The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: A Novel

by Deborah Moggach

  Douglas, however, seemed miles away. Over the past weeks the man had changed. The breezy, suntanned extrovert, with his thick white hair and gold-rimmed glasses, seemed somehow diminished. He sat for long periods gazing into space, and the expeditions with his wife had all but ceased. Nobody knew the reason. Maybe he was sickening from something. Better call the doctor, thought Muriel, stifling a giggle.

  The news hadn’t shocked her, of course. Muriel had never had much faith in foreign doctors anyway. What was disappointing, however, was the collapse of her newfound enthusiasm for the more spiritual side of Indian life. She had to admit it: this particular medicine hadn’t worked either. Her recent visit to the palm-leaf reader had told her nothing about her son, only the date of her own death.

  Not surprisingly, this had knocked her for six. The leaf thing was called nadi. An old man, sitting in an incense-filled room, had asked her when she was born and had taken a print from her left thumb. He had then flicked through a bunch of palm leaves, tied with string. Finally he had pulled one out. It was covered in tiny writing, as if an insect had been let loose on it. He started reading out the contents.

  Some of it was familiar enough: ups and downs, loss of a loved one. She had heard that before, often enough. Then he told her the other thing.

  Muriel had to admit it; after hearing the date of her death she had hurried from the room. “Peacefully,” he had said, “after a short illness.” And then the time and the place.

  It gave Muriel the collywobbles just to think about it. She had told nobody, not even her confidante, Mrs. Cowasjee.

  Douglas had finished his coffee and left. Muriel was alone on the veranda. Gazing at the empty chairs, she thought of the people who had occupied them. For each of them there was a palm leaf. Far off at the gate, a bell tinkled; a man stood there with something to sell, trying to attract her attention.

  Some of the chairs were pushed back from the table, where a person had got up. Soon Jimmy would emerge from the dining room and straighten them. A gecko was stuck like a brooch to the wall; it sat there for hours, without moving.

  Plenty of time left, Ma. Keith’s arm was around her shoulders. Hey, don’t cry. He kissed her cheek. I’ll miss you something rotten but just think, at least you know you’re not going to be knocked over by a bus tomorrow.

  Muriel heard footsteps. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. It was Dorothy. She emerged from the front door and walked down the drive. Despite the cane there was a purposeful air about her, as if there was no time to waste.

  Muriel got up and grabbed her handbag. The woman was off again on one of her expeditions. This time, thought Muriel, I’ll find out where the old lunatic’s going.

  Muriel hurried down the drive. The city held no fears for her now; no accidents could happen, she had been told they wouldn’t. Just for a moment she was glad she knew her fate.

  Out in the street, Dorothy crossed the road and approached the rickshaw stand.

  “Memsahib!” The drivers stirred themselves. “This side, memsahib!” She climbed into a rickshaw and it drove off down Brigade Road.

  Muriel climbed into another rickshaw. She pointed to Dorothy’s vehicle, disappearing among the traffic.

  “Follow!” She flapped her hand as if shooing away a fly. “Follow it! Quick!”

  “I’m at my wits’ end, Sonny baba!” Minoo was on the phone. “The residents are very upset, and who can blame them? Now they’re thinking we’re diddling them, oh why did we start on this foolish venture—”

  “Calm down, man!” said Sonny.

  “The situation is driving me out of my mind, you have no idea—”

  “Listen—” began Sonny.

  “—they’ll tell the authorities and I’ll lose my license; what am I going to do?”

  Sonny switched off his mobile. Shit! This was all he needed, on top of his other troubles. That bastard P.K., the snake-eyed maderchod, having swindled him out of lakhs of rupees, was still nowhere to be found. He must have paid off the police, for even Sonny’s closest confidant in the force, a fellow Rotary Club member too, had stopped answering his calls. No doubt P.K.’s thugs were also responsible for the beating-up of the foreman at the depot, who was now in the hospital and refusing to identify his attackers. Sonny’s troubles had taken on a life of their own. He had had to borrow heavily to cover his losses and now the bank was threatening to call in his loan. Another of his projects was in trouble, planning permission having mysteriously been withdrawn. Back at his residence things were at breaking point, his wife having sacked the old servant who had been in the family for twenty years. And on top of all this, his cousin Ravi was pestering him with emails demanding to know about plans for the worldwide expansion of Ravison Retirement Homes. Didn’t the fellow understand that Sonny was at breaking point?

