Hillstation (23 page)

‘Yes, I think so.'

‘He's a bastard,' she said. ‘And he's not even a sorry bastard.' She dipped a finger into the water. ‘He made promises. And he didn't tell me. And now he blames me for all this.'

A bird leaped from a tree above us, fluttering to the far shore.

‘To whom did he make these promises?' I asked.

The bird watched us from a high branch, twitching its feathers like an affronted Aunt.

‘The suits, businessmen, whatever they are, financiers.' She spat the word. ‘Of course he says he didn't.'

‘And what did he promise?'

The bird hopped to a lower branch and then to the ground, skipping tentatively to the water's edge.

‘Me,' said Martina. ‘And when I wouldn't, they shut the money off.'

‘Wouldn't what?'

‘Shag them.'

‘You mean have sex?' I said, shocked.

‘He called it a bit of bother.' She shrugged. ‘A couple of hours. Maybe more if they wanted seconds.' She looked at the bird. ‘Hendrix said they could have Sharon but they weren't interested. Mike offered them Cindy but they'd already had her. Basically, they said if they couldn't have me they'd blow his knees off.'

The bird took a long sip, then, for no apparent reason, flung itself back at the tree squawking noisily.

‘This is not how we do business in Pushkara,' I remarked.

‘Well, I've got family in Luton,' she shrugged. ‘So, anyway, Mike said what's more important, his knee caps or my virtue?'

‘But this is your jewel,' I said.

She looked at me for a moment. ‘He said page three didn't leave me a lot of that in the bank. But I know what I am and I don't do it for money. Or knee caps. But anyway, he cashed a cheque and they came after us. We blagged some tickets on this crappy flight. I'm not surprised it came down. I'm surprised it bloody well got up.' She lifted her chin to the sunlight. ‘So then he says he's booked a biggie. Massive venue, state of the art.' She snorted. ‘I guess we'll get the bus fare if we're lucky.'

‘But not if the show's cancelled.'

‘They can't stop us,' she said.

‘Then my sisters will burn.'

She flicked her sandals off. The bird was above us again, watching.

‘So what do you want me to do,' she asked, ‘shag the suits?'

‘Of course not,' I said.

‘You love your sisters that much?'

‘I wouldn't like to see them burn,' I said. ‘Nor have them run around while we try to put them out. I believe petroleum spirits rapidly consume whatever it is they've been poured over.'

‘I don't know,' she said, closing her eyes. ‘I've never really thought about it.'

‘You have never thought about people on fire?'

‘Now you're just making conversation,' she said. Which was true in a way. She brushed a fly from her face. ‘Have you ever looked down off a bridge or a balcony, somewhere high up and thought, right now, just here, I could jump and that would be it? And you step back quickly cause you're not sure if you would?'

‘Not really,' I said. ‘I have always had hope.'

‘For what?'

‘That you would come at last.'

Her toes sent a ripple across the pool. ‘You know, for a second there, I almost thought that might be true.' She smiled a little. ‘It's so nutty. You're nutty. It's a nutty place. But you know what? I got real again. Cause there's one thing I've learned and that's to keep it real.' She lifted her foot, glistening in the sun. ‘This is nice. Just here. But out there isn't.' She looked at me. ‘You don't really know “out there”, do you?'

‘Only what my brother has told me,' I said.

A spiral of flies spun round a lily pad. She watched them for a moment.

‘It's beautiful,' she said, taking a breath. ‘The smell. Is it from them?' She looked round to some flowers. ‘Do you know what they are?'

‘You mean the name? I don't. I'm sorry.'

She shrugged. ‘Well, I don't suppose they need one up here.'

I tried to remember Pol's advice about the protocols of English courtship. Were gifts involved? I assumed they had to be since the importuning of anything seemed to require a gift of some description. In any case it was no effort to stroll across, pick a flower and offer it to Martina with a coy smile on my face.

‘What are you doing?' she shrieked.

‘It's a gift,' I said.

