A Late Monsoon Page 2
approval, then laying it in the palm of his hand went through the motions of trying to assess its weight, bouncing his hand up and down, the same way he checked the ripeness of mangoes. “The blighters are so good at making them these days, can hardly tell the difference between the damn fake and the real thing. It’s all about the weight, you know. That's what gives the game away. The fakes are filled with air, nothing like the solid substance of a real Rolex. Ah yes, no doubt about it, it's the genuine article; solid, robust, dependable. I knew you wouldn’t be wearing a cheap fake.” He placed it reverently on the table, as if a precious stone, convinced of its authenticity. “You must be still with the girl then?” he said.
“That was very clumsy, even by your standards of subtlety,” said the young man.
“I don’t follow.”
“You know exactly what I mean; the association between my new Rolex and my girlfriend.”
“Well, it's just that I was reading in the Times last week that her father owns half the commercial shipping ports in South East Asia.”
“She didn’t buy it for me, if that’s what you’re implying. And she’s not financing me either. I’m not a kept man to my girlfriend or my father.”
“No, no, of course not, wasn’t suggesting anything of the sort. She’ll be the death of you though, you know that.”
“I can’t think of a better way to go than to slip away wrapped in her lithe, tanned limbs.”
The waiter approached silently and with a white gloved hand placed a coaster bearing the crest of the Harlington Grand Hotel on the table, then with deft precision, positioned the squat tumbler of gin in the centre of the coaster. He smiled at no one in particular and backed away from the table with the same solemn silence with which he approached. The older man picked up the glass, holding it up into the sunlight to inspect the slice of lime with his connoisseur’s eye. He was mesmerised for a moment by the vivid yellow-green light filtering through the translucent fruit, then he waved the glass under his nose, blending the fragrant vapours of the gin with the fresh tang of the lime. “What was I saying?”
“She’ll be the death of me,” prompted the young man.
“Exactly. Won’t be intentional of course. She won’t be able to help it. It’s the curse of the beautiful.”
The young man turned the page of his newspaper and said nonchalantly, “I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of being asked to elaborate, because I know you’re going to anyway.”
“It’s not her fault,” said the older man. “It’s the double edged sword of beauty. You see, her beauty, unquestionable as it is, is something she possesses through no merit of her own. It is hers by fate of birth, a random consequence of the fickle hand of nature, so she can take no credit for it. She is admired for what she was born with and not for something she has acquired through talent or endeavour. And why should that bother her, you might ask, when life comes so easily to those blessed with beauty? There, my boy, is where the danger lies. Beauty is a pernicious devil that robs the young, beautiful things of their motivation and drive. Over time, dissatisfaction will take root and breed a sense of worthlessness and insecurity. But for her, things will only get worse. To add to her troubles she will inherit a vast fortune and this will do nothing for her self esteem, but merely serve to strengthen the belief that she has little value beyond the gifts presented to her. However, the real trouble will begin one day when her looks start to fade, which they always do, or a change in the economic climate threatens her stock market wealth and she realises she has no identity or purpose beyond the cosmetic and the material. And then she will turn on you, because you are there and convenient. The poor girl, she has so much with which to engineer her downfall. Unless she can find a way to express her gifts of wealth and beauty in a way that has purpose and meaning beyond the superficiality which they commonly attract, she is doomed, and you with her, my boy.”
“You’re a depressing old sod George. I don’t know why I let you share my table.”
“That’s why I like you Edward. You’re the only person left who treats me disrespectfully. That was my dear Agnes’ duty. She kept my feet on the ground, but since I lost her, it’s just down to you.”
“She’s not dead George. She left you for the vice chairman of Western Orient Shipping.”
