Hillstation Page 21

  ‘I feel a hymn coming on,’ said Martina, dryly.

  ‘I’m just explaining,’ said Cindy. ‘I think it’s good for, like, different cultures to understand each other. Cause a lot of the problems in the world, I reckon, are cause they don’t. And if we could all just hold hands and maybe sing each other’s songs and make love not war and stuff, it would all be really happy everywhere.’ She smiled at Martina who smiled back. ‘So, if you’re up for a bit of sacrifice or whatever,’ she continued, ‘I’ll find an ant or something and you can do the business.’

  ‘We don’t really do that sort of sacrifice,’ I said. ‘But we do have festivals which everyone celebrates, especially the Shiva Puja. I suppose he’s a bit like our Father Christmas.’

  ‘Has he got a funny head?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s just a regular head,’ said Pol, looking irritated.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It’s not like an elephant or anything? I mean, what is it with that?’

  ‘It’s not,’ I said. ‘But he does have six arms.’

  ‘Woah,’ she said, perking up.

  ‘And four legs,’ I added.

  ‘That’s my kinda god,’ she giggled. ‘I’ll bet he’s taken, though. Or don’t they get married? Ours don’t. At least, I don’t think they do. The Pope doesn’t, anyway. Does he?’ She turned to Martina.

  ‘Not being married,’ said Martina, ‘is pretty much what being a Pope is all about.’

  ‘Yes, they do.’ I said. ‘All of our gods have wives or husbands and many of them have children too.’

  ‘So what does he do with all those arms and legs?’ she said. ‘I’ll bet he’s pretty nifty, thwarting villains and stuff.’

  ‘He dances,’ I said.

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘So he’s like the patron saint of us! See, we’ve got loads of saints, like for nurses and snorkelling. We do!’ she insisted to Martina who was shaking her head. ‘My swimming teacher told me.’

  ‘Do you really want to hear this nonsense?’ said Pol, tetchily. ‘He’ll be charging you next. What’s the going rate for a Shiva-mention these days? Ten rupees? Twelve?’

  ‘Pol,’ I protested. ‘I am not a priest. Only a Brahmin.’

  ‘Only a Brahmin,’ he echoed, looking away.

  ‘It’s a bit like that,’ I said to Cindy, ‘except he’s not a Saint exactly nor even the patron of dance but the dance itself.’

  She looked confused so I continued. ‘The dance is this. Everything that you see. The hills, the sky, those little spores of pollen, the flies over that lump of goat poo, the goat poo itself and the goat who pooed it.’

  ‘Right,’ she said, uncertainly.

  ‘Perhaps I didn’t explain it very well,’ I said. ‘But you’ll be glad to hear that he also, as you say, thwarts an occasional villain.’

  ‘Oh, don’t start on about the Turtle,’ said Pol, derisively.

  ‘Turtle? What turtle?’ said Cindy. ‘Oh, come on Pol,’ she insisted. ‘You’re such a tease. Just tell me. I love turtles. I used to have one. Well, a terrapin. Uncle George trod on it.’

  ‘It’s just a legend,’ said Pol. ‘You know what a legend is?’

  ‘Course I do,’ said Cindy. ‘Like Clapton or Hendrix.’

  ‘Hendrix?’ I said. ‘Then it is true.’

  ‘A legend,’ said Pol while Cindy and Martina squinted at me, ‘is a story for old people to tell when they’ve run out of anything useful to say.’

  ‘I think someone’s a teeny bit tense today,’ said Cindy, giving his arm a squeeze. ‘But what happened?’

  ‘Well, according to this legend,’ I said, ‘Shiva slew a turtle that was ravaging the village.’

  ‘When?’ said Cindy.

  ‘There is no “when”,’ said Pol, ‘because it never happened.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘So when didn’t it happen?’

  ‘There were many ages before this one,’ I said. ‘And it was in one of those. I’m not sure which, to be honest, possibly the silver age. But they fought for several days until, finally, Shiva cut his head off and stuck it on a rock where it remains for all to see.’

