The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (18 page)

She thought: We’ve only got each other now. We mustn’t say upsetting things, doesn’t Madge realize that? She tried to think of something else. She pointed to the
mali
, on the far side of the lawn. He was dropping the cigarette butts into the hem of his dhoti and tucking it around his waist.

“They do the most menial jobs, don’t they? I mean, look at the gardener. Yet they’re not like the British; they don’t seem to mind. It must be their religion.”

“What do you mean?” asked Madge.

“Picking up Norman’s butts.”

Madge laughed. “He smokes them, silly. I’ve seen him round the back.”

Evelyn paused. “Oh.” She thought: How can I work everything out, all on my own? She remembered how Hugh used to explain things in the newspaper. How he lent her his glasses. How he whipped the parking ticket out of her hand.

J
ust then the
mali
turned. They followed his gaze. An auto-rickshaw was driving through the gates. It puttered up to the front door, emitting clouds of exhaust smoke. Douglas and Jean Ainslie extricated themselves from its backseat.

Something was wrong. They hurried up to Mr. Cowasjee, who was handing out dinner menus.

“There’s been a little accident,” said Douglas. He supported his wife up the steps. “Jean’s been bitten by a monkey.”

There was a general stir. “We were at the Bull Temple,” said Jean.

“She was feeding it a banana,” said Douglas.

“It’s here.” Jean looked pale. She showed the manager her hand. “I think I should see the nurse.”

“Tetanus shot,” said Douglas.

“Come with me, madam. I will telephone for the doctor.” Mr. Cowasjee snapped his fingers. “Jimmy, ring doctor-sahib.
Jaldi, jaldi!
”

“But surely your wife—” began Douglas.

“My wife cannot administer an injection.”

“But—”

“Dr. Rama is a tip-top doctor, sir,” said Mr. Cowasjee. “He’ll be here in a trice.”

They went indoors.

Muriel got to her feet and hurried over. “See?” she said. “See what happened?”

“What?” asked Evelyn.

Muriel’s eyes glittered. “See?” She pointed to Madge. “She wanted something to happen to her, to Mrs. Ainslie, and it did.”

How strangely Muriel was behaving! Evelyn wondered if she was quite right in the head. But then she herself sometimes felt the sense of things slipping from her grasp.

And at dinner she forgot all about it. They were tucking into their soup (cream of tomato) when suddenly the conversation, never that lively, faded away.

A man was crossing the dining room. He was tall, with an abundant head of black hair that shone in the strip light. He wore a blue shirt and carried a leather case. Evelyn recognized him from the photograph. Dr. Rama was even more dazzling, however, in real life; more dazzling, even, than Omar Sharif in his prime. Accompanied by the manager he strode past the tables, smiling at the diners, and disappeared down the corridor in the direction of the Ainslies’ room.

There was a hush, then a fluttering sound, like hens settling down.

“Blimey,” said Madge. “He can give me an internal examination any day.”

Somebody clapped their hands together. Evelyn thought it was applause. But it was just Norman, squashing a mosquito. “Got the bugger!” he said, wiping his hand on his trousers.

I
t had been a day packed with incident—a pedicure, new red sandals, a monkey bite, a handsome doctor. There had been many more images, however, that crowded Evelyn’s head—a man washing his ox beside the petrol pump; a boy, balancing a tray of tea glasses, weaving through the traffic … more than this, much more. The street outside teemed with life; she didn’t really have to go anywhere at all. What a change it made from her village back home, with its shuttered weekenders’ cottages. Nowadays English streets were empty; people stayed at home, gazing at their computer screens, she supposed, blowing up the Houses of Parliament on video games.

It was late, but Evelyn couldn’t sleep. The sight of Dr. Rama had stirred feelings she had long ago thought extinguished. She had only known one man’s body. She remembered Hugh’s smell, the peppery scent of his sweat; she remembered the fleshiness of him, his naked body in bed—well, to be accurate, he usually kept his pajama tops on. She had never really speculated about other men; there hadn’t been time, what with children and the sailing each weekend, let alone that enormous garden. She remembered Douglas’s words on the plane:
you only have the one life
.

