I need a coffee too, now. May said. I’ve fasted enough for today.
She went to the counter and came back with a cup of coffee and a sandwich.
We went to that old house of theirs, she said, stirring her coffee, looking at me in the mirror.
We went straight up to his room. It was the first time we’d ever really been alone together. He switched on the light and stood in the middle of the room, just looking at me. It was such an oddly monastic room — a naked light bulb, stacks of books piled up like old newspapers on the floor, a couple of mats and pillows strewn around — nothing at all to suggest that a grown man sought his comfort there.
He went over to the window and made a great business of opening it, fumbling with the latch, pushing it open and pulling it shut again. Then he turned around — he looked like a boy, so thin, with his small, angular face and his short hair and bright black eyes. He made a rueful kind of face and said something, about how long he’d been hoping …
I had nothing to say. I went up to him and put my hands on his shoulders — he wasn’t much taller than me — and we looked at each other for a long, long time. He was terribly shy, really painfully shy. He wanted to say something — about love or something like that — and I wouldn’t let him, I didn’t want to hear it.
And you? I said.
She picked the plastic spoon out of the cup and twirled it between her fingers. What about me? she said.
Were you in love with him?
I don’t know, she said. How can you expect me to know? What right have you got to ask me that? What do you think I’ve been asking myself these last seventeen years? I don’t know whether any of it was real, whether I was in love with him, or merely fascinated by the sense of defeat that surrounded him. I don’t know whether everything else that happened was my fault: whether I’d have behaved otherwise if I’d really loved him. What do you think I’ve been doing ever since, but trying to cope with that guilt? I don’t know, I simply don’t know — how could I know when the time was so short and there were so many questions? I was so young; I didn’t know what was happening to me.
And so? I said.
She turned away so that I couldn’t see her eyes, even in the mirror.
All I remember, she said, is him saying — you’re my love, my own, true love, my love-across-the-seas; what do I have to do to keep you with me? But it’s just a whisper.
She picked up the posters and the collection boxes and rose to her feet. You take that, she said, thrusting her uneaten sandwich at me. You can wrap it up and take it home. I must go now; it’s late, and I’ve got a meeting to attend. Besides, I’ve got to hand all this money in.
We left the bar together and walked down the lane, in silence. She was awkward now, uncomfortable with me, and once we were back amongst the crowds on Regent Street, she went ahead, leaving me behind. I caught up with her at the entrance to the underground station.
She stopped to look for me, the coin boxes clanging together in her hands, smiling an absurd little smile of apology when her posters jabbed people in the ribs as they streamed past her on their way down to the station. She looked worried and distracted, but the light had caught her blue eyes, and the wind had blown her grey-streaked hair across her face, and suddenly she seemed much younger, very much more like the May I had looked up at all those years ago on that platform at Howrah Station.
I don’t know why I’ve told you all this, she said, when I reached her. I’ve never told anyone else ever before.
Of course not, I said. There was no one else you could tell. No one knew Tridib like I did.
A poster dropped out of her arms and I picked it up and tucked it into her armpit again.
Well, she said, flustered. I must go now; I’m late. The meeting’s probably started already.
Wait, I said. I had to clear my throat before I could go on.
May, I said. About last night: I’m really sorry. I don’t know what else I can say.
That’s all right, she said gruffly. I was a bit scared at the time, but I didn’t really mind — not much, anyway. I was amazed, actually — that anybody should think of me like that.
Really? I said.
Yes, really, she said, smiling.
She gave my hand a squeeze, her coin boxes rattling, and then she was gone.
A few days before I flew back to Delhi, I went to Lymington Road one last time to say goodbye to Mrs Price.
One morning, earlier that week, there had been a knock on my door, not long after dawn.
It was September again now: the short English summer was long gone. It was very cold in the mornings in the ramshackle house in Fulham where I had taken a room. I heard the knock through several layers of blankets. Ignoring it, I turned over and tried to withdraw my extremities from the chilly edges of the bed. The small gas fire in my room had gone out; it worked on five-pence coins, and my stock had run out hours ago. The knocking would not go away, and eventually I had to get out of bed. The room was like an refrigerator, ludicrously so, the window frosted over like an ice-tray. I pulled on my overcoat and hobbled over to the door.
It was Kerry, the American girl who lived in the room next to mine. She was an art student from Seattle and she was spending six months in London before going on to Rome and Paris. We had become good friends in the few months we had spent in the house. There were about half-a-dozen other people in the house, students and itinerants of various kinds, but most of them kept to themselves and few stayed longer than a month. Kerry and I had first met late one July night, on the landing outside our rooms. We had both burst out of our rooms upon hearing a series of loud thuds in the third room on our floor, where a bearded young Scandinavian had recently moved in. It was an oddly disturbing, rather sinister sound, like the cracking of a whip. It was punctuated by long, low moans. I suggested we call the doctor, but Kerry smiled at me wisely and shook her head. No point in doing that, she said. They seem to be enjoying themselves in there. I listened again, and it was obvious soon that she was right. So, instead, she and I went down to the kitchen where she brewed a pot of rosehip tea. She took me to be Chinese at first, perhaps because of my eyes, and though she tried to sound enthusiastic when I explained I was Indian, it was clear that she was disappointed in some way. Later I discovered that she was interested in China because she was on a diet which forbade the consumption of milk and dairy products; having read somewhere that the Chinese didn’t like milk, she had conceived an immediate empathy with that country. Eventually I succeeded in persuading her that I didn’t like milk either, and we became good friends.
Now Kerry was dressed in an ultramarine track suit, and in between knocking on my door she was jogging up and down our landing, her bunched fists pounding on her thighs. She was a good eight inches taller than I, and considerably more powerfully built, with a large, square-jawed face.
Hi! she said. There’s a call for you downstairs. A lady.
She began to giggle, looking at my overcoat. Jesus! she said. You poor little guy; you’re really cold, aren’t you.
She stopped jogging long enough to give me a hug.
You shouldn’t be living in a primitive country like this, she said. You need to be in some place with central heating and hot water, like the States.
You’re right, I said, and followed her as she sashayed down the stairs into the kitchen, where our payphone hung on the wall. She taught me that wonderful word, sashayed, and now, when I think of her, I always see her sashaying along the seaside, somewhere near Seattle.
It was Ila on the phone: it was the first time she had rung me since she and Nick had returned from their honeymoon, some three months before.