  ‘Where?’ said Cindy.

  ‘It’s just a rock,’ said Pol. ‘A geological phenomenon. It doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Just past the glade,’ I said. ‘That way.’

  ‘I want to see it,’ said Cindy. ‘I do. I really do. I want to see it. Oh, Pol, please, pleasey weasey, please, please, pleeeeeease!’

  Pol sighed.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Cindy clasping her hands together and bowing towards me, ‘for showing us your lovely cave.’

  ‘You are most welcome,’ I said.

  She moved off, smiling. ‘So this is all a dance?’

  ‘In the heart of Shiva,’ I said.

  ‘Then I’m a beat in the heart of a dancer,’ she giggled. ‘Pol?’

  But he didn’t reply and after a while her laughter was lost in birdsong.

  ‘So what was the message?’ said Martina. ‘From Mike?’

  ‘He said you have the power to change his fortunes. But he didn’t say how.’

  A ripple of irritation crossed her face.

  ‘He also said to point out that my sisters intend to set fire to themselves if the show proceeds as planned.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry about that. I mean we’ve had protests before, but I guess that’s kind’ve extreme. What do you think? You think they’d do it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘They have petroleum spirits, and matches. And I suspect they’ve taken advice from the Buddhist Cook, some of whose relatives are quite proficient at setting fire to themselves.’

  ‘I guess kitchens can be dangerous places,’ she said.

  ‘I believe, in their case, it was deliberate.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Tibet.’

  ‘Oh.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘I heard about that. That’s a shame.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ I said, ‘if this discussion about people setting fire to themselves has upset you.’

  ‘I can think of cheerier things to talk about,’ she said.

  ‘But it will not be very cheery if my sisters are burnt, as it were, to a crisp.’

  She walked to the entrance of the cave. It thrilled me suddenly to think that she was actually here where I had gazed so often, dreaming.

  ‘I get the Tibetans,’ she said. ‘I mean, that’s something to shout about. But we’re just dancing. Okay, we take some kit off but not everything. You know? We’re not like… like it’s a club or something.’

  ‘I have tried to explain this to them,’ I said.

  ‘So what’s their problem?’

  ‘I think they have always been largely their own problem.’

  ‘I’ve got a sister like that,’ she muttered.

  ‘Is she also more beautiful than is comprehensible in a mortal being?’

  She looked at me for a moment then stepped carefully to the edge of the plateau. ‘It’s like we’re floating in space,’ she said. Which made me smile.

  A squeal of laughter drifted on the breeze.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so happy,’ said Martina.

  ‘She is a happy person.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Martina. ‘I guess.’

  ‘The dilemma is this,’ I said. ‘My father has banned the show and demanded that you leave Pushkara. My sisters have become somewhat over-excited by it all and, as I have said, are hoping to set light to themselves. If you leave, then they will have no excuse. But if you leave immediately, as the elders are demanding, there will be no time for us to marry in accordance with the proper procedures and therefore I will not be allowed to accompany you. At the same time, Mike seems to think that if you cannot do the show, then you cannot leave at all, with or without me, and that somehow you
have something to do with this.’

  She glanced at me for a moment then turned back to the mountains.

  ‘Tell him it’s not my problem,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  She sighed. ‘I know what we are,’ she said, ‘I’m not stupid. “Dancers”!’ She snorted. ‘Okay, it’s not exactly ballet, but that’s what it says in my passport. Plus, modelling, obviously, and some acting. A bit, not much. You get your time and you decide. Maybe this, maybe that. And then you do it. I’m not proud. But it doesn’t bother me.’ She squinted towards me, then back to the sky. ‘My agent said I should act. A couple of films. I dunno. Three, four. They were decent scripts. I mean proper dialogue and everything. Characters, you know, with feelings.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I get letters. From all over.’ She paused again. ‘And it wasn’t real,’ she continued. ‘You know what I’m saying? I’m not Sharon.’

