by Katy Gardner
“Poly . . .” I took a deep breath and sat up. “Don’t you want to do this? I thought the whole point was to do something unplanned and spontaneous. I thought we’d agreed?”
The sullen line appeared between her eyes. She looked away from me, chewing at her lip. “Yes,” she said. “I do want to do it.”
“Good. That’s settled then.”
Sighing, I stood up.
“I’m going downstairs to get some fags,” I said, glancing across the room. Despite her closed eyes she was clearly still awake. “Any orders?”
There was no reply. I hesitated, my hand clutching the door handle. I wanted to say something else but felt unaccustomedly awkward. I was just about to finally turn the handle when suddenly, with a bleep which made Gemma sit up and open her eyes wide, the telephone on her bedside table gave a shrill ring. For a moment she stared at it, her hand hovering uncertainly above the receiver.
“Go on then,” I said. “Pick it up.”
It rang again, this time more accusingly. Reaching across the bed, Gemma gingerly lifted the receiver from the greasy telephone.
“Hello?”
She was listening closely, her face troubled.
“Hello? This is room 322. Yes?”
There was another long pause. She stared at the floor, still listening, still uncertain.
“Hello?”
Her face had darkened now, two spots of crimson appearing on either cheek.
“Yes,” she said slowly, then: “Yes, that’s right . . .”
She paused, then suddenly blurted: “Good-bye!” and slammed the receiver down. It landed on the telephone set with a wounded ping.
“What was that all about?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Who was it?”
“No one . . . it was just like . . .” She coughed, her eyes fixed to the dusty beige curtains hanging over the bolted windows. “. . . Um, like . . .”
“Like a heavy breather?”
“Yeah. I suppose so.”
“So why did you say, ‘Yes, that’s right’?”
“Did I say that?”
I stared at her.
“Why didn’t you just tell him to piss off?”
“I felt sorry for him.”
“You what? God, Gem, sometimes you really are a complete fruitcake!”
“Am I?”
She raised her eyebrows at me. Something in her seemed to have lightened, the gauze of tension which had fallen between us a few minutes earlier inexplicably vanishing.
“Hang on, how did anyone know we were staying here?” I suddenly said. “Did they mention your name?”
She flushed, her eyes flicking away from my face and back to the curtains. Before she could answer I clapped my hand to my forehead. I’d just had a horrible thought.
“Oh my God, I’ve just realized. The only person who knows we’re staying here is Mr. Friendly at reception . . . Jesus, that’s so creepy! Yuck. I knew you were too friendly to that guy, Gem! You’ve got to be really snooty, otherwise they start to make assumptions. Did it sound like the receptionist’s voice?”
“Dunno. It didn’t really sound like anyone.”
I paused, considering the possibilities.
“Ah well,” I eventually said. “Perhaps it was that waiter.”
“Yeah,” she said, her eyes apparently brightening. “It probably was.”
THE years flip back, like pages caught in the wind. A word innocently spoken, a stranger’s face passed unexpectedly on the street and suddenly I’m there again: the months and weeks and days I’ve endured since I lost Gemma hurtling past like so many paragraphs of unread text.
As far as I am concerned they contain nothing of interest. Only those few brief weeks five years ago matter. I thumb through my dog-eared memories again, studying them for clues, but they are too faded and fraying to uncover anything new. The call was connected, that’s obvious now. I want to reach back into the past and shake my twenty-three-year-old self, rough her up a little. Why didn’t I watch Gemma’s face? Why didn’t I listen?
Later, after Esther had tucked her perfect, naked body under the thin hotel sheet on her bed and fallen into one of her perfect, undisturbed sleeps, Gemma put down her book and crept quietly across the room. When she reached the door she opened it as silently as she could and stepped into the corridor. In the lobby downstairs she could hear the telephone ringing, the beep of scooters and cars from the road outside. She skipped quickly down the stairs, not acknowledging the receptionist, willing herself into invisibility as she passed through the hotel doors onto the street outside.
