Hot Water Man (13 page)

They had made an effort, however, in the bar – turquoise armchairs and fake veneer – and in the Dining Room with its portable partitioning and its huge, lurid, abstract painting. This was disappointing. There was a small bandstand with microphone and amplifiers for Saturday nights. The room was permanently twilit, with the blinds down and the hooded wall-lamps casting cones of light towards the ceiling.

Today he had just finished a business luncheon, he must watch his weight – tomato soup, fish cutlet and then a curry, even he could not manage a dessert. As usual there were few diners, but the room was full of turbaned bearers, waiting. ‘Like extras in some obscure pantomime', Christine had said, half-amused, ‘that nobody knows how to finish.' He had brought her here one evening when the place was even emptier and she had kept giggling.

After coffee he shook hands with his guests, three reps from upcountry. Thank goodness they had not hung around. He must remember their names, these Pakistani ones seemed so interchangeable – Khan this and Khan that and something else Khan. The men left before he did. He signed the chit.

He wanted to hurry. Before he returned to his seat – this word came quite naturally to him now, like ‘on tour' and ‘bungalow', it was the way everyone spoke – before then he was going back to Meadow Road. It was only a couple of streets away, in this old residential area that spread around the cantonment station and the Sind Club. She was probably a wild goose chase, this Mrs Gracie; though excited last Saturday when his memory stirred, by the time he had thought of telling Christine reason had set in and so he had postponed it. There was probably nothing to tell.

He left the air-conditioning for the blast and blaze of the sunshine outside. He walked down the road. Large trees stood on either side; apart from Clifton, the other old residential quarter, and the Parsee area downtown, there were few mature trees in Karachi. It was only a few hundred yards; a short distance for his grandfather to saunter, spick and span, from Club to quarters those many years ago. A tonga clopped past, heading for the cantonment station. When Grandad had sat at the window back home, hour after hour, taking off his glasses and rubbing them as if that would make it all come clearer, was this street amongst those he remembered? Donald's eyeballs ached in the sun.

The residence looked as closed as before. Today, however, a car stood in the courtyard. It was a large, dirty Humber with its boot open.

He went up to the door. The bell-pull had rusted. He was about to \?\ap with his knuckles when the door was opened. He stood aside as an elderly bearer made his way down the steps, dragging a basket of carrots. Seeing Donald the man put down the basket, salaamed, and went back into the house.

He reappeared. ‘One minute,' he said.

He went down the steps and picked up his basket. A handle broke and carrots rolled into the dust.

‘Oh Lord, oh Lord.'

An old woman came out of the house, hurrying down the steps. ‘
Iqbal.
They couldn't possibly eat them now.' She turned to Donald. ‘Do excuse me. Crisis time.'

‘Can I help?'

‘Gallant young man.'

The three of them picked up the carrots and started putting them back into the basket.

‘Dear boy.' She put a hand on his shoulder as they stood up. ‘You're a gift from heaven. It will be one of those days.' She leant closer. He smelt eau-de-Cologne. ‘Between you and I, Iqbal's a teensy bit past this sort of thing. One has to pretend to load him up. But we don't want to let on, do we.' She paused. ‘We'll have to give them a good wash.'

The carrots were back in the basket. ‘Please let me,' said Donald.

He hitched the basket under his arm and followed her towards the house. There were dirt-smears on his lightweight trousers but he did not care. He felt charmed by their need. How had these two managed without him all this time?

‘Careful of the step,' she sang out, addressing the house. ‘And the rail's broken.' From the back she could have been twenty years old, in her straw hat, white blouse and elasticated trousers like Donald's own mother used to wear, the kind with straps under the feet. She was slim and walked like a girl.

In the gloom the hall looked enormous. He could make out a good deal of unidentified clutter, amongst it some armchairs waiting for someone to sit on them. It must have been years since anyone did. His eyes grew accustomed to the dark. Everything was covered with dust.

The kitchen was stony and primitive, like most kitchens here, but squalid. Cats came mewling out and brushed against his legs. On the floor stood empty saucers ringed with yellow. Donald tipped the carrots into the sink.

