Hot Water Man (29 page)

He drove into the commercial colony, today cleared of the riot troops. Passing through on previous occasions he had noticed a small petrol station; he did not remember a tailor nearby, but then he would not have noticed one anyway. He parked a block away from the petrol pumps; he did not care to draw up there in his polished vehicle like a sahib.

He remained in the car. Now he had arrived he wanted to turn around and drive home. Nobody would know. He half-wished Christine were beside him telling him what to do. It was only through his reluctance to tell her that he had realized the rift that had grown between them. He sat fiddling with his car keys and trying to ignore the glances of passers-by; few Europeans came to this place. Outside stood some grubby stalls dealing in spare parts – in one lay a heap of carburettors, in the next a pile of exhaust pipes. The keys dug into his hand. He could not believe the words he repeated to himself:
I am making a family visit.

Outside it was dusty. Men walked with cloths pulled across their mouths. Squatting amongst their rusting machinery the shopkeepers looked at him. Someone familiar to these shops had a paler skin. Perhaps he had Donald's own blue eyes. How did Christine describe his grandfather?
That blue gaze, as if he had nothing to hide.
One of the few remarks she had made about him without irony. Until recently he had never really inspected the people who walked in the street. There were so many of them, you did not have the energy to distinguish one from the other. They were the masses; his old books called them the natives. You stopped your car to let them stream across the road. Mr Beg – Uncle Beg – might have children, of course. These would be near to his own age. One of those young men with his mouth covered, or those shrouded females shuffling past, might be another member of his own family.

His stomach clenched. He unstuck himself from the car seat and climbed out. He walked around the corner, past what they called a hotel – in fact, just a tea stall. Men sat at the tables. He searched their faces. No doubt his uncle was known here; he must have sat on one of those wooden benches for years, even decades, pouring his tea into the saucer before he drank it, as they all did.

At the road junction ahead stood the Burma Shell sign and the two pumps. A rickshaw waited there, being filled. There was no sign of a tailor this side; the only other possible place for him would be around the comer in the next street.

Donald lingered for some moments. What he must do was place one foot in front of the other, walk past the pumps and turn left. That pavement was more solid than it seemed. He told himself: you can simply walk past him. He need never know. You are just a foreigner passing by on business of your own; he will hardly expect you to stop.

He felt his jacket pocket; the wallet bulged there. He made his way around the pumps, and turned the corner.

This place was busier than the street of Spare Parts; its pavement was crowded. He stood still, searching. Some men squatted in front of the shops; their cloths were spread with soap, plastic combs and Johnson's Baby Oil. Another man sat beside his boxful of
pan
leaves and cigarettes. Somebody tapped his shoulder. Donald swung round.

‘Very nice hairs clip, sahib.'

He stared into the man's face. After a moment he managed to shake his head.

He could see no one resembling a tailor, or even selling cloth. It took some time to search, with all those men in twos and threes, holding hands and blocking the view. The nearby factories had closed for the day but the shops were still open; everybody seemed to be in the streets. And there were no tailors, as far as he could see, on the other side of the road either. How near, exactly, was
Near Petrol Pump
? The man must be within sight.

Rickshaws and taxis were parked along the street, jammed at all angles. Alongside him a lorry pushed past a donkey cart, blaring its horn. The donkey staggered and regained its balance; both drivers shouted. Donald turned his attention to the buildings.

He moved nearer. It was a large new emporium with a window stretching the length of three shopfronts; luminous pink stickers were pasted up saying
Fully Air-Conditioned.
The sun glared on the glass; Donald moved, and saw inside the shop tiers of folded cloth. At the back, beyond the shelves, some steps led up to a platform with a cash booth and, on either side, men bent over sewing machines.

He stood still. Of course, the man must have meant a tailor's
shop
near the petrol pump. There must be thirty men up there on the platform, hard at work. In their midst was the glassed-in booth where the proprietor sat in state. They were bent so low that Donald could not see their faces. Mostly they looked old, but then the poor aged quickly here. Some had grey hair; some had dyed their hair orange with henna. He did not know what to do.