‘No, no.' She snatched it from me. ‘It's not. It wasn't anything. It was just what it was. Now it's something to give or get or buy or sell or stick in the dressing room with a phone number.' She cradled it like an injured child. ‘Don't you see?' she said. ‘You didn't have to give it to me. It was already there.' She sighed. ‘I don't know what I'm saying. It's this place. Like I said. It makes you nutty. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. But half the time you talk nutty and half the time you… don't. I don't know.'

‘I know what you mean about real,' I said.

‘Do you?'

‘Yes.'

‘So what do I mean?'

‘I'm sorry,' I confessed. ‘I was only bluffing. I have no idea. Would you like me to put the flower back?'

‘You can't,' she said, rubbing her knees and standing up. ‘But anyway, thanks.' She looked towards the slopes. ‘Still, you know what they say.'

‘Who is they?' I asked.

‘There's always a “they”.'

‘And what do “they” say?'

‘The show must go on,' she said. ‘I'm sorry. But like I said, your sisters aren't my problem.'

She was right, of course. The goddess moves as she wills. Of what concern are two silly girls doused in petrol? But I was her destiny and this, if nothing else, made me her problem.

‘I think I have a solution,' I said. ‘If we announce our betrothal, then my sisters would be obliged to wait until after the wedding before they set light to themselves.'

She glanced back at me for a moment. ‘I think I've made it pretty clear what I think about that idea,' she said.

‘What is clear,' I said, ‘is that nothing can stand in the way of what's meant to be.'

Pol's words were flooding back to me now. When they say no they mean yes. When they say stop they mean go. This was the English way, passionate, expressive, and requiring, above all, an overwhelming declaration of intent. I had often noticed birds flapping their wings during moments of amorous engagement. I had even seen rabbits kicking each other as the one attempted to appraise the other of its affections. The bee must sometimes break the petal to retrieve its nectar.

I caught up with her on the far side of the pool. ‘My love,' I said, taking her hand.

‘Don't be daft, Rabindra, come on.'

‘You are the spirit by which I move, the light by which I shine.'

‘Did you get this out of a book?' she said, wincing.

‘From the book of your heart,' I said, although she was right. Pol used to bring over some of his mother's romantic novels when they had pictures. ‘For there can be no better rhyme, nor metre, than the sweet perfection of your smile.'

‘You're hurting me,' she said.

‘Martina,' I said as she dug her nails into the back of my hand. ‘Love is not two things coming together to make one thing but one thing together always.'

‘So you can let me go then, can't you?' she said with incisive rationality.

‘Never,' I said, pulling her towards me. ‘For we are the sun shining in different pots, seeming as many but forever oof.' I had closed my eyes to receive her kiss but instead felt a sharp pain in my lower regions.

‘Nobody grabs,' she said. ‘You got that?'

I tried to nod as my body bent double and my legs collapsed.

‘You'll be alright,' said Martina, scanning the horizon before making her way down one of the streams.

As I waited for my breathing to normalise, and the pain to subside, several flies began to explore the end of my nose. Since my hands refused to move, I tried snorting them away, which only made them take an aerial tour of my face before landing again. I shook my head vigorously, but they seemed to enjoy that and, after a few minutes, came back with their friends. When a large bee buzzed over to see what all the fuss was about, I managed to find my feet.

I heard Pol's laughter long before I reached Shiva Rock.

‘You are so mean,' said Cindy.

Which only made him laugh louder. He stopped when I tripped over just behind the ridge.

‘What was that?' said Cindy.

‘Maybe a goat falling over,' said Pol.

‘Goats don't fall over,' observed Martina.

‘They spiked its drink,' said Pol, laughing again.

‘Goats don't say “bloody hell”,' said Cindy.

‘Please believe,' I croaked, ‘that my intentions are, have been, and will always remain honourable.'

‘You could have fooled me,' said Martina.

‘But I understood that to be the procedure,' I said, struggling upright. ‘Unless, of course, your response is also part of the procedure in which case there is much to admire in the resilience of the English gentlemen.'

They were resting in the shade of the rock, Pol and Cindy's legs entwined, Martina to one side, rubbing her feet.

‘If the procedure requires it on subsequent occasions,' I said, ‘I would appreciate some forewarning.'

