1977 (30 page)

“Not known a priest yet who didn’t drink like a fish. What d’you mean, then what?”

“Do we eat here or take him over to Smith’s?”

“I’ll think about that.”

“When you’ve thought about it you’ll remember to tell me, won’t you? Today, preferably. I

shan’t be available most of tomorrow morning.”

“Why?”

“I told you yesterday. I’m having my hair done.”

“What for? Father Sebastian?”

She smiled. “Not just for Father Sebastian, Tusker. Have a nice morning.”

SUNDAY APRIL 23rd was a disastrous day for Mr Bhoolabhoy and Saturday had been

hell. On Saturday Lila had laid hands on him. She had pushed him and shouted at him, in

front of Prabhu and Cook and Minnie.

There had been a call from the lawyer in Ranpur. Mr Bhoolabhoy answered it because there

was only one telephone at Smith’s and it was in the Manager’s cubby-hole. Not even Lila’s

room had an extension. She hated the telephone. When she had to use it she shouted as

though the call had come through from the North Pole. Wedged into the space available she

shouted into it to the lawyer, while Mr Bhoolabhoy waited outside. All the lawyer had told

him was that Mr Pandey would be coming up on the afternoon flight with urgent documents

that had to be dealt with over the weekend. He had then asked to speak personally to Lila.

Whatever the lawyer was saying to her was arousing her to a terrifying pitch of fury. Her

jowls shook. Her moustache bristled. “Crooks!” she kept shouting. Otherwise she shouted in

Punjabi. Then she banged the phone down, forced her immense body out of the cubby-hole

and shouted, “Fool! Fool!”

And pushed him.

Pushed
him.

In full view of the servants.

The physical shock was great. The humiliation unbearable. “Why do you push me?” he

shouted at her as she waddled her way back to her room.

“Because you are a fool!” she shouted back. She banged the door. From within she yelled

for Minnie who ran in, hand clapped to mouth as usual in that ridiculous common way. Mr

Bhoolabhoy went into his cubby-hole and banged
its
door. The glass-panes shook. Minnie

came out. She stood in front of the cubby-hole. He raised the window.

“Yes?”

“Ownership wanting.”

He banged the window down and pretended to busy himself. He took his time. But no

amount of time would heal his shame and fury. She had never pushed him. Never. When he

at last went into her room he found her sitting on the edge of the bed, knees wide apart to

accommodate her belly. Her head was bowed. Her elbows, resting on her knees, supported

the weight. Slowly she looked up at him.

“Goodwill,” she said. “Goodwill! Goodwill you were saying!”

“What of goodwill?”

“You might ask! What indeed of goodwill? Whose idea was this goodwill? I ask this. Whose

idea was it? Who raised the question of this thing called goodwill? And what is the result?

Instead of better terms, worse terms. That is the result of your meddling. Fool! Fool!”

“You call your husband a fool?”

“I call him a fool. He is a fool.”

“If I am a fool, then you too are a fool. All I asked was whether goodwill had been taken

into consideration in arranging terms. It is quite clear. You did not take it into consideration.

And they were laughing at you. Then because you are greedy you tried to renegotiate. And

they laugh louder. You did not sign the contract, you sent it back for revision. So now there

is a new contract, isn’t it? Not such a good contract. Why do you blame me? You are a

greedy woman. I will not accept blame. When have you ever consulted me? Your greed only

is to blame. In the consortium you will be in good company. You are all greedy people. You

enjoy trying to do each other down. But what do I care? I will have nothing to do with it. I

am only Management. It is my misfortune to be married to a greedy woman who is

Ownership and who humiliates her husband in front of servants by pushing him. I will not

be pushed.”

“I am pushing you now. Okay? I am giving you notice. One month’s notice according to

contract.”

“You cannot give your husband notice, Lila.”

“This is true. To husbands only divorce can be given. To managers giving notice is as easy

as falling off a log.”

“This I should like to see,” he cried. “And what do I care? In a month or two there will be

nothing to manage. You are getting rid of it. So I care as little for job as that English hippie

who was here a few weeks ago sleeping rough in the bazaar. Only he was a fool too. He was

thinking of India as a spiritual place. From all over the world they come, ringing their bells

and smoking pot and getting into Hinduism. But then they have never seen a man pushed by

his fat greedy wife who is going to pull everything down and put up concrete just like in the

West.”

He was nearly at fainting point. He turned to go.

“Come here.”

“I have things to do.”

“This is what I mean. You are still Management even if Management under notice. So you

have things to do. You will write for instance to the Smalley man warning to quit. You will

write saying that it will be impossible to grant a further year’s tenancy of Lodge when current

letter agreement expires. You will advise him to look for other accommodation. You will say

that from July 1 tenancy can only be on weekly basis with one week’s notice because

ownership is developing the site.”

“Pulling it down.”

“When I say developing I mean developing. During process of development they can

always move into Shiraz.”

“You are joking of course. How can they afford Shiraz?”

“What they can afford or not afford does not interest me. It is no concern of mine. When

they
ruled the roost
our
concerns did not enter their heads. It is tit for tat.” She slapped her

bosom, in emphasis.

“I will not send such a letter to my old friend.”

“I am ordering Management to send it. I am ordering Management to write it. I will sign it.

I will see that it is sent.”

“Such a letter will give him another attack.”

“Am I responsible for the state of his health?” she shouted. “He is a fool too. Only a fool

could have failed to see the point of the letter last year. He has had time to make different

arrangements. I can give him no more time. I cannot sign the new contract until such a letter

has been sent to the Smalley man. The new contract guarantees no encumbrances in regard

to tenants. That is your fault, not mine. They would have had to go anyway but it is your

fault such a letter must be sent now.”

