Kavita’s father asked me if I knew Lincolnshire. I said I’d heard of it but I’d never been.
‘I have a brother who is a doctor there,’ he said, ignoring his daughter as she squeezed in some last-minute roundhouse practice, aiming her kicks in a relentless procession at Bibhuti’s groin. He parried each one patiently. ‘I have not spoken to him for many years. He accused me of poisoning his dog when we were children. I did not. If I remembered this I would admit to it and apologise but I have no recollection. My brother is a good man, I am very proud of him.’
‘Lincolnshire’s very flat,’ I said. ‘They grow a lot of vegetables there.’
‘This is so?’ the man said dreamily, painting himself a picture of his brother’s place of exile.
When all the cars had gone and Harshad had left us to take a drink in privacy from the leather-clad hip flask he’d brought with him, Bibhuti took me for a walk around the grounds. We skimmed the jogging track that ran beside the Navi Mumbai Sports Association like a dry river. The cricket pitch the track bordered was parched and brown and at the boundary two brown dogs lay sleeping, curled in each other like an indecent pretzel. The evening perched over us, a fat bird laughing at me from the treetops as I clumsily tried to convince Bibhuti with my bearing and my listening that I was the man he’d been waiting for all his life.
We sat down on the grass behind the dogs as one started gnawing on the leg of the other, and I was asked if I believed in God and destiny.
I said I’d never believed in either, but that I was willing to be surprised. I didn’t mean that. I’d made it through sixty years of living without once hearing your footsteps behind me and I had no expectation of ever hearing them. But Bibhuti needed the lie. He needed to feel a closeness to me so my plea would stick. I told him when I’d seen him on TV a light had gone on inside me and I relied on him to presume it was divinity’s hand working the switch.
‘I believe in them entirely,’ Bibhuti said. ‘Everything I do is decided by these factors. If it is God’s will to put you here then I must listen to what he is telling me.’ He closed his eyes as if listening for your voice in the branches. He stroked his moustache in meditation, something I’d learn to be a habit of his in times of inner turmoil.
I waited. The warm breeze felt good on my bare arms. The light dripping down from the sky was different to any light I’d seen before. I caught a whiff of whisky on me and remembered all the miles that were between me and the things I knew. I remembered the feeling of putting on school plimsolls and I saw the cherries on the dress Ellen wore when we rode the Maid of the Mist. There’d been a rainbow behind her, hovering there out of jealousy. She was so bright then that nature had to put on a show to keep up with her.
Ellen sits beside me now, betrayed and asleep with her face pressed into my shoulder. I’m stroking her hair with fingers gone numb from repetition, quietly raging at her capacity for forgiveness and wondering what kindness I should repay her with while I’ve still got the time. So far I’ve got nothing.
Bibhuti tapped me on the shoulder to wake me up. ‘You understand the thing I am planning?’ he asked.
‘You want to break fifty baseball bats over yourself. You need someone to do the hitting. I can swing the bats, it won’t be a problem.’
‘It is not as easy as it sounds. The bats must all be broken. It is not enough just to hit me with them, there is no achievement in that. It will require much strength. Do you think you can withstand the physical side? You are not in good shape, you will need some training.’
‘I’ll do whatever you need me to do. I’m stronger than I look.’
‘I am not a wealthy man. There is no money in my sport, I receive no payment. I do what I do for the love only. There are expenses associated to breaking records, these must be met somehow.’
‘I’ve got all the money you need. It’s back at the hotel. Just under nine hundred thousand rupees, it’s all yours.’
Bibhuti’s eyes widened. Jolly Boy whistled the way he’d seen cartoon wolves whistle. I had them.
‘You must be dedicated and do as I say,’ Bibhuti warned. ‘I will be relying on you for a successful outcome. This is very special to me, my sports career is reaching its peak with this record and I am expecting it to go smoothly. This is very important.’
It was important to me too. More important than I could fully understand at the time. ‘I used to work in a lettings agency — renting out houses. I never had a gimmick like you’ve got, I never had something I could do better than anyone else. Not gimmick. You know what I mean. This is my last chance to do something big, something good, to be useful to someone. I won’t let you down, I promise.’
Bibhuti was looking into my eyes now. I felt every tame and uninspired moment of my life replaying in them. I was ashamed of them all.
‘We will discuss our strategy tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I will meet you at your hotel. You must also stop drinking.’
I told him I would.
Harshad rode a scooter that lacked the glamour touches of my old Lambretta. I had to cuddle him to keep from falling off on the ride back to the hotel. I could feel his bones grinding through his shirt, see the flaky bits on his scalp between the strands of hair that flew loose in the breeze. I held on through the hairpins and kicked out at the streetdogs when they got in the way.
5
Amrita was happily colouring in her father’s hair, her brush splayed imprecise by the eager application of too much pressure. She had no reason to suppose she should be doing something more important and I had no bones to pick now that I’d slept off the jetlag and won Bibhuti’s confidence. I stood and watched her slap the paint on. The figure looked nothing like Harshad. It was strong and heroic and its hair flowed thick like a river of oil. It brought to mind a matinee idol from the time when pictures came in double bills with a newsreel starter and a torch to find your seat by.
Harshad was blinded to its lies by that strange kind of vanity that overcomes a man when he lets himself go. He pretended not to notice the parody growing like a mould on the wall as he set about patiently molesting a portable radio that lay breached on the countertop. A half-empty glass of whisky sat at his elbow. He dug a screwdriver round the radio’s guts, humming a gritted-teeth lament to himself. A barbed reminder of the songs the radio used to play in brighter days before its voice had given out. A glance up from his work to check the painting’s progress, a single hummed note of satisfaction at the shape his alter ego was taking. A pull from the glass and then another stab with the screwdriver, its blade sharking in between the luckless wires. His song escaped from him as a gruff vapour that caught in the fins of the ceiling fan as they sliced through the sluggish air.
‘Noisy in the mornings,’ I said. ‘Lots of building work going on.’
I’d woken up to a million hammers and horns. I’d reached out to feel the empty sheet beside me, cold from the fan and no other body. I’d been having a dream about Oscar, the budgie I had when I was a young man on my own, before Ellen. He’d perch on my shoulder while I read my books in the eaves room I rented from old Mrs March. Listening to me daydreaming about a life of enquiry and mild adventure and not having the heart to tell me he’d seen my future and it wasn’t pretty. He flew away one day when I left the window open. Maybe I left it open on purpose to test his instinct for freedom, I’m not sure. In the dream he was on my shoulder again, pulling at a thread on my jumper so it was slowly coming undone. I liked having him there, feeling the sparse weight of his feet on me, his tiny breath in my ear. When I’d woken up my stomach was killing me and I’d cried when I couldn’t feel him anymore.