The Cambridge Curry Club (2 page)

‘Of course I know about these things. So unnatural, but anyway, thank God this problem is not there in good Indian families.’ A practised angler,
Swarnakumari
fished in the black bag. ‘Look, a fur coat. Fur. Can it be real?’

Eileen gave the coat a brief examination. ‘Fake.’

Swarnakumari continued as she found a hanger for the coat, ‘So many people have so many problems in this world; look at these poor villagers in Rajasthan for whom we are raising money. They have no running water, no electricity. Guru Ma says we must always remember there are many more who have much less.’

Durga mused, ‘My former supervisor here in
Cambridge
was gay, and he had more than most. Termtime tutorial visits were only between one and three in the afternoons. Whenever I left at three, I saw a Lebanese student bounding up the stairs for “happy hour”. And I could tell you a story or two about the Formal Hall dinners. Some female students at the tables wore more or less nothing under their gowns. You might say those who had less had much more.’

Swarnakumari looked shocked as Heera asked, ‘Really? I always wondered what went on behind those college gatehouses. What’s a Formal Hall dinner?’

‘College dinner in an echoing hall a few times during term. Stern portraits on the walls. Sherry in the Fellows’ Drawing Room. Grace in Latin followed by
dinner of warmed tart of broccoli and red onion topped with Emmental and watercress, escalopes of beef,
dauphinois
potatoes, apple and cinnamon flan with vanilla ice cream, finishing with coffee and Cambridge mints. Everyone waits until High Table departs, and then the fun begins.’

There was the sound of a drill. Heavy boots crossed the floor overhead.

‘There he goes again,’ cried Heera in irritation. ‘Vroom vroom. One of these days, I am going to ask that man what he is doing in the room upstairs.’

‘Perhaps he could use the blond wig and whip?’ suggested Durga.

‘Who?’ asked Swarnakumari.

‘The man upstairs, who else could we mean?’ replied Heera.

‘What do you want to do with these crutches?’ demanded Eileen. ‘They were lying next to the same bag.’

‘Crutches and whip from the same donor? Which of the two gets a person walking faster?’ wondered Durga.

‘Heera, why should we keep these crutches in the shop? Can we not offer them to Ritu’s mother-in-law? You told me she has recently broken her leg,
na
,’
proposed
Swarnakumari kindly.

‘Has she really broken her leg, or has her son broken her heart by marrying Ritu?’ Durga was intrigued. ‘Anyway, who is this ever-ready to beddy,
teddy-wearing
Ritu?’

‘She lives on Fendon Road. Her husband Raj always looks deep into her eyes. He squeezes her waist like a lemon all the time,’ sighed Heera wistfully.

‘Juicy stuff,’ was Durga’s comment.

‘How is it that they can always be so romantic, even after so many years? It must be all those dates they ate when they were living in Dubai,’ concluded Heera spitefully.

‘Fake,’ repeated Eileen before disappearing to replace a roll in the till machine.

Raj was inseparable from Ritu’s waist at parties, and as soon as the women disappeared into the kitchen and the men held their whisky glasses aloft in the living room, he challenged other husbands into true
confessions
. When was the last time they had sent flowers or chocolates to their wives? He, on the other hand, knew the gift for Ritu’s every mood. Her favourite bouquet consisted of eleven red roses and a single yellow stem. Wispy teddies were her undoing, he admitted with a wink. Mohan Karnani bent forward in bluff
incomprehension
. What were ‘teddies’? Raj roared, patting Mohan’s shoulder affectionately as he described the garment. It was short and didn’t stay on long, he said, with another wink, as the other men shuffled with guilty feet.

‘If only Raj would escort his mother to the Moulin Rouge instead, voilà, she would ditch the crutches and kick the stick habit,’ said Durga.

‘So what do you want to do with the crutches?’ asked Eileen doggedly, as she reappeared clutching a book on mountaineering in the Balkans.

Every object handled by Eileen had its place, a
number
, a weight, a size, a shape and a space at IndiaNeed – and in her ordered universe. Chaos belonged to scientific theory, not in a charity shop.

‘How many are there?’ inquired Swarnakumari.

‘It’s a “Buy one, get one free” deal,’ teased Durga.
‘Two. Do you think we all need crutches,
metaphorically
speaking, that is, to get through life?’ She gazed at the passersby bent against the curling wind. ‘Perhaps crutches can never be given up or away. They are the desire and the dream that keep us breathing. And from walking. Away, that is.’