“Yes, yes but you know what I’m saying. I’m surrounded by sycophants who fawn over my every word. From the day I started my own corporation I have been drowning in yes men, desperate to appease me and climb the ladder of success. In a way, I’m not too unlike your dear girlfriend, not in the beauty stakes of course, although I could turn a head or two in my younger days, but I am ensnared by my own power and wealth, doomed forever to question whether I am in the company of true sincerity or a cheap, fake import. Do you have any idea what it’s like having people drool over you all day, knowing they’d stab you in the back the moment your guard is down?” He paused for a moment, considering his own question. “No, of course you don’t. You’re a penniless, disenfranchised, disinherited heir, so no one needs to pander to you. But this is something I have to live with. It's different though with you, Edward,. You don’t fear me and don’t want anything from me. You teach me that I’m unimportant. You show me that my wealth and position only extends within a small sphere of influence and outside of this sphere I’m back in the jungle, just like Burma in ’42. You see, it’s all temporary. One day soon, I will leave this world, and my money and position will remain here and I will stand before God and he won’t care a damn about the money I had or the power I possessed. He will be unimpressed by the titles and trinkets my sycophants hold so dear and I will stand there, naked and trembling, but grateful to you for allowing me to know the experience of being humbled, so at least it won’t be a completely foreign encounter for me and I may have some small chance of redemption.”
“Never been complimented for being disrespectful before. That's a novel perspective, but thank you for the encouragement.”
“Well, just stating matters as they are, credit where it’s due, always believed in that. If I receive a compliment or a kind word from you, I know it’s genuine.”
“I never realised you had a sensitive side,” said the young man, turning a page of the newspaper.
“I’m not made of stone any more than the next man, but when one has power and wealth, one doesn't get the opportunity to be tested too much. People and situations tend to develop in my favour, so it’s rare to be exposed to a situation that challenges me, but make no mistake, I am not immune to the opinions of others.”
“Why do you still do it?" the young man asked. "You’ll never find honesty and sincerity in the boardroom. Why not just gave it all up, let go and live a simpler life?”
“Far too old, my boy. The world would eat me alive. This is the life I’m used to; can’t be any other way now. I need the security around me that my corporation provides – whole world has gone mad, Kennedy and Khrushchev sabre rattling, with nuclear missiles as their sabres - we’re all up the swanee if those go off, not just Castro’s little island. Then there’s the Americans doing God knows what in Vietnam, and that bloody great wall splitting Berlin in two; mad, the whole world’s gone to pot. No, a simpler life is not an option for me. I need to maintain the boundaries around my own little kingdom and keep the bloody lunatic purveyors of Armageddon outside.” He picked up his Panama hat and waved it in front of his face, stirring up the hot air. “Too damn hot though. I could give up this blasted heat quite easily.”
“I don’t know why you still live here. Why don’t you go back to England? The Empire’s over, George. It was over in ‘47 when India was handed back. That was fifteen years ago. When are you just going to accept it and start a new life?”
“Empire over? Maybe she is, certainly as far your generation is concerned, but I’m stuck with it. We all are, all of us who gave the best years of our lives to its service and decided to stay on after the handover of power. No, I could never go back to England. I’ve been spoilt b
y the excesses of colonial life. Here, I have cooks, gardeners, drivers, house servants; everything is taken care of by a dedicated person. You can’t have those things in England now, not in the ‘60s. And as for having to endure that bloody awful cold weather.”
“You were just complaining about the heat.”
“We all do that, it’s expected of us. It’s an Englishman’s duty overseas to complain about the bloody heat, but none of us mean it. Good god, give me a hot wind and a blue sky any day to those insipid grey, cold weeks that pass for an English summer. Anyway I would be an alien there now. I wouldn’t understand it. When I left England for my first tour of duty in India, I left a country that echoed with the sound of gentle, appreciative applause on the cricket grounds of Surrey. Now it resounds with the deafening screams of teenage girls chasing after those four long haired fellows with their electric guitars. How could I blend back into a country whose peace has been shattered by a teenage population gripped in mass hysteria over a pop group from Leeds?”
“Liverpool.”
“What’s that, my boy?”
“Liverpool, the Beatles come from Liverpool.”
“Yes, yes, wherever they come from, I don’t understand it. But it means I can’t