Although she woke refreshed from her long night’s sleep, Liana was still in a foul mood the following morning. Whether the Agra experience was actually responsible for her change of heart, or merely a catalyst, I could not tell. All I knew was that, suddenly, Liana was sick of India. She’d had enough.
We walked around the town that day. I tried to stay cheerful and optimistic, but this had no effect on her. Scenes that had previously seemed fascinating to Liana were now dismissed as ugly. What had once been lively and electric was now just crowded and dirty. She was fed up with the people, sick of the food. She wanted to go home.
The change in Liana was so dramatic that it caught me completely off guard. I thought, perhaps, that fatigue had coloured her feelings, and tried to suggest that we should just take it easy for a couple of days, but even this idea was shot down in flames. As the day wore on, Liana became more and more miserable; by nightfall she had become quite tearful, and I realised there was only one solution.
We would have to go home.
I slept poorly that night, waking several times. At around five in the morning, I woke for the final time. I knew there was no way I would get back to sleep, so I got out of bed quietly - Liana was still fast asleep - washed swiftly and threw on some clothes.
Out on the street the rickshaw drivers were already gathering in the cold morning darkness, waiting to catch the fresh shoals of travellers that keep them fed. Laxman, a small, elderly Hindu with a roguish, gap-toothed smile, asked me if I wanted to go down to the river; he explained in his broken English that the sun would be rising soon, and that it was a good time to see the Ganges. I knew Liana would be in no mood for sightseeing, so having agreed a price I allowed Laxman to peddle me down to the ghats, the stepped banks of the holy river, where I negotiated for a boat and boatman. The sun had yet to appear and despite a cool breeze, wafting across from the river, I was still half asleep, and don’t suppose I conducted the most impressive piece of bargaining.
We set off southwards. Dhobi wallahs and a few eager bathers were already on the ghats, the former belting all manner of dirt out of the laundry by swinging it against large flat stones, the latter braving the cold, filthy water. My boatman explained that this would be the first of up to five ritual bathes that day. A thick, unappealing scum floated on the surface, beneath which a still, murky green fluid appeared to ferment. The sun, red and cool, lifted above the horizon. A rotting cow carcass drifted by. I wondered what sort of dedication was required to bathe in this water five times a day.
A few other boats glided slowly along the river; an eerie quiet attenuated sound and action. Benares was waking slowly, in much the same way, I suspected, as it had done for thousands of years. At the southernmost ghat the boat turned. By the time we reached the northern stretch, the river had sprung to life. Here were scenes of unparalleled fascination. For a few minutes I began to doubt the wisdom of my decision to return home; where else in the world would one ever come across scenes like these?
And it wasn’t just the hordes of men, women and children involved in their daily rituals that appealed. All along the banks of the Ganges stood a collection of innumerable styles of building, heaped up in stacks, all in various stages of decay. The overall appearance was one of unreality, as if someone had constructed a set for some hybrid oriental/medieval/science-fiction movie, with towers, balustrades, balconies, temples, turrets and windowless walls rising resplendently towards the brilliant blue sky, a sublime backdrop of colour and form, before which the extraordinary ritual of mass-bathing was played out with solemnity, abandonment, fastidiousness and great humour.
At Manikarnika ghat, the last embers of a cremation smoked spookily as a huge pile of ashes overflowed unceremoniously into the river. Four pallbearers carried a cloth-wrapped body supported on a stretcher down the steps and immersed it in the river. As the stretcher was lifted clear, a bloody torrent poured from the corpse, and my stomach turned as the reddened pool collected ominously on the still surface of the waters. Body and soul were two very distinct concepts here; the bloody, rotting corpse had been just a vehicle, a container, and now that it was empty, it meant nothing. The soul had departed, so the body could be consigned to the flames without a second thought.
I had never seen a dead body up close before, and certainly never witnessed a cremation. Somehow, watching the flesh catch fire, seeing how matter-of-fact this all was to the Hindus, made me realise how pointless and wasteful are the ceremonies we have in the West for despatching our dead. This was surely the more sensible way.
I arrived back at the hotel just as Liana was waking up. I was still confused about her change of heart, but I didn’t tell her about where I’d been or what I’d seen; somehow I knew it would be the wrong thing to do. Instead, I took off my clothes, slid into bed beside her, and kissed her on the nose.
‘Good morning.’
‘Hi. Where have you been?’
‘Just for a walk. How are you feeling?’
‘Lonely.’
‘Lonely?’
‘Mmm. I woke up and you weren’t here.’
‘I’m sorry love; I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to wake you.’
Liana put her arms around me and kissed me. ‘I’ll always want you to be there Michael. . .when I wake up. Tell me you’ll always be there.’ There was a plaintive tone to her voice; for a moment I thought she might cry.
‘I promise,’ I said, and spent the rest of the day wondering why I found it so easy to promise the impossible.
Chapter 25
Most people seem to possess certain mechanisms - either inherent or acquired - to help protect themselves from severe emotional trauma. In their relationships and interactions with other people they act with a degree of caution, they always hold back - even in close relationships - so that there is a part of themselves that is safe, untouched; something to fall back on when, after the love has gone, they are on their own again.