Durga was accustomed to the silence that invariably followed her observations. Eileen hovered until Heera spat impatiently, ‘
Arre
, just put them anywhere.’

‘And what is this, now?’ demanded Swarnakumari, retrieving a large box. ‘Oh, it says on the cover that it is a machine for checking blood pressure.’ She forced open the lid.

‘It’s a toy gun,’ said Eileen with her usual grim composure as Swarnakumari recoiled at the contents. ‘What do you want to do with it?’

‘Scare the Korean girls? Price it and put it in the window?’ mocked Durga.

The shop bell tinkled, and Heera emerged from behind the curtain as a young woman entered.

‘Oh, hello, where are the children’s bicycles?’ asked the eager customer. ‘I’m looking for one for my little girl, a pink Barbie one.’

‘I’m sorry, but we don’t have any.’

‘You did have one. I saw it outside your shop last week,’ insisted the woman.

‘Yes, but we sold it, madam. You can see for yourself, there are no more bicycles here.’

Heera returned to the Staff Area as the customer departed. ‘If we get one bloody bicycle in six months, does this mean we’ve become Halfords?’

‘We could rename the shop Wellington’s Wheels and Deals, or Smythe’s Bikes for Tikes,’ quipped Durga.

As she returned to the table, Heera continued, ‘Girls, today’s black bags are very strange. First manky trousers, then blond wig, knickers and teddy, then whip, crutches and blood-pressure kit with a toy gun inside.’

‘Send the whole lot to Rupert darling,’ Durga drawled.

‘It is rude to talk about the husband of Mrs
Wellington-Smythe
like that,’ admonished Swarnakumari.

‘D’you know, the Heart to Heart shop got a 1917 diary the other day?’ revealed Heera. ‘A woman had sent love letters to her soldier fiancé, and she kept
writing
to him even after she knew he was dead. It was in the papers, didn’t you read about it? And look at us – when we got a decent oil-painting two weeks ago, those stupid Korean girls sold it while it was waiting to be valued.’

‘You mean the portrait of the dimpled heavenly cherub? Its hands were a bit fluttery. I’d get rid of it in any language,’ Durga ventured.

Swarnakumari was defensive. ‘We do get good things in this shop. Otherwise I would not be working here,
na
.’

The shop items passing through Swarnakumari’s keen hands underwent a primary test of usefulness to the Chatterjee family, other volunteers at the shop and selected members of the Cambridge Indian
community
, after which time-consuming procedure she reluctantly considered the items for window display. A consignment of red and black porcelain mugs with
Mad Cow Mother-in-Law Disease
inscribed above the face of a scowling woman left Swarnakumari unmoved despite the magic words
Made in England
on the underside.
Durga used one for coffee breaks at the shop, but the rest lay neglected on a shelf until purchased by a
taciturn
Bulgarian language student who was brilliant at mathematics but struggled with his English. Eileen had silently pointed to the words
Mad Cow Mother-
in-Law
Disease
, and he had merely nodded. The meeting of minds over mathematics never took place. It was one of those encounters bursting at the bud, like the
thousands
in the lifetime of an individual, that, but for chance or fate, lead nowhere.

Heera moved forward to answer the insistent
telephone
. ‘IndiaNeed … Yes, Mrs Wellington-Smythe, it is Heera here … No, I’m sorry, I was a little late today because I wasn’t feeling … It was only ten minutes after ten … Yes, the shop should be opened on time, I am very sorry. Next time I’ll … Yes, it is important for the customers … Yes, they come first … No, we haven’t heard anything new about the missing items … Yes, of course I shall let you know … You’ve found a new volunteer to join us? That’s very good … Yes, goodbye.’

She stormed back to the sorting table. ‘How many times does Lady Di need to ask me about those missing items?
Arre
, once they’re gone, they’re gone. Is the thief going to come back and say, “Here, you can have them back, I’m having a bad hair day, now please arrest me?” And making such a big fuss over my coming late this morning! I wasn’t feeling well, and I almost didn’t come at all. Everyone has his or her problems, right? And every time I answer the telephone, why does she ask me who’s speaking? Shouldn’t she recognise my voice by now?’