  Sonny sat at his desk, turning the Biro round and round in his fingers. Outside, the traffic was gridlocked on Brigade Road. His office was two blocks from The Marigold, a place that only a few months earlier had seemed the answer to his dreams. The business world was based on shaky foundations—only too shaky, in the case of his Defense Colony project. The stock market was plummeting, the economy tottering, one by one the great corporations—Enron, WorldCom—imploding. The only thing a chap could be sure of, in this life, was that he would grow old and need someone to look after him. In his own small way Sonny was enabling that to happen. How well he remembered his eureka moment at the Royal Thistle Hotel, Bayswater! Now the whole project was threatened by that interfering old bugger, Norman Purse.

  How could he have snitched on them, he whose own daughter had a stake in the business? How dare he stir up trouble in the one operation that was going smoothly?

  Sonny sat there, seething. He would get even with the old chootiya. He just had to think of a way to do it.

  “Imagine that you have an appointment with a stranger.” Later, Theresa remembered the page from her book of meditations. “When you meet, the radiant presence of this person astounds you.” She was standing in an alley filled with rusting car parts. On either side, stalls were heaped with exhaust pipes. Men sat drinking tea. They gazed at her. She was somewhere deep in the Old City, clutching the piece of paper with Mrs. Cowasjee’s directions written on it. “How can you describe this person? What makes him or her so special? You ask the stranger’s name and are told that you are looking at a part of yourself. Thank the stranger and say goodbye. Acknowledge your own inner beauty.”

  Theresa stepped over an open drain. Something was going to happen. It hadn’t happened with the Hugging Mother, an experience in which she had invested so much hope. Hundreds of devotees had waited but Theresa, being a European to whom time was more precious, had been ushered to the head of the queue. Ammachi was a smiling, middle-aged woman who had hugged her and given her a boiled sweet. Maybe Theresa had been distracted by her throbbing foot. For then it was over and she had felt no different at all. Nothing.

  There was nobody to whom she could confess it, least of all her own mother. Why would you want to be hugged by somebody else, dear? The woman doesn’t even know you.

  TURN RIGHT THROUGH CLOTH MARKET. Theresa looked at the alley. It was narrow, just a slit between the buildings, and crammed with people. No sunlight penetrated here. The smell of sewage filled her nostrils. This is the real India, she told herself, this is where I feel at home.

  Theresa was lost. Now she was squeezing her way through a spice bazaar that wasn’t mentioned in the directions at all. Mounds of colored powder—russet, ochre, crimson—were heaped in sacks. People jostled past. “Baksheesh, memsahib!” Somebody waved his stump in front of her.

  TURN LEFT AT GANDHI MARKET. Was this Gandhi Market? A banging drum drew nearer; somebody was playing a trumpet. A group of hijras pushed their way through the crowd, ogling the people as they passed. The eunuchs in India unnerved Theresa, with their plastered makeup and men’s faces. One of them waggled his tongue at her. They wriggled past in their saris, off to some wedding
or other, off to bless or curse, or lift up their skirts.

  Theresa didn’t panic. If I find him, I find him. She had been lost in these crumbling mazes often enough before. There was no sense in battling against it.

  Suddenly she was gripped by loneliness. She longed for the Marmite toast. If only she could be tucked up again in bed, everything would be all right. She knew, of course, that she could never again slip between the sheets. The room had long since been dismantled, along with her childhood. That bliss was as lost as nirvana—a state she knew, now, she would never attain.

  Theresa stumbled on, past stalls hung with cooking pots. At the end, alleys led off in several directions.

  “Janpath Lane, kahaan hai?” she asked three old men who sat chewing paan. They waggled their heads and pointed in three different directions. What was the name of the sadhu?

  It was then that she saw him: a European man pushing his way through the crowd. Dark-haired, drenched in sweat.

