‘Shut up.’ There was an altogether different tone — saturated with hate — in Greg’s order now.
With one seamless movement of his strong arms, he had Ritwik crouching face down and knees bent on the seat. He unzipped his fly, bent down on his knees and attempted to mount Ritwik from behind, all the while trying to clamp his hands over Ritwik’s mouth. Ritwik struggled furiously to free himself and Greg kept hissing, ‘Stay fucking down or I’ll really hurt you.’ Ritwik managed to say, ‘No, no, condoms’, before turning himself on his back, using a split second’s let-up of pressure from the man’s arms. Greg was looming over him, his face twisted with hate and rage. He hit Ritwik twice; the confinement and awkward positions took away some of the impact of the blows but he could taste the salt-metal tang in his mouth immediately. As he lifted his arms to shield himself, his hands hit the glass of the window and caught the door lock. In a reflex action of survival, he pressed it and headbutted the door open, pushing his head out of the car.
The inverted world swung for a few seconds, the dull reddish night sky rimmed around with the tops of buildings. He pushed with his feet and tried to get his shoulders and torso out of the car. Once his hands were out in the open, he half turned on his waist, put his palms on the wet ground, and made an effort to crouch out. In the process, the stiletto heel caught Greg in his groin; with a sharp, loud ‘Fuck, fuck’, he pushed Ritwik out of the car with such force that his whole body fell out, contorted and heaped, arse on gritty road, elbows scraped, the bra hitched up on to his shoulders, and the lacy underwear now loosely tying his ankles.
All this took place so quickly that it surprises Ritwik now, more than three weeks after the event, that he had had the presence of mind to stand upright, naked except for a bra dangling from his shoulders and a pair of knickers held to his groin with one hand, rush to the front of the car, one stiletto in hand, and shout, ‘I have your registration number. If you don’t throw my clothes out, right now, I’m going to break your windscreen with this shoe.’
Greg threw out his clothes one by one. Jeans, T-shirt, jumper, no underwear, no socks and only one shoe. Before he had a chance to pick them off the road, Greg moved to the front seat and drove off, his tyres screeching out his rage. What an utter waste of an evening, he had thought; not only did he not get any money, but he actually lost some in the form of a new pair of shoes he would now be forced to buy.
Ritwik didn’t go back to King’s Cross for nearly a month.
The car is so ludicrously classy that it brings out the skeletal girls — underdressed children, really, all gangly arms and bones and the shadow of night under their eyes — the fat ladies and the lost, indeterminate ones in between, one by one, like victims of famine emerging from bushes and rocks and clumps of scrub. Something in the way these creatures appear, as if from nowhere, and take their positions along the pavement with such premeditated casualness at the smell of possible business, brings to his mind pictures of starving people weakly emerging from behind a crag until what was barren ground becomes magically populated with the remnants of human beings. This could be business, although he assumes, from the car and its obviously unseasoned driver (who else would cruise these streets so brazenly, and in such a car, if not someone utterly unfamiliar with the area?), it is probably not going to be for him.
So he decides to get out of the competition by making his way through to another, darker sidestreet. The car moves in his general direction. Ritwik takes a right and then a left. He succeeds in shaking off the car only to find, a minute later, that it is directly in front, moving slowly towards him. He turns 180 degrees and reenters the street he emerged from minutes ago. The car follows him into All Saints Street. By now, there is no doubt the driver is tailing him. His heart lifts — money, at last — at the same time as there is the old, familiar grip in his bowels.
He stands against a postbox, staring insolently at the car. It moves past him — it is too dark to make out the person inside — takes a right turn at the end of the street and disappears.
Everything inside him deflates.
He moves in the opposite direction, towards York Way. He toys with the idea of going to Central Station and picking up the sad leftovers at closing time.
And then the car is right ahead of him. He pretends he hasn’t seen it and walks past it. The passenger door opens, the driver bends down, cranes his neck and gestures with his hand for Ritwik to climb in.
The man is probably of Middle Eastern origin, Ritwik takes a guess as he belts up. Late thirties to mid forties, spreading middle, moustache, salt and pepper hair, and the twilight of a stereotypical Arab handsomeness dying with a final flourish. His first words, in his flawless English accent, are impossibly absurd, ‘What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?’
Ritwik, incredulous, looks at him to figure out whether this is self-conscious parody. There are no clues to read. His laugh, which would have been open had he been able to ascertain the nature of the chat-up line, is slightly guarded and nervous. He says, ‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘Well. .’ he shrugs.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Aren’t you going to take me some place?’ This time, the man’s eyes are smiling.
Ritwik is thrown by the question. He stammers out, ‘I. . I live some distance away, and. . and. . it’s not really. . suitable.’
‘Then we can go back to mine. Is that all right?’
Ritwik nods. This is going all wrong, certainly not according to the interactions he has been used to or expecting. Since when did clients ask him his opinion? Since when did they behave like polite and gentle pick-ups in a somewhat fast-tracked dating scene? As the car — a Bentley, he learns later — negotiates its way south through Gray’s Inn Road, he regrets having said yes to the stranger’s offer of taking him back to his place. The familiar fears and misgivings of getting into a stranger’s car darken his thoughts again. At least in the back streets of King’s Cross, he is on his own territory, more or less. But now. .
‘Penny for your thoughts.’
Ritwik notes the archaism; presumably, the man was brought up in a former colony, like he was, on staples such as Enid Blyton, P.G. Wodehouse and Jennings, Biggles and Billy Bunter.
Before he can reply, the man throws him again by extending his left hand sideways to him. ‘Zafar. Nice to meet you.’
Ritwik shakes his hand and adds his name.
‘Say that again?’
‘Rit-wik.’ It hasn’t occurred to him to use something concocted, something easier, less unfamiliar.
The next few predictable questions are avoided by a tricky traffic move. Once past that, Zafar says, ‘I’m taking you to my hotel.’
‘Oh. Which one?’
‘The Dorchester. Do you know it?’
‘No, I don’t.’ It sounds as if he should know it, that single word thrown so nonchalantly. ‘Where is it?’
‘Park Lane.’ Pause. ‘Do you live in London?’
‘Yes. In Brixton.’
‘Ahh.’ It could have meant anything.
Ritwik is getting more and more nervous with every passing minute. This interim conversation between first sight and business is a great dampener: the rules of this game do not include superficial familiarity.
Zafar seems to be intimate with London streets and traffic. As the car gently glides into Park Lane, Ritwik realizes with a sharp intake of breath which part of the world he is in.
‘Wait, stop. Look, I think it’s a bad idea to go to the Dorchester.’