A female pensioner entered as Eileen continued to
count the pieces in the cutlery boxes. Despite her record as an inspiring mathematics teacher, Eileen had been dismissed by the Village College where she was Head of the Department, as soon as she crossed her sixtieth birthday in June. A number had been the final betrayal. Her husband, a plumber, had recently
discovered
his body’s tendency to spring leaks of its own, and so the pipes were no longer calling ‘Danny Boy’ as he retired, driving Eileen out of their home in secret desperation.

There had been a child once; an engaging
curly-haired
boy of six, struck down by a speeding van
outside
the school gates as Eileen watched. For days she stayed in his room, rocking back and forth on his bed, hugging his clothes close to her chest. Mathematics and the Catholic Church had provided succour, and she had plunged gratefully into the worlds of numbers and rosary beads.

Eileen had been the shop’s first volunteer. Every Thursday, she bustled quietly, her bright eyes
inquiring
of the objects she constantly rearranged whether life was an endless equation. The shop items became
mathematical
digits to contemplate in endless combinations: she placed a bunch of yellow recycled pencils at five pence each along with elephant key chains and beaded pens and colourful Rajasthani cloth puppets and McDonald’s Happy Meal toys in a wicker tray near the till, returning almost immediately to remove the pens and look anew at the configuration.

Heera continued to fold the clothing in silence. She had been appointed the manager of IndiaNeed ten days after her seventeenth wedding anniversary, and sought solace in work with fierce dedication, a quality Diana
Wellington-Smythe astutely exploited. It was on their anniversary that Heera’s husband Bob had told her of his terrible secret, unwittingly timing it to the day when she began her first course of hormone replacement therapy.

CHAPTER TWO

A trouble shared is a trouble halved

I
T WAS
15 A
UGUST
, the anniversary of India’s Independence and of their marriage. Heera Malkani Moore still celebrated the first of the two with pride. She looked at her husband, Bob; he was sprawled across the bed, his mouth slightly open in sleep. How thin his lips were, she thought, a gingery grey for a sunny day.

‘Adam!’ he had called out gruffly, and she awoke instantly. Who was Adam? she wondered.

Heera’s transparent, bubbly exterior concealed an edgy sexuality; she was a forgotten kettle boiling over. Only once had she known real passion, at eighteen, with lithe Javed in his tight blue Terylene trousers. He had exuded an animal vigour, demonstrating clever stealth in their assignations. Heera cherished a velvet memory; they had watched the teen romance
Bobby
in the back row at the local cinema in Hyderabad, and Javed’s fingers had splayed interrogatively across her breasts while he popped peanuts into his mouth with his other hand. He had retained a last peanut for the moment when the lights came on, despatching it with
studied nonchalance as other couples leaped to their feet to shuffle demurely out of the hall.

Bob’s contribution to the anniversary was a generous Marks & Spencer gift voucher. On the advice of his aunt he had presented Heera with English cookery books to mark the first, and Heera had dutifully noted the recipes for Yorkshire pudding and mince pies. On the second anniversary he took her to a caravan site in Cornwall. Heera now used the vouchers to buy white six-pack tummy control undergarments.

On every anniversary and several times through the year, Heera entertained the local Asian community as well as Bob’s friends and colleagues in their spacious semi-detached house on Tenison Road. The front door was decorated with an Indian floral garland from which a green chili and lemon were suspended. The men huddled over the whisky and the women flocked to the large floral Chesterfield and overflowed onto the red Persian carpet. The guests departed at midnight with a lover’s lingering touch of Indian spice in their hair, coats and eyes. ‘I should call this house “Heera Hotel”, complained Heera. ‘I get absolutely knackered with all these people coming and not going.’ It never occurred to her that she had a choice.

Once inside the door, her overnight guests
succumbed
to the languorous air, moving from one
calorieladen
meal to the next in a stupor, too soporific to consider the red Cambridge sightseeing bus that departed hourly from the station. Bob frequently returned to slipper-shod strangers wandering with easy familiarity in his home. Standing on his doorstep one evening a few years ago, he was welcomed by a large woman in a shimmering red salwar kameez. She giggled
coyly. Several perspiring strangers were executing
various
dance poses on his carpet, a large woman whacked a
dholak
with podgy fingers and her listless companion sang tunelessly to the strains of a wheezing harmonium.