“What is to happen, Lila?” Mr Bhoolabhoy asked, quietly. He saw that he was in an

impossible position. “What are your plans for The Lodge?”

“They are not concerning you. And they are not my plans. They are consortium plans. I do

not think these plans involve any development that will give you employment. So perhaps

you can count yourself lucky to have married what you call a greedy woman who will be rich.

Although not as rich as she might have been if she hadn’t married a fool. You will write the

letter today so that I can show a copy of it to Mr Pandey when he arrives.”

“Have you written the letter?” she asked later. He said he had not. He said he had no time

to write such a letter today.

“Then you will write it tomorrow morning.”

“I can’t write it tomorrow. Tomorrow it is Management’s day off. It is Sunday.”

“You will write it on Sunday evening.”

“I shall be engaged on church business on Sunday evening. It is Management’s day off until

Monday morning.”

“I shall not speak of this letter again. If it is not written by the latest on Monday morning

before I sign the contracts Mr Pandey is bringing up and if he does not have a copy of that

letter to take with him back to Ranpur by midday on Monday he will also take back my

instructions to institute proceedings for divorce.”

“Disobeying one’s wife are not grounds for divorce. You will write the letter yourself if it

must be written.”

“You are paid to write such letters.”

“I am not paid well enough to write such letters. I have not had a rise in salary since

marrying Ownership.”

“Now who is being greedy? Huh? You get your keep. You get pocket money. On top of

this sometimes you get sex. You will not get sex again until the letter has been written and

perhaps not even then. And speaking of grounds for divorce, I am not thinking about

disobedience to wife, but of more serious matters.”

He began to tremble. She laughed. “Ranpur, for example. You think I do not know what

goes on in Ranpur, huh? But I am a reasonable woman. I ask myself, what can one expect

when one is married to a man who thinks of nothing but sex. If you write the letter I may

forget about Ranpur. We might have sex in Bombay, or Calcutta. The consortium is also

thinking of Goa. Goa would interest you. It is very sexy in Goa because the white hippies lie

around having sex in the open. It is also full of old churches. In Goa there are more

churches than houses. And there are many western tourists in search of the real India as well

as hippies who have found it and are having sex.”

She began to laugh. The bed began to shake. Her breasts wobbled and her belly heaved. He

felt like a beggar, starved and meagre holding his bowl out and under a compulsion to grin

and cut a caper and earn a paise or two. “I am lost,” he thought, as he left the room. “I do

not want to go to Goa. I want to stay here. I want to stay here so long that in a hundred

years from now people will be able to point to two worn places in the tiles below the steps

to the altar at St John’s and say, ‘Francis Bhoolabhoy was here.
Those
were his knees.’ “

But even the church was excluding him. He cycled there at seven o’clock on that Sunday

morning, April 23, and knelt and prayed and then waited for Susy to arrive with the flowers.

He knew that Father Sebastian was due to arrive on the night train from Ranpur. He knew

Father Sebastian intended to stay yet again at Susy’s bungalow. He had hoped that Father

Sebastian would stay at Smith’s, like old Tom Narayan. Father Sebastian was the kind of man

St John’s needed and not the sort to seek the most comfortable and prestigious roof under

which to shelter. But he seemed to prefer the accommodation Susy offered, and Susy’s

company to his own.

When it had turned eight o’clock and Susy still hadn’t turned up with the flowers he

became restless. By nine o’clock he was pacing up and down the path from the lychgate to

the porch. The service was not until eleven. But Susy was overdue. And he had worked out

the reason long before she and Father Sebastian at last arrived at ten o’clock in a tonga that

looked like a festival float so burdened by flowers that she and the priest were embowered

by them. Against Father Sebastian’s shining black face her own dark coffee-colour looked so

pale.

She had gone to the station to meet him and they had had breakfast together. Now, while

Mr Bhoolabhoy stayed in the background, they decorated the church together. When this

was done he suggested to Father Sebastian that they might go over some accounts in the

vestry but Father Sebastian said casually, “I’m here until Tuesday, and it’s such a lovely

morning, let’s be outside. There is something I want to ask.”

Susy did not come with them. To show that he was not jealous he said, “Come on then,

Susy, enjoy the sunshine.”

“No, I have one or two things to do in here yet.”

“Tell me,” the priest said when they were outside. (
What
things had Susy still to do?) “The

English lady who was here at Easter with her husband, Colonel —”

“Smalley.”

“Colonel and Mrs Smalley. Yes. Is she not the lady in some of the pictures taken in the

churchyard?”

“Yes, the same one.”

“I’m using one of them, and the better of the two interiors, in the article I spoke of. Is she

a regular worshipper?”

“Not recently. But then her husband has been quite ill since January.”

“Ah, yes. I see. I’m dining with them tomorrow evening.”

It was the first Mr Bhoolabhoy had heard of it. Tusker had said nothing last Monday. All

he’d said was, “Saw your new chap.” Somehow, Mr Bhoolabhoy thought, I am being left

out.

They strolled slowly back to the church. Mr Bhoolabhoy checked that all the hymn and

prayer books were in place. From the vestry he heard Susy laughing with Father Sebastian.

He stared at the altar. “I am just management even here,” he said. And hid himself until it

was time to go and toll the bell.

It began to toll as Lucy’s tonga turned into Church road. “Send not to ask,” she murmured,

“for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.” The grave and lovely words caused her sadness

but no distress. Whenever she thought of them she remembered how at the end of the film

Gregory Peck rode off with Ingrid Bergman on a horse. She hadn’t liked that film much. All