The Impressionist (33 page)

He does not want to be Pretty Bobby any more. He stops visiting Gul and Shuchi, and whenever possible leaves the cages of Falkland Road altogether, hurrying off into better areas of town to wander in the arcades and tip his hat to white people. He is always looking out for the girl. He imagines her wealthy, some rich Englishman’s daughter, and prays she is still in Bombay. He peers through the window of Evans & Fraser, hoping to see her shopping for dresses. He eats an ice at Cornag-lia’s, willing her to come in and sit down at one of the marble tables. His various jobs are neglected, Elspeth Macfarlane’s chores entirely forgotten. To make up for the money he loses, he touts at the docks as a guide, riding with tourists out across the bay to Elephanta Island.

On the launch, he sits quietly until it slides between the island’s tangled fringe of mangroves. At the landing place, he shoos away other would-be guides and helps his party up the winding stone steps, only speaking when he begins to show them the caves. After the climb, the sight of the monumental carved faces can also reduce the guidebook-clutching tourists to silence, at least for a moment or two. Bobby takes them past the triple-headed Shiva at the entrance and shows them the hermaphrodite figure of the God, man on one side, woman on the other. He stands back as the women titter and the men make ribald jokes. Then discreetly, when they are not looking, he reaches forward and touches the stone for luck.

He is too preoccupied to think about politics, barely registering that around him agitation against the British is growing to fever pitch. Mrs Macfarlane’s parlour is full of other young men, students who have obeyed the call to leave their English-run schools and work full time for liberation. They are neat and serious, Parsis, Muslims and upper-caste Hindu boys who sit down together to read aloud from pamphlets and argue about the latest pronouncements of Gandhi, Patel and the other leaders. Elspeth brings them tea, glowing with the energy of the thing that is taking place around her. As Bobby slopes in and out, he can feel her eyes boring into his back. The unspoken question: won’t you join us?

Bobby senses the young nationalists’ distaste for his well-cut suits and newly minted accent, such a contrast to their own proud-Indian attire of Congress caps, white kurta-pyjamas and high-necked achkans. One evening as he is leaving (to go and stand outside the Byculla and wait for the hotel girl), a few of them bar his way. Brother, where are you going? Comrade, will you not stay and work for your country? He shakes his head and pushes through them. As he walks off they spit on the floor and mutter insults. Mongrel, English lackey. When the day comes, one shouts after him, you and all your kind will be swept away.

‘I’m worried about you, Chandra,’ says Elspeth as he comes down one morning to eat. ‘You’re losing your direction.’ Bobby stares at her in disbelief. She struggles on. ‘You should be proud of your nation. Think of its future. You should be proud of what you are.’

‘So what am I?’ he asks, then slams the door and walks out without waiting for an answer. He wanders over to the maidan, where a hockey tournament is taking place. A Muslim youth team is playing against a side from the Railway. A group of British Other Ranks are standing at the touchline, passing a bottle and cheering on the Anglo-Indians.

‘Go on, the Railway! Go on! Smash the black bastards! That’s the way!’

The Railway team play hard, puffing up their chests with pride. Bobby looks at their eager faces with disgust. Their supporters would desert them in an instant if they were playing a fairer-skinned team. They are the true mongrels, wagging their tails for scraps.

One night Bobby’s prayers are answered. She is going through the door of Green’s on the arm of a well-known jockey. Quickly he follows her in, glaring at the sceptical doorman who briefly considers barring his way. The bar is packed. Every walk of Bombay society is represented, from the table of young ICS men making a daring visit to this haunt of the demi-monde, to the pair of Russian whores slow-dancing with each other near the bar, their eyes raking the crowd to see which of the men is watching them. The girl and the jockey join a large party of racing people who have secured the best table in the house, and are laying on a fine show for the rest of the admiring clientele. Two white-gloved waiters are putting the finishing touches to a pyramid of glasses, while a third is removing the foil from a jereboam of Krug, ready to pour a champagne fountain. The host, a wealthy Parsi breeder, is obviously celebrating something special. As the girl and her escort arrive, he effusively kisses her hand and clears a space for them to his side. Right on cue the champagne cork pops, and to general applause the wine waiter climbs on to a chair and begins to pour.

At nearby tables, minor moons orbiting this particular sun, are lesser lights of the Bombay turf world, bookmakers, trainers, hungry gamblers on the look-out for tips. Bobby spots a fat Englishman eyeing the action with particular intensity. He sits down next to him and asks what is going on.

