The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: A Novel Read online

  “But you’re surrounded by women.” Sonny chuckled. “You could go bedroom-hopping, a different lady every night.”

  Norman put down his drink. “You must be joking. Bit long in the tooth, aren’t they?”

  “So are you, old chap.”

  Norman shifted in his seat. Really, the fellow needn’t have put it like that. Had the man no tact at all?

  Sonny, who seemed anxious to leave, called for the check.

  Norman took an auto-rickshaw back to the hotel. It bounced over the potholes; the driver’s geegaws—little bells and mascots—swung on their strings. Norman crouched under the plastic canopy. The conversation had, of course, humiliated him. Didn’t Sonny understand that, when he reached a certain age, a chap might start experiencing problems of an intimate nature? The prostate op hadn’t helped, but to be frank he had been experiencing difficulties in the hydraulics department for some time now. Only a professional woman could help him—indeed, had been able to help him in the past. They had to be foreign of course—Nigerian, Thai, Malay. Only a different color skin could get his mojo working. Women like these knew how to satisfy a man; it was in their culture.

  The rickshaw bounced along the road, past Cubbon Park. Norman gripped the rail as it swerved around a roundabout. In the middle sat a statue of Queen Victoria, spattered in bird droppings.

  With women like that, a chap didn’t have to engage in embarrassing conversation; no demands of that nature.

  And they didn’t laugh at him.

  Sonny was fuming. He tried the number on his mobile again. No bloody answer, of course.

  He leaned forward in his seat. “Guess who I met at the club,” he told his driver. “That rascal Freddie. He knows where that son-of-a-bitch P.K. has gone. The fellow looked shifty to me.”

  They were speeding along MG Road, weaving in and out of the traffic. Jatan Singh was an adept driver; like many Sikhs he had a profound love of motors. For twenty years he had been working for Sonny, and he knew more of his secrets than anybody in Bangalore.

  “He thinks he can give me the slip, the haraami,” said Sonny. “I’ll track him down, Jatanji, I’ll track him down and roast him alive.”

  P.K., his erstwhile associate, had been eluding him for three weeks now. There had been a couple of sightings. Sonny’s brother-in-law had seen him at a ministerial cocktail party; somebody else had glimpsed him at one of his building sites, an office complex out beyond Defense Colony, but for all Sonny knew he could have flown to the States or to London, where he had business interests. P.K. was a crook, of course. By judicious bribes his company had landed the contracts for several major developments, including a residential building on a plot of land Sonny had bought on the Airport Road. All that was acceptable enough. The trouble was, the man had subcontracted the building work to his own brother’s construction outfit, which, by faking invoices, had used substandard materials.

  “I’ll have his guts for garters,” muttered Sonny as the car sped along MG Road. Three weeks ago, when only half-completed, the bloody building had collapsed. Investigations had revealed that there had been too much sand in the cement, and now the chootiya had disappeared.

  “Step on it, Jatanji!”

  His mobile rang. It was a familiar voice. “Where are you, mera chota beta? Is your life so busy that you’ve forgotten your poor old mother, who has been sitting here waiting for you since an hour?”

  Hai Raba! He had forgotten that he was supposed to take her to the optician.

  “No, I can tell you have better things to do,” his mother sighed. “I’ll tell Anand to call for a taxi—”

  “No, Mummyji—”

  “I can go alone, my legs will have to carry me—”

  “Wait—!”

  “They’re not giving me too much pain today, and I will tell Mr. Desai that you have more important things on your mind—”

  “I’m coming! Give me ten minutes!” Sonny switched off the phone. “Turn the car round! Jaldi!”

  Sonny sank back in his seat. And he had forgotten to pick up a box of gulab jamuns from her favorite shop, Darpan’s Electric Bakery. He had promised, when he left the house that morning.

  Sonny’s temples throbbed. He pictured his mother, vast, steaming with impatience, waiting by the door. If only his wife could calm her down, but for the past week they had not been on speaking terms. Sonny could no longer remember the cause of this particular row nor, to be truthful, did he care. Something to do with the kitchen arrangements, no doubt.