I was born without such a self-protection mechanism, neither did I acquire it in my youth. Perhaps it was all that love and affection showered on me as a child. Who knows? Either way, it has left me extremely vulnerable, and when I hurt, when I suffer, it seems to take on a quality quite unlike anything other people have experienced. When love turns sour and a relationship looks about to destroy itself under the internal tensions, I become a desperate man. The thought that someone might leave me fills me with dread - a sort of existential horror of being alone - and I would rather suffer any amount of torment than submit to that. Even in the final stages of the break-up, you will see me snatching and clutching at anything and everything like a drowning man clinging to the wreckage.
It is a pathetic sight; a man so desperate not to be on his own that he will demean himself and tolerate words and actions so hurtful that anyone witnessing his behaviour would pronounce him mad. This madness extends into other areas of my life. 0ne way in which it manifests itself is that perennial curse of the insecure, the obsessive neurotic’s béte noir; jealousy.
Unlike envy, which I had experienced in one form or another for most of my adolescence, sexual jealousy had eluded me because, of course, I never had anything to be jealous of. Until I met Jo. Going out with an attractive woman can be fraught with danger for someone who has yet to understand the nature of his own obsessive tendencies. On the one hand, I found Jo attractive and sexy, and enjoyed finding her so. On the other hand, Jo’s attraction was not limited solely to myself. Initially I derived a certain proprietorial pleasure from watching other men eye her up and down, wishing they were sleeping with her, but such pleasure was short-lived, and I have my good friend Richard to thank for that.
I had been going out with Jo for about six months when the troubles began. We were lying in bed one night, side by side, holding hands in the aftermath of our lovemaking. It was always a supremely peaceful time; after sex, I always felt clear, becalmed, and would allow my mind to drift wherever it wanted. On this occasion, and for no particular reason, I recalled a st
ory Richard had told me that day concerning one of the Social Science tutors, a scurrilous piece of gossip that I’d found both amusing and intriguing. I began to tell Jo the story, but no sooner had I mentioned Richard’s name than she began to get irritated.
‘What’s up, Jo? What’s the matter?’ I asked, squeezing her hand slightly.
‘Nothing,’ said Jo, the word snapping like a broken rubber band.
‘Come on. Tell me.’
Jo sighed. ‘I’m sick to death of hearing about Richard, that’s all. Honestly Michael, he’s all you ever talk about. It’s Richard this and Richard that... I just don’t think it’s very healthy to be so preoccupied with him.’
‘Healthy?’
‘He’s a bad influence.’
‘What?’
‘You heard.’ Jo leant over to the bedside table and turned on the light. I sat up in bed, puzzled and a little shocked by the outburst. Jo never had a bad word for anyone, and she’d certainly never mentioned Richard before in anything other than the most benign of terms.
‘What is this, Jo? You’ve never said anything to me before about it. I had no idea you felt so strongly.’
Jo shrugged. She was evidently feeling very uncomfortable having brought the subject up. ‘I didn’t want to say anything. I know he’s your closest friend, and I didn’t want to upset you. In fact, I wish I hadn’t said anything now.’
‘You should have said something earlier.’ I took her hand again and squeezed it gently, but Jo did not respond. There was a moment’s uncomfortable silence, during which time it dawned on me that Jo’s comments were no mere spontaneous outburst. There was almost certainly more to this than met the eye. I could tell from her expression that something had been left unsaid.
‘Tell me,’ I said at last.
‘Tell you what?’ Jo’s ingenuousness was often appealing, but when she was faking it was just aggravating.
‘What happened, Jo. What did Richard do?’
‘I didn’t say he’d done anything.’
‘Come on Jo, don’t do this to me. Just tell me what he did.’
Jo’s eyes started to fill with tears. ‘It wasn’t what he did, it’s what he tried to do. He’s a right bastard, Michael. He’s not to be trusted.’
I must have suspected right then what had happened, but for those few faltering moments before Jo related the story I tried to banish from my mind such thoughts. It all seems terribly trivial now, but by the time Jo had finished telling me about what had happened, I was beside myself with fury.
Basically, Richard had taken advantage of my absence one weekend (I had gone home to visit my folks) to pay a friendly call on Jo, to make sure she wasn’t lonely or anything like that. Jo had no reason to suspect that this was anything other than a casual visit - her boyfriend’s best mate coming over out of the goodness of his heart et cetera. He had even brought a bottle of wine. She hadn’t realised that he was fairly well oiled on arrival, so by the time they’d polished off the Soave, Richard was pretty pissed.
And it was then that he tried to persuade Jo to go to bed with him. Jo thought he was just joking around, so for a while she played along with it. Richard had interpreted this reaction as serious intent, and so when Jo explained that she was very flattered but no thanks, Richard thought this was just a come-on, and made a lunge for her. That’s when Jo realised it wasn’t just a game and asked Richard to leave. He refused at first and then started to get aggressive, at which point Jo threatened to scream the place down. He left.
That I was shocked by this tale will be of no surprise. What was unexpected was the extent of my anger. It was one thing for a complete stranger to start chatting up your girlfriend at a party, but when your closest friend plans a deliberate, premeditated assault...