‘Readymoney’s horse won again.’

‘Which one?’

‘Which one? Pot of Gold of course. Now would you mind vacating that seat? I’m waiting for someone.’

‘Certainly. But tell me, was Torrance the winning jockey? He’s obviously a lucky man. His wife is stunning.’

The fat man laughs.

‘That woman? She’s no more his wife than I am. Not that you should get your hopes up. From the looks of you, you couldn’t afford her. Now will you go away?’

Bobby gets up and slips over to the bar, where he orders a soft drink and stares at Torrance’s not-wife. She is, if anything, more beautiful than when he saw her before. Her hair is cut high at the back, falling forward over her face to expose a neck so sensuous that it appears somehow indecent in its whiteness. As she laughs and drinks with her companions, her eyes sparkle mischievously.

‘Bobby? Bobby! What are you doing here?’

The pancake-encrusted face of Mrs Pereira’s Belgian client. The young one who always wants news of her sister – what is her name? – Ga – Gal – Gan – Gannay? She is eager and inquisitive and high, her darting hands trailing cigarette ash and slops of gin-and-it behind them as they fan the air. He makes a guess.

‘Miss Garnier?’

‘Bobby! I did not think to see you in such places. Not – such
expensive
places!’

‘Perhaps I could say the same about you.’

Her expression hardens. ‘I am often in Green’s. I am a European.’

‘So you know many people here?’

‘Of course.’ she says defensively. Bobby notices dark circles under her eyes.

‘Such as the people over there with Sir Readymoney?’

‘That is Readymoney’s jockey and Elvin who is one of the stewards at the Gymkhana, and –’

‘And the woman with Torrance?’

‘Why do you want to know about her?’

‘Mind your own business.’

Miss Garnier’s mouth forms a small outraged ‘o’ and she turns on her heel. Cursing himself, Bobby grabs hold of her arm. She squirms and looks at him furiously. He summons his best melting look into his eyes.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Let go of me.’

‘I am sorry. I didn’t mean to be so rude.’

‘I should think so.’

Her resolve is wavering. She relaxes slightly in his grip. ‘Please let go of my arm.’

Bobby does. Instead of moving away, Miss Garnier steps towards him. She is wearing some stifling kind of orangewater perfume, and his back is soon arched against the bar as he searches for air.

‘You are very bad,’ she tells him. ‘I think you are already very bad.’

‘Already?’

She tuts at him. ‘You are only very young.’

A cigarette-holding hand caresses his cheek, narrowly missing one eye. She smiles at him acquisitively, and is about to say more when a man appears and brusquely taps her on the shoulder. His face is ruddy and pockmarked.

‘Come on, Diane, or whatever your name is. I haven’t got all night.’

He glares at Bobby. Miss Garnier winces, but forms her mouth into a smile.

‘Of course, darling. I am just coming.’

‘What is her name, Diane?’ Bobby pleads. Tell me her name?’

She looks at her escort, who is tapping the dial of his watch. Then she turns back to Bobby. Suddenly she looks infinitely tired, the architecture of her face on the point of collapse.

‘Her name is Lily Parry. And mine is not Diane. It is Delphine.’

Bobby nods. She says it again, separating the syllables.
Delphi-ne.
Then she leaves, half pushed out of the bar by the impatient man. A moment after she disappears Bobby has forgotten her, transfixed by Lily Parry.

She is perfect. And Bobby is certainly not the only one who thinks so. It is as if the bar has subtly rearranged itself around her, pillars tilting forward, rails warping and chairs shuffling their occupants into alignment. The men of her own table are leaning up towards her like the dinner-jacketed slopes of a mountain. Around the packed main room and out on to the terrace, each vantage point where an observer might casually stand and smoke is occupied, and there appears to be such a fashion for this activity that several would-be leaners and loungers have been reduced to sauntering and strolling, which in the confined space of Green’s on a Saturday night is definitely the second-class option.

Miss Parry herself is not bothered by the attention, it being the atmosphere in which she lives. Indeed she shortly hopes to receive more of it, and in a more formal setting, as long as that old skinflint Readymoney keeps his promise to bankroll her musical show. So when, en route to the powder room, she is surprised by a very young man who bows to her, she is surprised not so much by the bowing per se, as by its insolent theatricality. As if he is mocking her. When she comes out he does it again. Unbelievable! Naturally she ignores him completely.

