‘English. My current school, my sixth, is called Acland Burghley. It’s in Tufnell Park.’
‘An Indian teaching English in an English school! Wow! You must be the only one in London. Do you like it?’
‘I am the only Indian teacher at this place. I love the kids. I adore them. But the staff? You really want to know?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Teachers are a species apart. Petty. Bitchy.’
‘Really? How awful.’
‘They are fine as individuals. They love to be together and yap, but they don’t like each other. They complain about everything and everybody, especially the Head and the Deputy Head. A staff room anywhere is the same - a complainers’ room.’
‘You are leaving anyway. Which university will you go to?’
‘It will have to be Oxford or Cambridge.’
‘Why Oxford or Cambridge only?’
‘Because back home these are the only two universities that matter.’
‘Here too, amazingly. And then?’
‘And then I’ll go home a king.’
‘I don’t think I have ever met anyone quite like you.’
‘Miss Muir.’
‘Jane, for heaven’s sake. Don’t be so bloody formal. Well, thank you for the drink. Nice sherry. I enjoyed it.’
‘Me too. Your sherry and my beer.’
‘I shouldn’t have had the second one.’
‘Has it made you feel guilty for spending so much time with me?’ Jane breathed out loudly, looking heartbreakingly beautiful.
‘May I ask you a question?’ I said. ‘No, two questions.’
‘No.’
‘Pray, why not?’
‘Because.’ She stood up determinedly.
‘Will I see you again?’
‘Probably, in the street. We’ll wave to each other.’
‘Will you really?’
‘Goodbye.’ It sounded so utterly final, making me, like Ranji, feel ‘extinguished’.
The Subcontinental wanted to know what was the matter with me.
‘What is eating you, RKM Esquire?’ Tariq asked. What was eating me? I had no answer. But Melaram did.
‘Our hero is suffering from a certain affliction for which there is no known cure.’
Whatever the name of my affliction, I was grateful to it. And the fact of the matter was that I did not want to be cured. It was painful. It was exquisite. When the strain of all this became too much, I took the train to her wich town. I found myself in a busy suburban township with an large Town Hall. In the capacity of its new, self-appointed road inspector, I loafed in all its bustling streets, tossed into the sea of certainty of running into her shopping or going or coming from her Nursing College. Did I have an answer to her question – what are you doing here? No, I did not. After a couple of hours of loitering, it occurred to me to ask someone where this Nursing College was. I was told there was none in Woolwich. I had gone to the wrong bloody wich.
One morning, I heard someone hammering a nail in our party wall. How did I know it was her telling me she was back? I just did. Freud. Jung. I knew psychology. In reply, I knocked an imaginary nail in the same wall: Roger. Message received. In the evening, I saw a gentleman of around seventy in the neighbour’s back garden. He was fixing something to a wall with a hammer.
The lady in front of me was in her mid-forties and attractive. There was something familiar about her - this, despite the fact that in those days all Englishwomen of a certain age looked the same to me. Yet I could swear I had never seen her before. Also, there was a hint of something odd about her - she stood and moved somewhat unsteadily. She bought a half bottle of gin, two of tonic water and a packet of Senior Service, then tucked the lot in her already full shopping bag on two wheels. When she turned around, she stood only inches from me and I recognised the odour that separated our faces.
‘Raavi, Raavi!’ Robert and little Ann came running into the off-licence. ‘Mummy, this is Raavi.’
‘Who?’
‘Hi, Robert. Hello, Ann. Mrs Muir, I am Raavi Mehra.’
‘Yes, of course. Nice meeting you. Come on, you two.’
‘Mummy!’ Robert chided Mummy for being so short. Either she was in a great hurry or - my cheeks began to throb.
‘I am sorry, but I am in such a terrible rush.’
‘Of course.’ What else could I have said?
At home, Melaram said when would I learn? I did not understand. Nor, frankly, care. No, that was not true. The truth was that I did not want to admit to myself that I did care. In fact I nursed a deep, secret wish that she had spoken to me at length.