Of course, it was Jo who became the focus of my anger. Such was my reluctance to believe that Richard would do such a thing that I even accused Jo of having led him on. It was a foul accusation and not surprisingly it reduced her to tears. It was only then that my anger dissipated and I saw how cruel and selfish I had been. Jo had tried to protect me from knowing about the incident because she knew how much I respected and cared about Richard, how I effectively idolised him, and she had not wanted to burst my bubble. She had no wish to come between two friends, and if I hadn’t mentioned Richard’s name that night - and assuming there was no repetition of the incident - perhaps it would never have come to light. But it had come to light and, for me, things would never be the same.
From that moment on, every male under sixty was a potential rapist, trying to get inside my girlfriend’s knickers (note the possessive form). If I came across Jo so much as talking to another man I became obsessed with the idea that Jo was being propositioned. I even turned on some poor unsuspecting bloke who had simply stopped Jo in the street one day to ask directions.
Jo initially thought that this was just a passing phase, a reaction to the news of Richard’s behaviour, so at first she said nothing. But as the months passed she become more concerned over my increasingly jealous behaviour and eventually, after a particularly violent argument, issued me with an ultimatum. Either I started behaving reasonably and rationally, or else she would leave me. It was the only time she ever issued a threat to me. I treated it with the gravity it deserved.
Externally, I managed to curb the more extravagant manifestations of the curse. I no longer interrupted conversations Jo had with other men; I did not make a show of proprietorial dancing every time a man walked by, and I stopped giving Jo the third degree at the end of every day. Instead, I kept my jealousy to myself, locked away in some dark, damp recess of the mind where it festered like a septic wound. And it is with me still.
Chapter 26
I was not due to return to England for three weeks; Liana, in theory, had another month, but with her disenchantment so advanced there seemed no question of continuing the trip. I could see no point in carrying on alone Travel had taken second place to love; I had met the woman of my dreams, and I was not about to let her go, not for a moment. Wherever Liana wanted to go, whatever she wanted to do, that would be fine with me. There was nothing I would not do for her.
Once the decision had been taken to return home Liana’s mood brightened considerably. She tried, rather half-heartedly, to persuade me to stay and finish the trip, but I was adamant that I wanted to go back with her. She did not put up much in the way of resistance.
We organised train tickets back to Delhi for the following day. I was not sure what would happen when we arrived; we both had open returns, albeit on different airlines, and I knew nothing about the procedure for changing flights, but I figured we’d sort that out in Delhi.
That evening we had a little celebration, although what we were celebrating was never made completely clear; I think it had something to do with returning to normality, although I wouldn’t want to say for sure.
We were staying in the old quarter of Benares, a fascinating maze of narrow alleyways crammed with stalls and shops which never seemed to close. We decided to try and find a recommended restaurant that was, supposedly, hidden somewhere amid this bristling labyrinth, and so armed only with a scrap of paper on which someone had written indecipherable hieroglyphics that claimed to show the way, we headed out into the night.
It was only after the sun had set that the old city really came to life; lights were strung up along the streets, and the entire place buzzed with a noisy excitement. Shopkeepers beckoned us to examine their wares, young women giggled as we passed by, hand in hand, and the occasional beggar held up a scrawny hand for alms. Spicy odours wafted from darkened doorways, and little children chased each other in and out of the shops. It was such a vibrant, colourful display that I could not understand why Liana should want to leave it so suddenly. However, I knew better than to question her further on this point, and instead tried to soak up as much of the atmosphere as I could.
It took us about twenty minutes to find the restaurant, a rather dingy-looking place located behind on
e of the thousands of temples that seemed to exist at every intersection. There were a couple of locals chatting excitedly in one corner, and two travellers who looked up and smiled at us as we entered. There was no menu as such, just a set thali meal, consisting of several dishes of well-cooked spicy vegetables, a stack of chapatis, the ubiquitous lentil dahl and the inevitable boiled rice. It was as traditional a meal as you could get in India, the sort of thing you could find at any roadside stall or shack, and at first I couldn’t understand why this place had been especially recommended.
However, once we began to eat it soon became clear that the food was indeed more flavoursome and of a higher quality than any we had tried previously. Whereas curried vegetables all tended to taste the same after a while, these dishes were delicately spiced, each with its own very distinctive aroma. The chapatis were light, freshly made and did not taste of chewy cardboard, and even the dahl was more substantial than usual. The meal was also plentiful and extremely cheap; as soon as a dish became empty it was refilled with more of the same.
We ate with great gusto, perhaps aware that it would be one of our last genuine Indian meals. I was especially pleased to see Liana in such high spirits. We talked about all manner of things over dinner, but at some point in the evening Liana suddenly became terribly apologetic about her decision to leave India. She tried to explain that she had always been very moody, prone to wild swings in temperament, which she jokingly put down to “the artist” in her. So changeable was she that friends at school had nicknamed her “Weather”, a neat double pun, as no one was ever sure whether her mood would be good or bad.
Kissing Through a Pane of Glass Page 9