Evelyn sat up. She pushed back the mosquito net and switched on the light. Unlike herself, this room had known many lives. How many people had passed through it? There was little sign of their brief occupation—a cigarette burn on the dressing table, that was all. A
waiting room
. For Indians it must be different; from what she understood, life for them must be a series of waiting rooms. And then what?

She slid her feet into her slippers. Outside, a dog barked. It was answered by more dogs in the wasteland beyond the wall, where people lived in conditions of staggering squalor. A kerosene lamp shone in the servants’ quarters where the staff shed their uniforms and, just for a few hours, lived their unfathomable lives.

Evelyn padded along the corridor to the lounge. It was dimly illuminated by the light from the lobby. She sat down at the piano and lifted the lid. She hadn’t played for years; her joints were stiff. Tentatively she moved her fingers over the keys, trying to remember the Moonlight Sonata. She wasn’t going to play it, of course; it would wake people up. But surely, hidden deep within her fingers, there remained some memory?

It had gone. Evelyn closed the lid. She got up, unbolted the veranda door and stepped out into the night. The evening warmth welcomed her; it was as warm as her blood. How cold England had been, for old bones! Scent drifted from the tiny, unknown blossoms that made a hedge around the lawn. Somewhere a cat meowed. Several of the ladies in the hotel—Eithne, Stella, Hermione Somebody—or was it Harriet? Evelyn couldn’t ask now—some of the ladies fed the strays with food they saved from dinner. There was an undercurrent of rivalry about this. They each had a different name for a bald old tom that they considered theirs alone. No fool, he responded to all of them.

It was then that Evelyn became aware of a light. It was flickering in her old room, now inhabited by Muriel. She walked up the path and peered through Muriel’s window.

The room was transformed. For a moment Evelyn couldn’t recognize it. Candles were stuck along the dressing table; smoke wreathed up from incense sticks. Dimly, Evelyn could discern a sort of shrine.

Muriel, in her nightie, was sitting on the bed. The window was open.

She swung around. “Who’s that?”

“I
’ve been mugged, see,” said Muriel. “And burgled.”

“I heard,” said Evelyn. “It must have been terrible.”

“It’s my nerves. I keep thinking they’re coming back. They stole my home from me and my peace of mind, they took it all away. My whole life I’d lived in that place and they stole it for a telly. I keep having these nightmares. I wake up, me heart going like the clappers. I keep seeing their faces, like they’re here.”

“It’s all right, dear,” said Evelyn. “They’re not.”

“Keep seeing ’em everywhere. See, they found out where I lived.”

“You’re safe here, really. You’re on the other side of the world.”

“Two black boys,” said Muriel. “They killed my Leonard.”

“Who?”

Muriel pointed to a framed photograph on the dressing table. It was draped with a garland of marigolds. Evelyn got up and peered at it, in the candlelight. It was a photograph of a cat.

“The Huns killed my Leonard and those niggers killed my cat. It was the same person, see; he was in his body. I always knew it but Mrs. Cowasjee, she told me it was true. I could’ve saved him if I’d seen the signs.” Muriel’s voice rose; she was highly agitated. “They evacuated me, see.”

“What, the police?”

Muriel gripped Evelyn’s arm. “They made me go and live in the country and that’s why he was killed.”

“I thought you lived in London?”

“It’s all my fault. That’s why I had to marry Paddy.”

“Paddy?” Evelyn couldn’t grasp this conversation, but it was probably her own fault. “Is that why you came here?” she asked. “Because they evacuated you?”

“What’s that?”

“After the burglary?”

Muriel stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

Evelyn took a breath. She spoke clearly. “Is that why you’ve come to India?”

Muriel stared at her as if she were retarded. Evelyn realized that there were several shrines. There was a Hindu god, the one with all the arms, a photograph of Princess Diana and even a small plaster Virgin Mary. Muriel certainly believed in hedging her bets.

“Don’t tell anybody, promise!” hissed Muriel.

“I promise,” said Evelyn.

Muriel lowered her voice. “It’s all fate, see. It’s karma. The mugging, the brochure that the doctor sent me, and then what I heard about my son. What the neighbors told me, where he lived.”

“Your son?”

Her grip tightened. More bruises tomorrow, Evelyn thought.

“Don’t tell the police!” whispered Muriel.

