Another Country (18 page)

Chapter 24

Her father came into her room with a steel plate; on it, chunks of peeled sugar cane. ‘Akash got it for you.' Akash was the driver. ‘It's black ganna. He said to eat it first thing, even before you touch water.' She sat up.

Every morning she went to the pathology lab for a blood test. Once a week she took the reports to the doctor. Her bilirubin went up, then down. She became unreasoningly hungry, and lay in bed eating toast and reading long, undemanding books.

The office fell away. She dreamt sometimes of a detail of her life there, and would wake to think of its unreality: the database, or an email about a meeting to discuss the way the city's parks were being taken over by private businesses. Sathya phoned once or twice, to ask where Leela had filed a particular record, then to tell her of Joan's latest annoying habit. ‘When are you coming back to the freak show?' he asked, almost without curiosity.

She wrote to Amy, and other friends, but heard back only sporadically. It was as though she were between worlds; no longer part of the London life she had exited, nor her new life.

As the weeks passed, she wandered about the house in the afternoons, watched squirrels duel in the trees outside, and later walked in the lanes around the building, looking in at the crumbling summer houses, and the bored watchmen sitting outside them. Five weeks after she had come home, she felt more energetic, more restless. She went out with her mother to buy clothes; Mrs Ghosh said Leela looked too scruffy for someone working in an office. She accompanied her father on his stroll in the evening. She read a new novel. She called Sathya, and asked him to tell Joan she'd be in the office on Monday.

Chapter 25

She had thought to go upstairs quietly at the hostel, but Pawar spotted her. ‘Leela Ghosh!' she called out. She was smiling.

‘Hello ma'am,' said Leela, forgetting to resist. Five o'clock, Sunday evening, everyone was in the hostel, either flitting in or on their way out. Pawar got up and put an arm around Leela. ‘Are you better? Patli toh ho gayi.'

‘I don't think I've lost weight,' Leela said.

‘You've reduced,' Pawar said firmly.

Chitra appeared and let out a squeal. ‘You're back!'

Leela was dazzled. ‘Hi,' she said.

‘You've really lost weight. How are you feeling?'

‘I'm okay, I'm fine now.'

A couple of other girls that she sometimes talked to at meals stopped to smile and ask after her.

‘You probably just want to take your stuff up, no?' Chitra said. ‘I'll call the lift.'

The ‘Für Elise' halted, they jolted up. Leela inhaled. ‘The hostel smell,' she said. ‘I'd forgotten it.'

‘Eau de Phenyl?'

She was lost in an evocation of the dark, cool corridors, the doors of different rooms, and hers among them, on the left towards the end: single room with sea view which, as Pawar said, made her a very lucky girl.

They came to the seventh floor. ‘Do you need a hand unpacking, babe?'

‘No, I'll be fine,' Leela said.

‘See you at dinner? Eight thirty?' Chitra said.

‘Great.'

Leela trundled her bag along the corridor, took out her key and opened the door. The room was clean, peculiarly familiar. The window and balcony door were closed; it was too warm. She turned on the fan. The desk was neat, but otherwise, with her bedspread on the bed, the pink Ganpati on top of the bookshelf, dusty but undamaged, the room looked as though she had walked out of it a day or two earlier; as though the last month had simply not happened.

She woke early, and walked to work, enjoying the exercise and the sense of leisure. She was one of the first people in the building; the watchman didn't recognise her at first and she had to show him her identity card. She went up to the office and began to open her mail.

Sathya found her when he arrived. ‘Hey!' he cried joyously. ‘You're back.'

She grinned. But he bustled about his desk. ‘She's going crazy about something. Just let me sort these out. I need to make a call.' Ten minutes later, he got up when Tipu Sultan came in, and said, ‘Come, let's go for a cigarette?'

They stood outside in the stone stairwell, moving out of the way for peons carrying twenty-litre bottles of mineral water, or chairs with broken seats.

‘So you're okay? Feeling better now?' Sathya asked. ‘You look thinner. You look good though.'

Leela grinned and rolled her eyes. ‘Thanks.'

‘I feel it's important to say these things,' said Sathya, grinning back. ‘When are you going to get a boyfriend?'

Leela was mildly affronted. ‘Next week, is it on my task list?' Joan had decided Sathya and Leela should draw up weekly task lists and prioritise their to-dos on a whiteboard.

‘It should be. You're young and attractive. Don't turn into me.'

‘Is it that bad?' Leela had never arrived satisfactorily at a conclusion about whether Sathya was attracted to her. Residually perhaps – they got on very well. But with any serious intent? To her chagrin, she thought not, though when she imagined anything actually happening between them, she froze in horror.

‘Try not to look absolutely appalled.'

‘No, no, I didn't mean that.' She touched his arm in apology.

‘I don't actually feel bad about it,' he said. ‘I don't want to get married, which is apparently the only relationship option in this fucking country.'

‘Hm, no? Maybe you haven't found the right person?'

‘Every woman wants to get married. If I'm with someone, I want to see her three times a week. Maybe twice. I like my life. I'm not desperate to get married.'

Leela regarded him dubiously. She looked at the smouldering paper stick in her hand. ‘I can't finish this. It's making me sick. Sorry.' She stubbed it out in the paper-filled ashtray.

Sathya raised an eyebrow. ‘You probably shouldn't smoke anyway. What about your liver?'

‘What about my liver,' she repeated. Just the grey curls of smoke floating in the stairwell made her queasy.

‘Let's go for a drink one night this week,' Sathya said.

‘Drink?'

‘You can eat peanuts and watch me drink. Which is pretty much all you ever do.'