Another woman and her bowed daughter were straining over the guests’ outstretched palms,
squeezing
intricate mehndi patterns with weary flourish through tiny cones.

‘
Arre jaan
, where did you come from?’ cried Heera, aghast. ‘You had said you were coming home late. We are having a mehndi party. No men allowed.’

The large woman gushed, ‘Poor man, let him be. He can be the gora Krishna, our white Krishna among the gopis. Come, come,
chalo
Bob, you must also dance!’ She dragged him into the circle of giggling women. A shrill Bollywood tune sprang to life on his stereo
system
operated by a hard-faced stranger with a diamond stud in her nose, and the large woman shook her hips suggestively, hiding her face behind her shiny dupatta. The women tittered as Bob ducked like a diver in a scuba suit wandering into a May Ball by accident.

‘Come, Heera, I will read your hand before you have your mehndi put,’ offered a large woman in a purple sari, who fanned herself vigorously. Bob watched as Heera was led to a couch.

‘Heera, you give only happiness wherever you go. It is in your bhagya, in your destiny,’ declared the woman. ‘Your husband is a very lucky man.’

Heera smiled.

‘But what is this?’ queried the woman in deliberate tones. ‘
Hai
, what is this? You are blessed by the
Goddess
Lakshmi herself, but you were not meant to have
any children?’ Deliberately ascending an octave, she repeated, ‘There is no line at all in your palm. How can that be?’

Heera glanced at Bob in the silence. She had looked stricken, he thought later, as he stood in front of the mirror, removing his tie. Unfathomably stricken, for he recalled his question to her in Hyderabad: could she contemplate a life with him and without children? She had appeared not to hesitate in accepting his proposal.

Their announcement to Heera’s flabbergasted family led to the appointment of a lynx-eyed chaperone
waiting
for gora Bob to make an unlicensed move. Cinema visits were conducted without peanuts and in the
company
of curious relatives eager to behold Heera’s white fiancé in the dark.

Tonight, on the evening of his seventeenth
anniversary
party, Bob felt constricted by the tight collar of the white sherwani he wore, although a frail little man in a black sherwani holding a whisky glass appeared to suffer no such discomfort.

‘Brahma-ji, you are such an expert in English
Literature
, and we haven’t heard your recitations for a long time. Why don’t you give us all a demonstration?’ prompted Heera gaily.

‘Su-er,’ assented the little man in a pronounced Sindhi accent. He handed his whisky glass to Heera and moved to the centre of the room to sit cross-legged on the carpet. There was a hush as, arm raised to render a qawali, he announced, ‘Hamlet’. It sounded like ‘omelette’. His voice boomed:

There was a thin ripple of applause. Brahma
Mansukhani
was a retired doctor from Bradford, who had once been travelling in a minicab that was blocked by a red Ford Fiesta. Three young men wearing balaclavas sprang from the darkness, brandishing knives at the driver, wrenched the car door open, punched his face, took his money and vanished. They failed to notice the tiny terrified doctor slumped low, cowering in the back. The next day his son, a locum at a pharmacy, appeared before the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, charged with the unlawful sale of prescription painkillers. The
combined
shock could have rollercoasted the little doctor to drink, but he had turned to the Bard instead.

His mentor’s birthday on 23 April filled him with a religious fervour of such potency that he undertook an annual pilgrimage to Stratford-upon-Avon. Then he read of the controversy over the Bard’s precise date of birth in April. A cautious man, he now celebrated at home for an entire month.

The chance discovery of an anagram website that had rearranged the letters ‘William Shakespeare’s birthday’ into ‘April’s skies: we may hail the Bard’ filled his days with activity as he created his own anagrams from
various Shakespearean plays to post on the Internet. His attempt to rearrange his own name ‘Brahma
Mansukhani
’ concluded abruptly after the emergence of the embarrassing configuration ‘Bra Man Khan’.

While ‘Shakespeare’ trilled in the centre of the living room, Bob stood on the patio, a large, bluff man like a farmer without his wellingtons. He thought again of Heera’s wounded glance. Charlie (Chandru) and Barry (Bhagat) called out goodnaturedly for whisky refills as they admired his artificial Japanese garden. A few
minutes
earlier, Bob had slipped upstairs, crossed over to the window and looked out onto the street,
deliberating
before he dialled. ‘Adam Russell,’ answered a man’s voice. Bob replaced the receiver without speaking. His palms were sweaty as he descended the stairs to serve apple juice to the owner of a London frozen food
company
who urged his sympathetic listeners, ‘We need more burial sites in this country, and we must have burial within twenty-four hours.’