It was after ten, but the city was still awake. She crossed the road and passed a large sparkling temple, glancing in amazement at the strings of flashing lights draped around its golden walls, the giant, gaudily painted Vishnu sitting on a pedestal outside. From the brightly lit interior she could hear singing and the melodic wheeze of an accordion. After that there was a row of shops and tea stalls, still busy with customers. She stepped around a small brown cow chewing contentedly on some straw, jumped over the open drain, and crossed the road.
She was bang on time, just like she had promised.
10
WE had planned to travel to Agun Mazir early the next day, but instead slept for the whole morning, rousing only to order tea and toast and then collapsing again for the afternoon. Lethargy covered the day like a thick blanket. In the evening, befuddled by a surplus of sleep, we staggered from the hotel to buy sweetmeats and chapatis from a nearby bazaar, then scurried back to our room like nocturnal foragers, pasty faced and blinking from the lights.
The next day was the same. We slept late, managed with what felt like vast willpower to visit some Buddhist ruins on the edge of the city, then returned to our beds. Perhaps it was jet lag, perhaps the heat. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter, for something had shifted between Gemma and me, the uneasiness of recent days giving way to an all-embracing warmth which reminded me of how things used to be. It was like being at school again. We were in league, woven tightly together by the seamless chat that we spun around the day. Under the cool blast of the air-conditioner, Gemma stopped scratching. In the heart of the city, with its temples and markets and lolloping cows, the guilt which had been gripping at me relaxed its relentless clutch. What had happened with Steve was history, I told myself. Gemma would never know; by the time we returned to Britain she might not even care.
The ruins turned out to be perfectly preserved temples of an intricacy and beauty which reduced us to silent awe. During the rickshaw drive back we sat quietly together, our knees touching as we gazed out from under the canopy at the fading sky. Later, we shared a thali in a food hall near the railway station and returned to the hotel arm in arm.
On the third day we strolled aimlessly through the backstreets of the town, gazing at the crumbling, miraculous architecture and giggling at each other’s jokes. In the city museum we were pursued by a fat, desperate-looking German, his large torso strapped with cameras and travelers’ contraptions. He offered us ganja, and when we seemed mildly interested, extended the invitation to include his bed. We eventually escaped, pleading Delhi-belly and slipping through a door in the bathroom to the heat-hazed streets outside. It was perfect, I thought as we jogged away, screaming with laughter; all my misgivings about traveling with Gemma were unfounded; it was everything I’d hoped it would be.
ON the fourth day we finally caught our bus. At the ticket office we had been promised a “deluxe, extra luxury, air-conditioned touring coach.” What eventually pulled up was a silver-tinseled charabanc, festooned with pictures of tigers and birds and London-bound planes and nothing remotely luxurious inside. The seats we had been allocated were stuck in the “recline” position, the “air-conditioning” broken.
The vehicle was crammed full, too. I searched the crowd for other travelers, but we were clearly off the tourist route, for the bus was filled with country folk returning to their homes. Behind us two old women gossi
ped and shared their paan; in front sat a stony-faced man and his inexplicably sobbing wife. Our backpacks went on the roof joined by sacks of rice, a pile of jackfruit, and several baskets of chickens; to my utter delight the old man in the seat opposite had two ducks nestling contentedly in his lap.
We set off, bumping over the pockmarked roads which skirted the city. After a few minutes the driver turned the sound system on, and the bus reverberated with the beat of Bollywood’s latest hits. I yawned and stretched and tried to close my eyes. The window was jammed shut and the sun streamed through, making my head throb and my palms sticky. We had two hundred kilometers to go, and even I had to admit it was too hot.
The journey was interminable. We passed endless padi fields, the landscape flat and unpromising. Whichever direction the road turned, the sun chased us through the glinting windows. I was feeling increasingly sick, drifting in and out of irritable sleep as the wheels bumped beneath. We should have done as the proprietor had said I began to think: gone to look at temples and then the beach, not pursued this silly game.
