The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (30 page)

Theresa stumbled on, past stalls hung with cooking pots. At the end, alleys led off in several directions.

“Janpath Lane,
kahaan hai
?” she asked three old men who sat chewing
paan
. They waggled their heads and pointed in three different directions. What was the name of the sadhu?

It was then that she saw him: a European man pushing his way through the crowd. Dark-haired, drenched in sweat.

“Hey sweetheart, you English?” he asked.

Theresa nodded. He was close to her now, breathing heavily as if he had been running. There was something dodgy about him—stubble, dark glasses. Something feline. She felt a melting sensation in her guts.

“Fuck, am I glad to see you.” He took her arm. “Know the way out of here?”

A
figure squatted in the central strip of grass, spraying it with a hose. Muriel’s rickshaw puttered along, overtaken by cars that rocked it as they passed. Office buildings—Motorola, Meyer Systems—were set back amid landscaped lawns. More buildings were under construction; workmen clambered up flimsy wooden scaffolding, passing each other buckets. It was another world out here, in Silicon Valley.

Ahead, Dorothy’s rickshaw shimmered in the heat. Muriel imagined it disappearing, a mirage. What on earth was the woman doing?

Muriel gripped the rail. In front of her, the driver’s head was wrapped in a dirty cloth. He was an old man, older than she was. He sat hunched in his seat as if he were driving a bumper car. That was how they drove here. She thought of the fairground on Clapham Common, Keith’s small hand in hers. Gypsy Rose Lee—not the real one, she was dead—had told her she would travel. Now Muriel knew what she meant. Maybe this journey would never end. This tattered white ghost would drive her on and on, far into the unimaginable land that lay beyond this city—deserts? Mountains? He would drive through the years until he reached the day of her death and she would dissolve like a mirage.
Peacefully
. And then Leonard would be waiting for her, still young, the handsome young man she had once loved. He had stopped while she had grown older because he existed outside time. They were all waiting—her parents, her brothers and sisters, her husband, Paddy—and now she knew she would meet them. Maybe they were like that flock of parrots—emerald green, exploding from the palm tree as if someone had fired a pistol. Muriel watched the birds. Who knew? Her beliefs were as shaken up as her insides, jolted by the ride. Only one thing was certain and she didn’t want to think about that.

Just then she realized that they had passed Dorothy’s rickshaw. It was parked at the side of the road.

“Stop!” Muriel grabbed the driver’s shoulder. “STOP!” He was skin and bone.

The driver swerved onto the verge and stopped.

“Wait here,” she said. “Don’t move, see?”

He waggled his head. She got herself out.

The other rickshaw was parked outside some gates fifty yards down the road. Next to the gate was a guard’s hut. Dorothy was talking to the gateman who sat inside.

Muriel felt awkward. The BBC lady hadn’t seen her yet, but she was bound to turn around. Muriel would have to say she was worried about her, they were all worried, the way she buggered off without a word to anybody. She might have got lost. In fact she was probably lost now, and asking the way back to the hotel.

Muriel walked along the verge. Cars hurtled past, blowing dust in her face. She and Dorothy were marooned here beside the motorway; they had left the teeming streets behind.

The sign at the gates said T
EXAS
I
NSTRUMENTS
H
EADQUARTERS
B
UILDING
. Through the gates Muriel saw a drive, which led past flower beds to a handsome bungalow. Like their hotel, it was an old building; this place, however, was smartly painted: white with green shutters. Expensive-looking cars, and Jeeps like Keith’s, were parked outside. Next to it was a patch of waste ground where piglets snuffled plastic bags.

Dorothy still hadn’t noticed her. She was leaning on her cane and gesturing with her free hand. The
chowkidar
was an old man wearing a gray uniform.

Muriel walked nearer. Dorothy sounded exasperated. She jabbered away in a strange language. The traffic drowned the words. The old guard frowned at her.
Talk to him in English, ducks
, urged Muriel.

“Mai is ghar mey rehti thi!”
Dorothy raised her voice. “I’m dotty!” she cried.

Muriel, standing behind her, caught the man’s eye. She tapped her temple conspiratorially. Screw loose.

“I’m little dotty!” cried Dorothy.

Not a little, darling. A lot.