  After a prolonged and active bachelorhood Sonny had married, late in life, a woman he had thought would be no trouble—plain, self-effacing, grateful to find a husband at all. Her apparent pliancy, however, disguised a steely determination to get her own way. This was usually attempted by pleading illness, a technique with which, in his mother, she had met her match. Females. How could anyone understand them? Norman Purse, he could tell, was a fellow sufferer. Still, thought Sonny, bugger me if I’m going to be the chap’s pimp. What would happen if word got out, to Norman’s daughter or to Ravi-sahib? It would put Sonny in an embarrassing position. Besides, the fellow was too old for that sort of caper. He should be enjoying a peaceful retirement in his hen coop.

  The Merc inched down Brigade Road. The street was clogged with traffic. At the intersection two buses blocked the thoroughfare, each refusing to budge. Men, clinging to the sides, dropped down onto the road to join in the argument. Sonny leaned out the window and yelled at them to get out of the bloody way.

  Slumped back in his seat, Sonny gazed at Karishma Plaza. It had been his first property speculation; in a moment of filial piety he had named it after his mother. Twenty years had passed, however; the windows were rusting.

  Across the street rose the wall of The Marigold. Bougainvillaea frothed over the top; behind it rose the flame trees. Sonny thought of the shady garden and its occupants, passing their twilit years in the safety of its compound. In England people dumped their parents in places like this; it was perfectly acceptable. Then they got on with their own lives. Sonny imagined this. It gave him an airy feeling, as if somebody had cut his strings and up he floated, into the sky. Horn blaring, the car shunted forward. He pictured his mother’s outrage if he suggested such a thing. Not just outrage—total incomprehension. Just for a moment, however, it seemed an excellent idea. He could visit her once a week and give her a box of jalebis instead of dreading the return to his own home.

  For he did dread it. As the car drew nearer, he was gripped by the familiar feeling of guilt and suffocation. It grew stronger by the minute. He felt like a small boy—he, a man of fifty-two.

  Suddenly, Sonny realized that he always felt like this. However busy he was, flying hither and thither across the globe, underneath it all he remained a son. Oh, he might look like a man, but appearances are deceptive. After all, this was India.

  The person who is searching for his own happiness should pull out the dart that he has stuck in himself—the arrow-head of grieving, of desiring, of despair.

  THE SUTTA-NIPATA

  “Hi Mum, I’m here.”

  “Where?”

  “Here, in India.”

  “What?”

  “I’m here, in India!”

  “Where?”

  “Uttar Pradesh.”

  “Utter what?”

  “I’m in Uttar Pradesh!”

  “You’re here?”

  “In an ashram.”

  “What?”

  “I’m in an ashram! I’ll be with you for Christmas.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll see you at Christmas!”

  “But I’m just wrapping your present.”

  “What?”

  “I was going to send it to you.”

  “You can give it to me instead. Honestly, is that your only reaction?”

  “What?”

  “I said—”

  “I can’t hear!”

  “I thought you’d like a surprise.”

  “What
?”

  “Oh never mind. I’ll ring you when I’m coming.”

  The line went dead. Evelyn put down the phone and slumped back on her bed. Of course she was thrilled that her daughter was coming, but she also felt drained. She had forgotten this particular brand of exhaustion that only Theresa could produce. Why hadn’t she told her earlier? Evelyn had known her daughter was going to visit at some point, but why hadn’t she given her any warning? Of course, Evelyn knew the answer. Theresa didn’t function like that. Evelyn’s heart thumped. Where was her daughter going to stay? As far as she knew, the hotel was full. Theresa wouldn’t—oh please God—sleep in her room, would she? There was a twin bed. Maybe Evelyn could get it removed. She could pretend it had never been there.

  Had Theresa come to see her, a daughter–mother thing, or to find spiritual solace? Evelyn guessed the answer to this. Over the past years it had become clear that India had given Theresa something that she herself could not supply.

  Oh Lord, Christopher would be here too. Did Theresa know this? Christopher and his family were coming just before Christmas, though thankfully staying at the Taj Balmoral Hotel. Oh Lord. Christopher. Theresa. Marcia.