After a short stop for lunch, the road started to climb. Suddenly we were surrounded by trees, the bus shifting into first gear as it negotiated the endless bends. From the window we could see the fringes of the forest: a mossy, damp interior of streams and clinging, creeping vegetation. Then the road swerved into another stretch of flatter scrubland, the bus honking its horn and accelerating as if possessed by demons. From time to time we passed a roadside shrine surrounded by flapping flags and candles and the passengers would mutter to themselves in prayer and toss coins from the doors.
Soon, I prayed, soon we would arrive. With each lurch and bump, my nausea swelled. The sad woman in front was already retching, her husband leaning over her with a cloth as she flopped against the smeared window. The acrid smell of vomit brought me close to the same fate. I twisted and turned interminably in my narrow seat, pulling my T-shirt over my nose. We had been on the bus for nearly nine hours.
Then finally it was over. The bus roared around a series of jagged bends, we passed an area of scooter workshops spread messily along the road and screeched to a halt opposite a ramshackle row of shops.
“Agun Mazir!” someone shouted, and we found ourselves propelled out of our seats by the helpful hands of the bus boys, who steered us along the aisle and down the steps to the road below.
Our backpacks were unfastened and thrown from the roof and the bus accelerated away. I stood by the side of the road, my hands on my knees as I breathed in the marginally fresher air. Already I felt less sick, but after nine hours of bone-shaking discomfort every muscle in my body quivered. Yet while I was physically relieved the journey was over, as I straightened up to see the silvery backside of the bus disappearing in a cloud of red dust I felt inexplicably abandoned. What were we doing here? I thought with a surge of regret. We could have been lying on a beach or drinking lassis with other travelers in the mountains but instead we were in the back of beyond. Why did I have to turn everything into such an uncomfortable challenge?
I looked around slowly, my spirits sagging. I’d imagined a vibrant little town, spilling over with color and eccentricity. But as I gazed down the road I realized that this was quite different; it was Nowheresville; a place where no backpacker in their right mind would get off the bus. We were standing in what appeared to be the town’s only street, a long strip of wooden shops and tea stalls with a bus stand at one end, and a post office, medical center, and National Bank of India at the other.
The place was virtually deserted. On the other side of the road a couple of rickshaw drivers cruised aimlessly for trade; others slept inside their stationary vehicles, their legs flopped over the handlebars. Pye-dogs dozed in the dust, their scuffed scraggy bodies stretched out under the late afternoon sun. Opposite the bus stand a family of pigs rooted contentedly. This was a terrible mistake, I decided as I watched the pigs. We should have listened to the man at the hotel; this was not a place for tourists.
“Well,” I said, turning brightly to Gemma. “Here we are. It’s a lot smaller than I’d imagined.”
She gazed up and down the road, her face gloomy.
“You can say that again.”
There was another long pause, as we both considered our options. Personally, I was wondering when the next bus back to Bhubaneshwar was due.
“What do we do now?” said Gemma flatly.
“Find the tourist bungalow?”
“I guess.”
We set off in the direction of the rickshaws. In the few minutes since the bus had departed we had accumulated a small gaggle of children who followed us down the road, giggling and whispering gleefully. When I jumped round, pulling a mock monster face and making as if to chase them they screamed with delight, scattering in all directions like a flock of unruly birds.
We continued walking down the street.
“Where is everyone, anyway?” Gemma muttered.
It was true that the place seemed unnaturally quiet. We shouldn’t be here, I was thinking; it was like stealing through an empty house, waiting at any moment for the owners to return and demand an explanation. I shook my head, expiating the image from my mind.
“Do you think it’s that road there?” I nodded at the crossroads. “All these bloody signs are in Hindi.”
We turned left off the main street onto the smaller road. Behind us we could still hear the scuffles and whispers of the children. We passed a couple of stone houses, surrounded by walls, and then another row of shut-up stalls.
“I’m sure it’ll be somewhere along here, let’s just . . .”