  “Hey sweetheart, you English?” he asked.

  Theresa nodded. He was close to her now, breathing heavily as if he had been running. There was something dodgy about him—stubble, dark glasses. Something feline. She felt a melting sensation in her guts.

  “Fuck, am I glad to see you.” He took her arm. “Know the way out of here?”

  A figure squatted in the central strip of grass, spraying it with a hose. Muriel’s rickshaw puttered along, overtaken by cars that rocked it as they passed. Office buildings—Motorola, Meyer Systems—were set back amid landscaped lawns. More buildings were under construction; workmen clambered up flimsy wooden scaffolding, passing each other buckets. It was another world out here, in Silicon Valley.

  Ahead, Dorothy’s rickshaw shimmered in the heat. Muriel imagined it disappearing, a mirage. What on earth was the woman doing?

  Muriel gripped the rail. In front of her, the driver’s head was wrapped in a dirty cloth. He was an old man, older than she was. He sat hunched in his seat as if he were driving a bumper car. That was how they drove here. She thought of the fairground on Clapham Common, Keith’s small hand in hers. Gypsy Rose Lee—not the real one, she was dead—had told her she would travel. Now Muriel knew what she meant. Maybe this journey would never end. This tattered white ghost would drive her on and on, far into the unimaginable land that lay beyond this city—deserts? Mountains? He would drive through the years until he reached the day of her death and she would dissolve like a mirage. Peacefully. And then Leonard would be waiting for her, still young, the handsome young man she had once loved. He had stopped while she had grown older because he existed outside time. They were all waiting—her parents, her brothers and sisters, her husband, Paddy—and now she knew she would meet them. Maybe they were like that flock of parrots—emerald green, exploding from the palm tree as if someone had fired a pistol. Muriel watched the birds. Who knew? Her beliefs were as shaken up as her insides, jolted by the ride. Only one thing was certain and she didn’t want to think about that.

  Just then she realized that they had passed Dorothy’s rickshaw. It was parked at the side of the road.

  “Stop!” Muriel grabbed the driver’s shoulder. “STOP!” He was skin and bone.

  The driver swerved onto the verge and stopped.

  “Wait here,” she said. “Don’t move, see?”

  He waggled his head. She got herself out.

  The other rickshaw was parked outside some gates fifty yards down the road. Next to the gate was a guard’s hut. Dorothy was talking to the gateman who sat inside.

  Muriel felt awkward. The BBC lady hadn’t seen her yet, but she was bound to turn around. Muriel would have to say she was worried about her, they were all worried, the way she buggered off without a word to anybody. She might have got lost. In fact she was probably lost now, and asking the way back to the hotel.

  Muriel walked along the verge. Cars hurtled past, blowing dust in her face. She and Dorothy were marooned here beside the motorway; they had left the teeming streets behind.

  The sign at the gates said TEXAS INSTRUMENTS HEADQUARTERS BUILDING. Through the gates Muriel saw a drive, which led past flower beds to a handsome bungalow. Like their hotel, it was an old building; this place, however, was smartly painted: white with green shutters. Expensive-looking cars, and Jeeps like Keith’s, were parked outside. Next to it was a patch of waste ground where piglets snuffled plastic bags.

  Dorothy still hadn’t noticed her. She was leaning on her cane and gesturing with her free hand. The chowkidar was an old man wearing a gray uniform.

  Muriel walked nearer. Dorothy sounded exasperated. She jabbered away in a strange language. The traffic drowned the words. The old guard frowned at her. Talk to him in English, ducks, urged Muriel.

  “Mai is ghar mey rehti thi!” Dorothy raised her voice. “I’m dotty!” she cried.

  Muriel, standing behind her, caught the man’s eye. She tapped her temple conspiratorially. Screw loose.

  “I’m little dotty!” cried Dorothy.

  Not a little, darling. A lot.

  Dorothy shouted: “I’m little Dotty! Dorothy! Don’t you remember me?”

  Muriel stepped up to her and touched her arm. “Come on, love. Time to go home.”