Dorothy shouted: “I’m little Dotty! Dorothy! Don’t you remember me?”

Muriel stepped up to her and touched her arm. “Come on, love. Time to go home.”

Dorothy swung around. Her eyes glittered. “He doesn’t recognize me! This is my house, I used to live here. His father was our driver, he and I used to play together when we were little!” She didn’t seem to register Muriel at all; she was too upset. “He doesn’t recognize me!” She turned to the gateman.
“Mai Mr. Miller ki beti hoo!”

It was then that the
chowkidar
realized. A smile broke out on his face.

“Dotty?” he asked in a strangled voice.

He stumbled out of his hut. For a moment it seemed that Dorothy was going to hug him. She recovered, however, and put out her hand. The old man shook it. Then they both burst into tears.

T
heresa flung herself back and lay beside Keith. Their bodies were slippery with sweat; the sheet was bunched up under their feet. They lay there panting like dogs. Above them the fan creaked around.

After a while their breathing returned to normal. They both burst out laughing.

“Go on,” he said. “You were saying?”

“What was I saying?” Outside the sun was sinking; his hotel room was bathed in golden light.

“What you were doing in the bazaar.”

“Oh, I was looking for a sadhu,” Theresa said.

“A saddo?”

“No! A sadhu. A holy man.”

“You don’t need a holy man,” he said. “Look, you can worship me.”

Theresa propped herself on her elbow. She ran her finger down Keith’s chest—tanned above the waist, paler below. “Fancy yourself, don’t you?” she said.

He grinned. She touched the damp hairs around his cock. He had the most beautiful cock she had ever seen. So many men’s were red and angry, bursting at the veins with aggression. They seemed disconnected to their sometimes inoffensive owners. Keith’s was smooth and beige, a natural part of his body.

It seemed perfectly natural, too, to have gone to bed with him. She had just done it, just like that.
Making love
seemed an inappropriate phrase for two people who had only met a couple of hours ago;
having sex
, however, didn’t seem the right words either for such an incandescent experience. Such rapture.

“An old woman sent me to see him,” she said. “A funny old baggage at the hotel I’m staying at. The last sort of person to seek a sadhu, one would have thought.” She hooked her foot around Keith’s. He held it between his own feet.

“Why were
you
there?” she asked. “In the bazaar?”

“It’s a bit of a long story. Let’s just say somebody sent me there to meet somebody but I smelled a rat.”

“Only one? I saw about six.”

“It was a setup,” Keith said. “I realized that just before I saw you. Can’t tell you how glad I was. See, I’ve been in a spot of trouble.”

“Tell me about it,” she said. “I’m a counselor.”

“Don’t need a counselor, darling. I need a hit man.”

A thrill shot through her. “Are you a criminal then?”

“I’m a businessman.”

You’re not, Theresa thought. You’re an animal, in the purest, most ravishing sense. “You’ve been doing something dodgy, though,” she said.
Dodgy
. The word made her shiver. “Hindus believe that if you do something bad, you pay for it in the next life.”

“No you don’t, love. You go to prison.” Keith rolled on top of her. “Anyone told you you’ve got the sexiest mouth?” He kissed her deeply.
Seriously
. It sucked the breath out of her body. He moved his head down and ran his tongue between her breasts, down to her belly.

“Don’t,” she said. “I’m so fat.”

“You’re not, you’re gorgeous.” He licked her navel. “A gorgeous woman.”

“I feel so flabby.”

“Don’t be stupid.” He shifted around between her legs, lay upside down on her and rummaged on the floor for his cigarettes. Theresa thought: I don’t even know his surname. I don’t want to know. I just want to lie here, with the weight of him between my thighs, until it gets dark. She stroked his buttocks as he lit up. Smoke curled up from the end of the bed.

She hadn’t done this in a long time. Six years, in fact; a drunken cellist, after a party. How strange and lovely it was, that bodies could be so companionable.

“I’ve always wanted to do Tantric sex,” she said. “You can go on and on, apparently, without an orgasm.”

“Sounds a daft idea to me,” he said. He moved back and flung himself beside her.

“You just apply pressure to the chakras,” she said. “You release vital energy without penetration. Hours and hours you can do it.”