Two days later, I ran into Mrs Muir at the same place and time, doing the same shopping. She was alone and she carried in her hand an ordinary shopping bag. The hurt feelings returned. This made me say to myself: About turn, RKM, and give her your hindquarters to contemplate as you did once to her daughter. But RKM could not. He simply could not because he wanted to know where she was. But all the toing-and-froing of his mind suddenly became ludicrously immaterial anyway. For Mrs Muir simply did not recognise him. She went past him with her slightly unsteady step as if she had never seen him before in her life.
‘Good evening, Mrs Muir.’
‘Oh, it’s you again. Didn’t recognise you.’
‘Where are my favourite little people today?’
‘Your what?’
‘Robert and Ann.’
‘Oh, they are with their father.’
‘Permit me to carry your shopping bag to your car.’
‘That won’t be necessary. But if you insist.’
‘I do insist.’
‘All right, then. What a nice young man you are.’
‘And what a wonderful person you are, Mrs Muir.’
‘What do you mean, young man?’
‘I mean, you have such adorable children.’
‘They are all right.’
‘No, they are special.’ Together we walked out to her car in the street.
‘Thank you. One thing I’d ask, though. Not to go out of your way for them. I mean, being so friendly and all that. Their father doesn’t like it.’
‘What have I done?’
‘Nothing. And don’t take it personally. It’s just that some people think differently about things. Like their father. You understand?’
‘No.’
‘We are good neighbours. Let’s remain like that.’
‘You mean invisible to each other?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing, Mrs Muir. Goodbye and good evening.’
‘I hope I haven’t hurt you.’
‘What makes you think you might have, Mrs Muir?’
‘The look on your face.’
‘Goodbye.’ I lighthoused a smile.
‘Good.’ She couldn’t finish. She tripped over something which was not there and fell just like that. Thud. She felt the carrier bag to check that the bottle inside was not broken. Mrs Muir wore the broadest grin I had ever seen. She hadn’t done herself any injury, but she couldn’t get up.
‘Permit me.’ I offered my hand. She wouldn’t take it.
‘I’m all right, I’m all right,’ she said, waving me away.
As she had waved me away, I did not offer my hand again. I waited. But it soon became crystal clear she could not get up on her own. The broadest grin I had ever seen shrank to a pained little smile and she finally allowed me to pull her up.
‘That’s a dear. What did you say your name was?’
‘Was and is Raavi. How’s that - better?’
‘Much better. Thank you. Thank you. I hate these shoes.’
The shopkeeper had come running out. The question arose: how was Mrs Muir to get home? It was an awkward question. She was not in a fit state to drive. She would have to leave her car here and take a cab. But she would have none of it.
‘I am perfectly all right. Honestly.’
‘The fall has given you a shock, Mrs Muir. I really don’t think y
ou should drive,’ the shopkeeper fussed.
‘Let me drive you home.’ This was the stupidest thing I ever said. For the fact was that while I could drive, I had never driven in London, nor did I have a driving licence. But it was not even half a mile to the house. A two-minute job.
‘If you insist.’
Mrs Muir proved the ideal passenger that any driver with or without a driving licence could have wished for. Quiet, but unirksomely so, she smiled constantly. I had never felt more proud of myself. Shamelessly exotic thoughts invaded my airborne heart: how would my mum respond to having an alcoholic counterpart-in-law? ‘Where is Jane?’ I asked, a 100 yards from the house.
In spite of being so utterly engrossed in my thoughts and overwhelmed by the person who sat next to me, I had noticed in the little mirror above my eyes, a black Jaguar in a desperate hurry to get past me. At precisely the same moment, as if someone had pressed a remote-control button, there came at us out of nowhere at all, the blazing red hulk of my own number 2A bus. A thunderbolt lashed out and, ‘Jane!’ -
My hand rises to reach my mouth in answer to a very strong urge to be bitten. Jane stands smack in front of me, the Madonna from a Renaissance painting, in a nurse’s white and blue uniform plus the halo. Boy, she is going to laugh when she hears about my road inspectory of which wich was it? But where am I? And what is this police wallah doing here? Does the bugger still think I am an illegal immigrant? How thick can you get? And who are these other personages in white and blue? Oh, no.
