‘You did. You forced me. Over a matter of weeks, you have gradually forced yourself on me.’
‘That’s bollocks.’
‘It’s true. I don’t know how you can deny it.’
‘I didn’t force it to happen. It just happened. And I didn’t notice you resisting.’
‘If I haven’t been resisting, why didn’t it happen straight away?’
‘Maybe didn’t want it to happen.’
‘Yeah, that’s likely. You’d shag anything.’
‘You’re really flattering yourself, here.’
‘Anyway – we haven’t had sex. There a difference between wanking on to someone’s belly and making love.’
‘It was your hand.’
‘My hand was limp. You were moving it for me, if you don’t remember.’
‘And you’ve forgotten what happened before that, have you?’
‘Oh yeah – you dabbed your weenie at me for about ten seconds. Wow. That’s what I call passion. I’ve never had it so good.’
‘If you’d had some condoms…’
‘But I didn’t. For precisely this reason.’
‘If you hadn’t been afraid that we were going to make love, you wouldn’t have had to throw them away.’
‘We did make love, and we’re never going to. If that’s your idea of love-making, then you’ve had a sad life indeed.’
‘Oh, fuck off.’
‘And I hope I’ve answered your question. That’s why I won’t kiss you. Because you’re a fucking prick.’
It was a week before I summoned the courage to give her a ring.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘It’s me.’
‘Hi.’
‘What are you up to?’
‘Nothing much.’
‘Shall I come over?’
‘No. I’m busy.’
‘I thought you said you were doing nothing much.’
‘Yes – but I’m about to do something, aren’t I?’
‘What?’
‘None of your business.’
‘Fair enough.’
There was an awkward silence.
‘Shall I come over later?’
‘No – I told you. I’m busy.’
‘But I’m not allowed to ask what you’re doing?’
‘Look – I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on. I don’t want to fail my course, you know.’
‘What about after that, though? Shouldn’t we do a bit more planning?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. We already know exactly where we’re going. We’ve decided as much as we can decide. You can’t control everything, you know. If we try and plan anything else we’re just going to kill the whole thing dead.’
Given that I had used the word ‘planning’ as a euphemism for sex (possibly a linguistic first), her answer was a very bad sign.
‘I’m fed up of planning,’ she said, ramming the message home. ‘We’ve decided what we’re going to do, and we should just leave the rest until we get there. You’re far too anal – you know that? You can’t decide everything in advance for your whole life.’
I didn’t know what to say. This is it, I thought to myself. I’ve blown it, and we haven’t even got to India yet.
‘Look – I’ve got to get on,’ she said.
‘OK.’
‘Bye.’
Click.
‘Bye.’
She put the phone down before I even said ‘bye’.
There were only three days left before our departure. In that time, we didn’t speak.
On our first full day in Delhi we went to the Red Fort, which was enormous and impressive but fundamentally a bit boring. A guy just outside was selling floppy hats with a brim all the way round, wearing a huge pile of them on his head as a crowd-pulling technique. The sight of him made me realize that I felt as if someone had been dropping bricks on my head. I needed one of those hats.
‘Hello, friend. You buy hat?’
‘How much?’
‘Best price.’
‘How much?’
‘What you like.’
‘What I like?’
‘You give price.’
‘How much are they normally?’
‘You give price, friend. Any price – cheap price.’
‘Um… fifty rupees?’
This was just under two quid, which seemed reasonable to me, but the instant I said it he plonked a hat on my head and waited for me to pay. I’d obviously offered far too much, but I didn’t really see how I could go about changing my mind, so I gave him the cash.
Liz, pretending that she hadn’t seen what happened, asked me what I had paid and laughed in my face. I said I didn’t care, and thought it was a perfectly fair price for what I had got, since it was a very cool hat.
‘Haven’t you noticed that every other Westerner in the city is wearing one? You might as well walk around carrying a placard saying “Tourist”.’
I looked around to see if what she had said was true. A group of thirty middle-aged Europeans with a tour guide emerged from the fort. More than half of them were wearing my hat.
‘Where’s your tour guide, Dave? Aren’t you going to join your friends?’
‘Look – this isn’t a fashion parade, Liz. It feels comfortable, so I’m happy. If you want to get sunstroke just so you don’t look like a tourist, that’s your problem.’
‘I am going to buy a hat. I just might not buy it from the first guy I see in front of the biggest tourist spot in the capital city. Personally, I’d rather be just that little bit unobtrusive.’
‘Great idea. A hat’s really going to do the trick. What else are you going to do? Put shoe polish on your face?’
‘Racist.’
I wished I hadn’t bought the hat now, but thanks to the argument I’d have to wear it all the time, just to show that she hadn’t changed my mind.
I did wonder how much everyone else had paid for it, though.
Jeremy had told us that the rickshaw to and from the fort shouldn’t cost more than ten rupees each way (roughly thirty pence). Our attempts to get this price were met by the rickshaw drivers with derision. Liz managed to respond to their prices with equal, if not greater derision, and I ended up spectating on twenty-minute arguments in both directions. At regular intervals, either Liz or the driver marched off in a huff, and when it was Liz’s turn, I felt honour-bound to follow her.
Liz managed to get the trip for fifteen going and twenty coming back, both of which she considered to be significant moral victories. Huddled in the back of the noisy, stinking rickshaw, I could tell that she expected some kind of approval for her labours.
‘Well done, Liz.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You saved us at least 15P there. That’s almost 8p each.’
‘Will you stop acting like such a spoilt Westerner? We’re in India, now.’
‘So?’
‘So you have to haggle. It’s part of life.’
‘You don’t have to. Stump up a few extra pennies, and you don’t need to stand in the midday sun screaming your head off like some deranged memsahib.’
‘It’s not about that, and you know it.’
‘What is it about, then?’
‘Look – if you just take the first price they offer, you look stupid. They laugh at you behind your back.’
‘So? Who cares?’
‘And if Westerners go around paying double for everything, it gives us a bad reputation. It sets a bad example. It makes us all look spoilt, and far richer than we really are.’
‘But we rich. Ten rupees is nothing. It doesn’t matter if we pay double.’