‘Yes sahib – you are pleased to enter?'

Donald jerked round. The door was being held open. An assistant waited.

Donald backed away, trying to smile normally. He shook his head, backing further. He bumped into somebody.

‘Sorry.' He must stand at a distance and try to collect his thoughts. If this was the place – and there was nowhere else – then it needed some adjusting to. He had not expected such a large flourishing business, a factory really. He must face one of the assistants, or else that man in the booth. He was enormously fat; he sat above his toilers, his head and shoulders lit by the fluorescent light. He looked like a besuited Buddha up here; a plump god of commerce. Should he, Donald, go in and ask him for a Mr Beg? He hesitated. Perhaps there was more than one Mr Beg in there; it was a common name.

He had not expected this meeting to be conducted under so many eyes. This would be even more difficult than he had imagined. Somehow he must get Mr Beg out of there. Perhaps he should take him back to his car. He must go in. He glanced up. The plastic sign said
TIPTOP TAILORING
.

He felt dizzy. It was unreal. He was not here; he was standing outside Selfridges in an oddly stuffy winter. It was hot for Christmas, out here on the pavement. Behind the window sat the puppets, worked by electric, their little machines clacking up and down though he could not hear a sound.

Again the door opened.

‘I'm looking for a Mr Beg,' said Donald.

Without hesitation the assistant said: ‘Please to come this way.'

Donald followed him up the stairs. He could still turn back and run. One more step and he was at the top. His heart thumped in his ears. This close, some of them looked younger. He searched the older faces, with their greased, red hair scraped back over their skulls. Few looked at him; they continued their work, their heads bent. They seemed so aged and shrunken. Which one would raise his face?

The assistant was tapping on the door of the booth. He opened it.

‘Mr Beg, there is somebody to see you.'

The man rose to his feet and held out a pale, soft hand.

‘
I'm afraid he's
rather pissed,' said Donald.

‘So are you.'

‘At least I got back to home sweet home.'

He leant against her, partly to steady himself. They stood looking at the car; in the passenger seat Duke lay slumped. In the dark garden that frog went scrape, scrape.

‘Where did you meet?' she asked.

‘At the Intercon Bar. I was supposed to meet him earlier and I turned up just in case. He couldn't have got the message.'

‘Was he as bad as this?'

‘We both got worse. He kept on mumbling about his wife, as if he was trying to speak to her on the phone and he couldn't get through. It was exciting driving back. He kept falling on me round the corners.'

‘Did you keep mumbling about me?'

‘I needn't, need I. You're here.'

‘You're not allowed to be so prosaic when you're drunk.'

They gazed at Duke, illuminated by the porch light.

‘It's so unlike him,' said Donald. ‘I always thought he could take his drink. He seemed so impervious.'

Duke's head was propped against the window. His big face was crumpled like a baby's; a snail's trail of saliva glinted down his chin.

‘Perhaps he's been terribly lonely,' said Donald.

‘Perhaps he's been having an affair.'

‘What, Duke? Not him.'

‘Does seem rather hard to imagine. We can't lift him can we?'

‘He's like an ox.'

Christine fetched some cushions from the house and wedged them around Duke's head. She closed the car door.

Leaving Duke, they went indoors. ‘One step here,' she instructed, ‘easy does it.' He protested. She liked him best when he was drunk; he improved with loosening up. Unlike many men he never became belligerent, just emotional.

In bed he clung to her.

‘You're everything I've got, Chrissy.'

She was so moved, tears pricked her eyes. She had wronged him. Since yesterday she had said nothing, but he must know. With guilt like hers the other person could surely tell. She was an adulteress. Blind in the dark, she felt his face with her fingers.

‘Nobody else matters, do they,' she whispered, making him understand.

He shook his head, his hair rubbing across her face. His body felt warm and known. ‘Nobody. Here, darling. I want you so much.' A moment later he said, ‘Safe and sound.'