I knew I had taken a risk, driving without a licence. But it was a calculated risk - it was inconceivable that anyone would stop me during the two-minute drive. The journey began.
I was doing a lazy 30 mph, the Jag a crazy 90, as if it was being chased by the Yard. Either it didn’t see the bus coming towards us, or cockily thought it would squeeze past us. It did not squeeze past us. Only the bus did. Our Mini and the Jag merely rubbed shoulders with each other. The Mini careered off the road, performed a perfect somersault and came to rest on its wheels. The Jag imitated our performance, bouncing not once, but twice, and came to a standstill on its roof. The reason why it was in such a meteoric mood had something to do with the fact that it was being chased - by another Jag at that, one gleaming white in colour. Jag One contained two crooks. Jag Two carried four coppers in mufti. Despite the speed and the double-triple tumble, the crooks suffered not a scratch, not one broken leg, arm or nose. Only the indignity of being dragged out of their overturned car and put into handcuffs in full view of NW11. Mrs Muir, too, was perfectly all right – she escaped without a single bruise. The only casualty of this Ealing Studios vintage stuff was me - Sir Galahad himself.
I looked from face to face and all I saw was Jane. But what was the matter with me? How badly was I injured? Would I lose a limb or something? Would they perform an act of amputation on my legs to prevent gangrene from spreading to the rest of my body? Where were my legs? Why couldn’t I feel them? Had they already... What was the name of that film in which that fellow, after both his legs had been carved off, said when he came around: ‘Where’s the rest of me?’
At that point my hands moved from my mouth to my waist and then, very slowly and fearfully, to my thighs. I was glad to note that the rest of me was exactly where it had always been since the day of its creation. Everything belonging to my person was firmly attached to it. For the first time in my life I became aware of this and felt grateful for it.
‘What happened? Where am I? What’s wrong with me?’ With a politeness of which only the English are capable, the situation was explained to me. I was given a graphic account of the antics of the two Jags and the Mini.
‘Apparently, nothing is wrong with you. You are only concussed.’ I had a host of other questions. Among them, how and where was Mrs Muir? Did any innocent bystander get hurt? What were their intentions regarding me? Could I go home, if nothing was wrong with me? Had I been the cause of the accident? Would I be prosecuted, put inside?
Their intentions towards me were sound. They would keep me under observation overnight and discharge me in the morning if I showed no after-effects. As far as the business of being prosecuted and the rest was concerned, ah, well, PC Holmes would come back tomorrow morning to put me in the picture. As this was being said, I exchanged a breathless glance with PC Holmes, who seemed to be saying with a nod of his head - ‘Elementary, my dear chap, elementary.’ This last piece of information was conveyed to me with the same touching politeness. Its effect on me was more devastating even, than the car crash. I had been concussed. Now I began to feel shell-shocked.
ONE-WORD MANTRA
I looked from face to face and all I saw was hers. ‘Jane?’ She answered me by putting a finger on her rounded lips. But I was not going to be shut up like that. Not after I had Half-entered the jaws of death. ‘Do me a favour,’ I pleaded. ‘Bite my hand for me.’
While the others looked quizzically at me in mortuary silence, Jane just said, ‘Shhh.’ The others were a number of my friends from the Sub and a policeman. PC Holmes carried a black leather bag which bulged, no doubt with a pair of handcuffs. The moment of my release from medical hands was going to be the moment of my transfer to the clutches of the police. It was a hypnotic moment, what with everybody staring at me like that. Unable to take it any longer, I broke the ice myself.
‘Well, Inspector Watson. Just let me wash my teeth, then I’m all yours.’ Back home, that was the first thing you did on waking up in the morning, washed your teeth, an Indian habit. I had deliberately called PC Holmes ‘Inspector Watson’. Why? I didn’t know. If the fellow wanted to do something about it, he had my permission to do so - I cared for nothing any more.