“Sounds like the plumber,” he said. “You stay in all day and nobody comes.”

Theresa burst out laughing. It was an unfamiliar sensation.

“Into all that stuff, are you?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Don’t tell me. You’re a vegetarian.”

“No I’m not,” she replied.

“Thank God for that.”

She lifted his cigarette from his fingers and took a drag. “I’m a vegan.”

Keith snorted with laughter. “I’d kill for sausage and chips.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Too bloody long.” He paused dreamily: “And a bottle of Rioja.”

“You don’t look like—well, the sort of English person one finds here.”

“I told you. It’s business.”

They lay there. She watched the smoke rings rise toward the ceiling. She hardly dared look at him, he stopped her heart.

His fingers laced through hers.

“I’m so happy,” she said. “It’s simple, isn’t it?”

Outside, the muezzin called through the loudspeaker for evening prayers. The sound echoed in the street. She had no idea where the hotel was. Out near the airport somewhere, in a scruffy little commercial area.

“How old are you?” She wanted to call him
darling
but she couldn’t make it sound natural.

“Fifty-two.”

They were near enough in age, but what different lives had led them to this disordered bed. She had never been intimate with a man like Keith before; he wasn’t her type.

Yes he was. Did he have a wife? Her professional life was spent listening, but just now she didn’t want to hear.

“I’ve been traipsing round ashrams,” she said.

“Now why would you want to do a thing like that?”

“Good question,” she said.

Keith laid her hand on his chest and stroked each of her fingers, one by one.

“Families and stuff, I suppose,” she said. “Families are so complicated, aren’t they.”

He shifted on top of her and reached out to stub his cigarette in the saucer on the bedside table.
Don’t move
.

“Look at my free gift.” He gave her a small square envelope: Businessman Kit. “Open it.”

Inside she found a paper clip, a rubber band and a small Biro.

“That’ll come in useful,” she said. “For your business.”

“Very handy.”

They laughed. Maybe it really was this simple. Do business with the aid of a paper clip. Lie in bed with a stranger who has a boxer’s broken nose and a tattoo on his shoulder.

“I’ve been traveling light too,” she said. “Well, most of my things got stolen.” The molten light shone on his possessions, heaped in the corner: an open suitcase, a laptop, some papers. She said: “I had this dream of shedding everything and just—being. You know?”

“What I miss is the swimming pool,” Keith said.

“You’ve got a swimming pool?”

“Back in Chigwell. Kept it heated all year round, cost an arm and a leg. The kids used to drop stuff in it, crisps and stuff, drove me round the bend.”

Kids
. Theresa paused. “Do you miss them?”

“They’re not mine. Tell the truth, it’s my mum I miss the most. Keep phoning her but there’s no reply. I told Sandra to look after her, but Sandra’s fucked off. God knows where.” He sat up abruptly, swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. “I’m ravenous, darling. Want something to eat?”

“I can’t. My mother will be worried.” Oh dear, that sounded dowdy. “I’m staying with her at this hotel full of old people, a sort of retirement place.”

“I want my mum to go to one of them but she’s too blooming proud.”

“So I suppose I ought to go back.”

“Suit yourself.” He pulled on his boxer shorts. They were printed with little locomotives. Only a woman would buy boxer shorts like that. Now that she looked at Keith properly, she was gratified to see that he was thickening around the waist.

“I’d rather have dinner with you,” she said.

“Know something, babe?” He zipped up his trousers. “You saved my life out there.”

“Really?”

He lunged toward her, cupped her chin in his hands and kissed her eyes, one and then the other. Then he sat down and put on his shoes. His Rolex caught the setting sun. She reached for her clothes.

“I’m going to take you shopping,” he said.

“What?”

“Those pajama-things do nothing for you. I’ll take you out tomorrow, okay?”

She smiled. “Okay, Keith Whatever-your-name-is.”

S
onny got the idea on the way home. They were driving along Sixth Street, a residential area. In one of the houses a wedding was taking place. Fairy lights were slung through a neem tree; a row of cars was parked outside.

It was then, sitting there seething about Norman Purse, that Sonny had one of his eureka moments. It was an idea so staggeringly bold, so bloody appropriate, that he chuckled out loud.