  She must phone Christopher and warn him. No—not warn him, of course. Tell him the good news that his sister was coming.

  Oh heavens. If only she could pray, but Evelyn knew, definitively, that prayers no longer worked. If only she were Muriel, she could offer up something to a god. Krishna, the one with the blue face, was Muriel’s current favorite; she had installed a plaster figurine in her room. She had even been spotted removing a shortbread finger from the sideboard to give him after tea. But then Indians believed that God is everywhere. They prayed to film posters, to anything. They simply draped them in flowers and believed.

  Evelyn looked at the possessions she had brought from England—framed photos, her silver hairbrush, the watercolor of West Wittering. She could hardly ply them with biscuits, she wasn’t completely gaga. Anyway it hadn’t worked, had it? Muriel’s son still hadn’t appeared. Only the day before, she had asked Muriel if there was any news from the neighbors in Chigwell, Muriel’s only contact. “Not a sausage,” Muriel had replied. If her son didn’t know his mother was in India, how on earth could he find her, with or without divine intervention?

  Poor Muriel, thought Evelyn. At least I have my children.

  This thought was less of a reassurance than she had hoped. She gazed at the soapstone Buddha she had bought Theresa for Christmas. On Tuesday there had been an outing to the First Choice Craft Emporium on Mahatma Gandhi Road. This was an establishment owned by a charming gentleman who said he would give them all a special price, as they were friends of his good friend Sonny-sahib. As Christmas was coming they had all gone a bit mad, buying more-or-less useless objects made of sandalwood and brass. It had taken ages, as these transactions always did, a clerk laboriously filling out forms in triplicate and getting them stamped by the man behind the desk. Now Evelyn could give the Buddha to her daughter in person!

  Evelyn lifted the phone. It was early morning in New York; she could catch Christopher before he went to work.

  The line was dead.

  Evelyn got up and went downstairs. It was early evening: cow hour. On the landing, the young sweeper squatted beside his plastic bucket. He dipped his rag in the water, squeezed it and flicked it around the floor, rolling on his haunches, moving crablike across the landing. His torso was bare. His shoulder blades were so delicate, his neck so slender. Suddenly, Evelyn was overwhelmed with tenderness—a pure, maternal rush, long lost on her own children. He smiled at her, a smile so dazzling her heart melted. Funny that he was an Untouchable when she longed so strongly to touch him—to hold his thin body in her arms and to stroke his beautiful skin. He was very dark. Indians, she had realized, were as variously colored as the British. Dun skin, greeny-olive skin, glistening mahogany—as many variations as Norman’s purple nose, Madge’s leathery tan or her own papery pallor.

  The sweeper edged into the corner to let her pass. He still smiled, his teeth startlingly white. How simple, to radiate such goodwill! How very easy it would be to love him—no guilt, no recriminations.

  Evelyn went downstairs. The lobby was empty.

  “Memsahib would like a sherry?”

  Evelyn jumped. It was Ayub Khan, the other elderly bearer. He was an unfortunate-looking man whose face was cratered with scars, either from acne or smallpox. For him, too, Evelyn was overwhelmed with emotion. Pity, in his case. She wanted to touch him and make him better. She wanted to touch them all.

  “No thank you, Ayub.”

  Goodness, thought Evelyn, this country is having a funny effect on me. Pull yourself together. Of course it was easier to feel warmth toward foreign people whose lives were wretched. Certainly easier than toward the large, complicated human beings to whom she had given birth and whose imminent arrival filled her with such turbulence.

  There was nobody behind the desk. “Is Mr. Cowasjee here?” she asked. “The phone seems to be broken.”

  Ayub Khan waggled his head. The calendar, hanging on the wall, showed a photograph of kittens. It said November. Evelyn had a feeling that December had already begun; in this place one lost track of time. In a few weeks her son would arrive. She must tell him the news; Christopher had always needed to prepare himself, well in advance, for the unexpected.

  Evelyn gazed at the glass table, next to the settee. On it lay Reader’s Digest, Newsweek and an Air France in-flight magazine. They had lain there undisturbed since her arrival. Next to them, in the ashtray, lay the stub of one of Madge’s cigarettes, stained scarlet. It had been there for days. Just then she couldn’t imagine anyone, ever, having the energy to remove it.