‘That won’t be necessary, sir,’ said the policeman.
‘What?’ I did not understand.
‘Do wash your teeth, by all means, sir. But you are going home. There is no charge.’
I leaped up and planted a loud kiss on his left cheek.
‘That wasn’t necessary either, sir’, he told me.
‘Yes, it was.’ Whoever has kissed a policeman knows policemen like being kissed.
‘I would apply for a driving licence soon, if I were you, young man,’ he said, wiping his cheek like a little boy who’d just been kissed by an aunt with a moustache. ‘Good day, all.’
As the policeman turned his back on us, I suffered a deeply embarrassing moment, which is to say, all my friends followed suit. Without a word, the poet-philosopher took the motor mechanic by the hand and then signalled with an arched eyebrow to all our other Submates, and the buggers simply ambled out of the ward, leaving the two of us staring at each other. The hospital striped pyjamas made me look like a long-term resident of a prison. Suddenly, I felt ridiculous.
‘Jane, please bite my hand and tell me it’s true.’
‘Silly boy.’ Jane shook her head in disbelief at something.
‘Please. Wait in the foyer downstairs while I have a quick wash. I’ll be down in two minutes.’
There was a little kiosk outside the ward. I bought a toothbrush and paste and had a shower in sixty seconds flat. Within the next sixty I was dressed and down in the foyer to be with her. But where was she? She was not in the foyer nor anywhere else. Nobody had seen her. They said no young lady of my description - so high, hazel eyes, simply beautiful - had been waiting there. No young lady of any description had been to see me, I was told. I was concussed again. I did not know anything any more.
Stupefied, I stepped out of the hospital in a daze. I had become a whirlpool of mindlessness. Cars parked bumper to bumper, lined both sides of the street in Hampstead, where this hospital was. Mindlessly, I began to count them. In spite of how I felt, I marvelled at so much affluence and wondered if poor old India would ever have so many cars, one to every four Indians. A hundred million cars. I worked out in my head what would happen if you lined them all up - it would take you to the moon and half-way back. Just like me. I had been over the moon - she had come to see if I was
still alive – but at this point I stood half-way from it in empty space.
As I walked past the tenth car, a shrill horn made me jump and I landed squarely on Mother Earth.
‘Jane!’ Instantly, I was over the moon again. She was sitting inside her mother’s car, the very Mini responsible for it all. ‘You took so long,’ she said.
‘I was searching the hospital for you. All the doctors and nurses were too.’
‘Do you want a lift? Get in.’ I got in.
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘Anywhere you care to name.’
‘Don’t you have somewhere to go?’
‘Yes - wherever you have to. Why didn’t you wait inside the hospital?’
‘I had come to see if you were all right. You were all right. So I wanted to go.’
‘Funny girl. Why didn’t you?’
‘I don’t know.’
Her eyes melted in mine, two streams of nectar mingling. If by merely looking in her eyes made me feel the way I did - pulped - I asked myself what would happen if I were to actually touch her, hold her against me? I’d go mad.
‘Raavi. What’s going on between us?’
The air in the Mini began to hum with high voltage. I had to do something about it. I did. I took her cheeks in my hands. A tear fell on both my hands. Then two.
‘Jane. Why do you cry?’
‘I don’t know. One of us is going to get hurt.’
‘What a thing to say at a time like this. How do you know?’
‘I just do. Shall we go?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where? I haven’t got much time.’
‘It’s a beautiful day - a day for a walk on the Heath. It’s so near. Would it displease you much to take a walk with me?’
‘No, it would not. But I have to get back.’
‘A short walk then. Five hundred yards up and five hundred yards down. Or vice versa.’
‘Pardon?’
‘On a hill of your choice.’ She laughed. Her soaking wet eyes, too. She looked brittle as a child and I longed to clasp her in my aching arms.
Indian Magic Page 14
