Hot Water Man (2 page)

‘Mr Hanson?'

Duke turned. It was Mr Samir from Cameron Chemicals. His bald head glistened. They shook hands.

‘You have been seeing off your lady wife?'

‘She was sorry to leave,' said Duke politely. ‘She'd gotten to like your city.'

‘We are all sorry too. But it is becoming so hot.'

Actually the heat was the one thing she could take. Duke said nothing, but nodded.

‘She'll return in September?'

‘Sure. I guess I know who you're meeting. Your English manager.'

‘And his better half.'

‘Kinda warm time to arrive. They been out here before?'

‘I believe not. Mr Manley has only worked in London office. His tour here is two years.'

‘I'll be seeing plenty of him.' Duke worked for the Translux Group. Their hotel project here would be taking out a large contract with Cameron's; interior fitments, paint. So far his hotel project was a flat stretch of scrub desert. These things took time. Here, they took time.

He accompanied Mr Samir down the steps. Around the Arrivals Hall the windows were full of faces but only those who knew their status had walked through the doors to greet the travellers – besuited Pakistani businessmen, Europeans in bush shirts. One of Mr Samir's colleagues was waiting, wanly at attention, in his hand a string of blossoms.

‘I bet you find them inconvenient, these night flights,' said Duke. Aircraft usually landed in the small hours, destined to arrive at more attractive cities at a civilized time in the morning. To mention this would be tactless.

‘No, no.' Mr Samir coughed. ‘No trouble.'

Arrivals were trickling through. Roused from sleep, from the airline pillow against which, now, Minnie's head must surely be resting, each face looked blank under the strip light. They had travelled 3,500 miles; above black deserts they had eaten untimely meals sealed in foil. They did not look ready.

Duke spotted the English couple. They were younger than he had expected. The man, attempting casualness with his jacket over his arm, glanced back at the porter wheeling the luggage, then looked around at the faces. He was fair and freckled, pleasant-looking, softish. In this climate he would burn.

His wife walked a step ahead of him. She was the same height as her husband; she wore a crumpled embroidered blouse and jeans. Her fairish hair was frizzed, like the girls did nowadays; underneath it her face was radiant with an English glow. She turned back to speak to her husband; the spectators had their eyes fixed on her.

They met with much shaking of hands. ‘Mr Donald Manley,' said Mr Samir to Duke. ‘Our new Sales Manager. Mrs Christine Manley.'

‘For us?' The girl ducked. The garland was placed over her head. Her face lifted, blushing. ‘Do you always do this?'

‘It is our custom', said Mr Samir, ‘for honoured guests.'

‘I feel such a mess. I've been asleep.' She touched the wilted flowers. On her upper arm, Duke saw the new inoculation plaster. ‘They're so beautiful. What are they called?'

Mr Samir told her the name. Donald Manley said: ‘I'm so pleased to be here. My grandfather served in Karachi, years ago. He was in the army.' The thread of the garland was tangled with his shoulder bag; he fumbled with it, twitching his arm up and down. ‘He talked about it so much, I feel I'm coming home.'

There was a pause. The English couple, no doubt, were trying to think of something interesting to say about their first impression of Pakistan. The airport offered them a grey concrete interior, a crowd of men and the shuttered cubicle of a Habib Bank. And heat.

‘Hot, isn't it,' said Mr Manley pleasantly.

Mohammed wore gymhoes
. The reason for his silence as he passed from room to room, dusting, arranging, tidying up her mess, lay in his stealthy rubber soles. Lay also in his deference; his humble desire not to disturb, which of course disturbed Christine more. She reclined on her sun-couch, cocking her head sideways. She was a woman of leisure but she was not at ease.

Like the Cameron furniture, Mohammed came with the house. For two weeks she had lived with his attentions. Anything she did could be bettered by him; besides, it would offend him to take matters out of his hands. Yesterday she had picked some sprays of bougainvillaea from the garden; going into the kitchen she had met him, already arranging sprays of bougainvillaea in a glass of water, tinted pink. He had the feminine touch.

