Link Arms with Toads! (5 page)

In Camden market, he browses among the olives of anguish, plums of despair and apples of abandonment. They are imported from New Zealand, where the climate is perfect for Sartrian posturing. In the dissolute corner of the market, the edge of Chalk Farm Road, the proprietor of a quivering stall calls: “Notions of goodness, a dozen for a quid.” On impulse, Mondrian buys a punnet for Old Speckled Henrietta. Slightly squashed, they still represent good ethical value.

He fills up on existentialism. The juice of the strict philosophy diminishes his fears, though he still does not want to die. Existence precedes essence again, so he can breathe more easy. The journey back, though an exact reverse of the former, takes longer. He is looking out for previous conquests. A particularly sinister restaurant near King’s Cross with ever-changing decor, the Khorma Chameleon, has faded to a wisp. The sight renews his confidence.

He returns to the garage of the Spice Centre, where a mock-cheerful Weiner greets him with a nod. “The most enjoyable service of all, so I’ve heard. Vespas, eh?” He does not wait for an answer, merely checks his watch and leads Mondrian back into the building. “You’ve got the right stuff. Good heat shield, an emergency napkin for touchdown. We’ll talk you through it.”

Mondrian grunts absently, his soul oppressed, and yet uplifted, by his basket of philosophy. Turning a corner, they collide with Nascent, who has a bowl of Scepticism. Mondrian’s recent purchases spill and roll among Nascent’s Schopenhauerian kumquats. As they scrabble on the floor, Weiner mutters his disapproval. “Dignity, boys.” The basket and bowl are refilled, the spicemen disengage with a tearing of grimaces, the fibres of a sundered pakora. “Now then.”

In the sterilised bedroom, his spicesuit has been laid out on the bed. He dresses with brisk efficiency, checking buttons and cufflinks in the wardrobe mirror. He knots the tie first time, a sober choice. Some of the others prefer zany colours, ostensibly for luck. Mondrian likes simplicity: black turn-up trousers, matching jacket, plain white shirt, dark green socks and tie, red handkerchief and shoelaces. He brushes his hair into the required quiff, straps the yoghurt tank onto his back and calls to Weiner, “I’m ready.”

The door opens and he walks stiffly out into a corridor lined with his colleagues. As he passes each sullen face, he notes the absence of Nascent. Unlike him not to form a part of Mission Control, irrespective of who is being launched! Mondrian may despise him, but he respects the man’s professionalism. The earlier collision can have nothing to do with it. Raising his fist to his mouth, Mondrian looses a belch; the taste of foreboding rises in his gullet.

Weiner claps him on the shoulder and makes his standard speech: “I know you won’t let us down. In the words of our founder, every man and woman is a
star anise
! Perhaps this mission will be the one that cracks the curry enigma? Who can say for sure? But let me tell how our founder evolved his theory. As you know, Sydney Cradle was his name. Halfway through his first Kabuli Chana, an egg in his brain hatched a chickpea of inspiration. The restaurant had more staff than customers. The city, he realised, was full of restaurants hardly anyone ever visited. So how did the management pay the cooks, waiters and dishwashers? This was a paradox. He decided to investigate.”

Mondrian sighs. He does not want to hear this again, it is common knowledge to a spiceman. I feel like the reader of a short story, he decides, whose author must impart information that the characters know already. It comes over clumsily. He frowns unsubtly, but Weiner presses on regardless. “His initial survey showed there were more restaurant seats than curry-eating populace. Yet most establishments managed to remain open. Obviously money was being generated spontaneously on the premises by some unknown and possibly mystic process. Our founder knew exactly what this entailed. The economy was being ruined, slowly and steadily, by a
spicentripetal
force.”

Weiner taps his nose with a long finger. “Oh yes, but we’re not beaten yet. The Greenwich Spice Centre was set up specifically to grate away the root ginger of the problem. Our founder sniffs over all; you are his latest avatar. The day of reckoning is approaching, when cosmic bills will be recalculated and refunds made. Indulge and explore! Glory awaits more golden than any Zafrani Pullao.” Standing aside, he ushers Mondrian out into the day.