Obviously her snubbing technique needs polishing, since Miss Parry finds herself surprised in this manner quite often in the next two or three weeks. An epidemic of stealth bowing breaks out all over Bombay. The bower appears without the slightest warning at the Willingdon, the Yacht Club, under the arcades on Rampart Row, even popping out from behind a palm tree as she drives to a party. Lily Parry has an unusually busy social life, and everywhere she goes people are pleased to see her. But there should be limits, even to adulation, and, though he is a pleasingly handsome boy, the bower represents something she will not admit into her life.

In order to conduct his clumsy wooing campaign, Bobby has put his entire network into operation. Domestic servants, porters, doormen, tonga drivers and legions of small boys are pressed into service. His chance-meeting opportunities are contrived by the simple expedient of following Lily from her home, a lovely villa on Malabar Hill, lent to her by some relative of the Governor. Historically speaking, his informants tell him that she came to Bombay two years ago as the fiancée of some upcountry Civilian. The engagement was quickly broken, and she has since rapidly risen to become, in the words of one of the desk clerks at Watson’s, ‘the most celebrated young lady in Bombay’. It appears to be a lucrative position. Though the jockey Teddy Torrance spends most of his prize money on gilding his Lily, his gifts are more than matched by those of a certain Colonel Marsden and are probably exceeded by those of Mr Barratt, the government contractor. Sadly for Torrance, this is not even the full extent of the field. His horsey baubles are completely eclipsed by the lavish presents of Gebler, an infatuated German shipowner, and against the absurd largesse of the Raja of Amritpur they do not even seem worth adding to the balance sheet. On occasion even Sir Parvez ‘Readymoney’ Mistry contributes to Miss Parry’s well-being. If I were Torrance, concludes Bobby, I should be discouraged.

Strangely he does not apply the same logic to himself. Although he has learnt most of what Falkland Road can teach on the subject of romance, he has (lately at any rate) always done so from a position of clarity. Love, real love, has never entered into it. However, when he watches Lily Parry laugh, or contemplates her remarkable neck and the scarlet cupid-bow shape of her lips, he feels that love is undeniably the name for what he is experiencing. This, he reasons, makes him different to other people. All those rajas and contractors and other old beasts have to back up their amorous suits with presents because, logically, they would never otherwise be in with a chance. Love is not for them. They are just too stupid to see it. For him, on the other hand, it will be plain sailing. All he has to do is place himself in Lily’s way often enough and the rest will happen naturally. His mind is full of romantic carriage drives, coded fan gestures, bowers (whatever they are) and other things gleaned from reading the novels gathering dust on Mrs Macfarlane’s bookshelf.

One day at the track he decides she is ready for conversation. Teddy Torrance is lining up for the third on Wicked Lady, Readymoney’s second-best Arab. By a combination of bribery and cheek Bobby has gained access to the members’ enclosure, where Lily is conversing with a group of English racing gents, all of whom (naturally) are vying for her attention. One holds her champagne glass, a second her parasol and a third her bag, as she makes minor adjustments to her new hat. A fourth has been dispatched in search of a hand mirror which will not be needed by the time it arrives, and a fifth has, despite the presence of a dense cluster of bearers, insisted on fetching her glass of iced water himself. Suddenly Lily remembers that she should watch the race, and, with a show of petulance that no one saw fit to remind her of dear Teddy’s imminent exertions, she leads her swarm of drones up to the stand. As Bobby follows them he feels confident. Shahid Khan has made him another new suit, a copy of a very fashionable one temporarily liberated by the Taj Mahal dhobiwallah for the purpose. His tie (silk, purple) is also new. He just has to choose his moment. How can he fail?

Lily is also attempting to choose – between the five pairs of binoculars which have been offered to her to view the race. As she picks one, its owner wilts with satisfied desire and the defeated rivals try to cover their disappointment, shooting envious glances at the victor and his superior equipment. An expectant buzz rises from the bustling Grand Enclosure, rolling through the cheaper native stands, gathering volume and power. The bookies are doing frenzied last-minute business, and the tea kiosks are deserted as people struggle to the barriers to get a view of the start. Bobby positions himself between Lily and the track, perching a couple of rows down so that she will have to focus on him.