‘That would spoil the surprise,' said Martina.

‘Then our married life shall be characterised by a perpetual state of tension,' I said.

‘That is married life,' she chuckled. ‘But seriously, Rabindra. Okay? We're not going to have a married life. Why? Because we're not getting married. Cindy can do what she likes and I wish them every happiness. But I came here single and I'm leaving that way.'

Pol and Cindy were nibbling each others necks.

‘You have already proposed?' I said.

‘Accepted,' said Cindy.

‘And the other,' giggled Pol.

I have never thought myself prone to the darker reaches of human emotion, such as envy, jealousy, and spite. But in that moment I could have scraped the grin off Pol's face with a blunt surgical instrument unwashed from its previous task of removing warts from the underside of a dhobi-wallah's foot.

‘And we're going to be very happy,' said Cindy stroking Pol's face. ‘Among the mountains and flowers and all these lovely people. It's everything I've ever wanted. Except babies. But we'll have lots of those.' Pol squeezed her hand. ‘We'll come here for picnics. And I'll tell them the names of all the mountains, once Pol's told them to me, and the flowers and every single buzzy bee, even if it's different bees, it doesn't matter, kids don't really notice that sort of thing. And we'll chase rabbits and lie on our backs looking up at the sky, until our babies have babies and we're old and crabby like all those crabby old people down there, but everyone'll treat us like we're wise just cause we've been stupid longer.' She gave Pol a hug that crushed the air out of him.

‘Well, hopefully we'll visit,' he gasped.

‘Every day,' said Cindy. ‘Even when it's snowing. We'll make snowmen and have snowball fights and hot chocolate afterwards, round the fire singing.'

‘I mean from England,' said Pol.

‘Stuff England,' said Cindy. ‘I'm staying here. I want to skip among the hills. I want to saunter down the high street like those elegant ladies in bright saris shouting at street vendors and ordering their cooks about. I want to dodge scooters crossing the road, and kick stray dogs off my doorstep. I want to smell dust, and sweat, and god knows what all day long. I want to stare out of my window and see this.' She spread her arms. ‘All around me. Every day.'

‘Yes, of course,' said Pol. ‘Every day of our holiday.'

‘Phooey,' said Cindy. ‘Holidays are only as good as the shades you see them through. Sun-hats, blokes with tashes, and cheap tat you can't think why you bought. They're not life. Life is potatoes. Life is clipping your nails on the side of the bed. It's the smell of soup in the cupboard under the stairs. It's cat litter on the floor, cigarette burns in your new dress, the shoes you bought you wish you hadn't, the things you want you'll never have. It's being me, waking up with the same thought I went to sleep with. It's not two weeks pissed and back to worrying about a spot on my forehead, or if my legs are getting fat, or how come I didn't make the Christmas Page this year when she did.'

‘Change your agent,' said Martina.

‘But the whole point,' said Pol, ‘was getting out of here.'

‘The whole point,' said Cindy, ‘is that we love each other.'

‘Which has been stated and is understood,' said Pol, sharply. ‘But as a wife you should listen more and talk less.'

‘I hope you are,' murmured Martina.

‘Of course she is,' said Pol. ‘Because her husband is talking. Now, you think that you are going to enjoy some sort of relaxed and privileged lifestyle in this silly little place in the hills. You are wrong. You will be the wife of a low-born. You will always be served last in the shops. You will not be invited to tea with any of the other wives, and if you try inviting them you will find them all quite suddenly engaged on other matters more pressing. Instead we will spend the evenings listening to my mother imagining that she's just escaped her kidnappers and is presently hiding in a forest hovel. It will be a futile, agonising life of daily torments.'

‘But not if we're together,' protested Cindy.

‘Then why not be together in England?' said Pol.

‘My Dad lives in England. And that's a good enough bloody reason for not living there.'

‘Then the entire plan comes to nothing,' spluttered Pol.

‘I never had a plan,' said Cindy. ‘I didn't plan to meet you. I didn't plan to have the sweetest, cuddliest night of my life. I didn't plan to fall in love with a little village, silly or otherwise, in the hills. But I have. Because love isn't a plan.'