The launch pad is a fifteen-minute walk from the Spice Centre. In his suit, Mondrian is reduced to a puppet gait. He takes a traditional route, down Norman Road, over Deptford Bridge and along New Cross Road. Mission Control follow at a respectable distance. When he reaches the exact spot, he stops and takes a deep breath. The Spice Centre no longer use countdowns, it unnerves the men. It is up to the individual to pick the moment. With an odd sort of laugh, one that aptly singes his tongue, Mondrian plunges into the urinous darkness.

He does not have to wait long for a train. He is dimly aware of the others boarding a carriage behind him. Holding onto a strap, he braces himself for the acceleration. As the train builds up speed, he turns and sees Mission Control swinging on their own straps, signalling through the glass of the connecting doors. They are making jokes as they lurch wildly all over the place. Despite this attempt to put him at his ease, he still feels afraid. There are shadowy figures beside him, shapes he cannot quite focus on. Do they exist only in his imagination? They too are dressed in suits, yoghurt tanks strapped to backs. As he tries to pin them down, he realises they have always been with him on missions. Why has he never noticed them before?

From New Cross to Finsbury Park is a complex flight path. He will have to change at Whitechapel, taking the District line to Aldgate East, changing again to the Hammersmith and City line for the short run to Liverpool St. From here, the Central line to Holborn will enable him to make the final approach on the Piccadilly line. There are more direct routes, but this one has been calculated as representing the minimal exposure to the perennial underground hazards of cultural vacuum and gamma-poetry. His heart beats wildly as he makes the first change; his accompanying ghosts follow, some of them. New ones join, all seemingly oblivious of him and each other.

Could these be parallel Khormanauts, from an alternative spicetime continuum? It is a staggering concept, yet the existence of dimensions other than the one based at Greenwich cannot be ignored. Suppose there are also Spice Centres at Kilburn or Sidcup or Putney? They might exist in raw form only, just waiting for the right atmospheric conditions to bubble into this world. Mondrian shivers. Some of the faces are stained with lime pickle. Spicemen returning from difficult missions? The idea is absurd; it irritates like a pappad splinter lodged between the teeth. Still they shimmer out of focus, needing a suitable lens, the bottom of a lager glass, to pull their photons together.

Mondrian decides not to inform Mission Control of his observations. His sanity would be questioned. He reaches into a pocket for his shades and protects his equanimity and his retinas. Sydney Cradle looms in his mind, shaking a finger blistered on the crusts of a million hot Naans. I must persist, Mondrian thinks. But his conscience feels weighted at the wrong end. Something has happened to him; even his nervousness is not of the same order as before. By the time he reaches Finsbury Park, he feels as if a rival has been sewn inside his skin, like a samosa stuffed with cherries instead of chillies. Rising from the tube, tie rolled away from escalator rail, his disgust is too vibrant.

He struggles to orient himself. At first his destination cannot be seen: he has emerged during an eclipse; but as the occluding bus passes, he catches his first glimpse. The restaurant does seem unstable; facade too gaudy, plaster gateway too crumbly. Behind him, Mission Control call indistinct words of encouragement. Once inside, they will still be able to communicate with him, through the plate glass of the re-entry window. But there is a period of raconteur silence when he will be alone in the piquant void: that moment when he passes through the spicelock between the two sets of doors, neither in one world nor the other. Breathing the differently layered air of North London, he struggles to calm his wildly fibrillating taste buds; his saliva mooches.

With a final check on his wallet status, he pushes with icy fingers and enters the spicelock. It is still not too late to abort. A few more paces, however, and he is committed. Now the doorman notices him and opens the second portal; Mondrian steps over the threshold. A sub-waiter is launched from the kitchens, crossing his walk-path at a tangent. “A drink, sir?” Mondrian orders an ethnic lager. This is the pint of no return. He takes a place at a table, twisting the fringes of the red tablecloth with his nervous hands.

In restaurant terms,
The Taste of Asia
is not enormous. There are bigger establishments in Soho: the gassy Mexican giants. But those have only a tiny core and consist mostly of pretentious atmosphere. Eateries such as this are much more dangerous. They generate money too fast; they are centres of activity that warp the entire profession. Mondrian risks a glance over his shoulder. Mission Control are huddling in front of the external menu, pretending to study the prices. They make subtle signs; a hunched Weiner grimaces precise ordering instructions. Bambai Bhajya for Starters, followed by Darchini Aur Suwa-Walla Gajar with a side dish of Piston-Walla Raita and a dozen Bhaturas, all rounded off with Tarbooj Ki Kheer. As a Khormanaut, Mondrian’s palate is licensed only to range the mild and creamy end of the spice-spectrum.