“What have the police got to do with it?”

“He’s here, see.”

“Who is?” asked Evelyn.

“My Keith,” said Muriel. “That’s why I’ve come here. He’s here, in India.”

“Your son’s here?”

“That’s what the neighbors told me, that he’s come to India. It’s a business matter. I been looking at everyone to see if it’s him, looking at the faces. I asked at that hotel; it’s his sort of place, the sort of place he’d stay. But he’ll find me. Keith’s like that. He’ll know his old mum’s here and he’ll find me in the end.”

I
t was late. Within their rooms some residents slumbered, dreaming of Dr. Rama, who lifted their nighties with his caring brown hands. Jean Ainslie typed a round-robin email to her friends while her husband tried to sleep. Madge, who had been taught computing skills by her grandson, sat at her screen; the blue light illuminated her face as she logged on to her diminishing stocks and shares. Stella was swallowing her pills—heart pills, joint pills, Prozac—with a glass of soda water. In his room at the back of the hotel, Graham Turner played Dinah Washington, “Mad About the Boy,” at the lowest volume. Somewhere in the garden a bird screeched. The servants slept, wherever it was that they slept.

Outside, at the crossroads, lorries drove through the night. Brigade Road ran past The Marigold, out beyond the big hotels to the new city of office blocks where nobody had been because it was another world. The second road led to the Old Town and its maze of streets that only the most adventurous had dared to penetrate. The third road led into the city center, with its Victorian buildings that reminded them of home. The fourth road led to the airport. In England an airport was just a place that one made use of from time to time. Here its presence could be palpably felt. It was their place of arrival, which had delivered them into this foreign land. They had stepped out of the plane with a return ticket that in all probability would never be used. And it was a place that might deliver up to them, from a country that now seemed shrunk and unreal, those they loved.

“N
amaste!” wrote Jean:

Sorry I haven’t written to you folks sooner but Doug and I have been busy busy busy settling into our new home and exploring this bustling Indian metropolis. Though lacking the obvious charms of some of the places we’ve visited on our former trips (see missives number 9 and 24), Bangalore is not lacking in interest and, as Douggy jokes, there are plenty of ancient monuments right here in our hotel!! Seriously though, The Marigold is a pleasant place, delightfully “Old Raj” and boasting the usual erratic plumbing! Our fellow residents are well past retirement age but as you know we believe that age is all in the mind and if one is open to new experiences one will always remain young at heart (enough lecture: ed!). Most of them are female, so Doug is enjoying himself and I have to keep him on a tight leash (just joking). One or two of them grew up in India so for them it’s like coming home. We too feel very “at home” here but then you know what vagabonds we are! We’ve always enjoyed “going native” and have introduced the delights of “dhosas” and “idlis” to our more conventional fellow diners whose idea of local cuisine starts and ends with chicken tikka, a dish unknown to most Indians!

We are also learning the language of Karnataka (Kannada) and can already carry on a simple conversation with the staff. We can see that they appreciate us taking the trouble to master a few words. As you know, we’ve always believed in respect for other cultures and though McDonalds has popped up its ugly head (sorry, its golden arches!) India is still an ancient and many-layered civilization. Of course there is a great gulf between rich and poor (you should see the bargains!) but we make a practice of giving alms to the beggars—a few rupees can make all the difference to a poor family.

All in all we have no regrets. Devon seems a distant memory and our only sadness is missing our many friends (do come out!) and of course our children. Amanda has been promoted to Deputy Head and finds time in her busy schedule for her beloved salsa dancing (Stage 4, well done Amanda!) and the annual “Baroque Around the Clock” festival which she seems to organize single-handedly! Adam goes from strength to strength at the BBC (do catch his latest documentary, details enclosed, we think it’s his best yet: thought-provoking and hilarious). Emails are of course a blessing and Douggy has finally overcome his Luddite tendencies and can hardly be parted from his new digital camera. The accompanying photo shows muggins here with the local snake charmer!!

That’s enough for now. As they say here, “phir milenge” (we’ll meet again), or, for those of a Muslim persuasion, “khoder hafiz, insh’allah”!

Love, Jean and Doug

PS: Idli is a steamed rice cake. Dhosa is a type of rice pancake. Lesson over!