly. He left a note saying he was going to India. I was sure he meant here.’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  Helen didn’t seem thrown, Paul noticed, by the younger woman’s anxiety, nor by her son’s odd behaviour. Her mood hardly changed at all. She was welcoming, but detached. ‘I haven’t heard from John for weeks.’ She paused. ‘Obviously there’s been some misunderstanding. Are you sure you don’t want to lie down? You must be exhausted.’

  ‘But he left his flat, and his place at the lab!’ The girl was frightened. ‘That’s everything he had. You must be in touch with him.’

  She stared at Helen as if the older woman might have simply forgotten that her son was in Delhi, or even in another part of the building.

  ‘I’m afraid not, John never tells me anything. This really is a muddle. Are you really telling me you came out here on purpose to find him?’ But now Helen was looking at her watch. ‘Oh dear, and I’m afraid I’ll have to be going to the clinic soon. I’m on night duty.’

  Elaine was baffled. Helen made tea. She was clearly finding it difficult to give the girl the proper attention.

  ‘Perhaps it’s just a question of a young man’s haring off,’ she suggested vaguely returning from kitchen to sitting room, ‘feeling he needed experience, you know?’ Men did that kind of thing, she said, and John was notoriously short of experience. ‘All he’s ever done is study.’

  Elaine sat in silence, unable to take it in.

  ‘John never actually worked for money in his life,’ Helen went on, pouring tea. She spoke automatically, evidently repeating things thought and said a thousand times. ‘I hope he doesn’t owe you anything, does he, dear? Perhaps saying he was going to India was just … I don’t know … an excuse.’ Helen frowned. ‘After all, why would John come to India? He has no reason to be here.’ She got up and bustled about packing her work bag. Without looking at Elaine, she asked: ‘Had you been arguing perhaps?’

  The girl admitted they had a bit. ‘He was upset that I was so busy. With rehearsals, you know. I’m in a play. It’s opening in a couple of weeks. He wanted me to be there every evening, but this was my first chance to really do anything.’

  ‘John was always a demanding child,’ Helen agreed. ‘By the way, this is Paul,’ she finally remembered to introduce him. Paul was still on his feet at the doorway to the bedrooms.

  ‘Paul is staying here with me at the moment. He’s researching a book about my husband, who as you know …’

  Helen stopped and smiled as if the sentence was already complete.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Elaine said. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she told the bulky man who now came towards her with a gallant little bow. After a pause, the girl said ‘John was very upset. Especially that he hadn’t had time to see him before it happened.’

  ‘See who?’ Helen frowned.

  ‘Sorry, his dad, before he died, I mean. He was very … that’s why when I saw this note, about him coming to India, I thought he must want to spend some time with you. He said you hadn’t had much time to talk when he came over.’

  ‘He was only able to get away for two or three days,’ Helen said.

  Paul watched her.

  ‘Oh heavens,’ she hurried on, ‘I’ll have to be getting dressed. I’m afraid we’re very short-staffed these days. I’ll be late.’

  For a moment it crossed Paul’s mind that Helen must know where her son was but didn’t want to tell the girl for some reason. Otherwise how could she be so unconcerned about his disappearance? Unless she was still locked up in the desperate mood of half an hour before? Either way, he admired her for the decision to go to work anyway. Helen doesn’t allow things to overwhelm her, he thought. Other women he knew would have been frantic.

  ‘If I call him with my phone,’ Elaine was saying, ‘perhaps he won’t answer. He hasn’t been answering my messages. But maybe if someone else tried …’

  ‘Give me the number,’ Paul offered.

  ‘Yes, have a go,’ Helen said, buckling on a belt. ‘He’s probably just off on his own somewhere.’ She picked up her shoes by the door.

  Paul keyed the UK number into his own phone and called it. He waited through a crackle of radio beacons searching for connections, then got a recorded voice.

  ‘He’s switched off.’

  Helen seemed neither surprised nor disappointed, perhaps not even interested. She picked up the house phone and called a cab. Evidently eager to be alone, she stood smiling falsely at them while she spoke in Hindi, then closed the call, moved to the sofa and perched on a cushion opposite the girl.

  ‘Elaine, dear …’

  Unexpectedly, she reached across the space between them, took the younger woman’s hands and smiled more warmly. ‘Elaine, I’m sure this is just some kind of misunderstanding or communication breakdown. You know?’ It was the voice she used for reassuring patients as she left the ward at the end of the day.