‘I'll drink whisky.'

‘You do that.' He put out his cigarette.

Leela thought that evening, as she lay on her bed listening to the crows and gulls outside, that it was as though she had been reborn. She walked cleanly through the city every morning, woke earlier, felt lighter. Things seemed to have fallen away.

On Thursday she and Sathya sat in Leo's bar. A waiter sidled towards them. ‘Another beer, sir?'

‘Another beer?' Sathya asked himself. He examined the bottle on the table. ‘No, not yet,' he said. ‘Do you want another, whatever rubbish you're drinking?'

‘No,' Leela said. After her third fresh lime soda (sweet) she'd realised matching Sathya drink for drink would make her feel burpy and sick.

‘Hm,' said Sathya. ‘Well, this is exciting.'

‘Can you ask him for more saltines?'

He waved at the waiter. ‘Bring her more of those things.'

The waiter departed, nodding.

‘So, how long are you going to stay in this ridiculous job?'

‘What else should I do?' she asked.

A large, quite drunk black man began to dance slowly on the tiny, sticky dance area under the single disco ball. He seemed to be moving to a song different from the one playing.

‘Christ,' said Sathya. ‘Look at him.'

‘He looks like he's having fun.' She accepted a fresh bowl of saltines from the waiter.

‘Probably. Do you think we should be doing that? Should we take some of whatever he's had? Isn't this the place to get hold of all of that?'

‘Is it?'

‘Of course. Colaba. Firangs. Don't you know these things, in your hostel?'

Leela sighed. ‘The hostel's really not like that.'

‘I bet. Anyway, how long are you going to carry on like this?'

‘Like what?'

The man stopped dancing and leaned against the edge of the DJ booth. He called over a waiter.

‘Pointless job, living in hostel.'

‘Thanks.'

‘You know what I mean.'

‘What else should I be doing?'

‘How could I possibly know? You must be passionate about something.'

Leela looked at him. His eyes were slightly red; it was smoky inside, despite the fierce air conditioning.

‘Books, maybe.'

‘Journalism? Publishing?'

‘Maybe.'

‘Marriage?'

‘Oh, fuck off.'

He raised an eyebrow and grinned.

‘What about
you
?' enquired Leela.

‘What about me?'

‘How can you not be married?'

‘Because I'm so rich and attractive?'

‘I was thinking of your age, actually.'

He guffawed. ‘I told you, I don't want to. At least I don't want to get married to the kind of woman I could probably still get married to.'

‘Matrimonials?'

‘Fuck that – tall fair high caste engineer?'

‘Homely. Divorce no bar.'

He laughed again. ‘What about indifference no bar?'

Leela looked at him dubiously.

‘I'm not gay, if that's what you're thinking.'

‘I don't mind either way,' she pointed out.

‘How sweet. No, but I'm not. I'd probably get laid more if I were. Look, there was some female, okay, if you want to know. In Bangalore, of all places. Very nice, attractive, just a bit crazy.'

‘When was this?'

‘About nine months ago.'

‘What's her name?'

‘Meenakshi.'

‘Ooh, I like the name. Doesn't it mean fish-eyed?' The meaning of names was a speciality of her father's.

‘It means pain in the ass as far as I recall.'

‘Oh, really?'

‘No, no.' Sathya put down his glass slightly too hard and spilt some beer. Leela giggled. ‘No,' he went on, ‘the point was that she was very attractive, it was very nice, being able to have sex was great. But then she wanted to get married, and I wasn't too sure. She wanted to live separately. I live with my parents.'

‘Couldn't you have lived near them or something?'

He went off on his usual rant about independence.

‘I wish I felt like that,' Leela said.

‘You're a nice normal girl.'

‘Are you being sarcastic?'

‘No, I mean it. Everything will work out. It has to. You need to meet some people. Go out.'

‘I am out.'

‘Not with me. Let me think,' Sathya said, ‘if I know anyone.'

‘What about him? Shall I fall in love with him?' She indicated the man in white, who was now off the dance floor, in a booth, still alone, looking grumpy.

‘Maybe. He does look a bit like a drug dealer, but if you don't mind that.'

‘It might as well be him. It could be anyone, you know? Have you ever thought that?' Leela said suddenly. ‘You know, when you fall in love, the randomness of it? Like a feeling is just waiting to get attached to a person? Have you ever thought: Who'll be the next person to come along and make me unhappy? You know how when you're in love, you get obsessed with that person and think you see them everywhere? When it's not them? And then when the person who isn't them comes nearer, you realise they're not even attractive? But you thought they were the person you're obsessed with? What does that mean? Does it mean the person you're in love with isn't even as amazing as you think? Like there was this guy I liked, he had dark hair and a beard and every time I saw a man with a beard out of the corner of my eye I'd think: it's him. But it wouldn't be – and it'd be someone really unattractive, and then I'd feel strange. What if I was even wrong about him being attractive?' She finished the saltines. ‘You know?'

Sathya looked at her disbelievingly, then guffawed. ‘You can be this intense on fresh lime soda? Have a drink.'

‘I can't, I just had jaundice.'

‘You should be careful,' he said automatically. ‘Don't want to have a relapse.' He drained his beer, waved at the waiter, and made a gesture of one hand writing on another. ‘I should go, catch the train. Come, I'll drop you.'

‘It's not on the way.'

‘It'll take ten minutes.'

The waiter came over. Sathya examined the bill.

‘How much?' Leela asked.

‘Shut up. You weren't even drinking. Come on, let's go, unless you want to talk to your friend over there.'

The man in white had his forearms on the table; his head rested on them.