She pressed her face against his cheek. He hardly ever talked like this.

‘Home safe and sound,' he murmured again.

She opened her mouth against his. Was it just the drink?

Afterwards they lay drenched. On either side the mosquito coils smoked, like twin spirits rising.

Next morning she
came downstairs early. Donald still slept. Down in the living-room she found Duke slumbering on the sofa; a large creased object, like a parcel that had been too long in the post, propped against the cushions from the car.

‘Did you do that?' she asked Mohammed who was entering, sober in his starched white.

He shook his head, a muscle twitching in his jaw. This meant, she thought, amusement rather than disapproval. She sat down. He put a papaya in front of her. She opened the newspaper.

Her own face gazed up from the page.

She slapped the newspaper shut. An inch from her hand, coffee was poured into her cup. Two mats were moved an inch nearer. Upon one was put the coffee pot; upon the other the milk jug. He had finished.

A pause. ‘Papaya is okay?'

‘Oh yes.' She picked up the piece of lime and tried to squeeze it on to the fruit. It slipped out of her hand.

‘Fine,' she said, picking it up.

‘Madam is liking toast?'

‘Yes,' she lied. She waited. Then his plimsolls squeaked as he went into the kitchen.

She opened the page. It was a head shot, grey and slightly blurred. But not blurred enough.
The Smile of Confidence
, said the advertisement.
I need feminine protection. The very best. And the Most Safe. Join me by use of Tahira, Pakistan's first Tampon.

In the next room the sofa creaked. A grunt.

Quickly she took her knife and slit the page along the fold. Her hand was trembling; the cut was torn. She gave this up; instead she pulled out the whole two-page spread of news and shuffled the rest of the paper back together. Nobody would notice the page numbers. A screech as she scraped back her chair and hurried over to the wastepaper basket. She screwed up the paper and put it at the bottom, under the rest of the rubbish.

Nearly noon, and
Duke was back in his office. He put his head in his hands; the sick bulk of his body punished him. Never, even in the army, had he made himself that senseless.

He had drawn down the blind. Out in the street stood the shops Shamime visited and maybe would be visiting again; he could not see them now.

I had five sittings for some shoes at Faizuddin Leather House. I kept on finding something wrong with them, just so I could sit there and see your window. Me, Shamime, behaving like that! Up there in your office I thought you could tell. Once I saw you standing and stretching. Your shirt lifted up and showed your furry gut. How can I love this man? I thought. My love.

Since the news about the site thanks to God he had been busy. Yesterday he had spent hours on the phone trying to contact the cement contractors, the shippers and the Port Authority. His business seemed to function beyond him, in an overdrive of its own. He seemed to make sense to these people when he spoke.

He lifted his head from his hands and phoned the ministry, but the Minister was not there. It was a minor formality about land tax, the last small detail that needed settling.

He spoke to Mr Kasim, who had accompanied Shamime and himself to the site a week or two ago.

‘Pardon me,' said Duke. ‘I'm not getting you clear.'

The line was faint and crackling. Through it he heard Mr Kasim clear his throat.

‘Still not getting you,' said Duke. His head ached this morning; the crackling was amplified in chambers through his brain. He caught ‘delicate' and ‘unexpected'.

‘Delicate what?' he said.

‘. . . grave matters . . . all most unfortunate, Mr Hanson . . .' More crackling.

‘Shall I call you back?'

‘I am trying to make myself clear, you understand . . .'

‘It's fading again.'

‘It is about permit.'

Duke sat still.

‘Mr Hanson?'

‘Yeah. Still here. The permit.'

‘It is rather difficult to make this into words for you, Mr Hanson. Let me be blunt. I will not shilly-shally. Permission has now been refused. It is a change of circumstances.'

‘Refused? Who the heck's responsible for this? I must speak to your Minister.'

‘Please, Mr Hanson. As I said, the Minister is not in office.'