  Her reverie was broken by the sound of footsteps. It was the Ainslies, back from some jaunt or other. They walked briskly across the lobby.

  “It’s hard to believe it’ll soon be Christmas,” said Evelyn brightly. “This wonderful sunshine.”

  “We’ve got a cassette of the King’s College Carols,” said Jean. “Doug and I play it at Christmas, wherever we are in the world.”

  Evelyn stepped behind the desk, lifted the calendar off its hook and turned the page. As time went by they had all grown more proprietary about the hotel, treating it like home. Indeed, this had become more necessary as the proprietor himself seemed less and less in evidence. December’s photograph was cocker spaniel puppies.

  “Both my children are coming for Christmas,” said Evelyn. She felt a timid flush of triumph about this; among the residents there was an undercurrent of rivalry on this subject.

  “How lovely for you!” said Jean. “Of course Adam’s longing to come but we told him not to, we’re quite happy. Anyway he’s terribly busy—he’s doing some huge series for the BBC.”

  Evelyn felt deflated. The implication, of course, was that her own children had such failed lives that they had nothing better to do. Oh Lord, was this true?

  Douglas looked at his watch. “Sun’s over the yard-arm,” he said. “Time for a snort, girls?”

  Evelyn declined, saying she needed to make a phone call but the line seemed to be dead. Yesterday there had been a power cut. It seemed a miracle that this country functioned at all, let alone supported a high-tech industry whose glittering office blocks rose into the sky only a mile down the road.

  “Where is Minoo?” asked Douglas.

  Evelyn lowered her voice. “I think they’re having another domestic.” Raised voices had been heard earlier, in the annex. “It’s such a curse. I must phone my son.”

  And then she remembered what somebody had told her. There was a call center across the road.

  The Ainslies sat in their room, drinking whisky with Olive Cooke. It was cheaper than running up a tab at the hotel bar and Jean, who believed in economies, had found a liquor store at Richmond Circus and brought back a bottle of Scotch. Safe in the bedroom they felt freer to gossip.

  “Guess who we saw in town,” said Jean.
“Dorothy.”

  “Off on one of her walks?” asked Olive.

  “We were just coming out of the bank—you know, Grindlays Bank in Lalbagh Street—and there she was, just wandering around looking odd.”

  “The poor dear,” said Olive.

  It was generally accepted that Dorothy Miller, the BBC lady, behaved strangely. For one thing she wandered off alone for long periods of time, sometimes even missing meals, and never told anyone where she had been. “Just walking,” she said. And with her arthritis, too.

  “We followed her down the street,” said Jean. “She stood for ages outside the Mevali Tiffin Rooms, leaning on her stick.”

  “Perhaps she just fancied a cup of tea,” said Douglas.

  “No, there’s something odd about her.” Jean refilled Olive’s glass. “Yesterday we saw her in the Old Town. We were having lunch, a simple thali, quite delicious. We often eat pavement food, don’t we, Doug? It’s perfectly safe.” She lowered her voice. “I’m sure it’s Alzheimer’s, early stages.”

  The residents of The Marigold, suffering the usual afflictions of age—memory loss, general vagueness—were alert for symptoms of more advanced senility in others. There was a shamefully triumphant feeling when this was spotted. Stella’s report of the nursery rhyme singing had surely, in Dorothy’s case, been proof of this. Apparently it had been “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.”

  “They do wander,” said Jean. “Our friend Amy got dementia, didn’t she, Doug? She went walking down to the main road in the middle of the night, in her nightie. They had to lock her up. She kept watching a video of E.T. ‘I want to go home.’ That was the bit she liked.”

  “That’s where they try to go,” said Olive.

  “What, home?”

  Olive nodded. “To the home they’ve lost. Perhaps back to their childhood, who knows?”

  “Funny they call a place like this a home,” said Jean.

  “It’s not a home,” said Douglas sharply. “It’s a residential hotel.” He drained his glass. “And I don’t think we should talk about her like that.”