  Dorothy swung around. Her eyes glittered. “He doesn’t recognize me! This is my house, I used to live here. His father was our driver, he and I used to play together when we were little!” She didn’t seem to register Muriel at all; she was too upset. “He doesn’t recognize me!” She turned to the gateman. “Mai Mr. Miller ki beti hoo!”

  It was then that the chowkidar realized. A smile broke out on his face.

  “Dotty?” he asked in a strangled voice.

  He stumbled out of his hut. For a moment it seemed that Dorothy was going to hug him. She recovered, however, and put out her hand. The old man shook it. Then they both burst into tears.

  Theresa flung herself back and lay beside Keith. Their bodies were slippery with sweat; the sheet was bunched up under their feet. They lay there panting like dogs. Above them the fan creaked around.

  After a while their breathing returned to normal. They both burst out laughing.

  “Go on,” he said. “You were saying?”

  “What was I saying?” Outside the sun was sinking; his hotel room was bathed in golden light.

  “What you were doing in the bazaar.”

  “Oh, I was looking for a sadhu,” Theresa said.

  “A saddo?”

  “No! A sadhu. A holy man.”

  “You don’t need a holy man,” he said. “Look, you can worship me.”

  Theresa propped herself on her elbow. She ran her finger down Keith’s chest—tanned above the waist, paler below. “Fancy yourself, don’t you?” she said.

  He grinned. She touched the damp hairs around his cock. He had the most beautiful cock she had ever seen. So many men’s were red and angry, bursting at the veins with aggression. They seemed disconnected to their sometimes inoffensive owners. Keith’s was smooth and beige, a natural part of his body.

  It seemed perfectly natural, too, to have gone to bed with him. She had just done it, just like that. Making love seemed an inappropriate phrase for two people who had only met a couple of hours ago; having sex, however, didn’t seem the right words either for such an incandescent experience. Such rapture.

  “An old woman sent me to see him,” she said. “A funny old baggage at the hotel I’m staying at. The last sort of person to seek a sadhu, one would have thought.” She hooked her foot around Keith’s. He held it between his own feet.

  “Why were you there?” she asked. “In the bazaar?”

  “It’s a bit of a long story. Let’s just say somebody sent me there to meet somebody but I smelled a rat.”

  “Only one? I saw about six.”

  “It was a setup,” Keith said. “I realized that just before I saw you. Can’t tell you how glad I was. See, I’ve been in a spot of trouble.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said. “I’m a counselor.
”

  “Don’t need a counselor, darling. I need a hit man.”

  A thrill shot through her. “Are you a criminal then?”

  “I’m a businessman.”

  You’re not, Theresa thought. You’re an animal, in the purest, most ravishing sense. “You’ve been doing something dodgy, though,” she said. Dodgy. The word made her shiver. “Hindus believe that if you do something bad, you pay for it in the next life.”

  “No you don’t, love. You go to prison.” Keith rolled on top of her. “Anyone told you you’ve got the sexiest mouth?” He kissed her deeply. Seriously. It sucked the breath out of her body. He moved his head down and ran his tongue between her breasts, down to her belly.

  “Don’t,” she said. “I’m so fat.”

  “You’re not, you’re gorgeous.” He licked her navel. “A gorgeous woman.”

  “I feel so flabby.”

  “Don’t be stupid.” He shifted around between her legs, lay upside down on her and rummaged on the floor for his cigarettes. Theresa thought: I don’t even know his surname. I don’t want to know. I just want to lie here, with the weight of him between my thighs, until it gets dark. She stroked his buttocks as he lit up. Smoke curled up from the end of the bed.

  She hadn’t done this in a long time. Six years, in fact; a drunken cellist, after a party. How strange and lovely it was, that bodies could be so companionable.

  “I’ve always wanted to do Tantric sex,” she said. “You can go on and on, apparently, without an orgasm.”

  “Sounds a daft idea to me,” he said. He moved back and flung himself beside her.

  “You just apply pressure to the chakras,” she said. “You release vital energy without penetration. Hours and hours you can do it.”

  “Sounds like the plumber,” he said. “You stay in all day and nobody comes.”

  Theresa burst out laughing. It was an unfamiliar sensation.