A swarm of waiters is captured by his gravity. They steer with the aid of menus and well-directed sighs. Most overshoot and spiral away to the corners of the establishment. One docks successfully and wields pen and notepad. A sudden depression takes hold of Mondrian. He feels a vast impatience; he has had enough of following orders. After all the dangers of previous missions, they are no closer to understanding the secrets of the Curry-Cosmos. A pinch of recklessness is called for. Savagely, with a defiant snort, he requests the hottest meal in the house. For once he will not cry: “That’s one mild Madras for a man, one extra hot Vindaloo for mankind.” This time he will have the real experience. Departing, the waiter gleams, like a wedge of Badam Paprh.

Mission Control view his disobedience with something akin to panic. Weiner hops on one leg. Mondrian ignores them and concentrates fully on his surroundings. The restaurant, which he initially thought was empty, seems crammed with wispy figures, similar to those he encountered on the tube. A single solid form sits in a dark corner, its back to Mondrian. A fit of trembling seizes the Khormanaut: is he losing his reason? Sipping his beer, he awaits the solar fare.

The kitchen doors swing again; with mounting velocity the plate of steaming lava sputters toward him. With hasty calculations scribbled on a napkin, he predicts its point of collision, clearing the appropriate spot before him. The meal’s course is elliptical: a slingshot round the other living diner, then a sequence of wobbles as it passes translucent patrons. Mondrian swallows dryly; if the angle of service is slightly out, the curry will either bounce off to another table or burn up in his lap. He lifts his drink in preparation.

The touchdown is perfect. Mondrian extends his fork and pokes his dinner in the eye. A thin crust has formed over the scarlet sauce; the tines of his implement shatter it into four continents, which begin to drift apart. One tectonic plate sinks into the magma, bearing a culture of carrots and chopped spinach. Steam gouts from the fissure. The fork bears traces from each strata of the feast; a geology of pain. Waiters go into orbit round the table, shirttails lengthening as they approach the kitchen’s furnaces, stains and sweat evaporating from the fabric. I am afraid, Mondrian realises. It is possible that a waiter will graze his atmosphere, break into a million fragments of politeness and shower radioactive manners on his head.

With a grimace, Mondrian tucks a sample of his meal into the corner of a cheek. The effect is not quite instantaneous; there is enough time to feel a profound regret. He is aware of Mission Control making utterly frenzied recalculations. A minor change in expenses amplifies right down the line: his final mass will be different. As he attempts to swallow, a rogue lentil, encrusted with cayenne pepper to triple its standard size, detaches from the greater mouthful and spirals into a lung. This is what all explorers of international cuisine fear most: a blowout. Oxygen and legume react explosively. The blast scours his throat, dislodging teeth. His vibrating epiglottis sounds the alarm.

A waiter targets his plight, pitcher of iced water held aloft. Half blinded by tears, Mondrian is oblivious of his presence. Rising from his seat, the Khormanaut strikes the descending pitcher. The glass falls and shatters on the table edge; the liquid is quickly absorbed by the cloth. With this second impact, Mondrian’s incisors clatter onto his plate. His frantic report to Mission Control is made with a series of rapid blinks. The loss of enamel tiles is a serious disadvantage for future meals. The waiter flicks a towel at him, though whether in guilt or anger is rather difficult to determine. Mondrian catches him by the collar in an attempt to drag him down, but the spiceman is too debilitated and succeeds only in yanking himself from the table.

Cast adrift in the restaurant, struggling in each other’s arms, the pair lose angular momentum and begin to spiral toward the kitchen. There is terror on the waiter’s face; Mondrian is too dazed to notice. “I want to know the secret!” he wails. “Tell me the answer! How do you manage to stay in business with so few customers? How do you make enough money? Is there a flaw in spicetime on the premises? Do you have connections with minority retail outlets? Tell me about lingerie shops!” Breathlessly, as they pass the inner tables on their doomed course, the waiter points out the ghostly patrons, who look up in misty alarm.