  I nodded, though I had no idea what she was talking about.

  ‘So you come here to pray?’ she said after a moment.

  ‘Ah, yes, sort of. I like to think of it as importuning.’

  ‘Begging favours?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘Like “oh god, give us a break”?’

  ‘Usually more specific,’ I said. ‘And it takes time. You can’t just submit your requests willy-nilly. You have to go through all the rigmarole so they know you’re serious.’

  ‘Kiss arse,’ she said. ‘Same everywhere.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Though it’s generally explained in more philosophical terms.’

  ‘A rose by any other name,’ she said.

  ‘Is what?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘That’s very clever,’ I said. ‘And, indeed, most poetical.’

  I had already noticed that elusive particle of the infinite in her eyes, but was shocked to see that she’d smiled. Fleeting but unmistakable. ‘It was one of my films,’ she said. ‘The only difference is you suck up to…’ She waved her hands at the air. ‘While I have to suck up to Bombay Suits. Which might not be a philosophical term but it kinda gets the picture. So where’s this glade?’

  She turned abruptly down the narrow path, slipping slightly on the loose pebbles. I followed her, placing my hand over the fading imprint of her open palm where she’d steadied herself on a rock, its fingers finer than mine, built for spinning the air into elegant shapes or soothing the brows of our sleeping babies. Mine were made for swilling bowls and cleaning the floor. It was only right they should be less beautiful.

  On good days, Pol and I would skip headlong down the steeper paths, casting our steps to chance, tumbling finally to a screaming heap among the grass and flowers. I thought of suggesting this to Martina but didn’t think she was the recklessly jumping type, even if jumping, or an element thereof, pertains inherently to the art of dance.

  I thought it ironic that a denizen of Pushkara knew so little about the aesthetic to which both were devoted. The Elders had always been suspicious of non-functional bodily pursuits, so dancing was never strong on the curriculum. An attempt to found ‘The Pushkara Classical Dance Company’ had descended into a melee of shouts and hair-pulling at the opening recital while our Chief Choreographer, Mr Ramsamooj, had been rebuked later for kicking some of the older gentlemen who had, after all, being doing their best, in the bottom.

  ‘Is this it?’ said Martina as the path spilled abruptly to an open space of rich greens and shimmering flowers. She walked forward, running her fingers through leaves. A butterfly frolicked briefly across her shoulders.

  ‘Who else comes here?’ she asked.

  ‘Just me and Pol.’

  In fact I’d never heard it spoken of by anyone. For one thing, it was hard to find until you were almost upon it. For another, Pushkarans weren’t very good at picnics. By the time the food was packed, the itinerary decided, the elders consulted and the uncles out of the toilets, it was usually too late to set off. Many plans in Pushkara were routinely abandoned due to the exhaustion of making them.

  ‘So what do you think of Mike?’ she asked, kneeling beside the pool.

  ‘I think his jacket needs ironing.’

  ‘That’s the look,’ she chuckled. ‘But you reckon he’s okay? Amiable Mike, doing his best?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘He’s a bastard,’ she said. ‘And he’s not even a sorry bastard.’ She dipped a finger into the water. ‘He made promises. And he didn’t tell me. And now he blames me for all this.’

  A bird leaped from a tree above us, fluttering to the far shore.

  ‘To whom did he make these promises?’ I asked.

  The bird watched us from a high branch, twitching its feathers like an affronted Aunt.

  ‘The suits, businessmen, whatever they are, financiers.’ She spat the word. ‘Of course he says he didn’t.’

  ‘And what did he promise?’

  The bird hopped to a lower branch and then to the ground, skipping tentatively to the water’s edge.

  ‘Me,’ said Martina. ‘And when I wouldn’t, they shut the money off.’

  ‘Wouldn’t what?’

  ‘Shag them.’

  ‘You mean have sex?’ I said, shocked.