‘But darling, you've always hated housework,' Donald had said last night. They were eating supper. ‘You always said it was so demeaning, scrubbing away and nobody noticing. So thanklessly circular, you said.'

‘I just feel silly sitting around. Lifting my feet while he sweeps the bit under them.'

‘But you always said –' He stopped. The door was ajar; Mohammed stood in the kitchen, waiting to collect the empty plates. In his white uniform he could almost be felt.

‘He can't understand English,' hissed Christine. ‘Not that well.'

‘All the same . . .'

‘Can't we ever talk? For two years?'

Donald took his last mouthful. So did she. When he had finished chewing he cleared his throat. ‘Mohammed.'

Plates were swiftly lifted. Mohammed emerged with a bowl of orange stuff. He was a slender young man, girlish and beautiful. He served them and disappeared back into the kitchen.

‘Wages for Housewives,' said Donald in a low voice. ‘He's only doing what those ghastly friends of yours were always going on about.'

‘Don't be simplistic.'

‘They were ghastly. They all had such bad skin.'

‘Don't be sexist.'

‘If only they ever laughed. They weren't good for you.'

‘Anyway I wasn't just a housewife. I had a job.'

‘Wages for Housewives.' Donald chuckled, spooning on the cream.

‘Perhaps you should marry Mohammed. That Rosemary woman said all the Pathans are gay. Wives are just to have sons by.'

‘Shh.'

Christine's dress stuck to her. She rearranged herself on the sun-couch. This should be the life. When Mohammed had retired for his afternoon nap she would strip down to her bikini, if she could bear to move out of the shade. He was upstairs. The window creaked as he opened it to air the bedroom. Now he would be making the bed upon which she and Donald had lain. She thought of last night; what Donald called That Department had these last months become something they were trying, by an unspoken pact, to treat casually. After all they had been married three years.

From here she had a view of the lawn, the hose lying across it like a snake. It was edged with dusty flowerbeds and enclosed by a high stucco wall. In the comer squatted the mali, an old man. The gates were open. Through them she could glimpse 4th East Street, K12 Housing Society. This was a new, already potholed strip of road backed by the white wall of the house opposite. Sometimes a car would pass. Sometimes a man would appear with his baskets and offer her something in a weird sing-song.

K12 was the choice place to live. She did not understand the name; there did not appear to be a K11 or a K anything else. It was one of these oriental mysteries. All the houses were modern; some were still being built. Theirs was large and functional. Behind her, beyond the sprung mosquito door that snapped shut, lay the living-room full of Cameron furniture – G-plan teak veneer, standard lamps and chairs passed from one manager to the next. Above the sofa hung a brass rubbing of a knightly couple, stiff and united. Their charcoal gaze followed her around the room.

She settled back. She had finished
A Passage to India.
She lit a cigarette. It was too hot; she stubbed it out. She moved herself forward so that her legs were in the sunlight. It was so hot that nobody sunbathed here. She scratched the mosquito bite on her shin. She wanted, more than anything, to hose the lawn. She had always wanted a garden. Before this they had lived in a two-roomed flat in Crouch End. But the mali was hosing the grass; he had moved forward, sunshine lit the spray. The grass was patchy green and khaki; puddled now. If she got rid of the mali she could squat there, her toes dabbling in the mud, and spray the foreign shrubs that grew against the wall, hearing the water patter on to their leathery leaves. She could buy new plants and dig holes for them and press around their stems the beige, damp earth. But here, if you were grand enough to own a garden you were grand enough not to do it yourself. And if she sacked the mali he would be out of a job; when she had held her Urdu Primer and asked him how many –
kitne
– children he had, he counted eight on his fingers. Was it worth it, for her to drench the grass and feel part of this Pakistan?

‘Can we go out?' she asked Donald later that evening.

‘We are going out. By this new digital thing, in five minutes precisely if we're not going to be late.' He buttoned up his shirt. The dhobi, who visited twice a week, ironed it far better than she could ever do. ‘Hardly been in, have we. Duke Hanson's on Monday, drinks at Charles and Rosemary Whatsit's last night. Bit of the old social whirls.'

‘I mean into the real city. Out beyond all this.' She was standing at the window.

