Meenakshi: Or foreskin.
Billy: I wouldn’t grab a horse by that.
Meenakshi: Silly Billy! But what is a fetlock then?
Billy: Look up a dictionary — and tell me this afternoon. Or show me.
Meenakshi: Naughty.
Billy [with a sigh]: You’re far naughtier than I am, Meenakshi. I don’t think this is at all a good idea.
Meenakshi: Four o’clock then. I’ll take a taxi. Bye.
Billy: Bye.
Meenakshi: I don’t love you a bit.
Billy: Thank God.
7.23
When Meenakshi returned from her assignation with Billy, it was half-past six, and she was smiling contentedly. She was so pleasant to Mrs Rupa Mehra that it quite unsettled her, and she asked Meenakshi if something was the matter. Meenakshi assured her that nothing at all was the matter.
Lata couldn’t decide what to wear for the evening. She entered the drawing room carrying a light-pink cotton sari, a part of which she had draped over her shoulder. ‘What do you think of this, Ma?’ she said.
‘Very nice, darling,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, and fanned a fly away from Aparna’s sleeping head.
‘What nonsense, Ma, it’s absolutely awful,’ said Meenakshi.
‘It is not at all awful,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra defensively. ‘Pink was your father-in-law’s favourite colour.’
‘Pink?’ Meenakshi started laughing. ‘He liked wearing pink?’
‘On me. When I wore it!’ Mrs Rupa Mehra was angry. Meenakshi had changed from nice to nasty in an instant. ‘If you don’t have any respect for me, at least have respect for my husband. You have no sense of proportion. Going off gallivanting to New Market and leaving Aparna for the servants to take care of.’
‘Now, Ma, I’m sure pink looked lovely on you,’ said Meenakshi in a conciliatory manner. ‘But it’s absolutely the wrong thing for Luts’s complexion. And for Calcutta, and for the evening, and for this kind of society. And cotton just won’t do. I’ll see what Luts has and help her choose something that will make her look her best. We’d better hurry, Arun will be home at any moment, and then we won’t have time for anything. Come on, Luts.’
And Lata was taken in hand. She was finally dressed in one of Meenakshi’s deep-blue chiffon saris which happened to go with one of her own blue blouses. (She had to tuck the sari in considerably more than Meenakshi, since she was a few inches shorter.) A peacock brooch of light blue, dark blue and green enamel, also belonging to Meenakshi, pinned her sari to her blouse. Lata had never worn a brooch in her life, and had to be scolded by Meenakshi into it.
Meenakshi next overruled the tight bun into which Lata usually coiled her hair. ‘That style looks simply too prim, Luts,’ said her mentor. ‘It really isn’t flattering to you. You have to leave it open.’
‘No, I can’t do that,’ protested Lata. ‘It just isn’t proper. Ma would have a fit.’
‘Proper!’ exclaimed Meenakshi. ‘Well, let’s at least soften up the front of it so that you don’t look so schoolmarmish.’
Finally, Meenakshi marched Lata off to the dressing table in her bedroom, and put the final touches to her face with a bit of mascara. ‘This will make your eyelashes look longer,’ she said.
Lata fluttered her eyelashes experimentally. ‘Do you think they’ll fall like flies?’ she asked Meenakshi, laughing.
‘Yes, Luts,’ said Meenakshi. ‘And you must keep smiling. Your eyes really do look appealing now.’
And when she looked at herself in the mirror, Lata had to admit they did.
‘Now what perfume would suit you?’ said Meenakshi aloud to herself. ‘Worth seems about right for you.’
But before she could come to a final decision, the doorbell rang impatiently. Arun was back from Puttigurh. Everyone hopped around and danced attendance on him for the next few minutes.
When he was ready, he became frustrated that Meenakshi was taking so long. When she did finally emerge, Mrs Rupa Mehra stared at her in outrage. She was wearing a sleeveless, low-cut, magenta blouse in open-back choli style, with a bottle-green sari of exquisitely fine chiffon.
‘You can’t wear that!’ gasped Mrs Rupa Mehra, making what in the Mehra family were known as big-big eyes. Her glance veered from Meenakshi’s cleavage to her midriff to her entirely exposed arms. ‘You can’t, you — you can’t. It is even worse than last night at your parents’ house.’
‘Of course I can, Maloos dear, don’t be so old-fashioned.’
‘Well? Are you finally ready?’ asked Arun, looking pointedly at his watch.
‘Not quite, darling. Would you close the clasp on my choker for me?’ And Meenakshi with a slow, sensuous gesture passed her hand across her neck just below her thick gold choker.
Her mother-in-law averted her eyes.
‘Why do you allow her to wear this?’ she asked her son. ‘Can’t she wear a decent blouse like other Indian girls?’
‘Ma, I’m sorry, we’re getting late,’ said Arun.
‘One can’t tango in a dowdy choli,’ said Meenakshi. ‘Come, Luts.’
Lata gave her mother a kiss. ‘Don’t worry, Ma, I’ll be fine.’
‘Tango?’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra in alarm. ‘What is tango?’
‘Bye, Ma,’ said Meenakshi. ‘Tango. A dance. We’re going to the Golden Slipper. Nothing to worry about. There’s just a large crowd and a band and dancing.’
‘Abandoned dancing!’ Mrs Rupa Mehra could hardly believe her ears.
But before she could think of anything to say the little sky-blue Austin had started off on the first leg of the night’s revels.
7.24
Cocktails at the Finlays’ was a hubbub of chatter. Everyone stood around talking about the ‘monsoonish’ weather, which had struck earlier than usual this year. Opinion was divided as to whether today’s tremendous rains were monsoonal or pre-monsoonal. Golf had been quite impossible this afternoon, and though the races at Tollygunge were very rarely cancelled owing to the weather (after all, it was known as the Monsoon Racing Season to distinguish it from the winter one), if the rains were as heavy tomorrow as they had been today, the ground might be complete slush and the going too difficult for the horses. English county cricket too played a large part in the conversation, and Lata heard more than she might have wished to about Denis Compton’s brilliant batting and his left-arm spinners, and how superbly he was doing as captain of Middlesex. She nodded in agreement wherever necessary, her mind on a different cricketer.
About a third of the crowd was Indian: executives of managing agencies like Arun, with a smattering of civil servants, lawyers, doctors and army officers. Unlike in Brahmpur, which she had just been visiting in her thoughts, in this stratum of Calcutta society — even more obviously than at the Chatterjis’—men and women mixed freely and unselfconsciously. The hawk-nosed hostess, Mrs Finlay, was very kind to her and introduced her to a couple of people when she noticed her standing by herself. But Lata felt ill at ease. Meenakshi, on the other hand, was in her element, and her laughter could be heard from time to time tinkling above the general mash of sociable noise.
Arun and Meenakshi were both floating a few inches above the ground by the time they and Lata drove over from Alipore to Firpo’s. The rain had stopped a couple of hours earlier. They drove by the Victoria Memorial, where the ice-cream and jhaal-muri sellers provisioned the couples and families who had come out for a stroll in the comparative cool of the evening. Chowringhee was uncrowded. Even at night the broad and spacious frontage of the street presented an impressive appearance. To the left a few late trams plied along the edge of the Maidan.