The barman went on: “Some of these people work up there. We know how to get in. One day we’ll all charge up there in a mob and pull it down and burn the lot of yer!”
“It’s a good idea,” I said. “But sadly, you’re all too stoned to do anything like that.”
“Outta my pub, how dare you!” he said. “Stoned? Who? You’re barred for life!”
I had called the others and was already stepping over someone in a move towards the door. Omar was being dragged along by Karen and Alan while singing “Land of Hope and Glory” and yelling, “Thank you so much, my darling subjects, for a lovely shoot! A lovely shoot is all one wants!”
The landlord was spitting with fury and threatening us with the police.
Karen squashed Alan and the lord into her car; I drove the lord’s motor back, tearing up the lanes.
At the house, people were talking in the living room, but most had moved to what Alan referred to as the “Brian Jones” pool. It was fashionable for rich people like Mustaq to buy art and photography. The corridor between the pool and the changing area was full of decent photographs, including one of a woman standing up to piss against a bridge.
Around the pool, people were smoking; others were dancing, or swimming naked. Those vile bodies had cost a fortune to maintain and were made to be exhibited. Charlie Hero was in good shape; even his scars glowed, and the slim bolt through his cock brought out its veiny contours.
Other friends of Alan and Mustaq had turned up by now, dancers, hairdressers, make-up artists, camp young black men, angelic boys, some in overtight or shiny clothing, others keen to show off their nipple clips. Some of these characters looked as though they hadn’t seen daylight for some years. Few women would get laid tonight, I thought. This might be my chance to see whether I really was still uninterested, or whether I’d just been through a discouraging time.
Charlie had attached his iPod to the pool sound system, and suddenly a record came on from my youth, the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Do You Believe in Magic?”, so full of musical sunshine and optimism that Karim and I both began to laugh, glancing at one another and laughing again. Like him, I’d been a little too young to be independently active at that time, but the mid-60s were where I was formed, and what did any of that love mean now, in these dirty days?
I swam a little, looking out for Ajita, but couldn’t see her. While I dried off, Karim, his earnest brown eyes peering out from between the parentheses of his hair, offered me some coke. Although I fancied it, I wanted to sleep tonight. I smoked a joint, then someone gave me a double espresso and a chunk of chocolate. I took a diazepam and decided to go to bed, a relatively early night but with plenty to think about.
I was lying down, wondering what I’d listen to on my iPod-words can go so far, and then there is music-when there was a knock on the door.
“Hello,” I called.
“Can I come in?”
It was Ajita in a satin dressing gown. She came over and sat on the edge of the bed.
I took her hand. “So you found me, then.”
“At last,” she said. “Just you and me. Now we have some time together. All night, I hope. Will you stay awake? Do you want to hear me now?”
“Of course,” I replied. “It’s you I’ve been waiting for.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
She took my hand. “Earlier today, I believed I saw you from the pool. Then I thought, No, it’s a ghost and I’ve gone mad. In New York, Mustaq asked me if I wanted to see you again, but said he couldn’t guarantee that you’d show up. But you did. Was that for me? Or shouldn’t I ask?”
“Your American accent is charming.”
“Oh, don’t say that. I’ve been trying to get rid of it and seem more Indian again, particularly since Indians have become so hip.”
“Yes, there can’t be one of them who hasn’t written a novel.”
“And it’s embarrassing to be American when people my colour are under such constant suspicion. Going through airports is a nightmare for all of us, even for Mustaq. We all feel a step away from Guantánamo. Orange doesn’t suit me.”
“Nor most people.”
“It’s been so bad I’m thinking of staying in London for a while. I loved London, when you would take me about. I haven’t been back since. I couldn’t bear to see it again.” Her hand was on my shoulder. “You don’t need to get up, Jamal. Don’t do anything. We don’t need more light on. I’ll pull the curtains.” She said, “I know you’re there, and that’s all I need. Mustaq told me what he knew of your story, and I have read your books.”
“Did you tell him your story?”
“What d’you mean, mine?” I said nothing. She went on, “Jamal, you’re the person who really knows me. You were always my true love,” she said. “Even my husband knew that. He used to say, ‘There is someone else stopping us from being close.’” She leaned over me, kissing me on each cheek and on the lips, pressing her fingers through my hair. “You’ve hardly changed. Your hair’s grey, but it still stands on end, like a fluffy chick. You’re a little lined and no longer all skin and bone. But you’re distinguished-looking, a man who’s lived an important life.”
“Christ, no!”
She said, “I was watching you at supper. You’re even more good-looking than I remembered. What an attractive, smart man, he is, I thought. One who has been loved and wanted.”
“That is a kind thing to say. If it is true, it means a lot. I will try to be more grateful.”
“I think you probably are,” she said. “Who was the woman sitting opposite me? We were introduced, but I didn’t catch her name. She was observing you like a hawk, when she wasn’t glaring at me. Was she one of your wives?”
“I have been married, but just the once, unusually. Not to her, though. I am still married-or rather, not yet divorced. But I did go out with the woman you’re talking about-Karen-after you went away.”
“Was it a successful love?”
“Not from her point of view. I was still getting over you, I guess. It took a long time-probably because I always thought you’d be coming back in a little while.”
She was quiet. “Jamal?”
“Yes?”
“Please don’t say it’s too late. We’re not old. Or am I too far gone for you? Look.” She stood up and opened her dressing gown, then let it drop to the floor. “This is me. Where I am.”
I looked at her, both familiar and unfamiliar now. “What would your husband say?” I said quietly, before regretting it.
She put her gown on again and lay down on the bed. I stood up and took off my clothes.
While she looked at me, I said, “I don’t know what I want to happen between us. It’s been a long time. All we can do is give it space.”
“There is still time, we have that. I will wait for you, as you waited for me.” She pulled the sheets over her. “How I need to sleep with someone again. After years of trying to get my daughter out of my bed, she will no longer keep me company. My husband and I have our own rooms, in fact our own countries now. So to spend a night with a man…It moves me so.”
We lay there in the dark, not touching. Certainly people of our age, unless they are narcissists, wouldn’t want anyone to see their bodies. I’d seen Ajita in the pool, of course. Her flesh hadn’t aged badly, but she seemed to have shrunk into herself, as though she wanted to make herself smaller, like a younger actress playing the part of an older woman.
“Yes,” she said, “I know I am like an old woman now. I could see that in your eyes. My sexual charm, beauty-all gone.”
“Mine, too. I was just thinking of how much we loved to sunbathe in your garden at the side of the house. You were almost black. Now no one does that. You remember how I had to pretend to be Mushy Peas’s best friend?”