‘Ah, the teeming millions and the local colour. Have you seen my keys?' He turned, smiling. She had never seen him happier than these last two weeks. He kept phoning from work to see if she was all right. She could tell by the tone of voice if somebody else was in his office. ‘I feel so guilty, leaving you here all day. We'll go sightseeing this weekend. Remind me to get some film for my camera.'

‘I don't just want to look at it. I want to get into it.'

He stood at the dressing-table, transferring keys and coins to the pockets of his new trousers. He was stocky, with blond fuzz on his arms. His face was blunt and regular; unmemorable unless you loved him. The question was: did she still? His nose was burnt red; so was hers. They resembled each other; people in the past had taken them for brother and sister.

We're alone now, she thought. A new country, a huge new sky. A stucco house with eight rooms and a flat roof. Its only familiarity was the decorated shawl she had fixed with masking tape to their bedroom wall. A trunkful of clothes, and themselves. Would this improve their marriage? It must change it.

Outside the sun was sinking. From this window you could see between the neighbouring houses. Way beyond, three miles away, lay the city; here and there blocks rose into the polluted evening sky. Turning to the left, you saw the last few houses of the suburb. Beyond lay the desert. Drab during the day, those scrub flats turned molten in the sunset. Future roads were already laid out, leading nowhere, and building plots were marked out with posts. The posts had turned pink in the light; they stretched into the distance and made the landscape look shabby and temporary. Beyond them lay the silver thread of the Indian Ocean.

Donald had grown
up on the edge of the ocean. It was a tamed sea. Brinton, on the Kentish coast, was not far from Broadstairs. It was a holiday resort of pebble-dash semis, bus shelters and a windy esplanade. Old dears sat in the tea shops. Along Marine Drive the sea could be glimpsed, a grey strip between the parked cars.

It stretched for miles, bungalows and retirement homes, electric fires on throughout the year and chairs in crescents around the picture window. Between them and the sea were the amusements to keep people busy. There was a clock-golf course, Brinton Bowls Green with thoughtful men in braces, and the Happyland Caravan Park about which complaints were made.

Only regulars went. Brinton had not moved with the times. There were topless buses for brave souls and the Gaumont which showed
Carry On
pictures. Next door, the one-armed bandits were out of order. In winter the holidaymakers went and the gales blew the notices down. Donald loved it then. He loved it in all seasons, it was secure and yet there was the ocean to set him yearning. Along safe streets a van delivered bread, but above it clouds massed over a troubled Channel.

He lived with his mother and grandparents; his father had been killed in the war. His father was a photo on the mantelpiece, and sighed asides. He himself was the man of the family. The responsibility had pleased him; as a boy he had grown up serious and adult for his age, out of step with his schoolfriends. He had always hurried home to Durradee.

And especially to Grandad. Grandad was like a father who was never too busy. He was always there, unchanging; he frequently told Donald that he took the same size in suits he had taken forty years before. Unlike Granny he never seemed to get older; unlike Mother, who was essential of course but usually out at work or preoccupied, he was always at hand. He was the only person who treated Donald as an adult, man to man. In fact he spoke to Donald as he spoke to nobody else in the household – proper conversations, just the two of them, while the women clattered in the kitchen. It was with Grandad that he did the things he remembered – the hikes along the cliffs, scurrying to keep up with Grandad's longer strides, tense with remembering the birds' names so he did not disappoint. By some unspoken family law, it was only himself who was allowed in the greenhouse where Grandad stooped, too tall for the roof, lifting the seedlings. Donald lifted them too, trying not to spill the earth. He had his father to live up to. His father had served in the R.A.F. Sometimes when a plane droned overhead Grandad paused, looking up through the glass.

He himself, though diligent, did badly at school. Grandad used to recite the names of famous men whose academic performance had been undistinguished. ‘In the arena of life,' he said – meaning India – ‘in the arena of life what disadvantage is that? There are more important things to be tested than
amo
and
amas
.' Donald had just failed his Latin ‘O' level. Grandad was reassuring about that, shrinking it to its proper perspective. His gaze stretched beyond.