I broke off and looked down. A clod of earth had landed at my feet. As I turned sharply around, another missile hit my forehead. For a moment I stood confused in the middle of the road. Then suddenly a small stone ricocheted off Gemma’s bag.
“They’re throwing stones at us!” I cried, spinning around and glaring at the children in amazement.
“Piss off!”
The impact of the earth made my forehead smart. Picking up a banana skin, I hurled it in their direction, but they had scattered again. I started walking faster, wiping my face as I strode ahead. For a moment or two I saw nothing, just a blur of green trees and the stony path. I dabbed at my forehead, cursing, and finally stopped to rest on a hummock of grass. I felt irrationally upset. Down the hill I could see Gemma straggling painfully behind, her face puce. As I gazed around I suddenly realized that I was standing opposite a large, hand-painted sign.
“Look!” I shouted down the path at her. “This must be it! ‘The Tourist Corporation of Orissa welcomes you to the National Park of Simili. Be gentle on our natural wonders. Take only what you bring! Agun Mazir Tourist Rest House, one kilometer.’ Hurray!”
“But supposing it’s full?”
“Pol, for God’s sake! It won’t be.”
We started to walk up the path. It was nearly sunset now, and the forest reverberated with the songs of the oncoming night. Toads croaked and geckos chattered; further away, we heard strange whoops and cries. Clouds of insects hung in the air, only dispersing as we pushed our way through the undergrowth; at one point we were surrounded by tiny butterflies which flickered around our faces then suddenly were gone.
Just as I was about to suggest a rest, the dense vegetation gave way to an area of rubbery grass and we were standing in front of a dilapidated wooden bungalow.
“Thank Christ for that!” sighed Gemma. “I’m totally, one hundred percent knackered.”
We progressed up the overgrown path, only now noticing that an old man dressed in khaki shorts and a string vest was squatting on the veranda peeling potatoes. He was completely bald and very thin, and his skin was brown and puckered. As we approached he looked up and grinned, displaying a single front tooth.
“Namaste!” he cried, putting his hands together and nodding at us enthusiastically.
“Namaste. Do you speak English? . . . Do . . . you . . . have . . . a room?”
For a moment
he looked at me quizzically, then he jumped to his feet, nodding vigorously and attempting to take our bags.
“Welcome, welcome! You coming a long time! We wait for you!”
“I don’t think you can have . . .”
He ignored this, grabbing us by our elbows and, with an energy almost unseemly for such an apparently frail old man, pulling us inside the bungalow.
“This is your room!” he proclaimed, stepping aside to reveal three beds covered by mosquito nets, a bare stone floor, and, adjoining the room, a small bathroom with a shower and squat toilet.
“How much?”
He shook his head.
“No, madam. It is already paid.”
“It can’t be. By who?”
I’d already pulled a hundred rupee note from my money belt. I pressed it determinedly into his hand.
“If the room is prebooked, then just say there’s been a mistake. We got here first.”
For a moment the old man stared at the money. Then he shrugged and closed his fingers around the note. Pointing to himself he said: “Cookie wallah. Mr. P. J. Srinivan.”
Gemma pulled off her rucksack and sat down heavily on the bed. The mattress looked lumpy and scratchy, as if filled with straw. As I’d suspected all along, the room did not have an air-conditioner, just a fan which stirred the air lazily above us.
“Does the fan go any faster?” she asked morosely.
Mr. P. J. Srinivan pointed to a box of electric switches next to the door. Worryingly, this was held to the wall by a single, fraying cord.
“Fan, light. On, off,” he said unhelpfully.
“So,” I said, mouthing the words slowly. “We’ve come to visit this shrine? Agun Mazir, yes?”
He grinned at me and nodded, his face creasing.
“Yes, yes, madam!”
“Where is it?”
Grabbing my elbow again, he led me out of the bungalow and pointed into the forest. “That way!”
“But how do we find the path? Do we have to go back to the main street?”
