And Thereby Hangs a Tale (29 page)

He glided up to the front of the hotel,
where he watched as she stepped out of her car and handed the keys to a valet.
Jamwal leapt out of his Porsche without bothering to open the door, threw his
keys to the valet, ran up the steps and followed her into the hotel. As he entered
the lobby, she was disappearing into a lift. He waited to see which floor she
would get out on. First stop was the mezzanine: fashionable shops, a hair salon
and a French bistro. Would it be minutes or hours before she reappeared? Jamwal
walked over to the reception desk. 'Did you see that girl?' he asked the clerk.

'I think every man in the lobby saw her,' Jamwal grinned.
'Do you know who she is?'

'Yes, sahib, she is Miss Chowdhury.'

'The daughter of Shyam Chowdhury?'

'I believe so.'

Jamwal smiled again. A few phone calls and he
would know everything he needed to about Shyam Chowdhury's daughter. By the time
they next met, he would already be in first gear. The only thing that surprised
him was that he hadn't come across her before.

He picked up the guest phone and dialled a local
number.

'Hi, Sunita. I've been held up at the
office, someone needed to see me urgently. Let's try and catch up this evening.
Yes, of course I remembered,' he said, keeping a watchful eye on the bank of
lifts. 'Yes, yes. We're having dinner tonight. I'll be with you around
eight,' he promised.

The lift door opened and she stepped out carrying
a Ferragamo bag. 'Got to rush,' he said. 'Can't keep my next appointment
waiting.' He put the phone down, just as she walked past him, and quickly
caught up with her.

'I didn't want to bother you...' he began.

She turned and smiled sweetly, but did not stop
walking. 'It's no bother, but I'm not looking for a chauffeur at the moment.'

'How about a boyfriend?' he said, not
missing a beat.

'Thank you but no. I don't think you could handle
the pace.'

'Well, why don't we try and find out over
dinner tonight?'

'How kind of you to ask,' she said, still
not slackening her pace, 'but I already have a dinner date tonight.'

'Then how about tomorrow?'

'Not tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.'

'Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,'
he quoted back at her.

'Sorry,' she said, as an attendant opened
the door for her, 'but I don't have a day free before the last syllable of
recorded time.'

'How about a coffee?' said Jamwal. 'I'm free
right now.'

'I feel sure you are,' she said, finally
coming to a halt and looking at him more closely.

'You've clearly forgotten, Jamwal, what happened
the last time we met.'

'The last time we met?' said Jamwal,
unusually lost e,&rsuatime orrfor words.

'Yes. You tied my pigtails together.'

'That bad?'

'Worse. You tied them round a lamp post.'

'Is there no end to my infamy?'

'No, there isn't, because not satisfied with
tying me up, you then left me.'

'I don't remember that. Are you sure it was me?'
he added, refusing to give up.

'I can assure you, Jamwal, it's not
something I'd be likely to forget.'

'I'm flattered that you still remember my name.'

'And I'm equally touched,' she said, giving him
the same sweet smile, 'that you clearly don't remember mine.'

'But how long ago was that?' he protested as
she stepped into her car.

'Certainly long enough for you to have
forgotten me.'

'But perhaps I've changed since...'

'You know, Jamwal,' she said as she switched
on the ignition, 'I was beginning to wonder if you could possibly have grown up
after all these years.' Jamwal looked hopeful. 'And had you bothered to open
the car door for me, I might have been persuaded. But you are so clearly the
same arrogant, self-satisfied child who imagines every girl is available,
simply because you're the son of a maharaja.' She put the car into first gear
and accelerated away.

Jamwal stood and watched as she eased her Ferrari
into the afternoon traffic. What he couldn't see was how often she checked in her
rear-view mirror to make sure he didn't move until she was out of sight.

Jamwal drove slowly back to his office on Bay
Street. Within an hour he'd found out all he needed to know about Nisha
Chowdhury.

His secretary had carried out similar tasks for
him on several occasions in the past.

Nisha was the daughter of Shyam Chowdhury,
one of the nation's leading industrialists. She had been educated in Paris,
before going on to Stanford University to study fashion design. She would
graduate in the summer and was hoping to join one of the leading couture houses
when she returned to Delhi.

Such gaps as Jamwal's secretary hadn't been able
to fill in, the gossip columns supplied.

Nisha was currently to be seen on the arm of
a well-known racing driver, which answered two more of his questions. She had
also been offered several modelling assignments in the past, and even a part in
a Bollywood film, but had turned them all down as she was determined to
complete her course at Stanford.

Jamwal had already accepted that Nisha Chowdhury
was goingwhenry e her Ni to be more of a challenge than some of the girls he'd
been dating recently. Sunita Desai, who he was meant to be having lunch with,
was the latest in a long line of escorts who had already survived far longer
than he'd expected, but that would rapidly change now that he'd identified her
successor.

Jamwal wasn't all that concerned who he slept
with. He didn't care what race, colour or creed his girlfriends were. Such
matters were of little importance once the light was switched off. The only
thing he would not consider was sleeping with a girl from his own Rajput caste,
for fear that she might think there was a chance, however slim, of ending up as
his wife. That decision would ultimately be made by his parents, and the one
thing they would insist on was that Jamwal married a virgin.

As for those who had ideas above their
station, Jamwal had a well-prepared exit line when he felt the time had come to
move on:

'You do realize that there's absolutely no
possibility of us having a long-term relationship, because you simply wouldn't
be acceptable to my parents.'

This line was delivered with devastating
effect, often when he was dressing to leave in the morning. Nine out of ten
girls never spoke to him again. One in ten remained in his phone book, with an
asterisk by their names which indicated 'available at any time'.