‘Iqbal will take for ever,' she said. ‘He has rheumatism.'

‘I'll wash them.'

‘You see, they won't eat them otherwise. They have their standards.'

It seemed curious to be washing the carrots when everything else was so dirty. Donald turned on the tap and rolled and rubbed the carrots in the water.

‘Who's they?'

‘My little friends, my lovely little donks.' She was taking out the carrots one by one and putting them back in the basket. ‘Angelic boy. I can't thank you enough.'

‘Where do you get the carrots?'

‘There's a charming little fellow at the cantonment stalls. I grub around. Iqbal helps me. They know me there.'

‘Where are these donkeys?' Through the torn mosquito screen he saw the back regions-undergrowth and some collapsing servants' quarters.

‘I know I can interest you in my Sanctuary. Yes, my dear boy, I can see you're going to be one of our
supports.
'

She was gazing at him. She must have been beautiful once. In fact she still was, though the skin was stretched over the fine bones. She must be sixty, but her hair was a cheerful orange. Her eyes were blue but vague, and she wore crimson lipstick shakily applied. She looked like somebody very respectable painted by that Lautrec chap. He could imagine her dabbing at her mouth in front of some mirror miles upstairs in this enormous house. Perhaps she hummed to herself. He had forgotten why he had come.

‘A Sanctuary?' he said. ‘Where is it?'

‘It only takes half an hour. I'm tootling off now. Do come with us.'

‘But . . .'

‘You have such an honest face, so very open. I took to you right from the start. I'm like that. I always trust my instincts.'

‘Can I make a phone call?'

He went into the hall and phoned the office. He was detained, he told Mary, his Goanese secretary. He was Sales Manager now, he need give no reason. This was a bold, new feeling. In a month he had not felt so managerial. He phoned home. There was no answer. Christine must have met up with somebody at the B.W.A. He drew squiggles on the dusty table while the phone went on ringing. He joined them up neatly. This was a promising sign. Only after some persuasion had she agreed to give the B.W.A. a try. It would supply her with friends; it would broaden her horizons. He fingered in some stars. She was so dismissive about the Brits, bundling them together with a shudder. Shouldn't travel broaden the mind?

He rubbed his dusty forefinger in his handkerchief. So far Christine had not really settled in. She was restless. Yet for once she had room to move, and the freedom of the spacious house he could at last afford to give her. Not quite as large as this one, perhaps, but a good deal cleaner. In England she had always grumbled at housework; well, she did not have to do it now. He wanted so much, when he returned from work, to find her happy with comprehensible satisfactions.

He hitched the basket under his arm and went outside. For a month now, he realized, he had done no lifting or carrying. He loaded the carrots into the boot of the Humber. The back seat was already piled with hay.

‘Is there room?' He peered into the front seats.

‘Do you know, I haven't the first idea of your name. There I was prattling.'

‘Donald.' He climbed in next to Iqbal. She climbed in next to him.

‘Iona Gracie.' Cramped, she hunched herself to shake his hand. Her hand was as he had expected, thin and dry, all bones, and knobbly with rings. He remembered now why he had come. He presumed one was not introduced formally to Iqbal, though he was wedged next to him – wedged between them, in fact, one frail body on either side. Iqbal had the shrunken look of one who for many years has obeyed the most bemusing of orders. Perhaps once he had questioned them. Donald did not know whether to mutely sympathize with him for the squalid house, or blame him for not making sure it was cleaner. The old couple obviously had some understanding; Iqbal had probably been her servant for decades. Donald looked down at his two thighs; they looked large in their fawn trousers. Sitting like this his stomach bulged over the waistband, but whose wouldn't, all hunched up? He felt young and plump compared to these two old birds. He felt ready for anything.

Iqbal drove in a leisurely manner as if behind the wheel of a limousine. Perhaps he had been, once. At crossroads he disregarded policemen, passing them like royalty. Behind them the policemen waved their arms, though Donald was too wedged to turn. Pakistanis always drove too slowly, Donald considered, or maniacally fast. One always noticed
how
they drove. Englishmen just drove. Mrs Gracie was peering from side to side.