  ‘John really was so enthusiastic about you when he was here. He was telling me what a wonderful actress you are and how happy he was to be with you and I was happy for him, of course. Now, do you have anywhere to stay the night? We’re rather tight for space in the flat here, I’m afraid.’

  Elaine hadn’t arranged anything. The plane had been delayed for hours, circling and circling because of the weather. She had been so sure John would be here.

  ‘Never mind. So, let’s see, for tonight Paul will sort you out and find you a hotel, won’t you Paul?’

  ‘No problem,’ Paul said promptly.

  ‘And then tomorrow we’ll have a big think what’s to be done and how we can find out where John is for you.’ Now Helen sounded as though she were speaking to a young child.

  ‘Thanks,’ Elaine muttered.

  Upright in a white dress, Helen glanced around to see if she had forgotten anything. Yes, her umbrella. ‘The taxis only have to come from round the corner,’ she said, ‘I’d better rush.’

  Paul and Elaine were left with a half a pot of tea to drink. They stood at the window watching the car pull away.

  ‘I know she’s very committed to her work,’ Elaine eventually said. She sat at the table and stared at her fingers. ‘John admires her really a lot. He’s always telling me stories about her.’

  ‘She’s a very remarkable woman,’ Paul agreed. ‘And Albert James was a remarkable man.’ He felt for a moment that he had become a sort of acolyte. The Jameses were a religion.

  ‘I did try to read a book of his. John gave me something. But it seemed rather difficult.’

  ‘Depends which,’ Paul said. ‘The early ones are easier. As with most authors.’

  He found it strange now that Helen had mentioned his researching Albert’s biography when in fact he had told her three or four times that he wasn’t. ‘Actually,’ he suddenly felt the need to say, ‘I’ve given up the idea of writing about him. I’m going to do a year or two of aid work. Helen’s finding something for me.’ He hesitated, wondering why he was explaining this. ‘Maybe India has that effect on people.’ He half laughed. ‘Beware.’

  Elaine hadn’t listened. ‘Can you try his number again?’ she asked. ‘Perhaps he’s switched on.’

  Paul took his phone out and pressed to repeat the last call. There was still no response.

  ‘Oh I can’t understand it!’ she bounced to her feet again. ‘He always keeps his phone on, always, even when he’s asleep. He loves getting messages. Unless maybe he’s lost it.’ One hand clutched in her hair, she hurried to the window, as if to catch sight of her boyfriend in the street. ‘I was so
sure he’d be here. How can he disappear like this?’

  ‘You thought he’d come to see his mother?’

  ‘He’s been a bit weird since his dad died. I don’t know. I was sure he’d come back here. He kept talking about his mother.’

  Paul didn’t know what to say. He was aware that he must be coming across to her as a friendly avuncular figure and at the same time he wondered if he really fitted that description. The more distracted the girl was, the more animal and attractive she became.

  Elaine turned, hesitated, then went back to the window. But the drama of the situation released her from ordinary inhibition. Quietly she said: ‘Actually, he’d got it into his head I was seeing someone else. I mean, that was part of it. It was all muddled.’

  ‘Ah,’ Paul said.

  ‘It was stupid. I thought he’d come out here, sort of to punish me. Like a test. That’s why I came.’

  ‘We’d better find you a hotel. Don’t you think?’

  As he was speaking, a phone struck up the Marseillaise. It was Elaine’s. Since it was lying on the sofa, Paul picked it up and handed it to her as she hurried across the room. She looked at the screen. A frown puckered her lips; she went back to the window and answered in a low voice, her face averted: ‘No, I’m sorry, I can’t speak now.’ It was a different voice from the one Paul had heard so far, efficient and defensive.

  Elaine closed the call and stood looking out at the rain. ‘Is this the monsoon, then?’

  ‘Too early,’ Paul said. ‘You get these little rehearsals, but the heat will be back, I’m afraid. Let’s see if we can get you in at the India International Centre. It’s close by and there should be rooms. This isn’t a tourist month.’

  All the same they needed a cab. Paul phoned. Elaine stood, texting a message. She looked up. ‘Is it expensive?’ she asked. Speaking to the taxi company, he smiled and shook his head.

  They ate in the dining room of the International Centre. Paul had waited a half-hour and more in reception while Elaine checked in and went to her room. He had felt very sure of himself earlier in the afternoon, sure of a major change in his life. Now he was on edge, he needed to think, but the girl was alone and it would be unkind to leave her to her own devices. Helen wouldn’t want that, he decided.