Jamwal intended to continue this very
satisfactory way of life until his parents decided the time had come for him to
settle down with the bride they had chosen for him. He would then start a
family, which must include at least two boys, so he could fulfil the
traditional requirement of siring an heir and a spare.

As Jamwal was only months away from his thirtieth
birthday, he suspected his mother had already drawn up a list of families whose
daughters would be interviewed to see if they would make suitable brides for
the second son of a maharaja.

Once a shortlist had been agreed upon,
Jamwal would be introduced to the candidates, and if his parents were not of
one mind, he might even be allowed to offer an opinion. If by chance
one of the contenders was endowed with intelligence or beauty, that would be
considered a bonus, but not one of real significance. As for love, that could
always follow some time later, and if it didn't, Jamwal could return to his old
way of life, al-beit a little more discreetly. He had never fallen in love, and
he assumed he never would.

Jamwal picked up the phone on his desk,
dialled a number he didn't need to look up, and ordered a bunch of red roses to
be sent to Nisha the following morning -- hello flowers; and a bunch of lilies
to be sent to Sunita at the same time -- farewell flowers.

Jamwal arrived a few minutes late for his date
with Sunita that evening, something no one complains about in Delhi, where the traffic
has a mind of its own.

The door was opened by a servant even before
Jamwal had reached the top step, and as he walked into the house, Sunita came
out of the drawing room to greet him.

'What a beautiful dress,' said Jamwal, who had
taken it off several times.

'Thank you,' said Sunita as he kissed her on
both cheeks. 'A couple of friends are joining us for dinner,' she continued as
they linked arms and began walking towards the drawing room. 'I think you'll
find them amusing.'

'I was sorry to have to cancel our lunch
date at the last moment,' he said, 'but I became embroiled in a takeover bid.'

'And were you successful?'

'I'm still working on it,' Jamwal replied as
they entered the drawing room together.

She turned to face him, and the second
impression was just as devastating as the first.

'Do you know my old school friend, Nisha Chowdhury?'
asked Sunita.

'We bumped into each other quite recently,' said
Jamwal, 'but were not properly introduced.' He tried not to stare into her eyes
as they shook hands.

'And Sanjay Promit.'

'Only by reputation,' said Jamwal, turning
to the other guest. 'But of course I'm a great admirer.'

Sunita handed Jamwal a glass of champagne, but
didn't let go of his arm.

'Where are we dining?' Nisha asked.

'I've booked a table at the Silk Orchid,'
said Sunita. 'So I hope you all like Thai food.'

Jamwal could never remember the details of their
first date, as Nisha so often described it, except that during dinner he couldn't
take his eyes off her. The moment the band struck up, he asked her if she would
like to dance.

To the undisguised annoyance of both their partners,
they didn't return to the table again until the band took a break. When the
evening came to an end, Jamwal and Nisha reluctantly parted.

As Jamwal drove Sunita home, neither of them
spoke. There was nothing to say. When she stepped out of the car, she didn't
bother to kiss him goodbye. All she said was, 'You're a shit, Jamwal,' which
meant that at least he could cancel the farewell flowers.

The following morning Jamwal sent a
handwritten note with Nisha's red roses, inviting her to lunch. Every time the
phone on his desk rang, he picked it up hoping to hear her voice saying, 'Thank
you for the beautiful flowers, where shall we meet for lunch?' But it was never
Nisha on the end of the line.

At twelve o'clock he decided to call her at home,
just to make sure the flowers had been delivered.

'Oh, yes,' said the houseman who answered the
phone, 'but Miss Chowdhury was already on her way to the airport by the time
they arrived, so I'm afraid she never saw them.'

'The airport?' said Jamwal.

'She took the early morning flight to Los Angeles.
Miss Chowdhury begins her final term at Stanford on Monday,' the houseman explained.

Jamwal thanked him, put the phone down and
pressed a button on his intercom. 'Get me on the next plane to Los Angeles,' he
said to his secretary. He then called home and asked his manservant to pack a
suitcase, as he would be going away.

'For how long, sahib?'

'I've no idea,' Jamwal replied.

Jamwal had visited San Francisco many times
over the years, but had never been to Stanford. After Oxford he had completed
his education on the Eastern seaboard, finishing up at Harvard Business School.

Although the gossip columns regularly
described Jamwal Rameshwar Singh as a millionaire playboy, the implied
suggestion was far from the mark. Jamwal was indeed a prince, the second son of
a maharaja, but the family wealth had been steadily eroding over the years,
which was the reason the palace had become the Palace Hotel. And when he had
left Harvard to return to Delhi, the only extra baggage he carried with him was
the Parker Medal for Mathematics, along with a citation recording the fact that
he had been in the top ten students of his year, which now hung proudly on the
wall of the guest toilet. However, Jamwal did nothing to dispel the gossip
columnists' raffish image of him, as it helped to attract exactly the type of
girl he liked to spend his evenings with, and often the rest of the night.

On returning to his homeland, Jamwal had applied
for a position as a management trainee with the Raj Group, where he was quickly
identified as a rising star. Despite rumours to the contrary, he was often the
first to arrive in the office in the morning, and he could still be found at
his desk long after most of his colleagues had returned home.

But once he had left the office, Jamwal entered
another world, to which he devoted the same energy and enthusiasm that he
applied to his work.

The phone on his desk rang. There's a car waiting
for you at the front door, sir.'

Jamwal had rarely been known to cross the dance
floor for a woman, let alone an ocean.