  ‘He called it a bit of bother.’ She shrugged. ‘A couple of hours. Maybe more if they wanted seconds.’ She looked at the bird. ‘Hendrix said they could have Sharon but they weren’t interested. Mike offered them Cindy but they’d already had her. Basically, they said if they couldn’t have me they’d blow his knees off.’

  The bird took a long sip, then, for no apparent reason, flung itself back at the tree squawking noisily.

  ‘This is not how we do business in Pushkara,’ I remarked.

  ‘Well, I’ve got family in Luton,’ she shrugged. ‘So, anyway, Mike said what’s more important, his knee caps or my virtue?’

  ‘But this is your jewel,’ I said.

  She looked at me for a moment. ‘He said page three didn’t leave me a lot of that in the bank. But I know what I am and I don’t do it for money. Or knee caps. But anyway, he cashed a cheque and they came after us. We blagged some tickets on this crappy flight. I’m not surprised it came down. I’m surprised it bloody well got up.’ She lifted her chin to the sunlight. ‘So then he says he’s booked a biggie. Massive venue, state of the art.’ She snorted. ‘I guess we’ll get the bus fare if we’re lucky.’

  ‘But not if the show’s cancelled.’

  ‘They can’t stop us,’ she said.

  ‘Then my sisters will burn.’

  She flicked her sandals off. The bird was above us again, watching.

  ‘So what do you want me to do,’ she asked, ‘shag the suits?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said.

  ‘You love your sisters that much?’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to see them burn,’ I said. ‘Nor have them run around while we try to put them out. I believe petroleum spirits rapidly consume whatever it is they’ve been poured over.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, closing her eyes. ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’

  ‘You have never thought about people on fire?’

  ‘Now you’re just making conversation,’ she said. Which was true in a way. She brushed a fly from her face. ‘Have you ever looked down off a bridge or a balcony, somewhere high up and thought, right now, just here, I could jump and that would be it? And you step back quickly cause you’re not sure if you would?’

  ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I have always had hope.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘That you would come at last.’

  Her toes sent a ripple across the pool. ‘You know, for a second there, I almost thought that might be true.’ She smiled a little. ‘It’s so nutty. You’re nutty. It’s a nutty place. But you know what? I got real again. Cause there’s o
ne thing I’ve learned and that’s to keep it real.’ She lifted her foot, glistening in the sun. ‘This is nice. Just here. But out there isn’t.’ She looked at me. ‘You don’t really know “out there”, do you?’

  ‘Only what my brother has told me,’ I said.

  A spiral of flies spun round a lily pad. She watched them for a moment.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, taking a breath. ‘The smell. Is it from them?’ She looked round to some flowers. ‘Do you know what they are?’

  ‘You mean the name? I don’t. I’m sorry.’

  She shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t suppose they need one up here.’

  I tried to remember Pol’s advice about the protocols of English courtship. Were gifts involved? I assumed they had to be since the importuning of anything seemed to require a gift of some description. In any case it was no effort to stroll across, pick a flower and offer it to Martina with a coy smile on my face.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she shrieked.

  ‘It’s a gift,’ I said.

  ‘No, no.’ She snatched it from me. ‘It’s not. It wasn’t anything. It was just what it was. Now it’s something to give or get or buy or sell or stick in the dressing room with a phone number.’ She cradled it like an injured child. ‘Don’t you see?’ she said. ‘You didn’t have to give it to me. It was already there.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s this place. Like I said. It makes you nutty. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. But half the time you talk nutty and half the time you… don’t. I don’t know.’

  ‘I know what you mean about real,’ I said.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what do I mean?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I confessed. ‘I was only bluffing. I have no idea. Would you like me to put the flower back?’

  ‘You can’t,’ she said, rubbing her knees and standing up. ‘But anyway, thanks.’ She looked towards the slopes. ‘Still, you know what they say.’

  ‘Who is they?’ I asked.