‘Slow down. Shame, shame.'

A donkey cart passed. It was loaded with oil drums; the driver stood up like a charioteer. The donkey trotted by on its stiff, furred legs.

‘It's disgraceful, Ronald, the suffering.'

‘How do you get the donkeys?'

‘Confiscate them. I have a boy with a van, a Christian, quite keen really. He's my full-time officer. Whenever we see them badly-treated or whenever they look too thin. Poor little mites.'

‘But what do the owners do?'

‘These Muslims, they treat their animals so dreadfully. The pitiful sights I've seen, Ronald, the sores. They drive them flat out until they're worn through.'

‘Like cars,' said Donald. ‘Never servicing them.' He was going to expand upon the subject of immediate gratification, so noticeable to newcomers here. Duke's postman who had apparently sliced through the veranda screen because he could not see a letter-box. Donald, however, fell silent. This might be too lengthy for her, and Iqbal might be offended.

‘Let me tell you something, Ronald. I simply can't bear suffering. Can't bear it.'

They were passing a creek. Naked children sat in the puddles. A boy pulled along a trolley, on which sat a legless man.

‘Dumb animals. They're God's creatures, Ronald, they didn't choose to be harnessed between shafts. They're born into slavery.'

Iqbal had driven past the slums. They were passing the industrial sector. Factories stood on either side of the road. Ahead lay the Baluchi hills, blanched in the afternoon glare.

‘What do the people do, when you've taken their donkeys?'

‘We'd like to prosecute, but that isn't easy. But we invite them to the Sanctuary and give them a lesson in proper management. We try to tell them it's sound business sense. I say, “What is the use of an ill-maintained machine?” That gets to them.'

‘Do you give the donkeys back?'

‘By all means, Ronald, if they recover. But we make regular checks, flying visits when they're least expecting it. You should see their faces when they spot our little van. We like to keep them on their toes.'

Half-charmed by this, Donald watched the road ahead. They had left the factories behind and Iqbal accelerated a little. It was suffocatingly hot. The highway was empty. Were only Englishwomen mad enough to brave the afternoon sun? He thought of Emily Eden and Fanny Parkes in the last century, riding out on their horses to the amazement of the natives. He had their books back home. He liked resourceful ladies. No doubt he was weak himself, that was why. He admired them. Strong-minded, but feminine, like Mrs Grade with her bright curls. Women who did things without minding the comment they aroused, unlike Christine's friends who thought themselves so strong-minded, with their patched woollies and lank locks.

They must have driven ten miles or more. Iqbal slowed down the Humber. The desert seemed empty, but for a sign pointing to
Karachi Asbestos Company
; a track led from the road to a hideous concrete factory, jellied in the heat. Ahead lay some scrub bushes and a tree or two.

‘That's a shrine,' said Mrs Gracie. ‘We turn off now.'

They bumped along a track just beyond the factory. They turned a corner. Ahead lay a low, yellow-stone place built like a fort. Iqbal sounded his horn and the gates were opened by a sleepy youth in creased pyjamas.

Inside, the walls were broken in places. Wooden pens had been built around them; through the bars he could see dozing donkeys and horses too. There was a pukka stone office set against the wall, with the youth's rope bed in its shadow.

‘This is Emmanuel,' said Mrs Gracie. ‘He's a Christian like us, he understands about animals.' She always spoke as if the native were not there. But then had she registered Donald – no, Ronald? She knew nothing except that he was English like herself. In her, however, such self-absorption was appealing.

Flies buzzed around the donkeys' ears. She stretched out a hand, sparkling with rings, and rubbed their fur.

‘This is Bosie. I always ask their names first. If they don't have one, I make it up.'

The air was ripe with dung. ‘And their owners do visit?'

‘Not utterly and precisely to visit. They come to get them back. A lot of them come anyway to that shrine up the road. It's the place to go if you want babies.'

‘Babies?'

‘If they're barren. There's a dead saint there, a
pir.
They throw money into a tank and pray for a baby.' She paused, re-tying the ribbon under her hat. ‘I was just wondering, would you like to adopt one?'