‘Have I ever introduced you to Lord Bijlani?’ asked Heera, linking her arm in Bob’s, guiding his reluctant feet across the room.

‘A peer?’

‘
Arre
no,
jaan,
his first name is “Lord”. What clever parents – why didn’t they call him “Lakhu”? This way, everyone thinks he’s an MP sitting in the House of Lords. Anyway, he’s in the manufacturing business, he makes leather seats for luxury cars. He was also in some insurance scam. His bossy mother lives with him and everyone knows she sits on his head, so he can’t find a wife,’ whispered Heera in a tumble of words.

Lord Bijlani wore a black leather jacket and tight leather jeans; his fitted shirt was unbuttoned to display
a gold chain. He squealed and kissed Heera soundly and roundly on both cheeks. Was the leather of his jacket the same as the fabric of his car seats? wondered Bob, as he offered him a drink, aching to hear the cool voice at the other end of the telephone. On his way upstairs, he was stopped by a man with greasy hair and piercing eyes. ‘I am Dr Sridhar T. I cure incurable
illnesses
,’ he announced, thrusting a visiting card into Bob’s hands. He moved away, but returned an instant later. ‘Slight spelling mistake in card. Printing was done in India, but do read.’

Bob read obediently:
People loose valuable things in life. Without Health life is nothing. Patient cured includes many Business magnets, many M.PS, M.L.A’s. Successful
treatments
by Dr. Sridhar T for Intestine disc’s, gynaecological disc’s, sexual disc’s, baby of choice.

Dr Sridhar was a ‘world-renowned miracle doctor’ visiting England. His previous surgery had been
conducted
three evenings a week at a school hall in his Indian hometown. A new patient entering the hall was presented with a token and seated among a few
hundred
people in perpetual motion. The newcomer was then sent to men and women in white coats in a tiny room, and Dr Sridhar stepped forward. As the patient opened his mouth for a mandatory inspection, several heads peered in as one, notes were taken, glances exchanged and little white pills prescribed by Dr Sridhar, to be taken twice a day after meals. Despite the fact that only the tongue was on display, the patient came away feeling undressed.

Dr Sridhar’s wife, Manjula, was a tall woman with a face the shape of the full moon. Placid and calm, she bore her sister-in-law’s harassment with equanimity.
Radiant in her third month of pregnancy, she initially dismissed a mound of curly human hair, red chillies and a doll stuffed with pins on her pillow as a childish prank. When she gave birth to a deformed child,
Manjula
shrieked it was the hand of voodoo, but remained unsupported in her conviction. The baby died within days, and a year later Manjula became the wild-eyed mother of a healthy boy, but still slipped into
postnatal
depression, a condition that remained undetected by her husband. She attempted suicide, mistakenly swallowing the pills he prescribed to his patients instead of the sleeping pills purchased for the overdose, but survived, recovering the calm of thin ice. Manjula was living testimony to both the failure and success of her husband’s little white pills.

Bob slipped away from the doctor, excitement
driving
him upstairs.

‘I know it’s you, Bob,’ accused the voice.

Bob stared silently out of the window, telephone in hand.

‘We can’t go on like this. You know that. Tell her. Tell her now.’

O Romeeeo, O Romeeeo, wherephore art thou Romeeeo,
wailed the cross-legged ‘Shakespeare’ as Bob wandered in a daze into the hallway and into his study. Eight children were on the carpet watching a Bollywood film in a room overflowing with laundry baskets, books and a computer on a tiny table. A photograph of Heera in a bridal sari stared back at his shuttered eyes as a plate of tikkis and chutney hovered over his shoulder. ‘There you are,
jaan
,’ chided Heera. ‘Why are you here? There are so many people you must meet – how can you
neglect
your guests? Come outside, come look after them.’

A voice yelled, ‘Heera, forget your
bak bak.
Talk later, go to the kitchen, your kebabs are going to burn.’

Heera peered into the oven and retrieved a steaming tray of kebabs. ‘This is Sam. She works at Smith’s. You know, the curtain shop on Burleigh Street. She’s the one with the tattoo on her thingy,’ said Heera on her way out to serve the kebabs.