Delicious
“ Find a parking spot soon, we’re already late!,” Meera yelled into his ears.
They were sitting side by side, him at the wheel, she fanning herself with a paper roll. The car windows shut, air-conditioned air mingled with the heavy perfume of citrus.
“I told you not to bring the Innova,” she repeated, glaring at him with severe intention, “Now how are we going to find parking space for this beast?”
She rolled her eyes and stretched to examine herself in the rearview mirror. Threads of sweat trickled down her foundation, and she suddenly noticed a few hairs that the parlour woman had negligently left un-plucked on her upper-lip.
“ What the… I’m never going back to YLG again. That clumsy bitch.” she muttered
Neil had no idea what she was talking about but knew it wiser to remain silent. “Hang on,” he said, “I just found a lane. Hopefully it’s not parked full.”
They were in luck. The little lane was comparatively dark, unusual, with a streetlight peering like a yellow ghost from the end of the lane where it joined the main street. In the brownish gloom, Neil could make out an old banyan tree- not the entire tree- but just it’s long braid like branches falling down like so many upturned roots or snakes.
Neil parked the car by the tree. The car-doors slammed shut and the couple’s shoes clicked as they walked down the road, crunching the gravel beneath.
Neil registered that they sounded posh; he liked the sound of polish. He gave the shoulders of his starched black suit a smart tug with both hands and walked straighter. His gait was light and effortless. Miranda aka Meera, who had chosen an elaborate Indian lehenga-choli to do justice to the part of an Indian princess was having difficulty with all the jingle-jangle. Her pencil-thin heels made her tall, skinny form appear longer still, and her crystal green eyes in a pale triangular face gave her a look of startling prettiness. And even though her bony Caucasian hips seemed to make the heavily ornamented skirt slip time and again, her blond hair swung in beautiful contrast to the rich scarlet-coloured velvet blouse she had chosen, making her look vividly like an Orientalist imagining of an Indian beauty.
At the door they were greeted by Nigel. “Hey sailors! How are ye?” he boomed as he gripped them both in a bear hug. Nigel had chosen to be the Playboy Bunny for the costume party. He couldn’t have been more predictable. Nigel spent his days designing covers for trash-metal bands and watching porn on websites like www.dickhard.com and www.letyourpussykill.com. He also claimed to be a feminist because “I always let the girl ride on top, maan!” Nigel’s stubble scratched the furs of his soft bunny costume as he spoke.
“And what are you then,” big,broad Nigel said running his eyes up and down Neil’s slim form. “Are you the Batman, then?”
“No! I am the wily Raven.” Neil joked. He felt like an idiot when he said that, because he knew the Raven wasn’t a superhero and nobody had even heard of this character. Meera came to his rescue:
“ He’s writing about Native American myths for his final thesis. So he decided on, taadah! The Raven!”
“You lost me there,” said Nigel shaking his head and laughing hoarsely. “You still look slick, mate. Catchya later.” he said nodding to them both. As Nigel pushed his way through the heavy crowd, the merlot in his glass sloshed dangerously before landing on the unfortunate shoulder of a girl dressed in saccharine pink. She barely noticed.
Meera saw her friends drinking in a corner and immediately swerved off in their direction leaving Neil blank for a second. He stood somewhere in the middle of the long room, with a crowd of bejewelled, costumed, groomed, ungroomed, ashy, tinkly and waifish people making their way in and out, in and out, like a heavy swarm of bees. No, like the sentinels in the Matrix he reverted, his thoughts suddenly darkening.
Neil was an expert at manipulating his own moods, as well as manipulating a room full of beautiful women and influential men. When the need arose, he could ease himself into any avatar, switching roles, playing with tone, modulation, using his charm and his deep coal black eyes to assert his own. It was very well that he had chosen the Raven costume for the Raven is also famous for being a trickster bird, and unluckily connected with ill omens and wicked witches. Neil now began to tug at the hollow metallic beak that was painted up in matte black with holes to breathe from. This huge black beak was connected up with a black cloth that covered his head like a skullcap, leaving his mouth area free. From the back of his suit, a pair of black wings fell almost to the floor. Alas, the wings could not help him escape this room and its piss-drunk people! Neil decided to play the part of a person who enjoys a party, but only drinks expensive wine in a corner where there is a single beautiful vase with a single blood-orchid sveltly rising from the top of a single white closet with a gilted mirror above it.
Sipping his not expensive wine in an expensive manner, Neil began to surmise all the people there. Meera had long faded away into the garden area, where all the women were complaining about how boring their husbands were in bed. The older men had already retired for the evening. Actually, there were hardly any ‘older’ people, Neil noticed, except for Nigel and a few others who couldn’t really let go of the drug and party lifestyle they had grown up on along the coast. Instead here were a lot of younglings, dressed as goths, as Aghoris, as New Age Messiahs, as hippies…and as Neil warmed his eyes to the scene he realized that they hadn’t dressed up as anything at all. This was their lifestyle and they were here for the booze. Vaguely his thoughts went back to his thesis. He remembered that he needed to make a more marked distinction between magpies and ravens. And what of the skin-walkers? And so, Nigel wandered off and didn’t even know that his eyelids closed over as he stood, leaning loosely against a wall which had a wallpaper theme of the Chelsea football team.
Suddenly, Neil felt a hushed, warm breath very close to his face. He opened his eyes and saw a masked face. She wore a black eye-mask and her lips were painted blue. She kissed him, their dry lips searching for the wetness of the inner-lip, of the mouth, but not the tongue. The just kissed. Neil could smell the lipstick- it smelt of rose petals, and about her a hint of coconut hair-oil, and a whiff of something else. What was it? A flower maybe….The mystery woman said to his lips rather than him — ‘delicious’. She had no drink in her hand.
“What are you dressed as?” Neil quickly asked her, still surprised by what had taken place.
“I’m supposed to be a hummingbird,” she said and stood back to display her exquisitely sequinned emerald and orange gown. Black crepe flew out from the end of her gown trailing like the tail-feathers of a swallow, rather. She also happened to be extremely petite.
“It suits you.”
“Thanks,” she said shyly. “Actually, there aren’t any hummingbirds in India, but I couldn’t resist. We have sunbirds here. They’re beautiful too. I like ravens too,” she said looking up at him, “but we don’t have them here in India either. Just crows. Neither do we have autumn, and neither do we have snow. We just have sun and rain.”
Neil really didn’t know what to say to this but he found her charming and his lips curved into a smile. But the woman seemed to have lost all her passion and spontaneity, and with a start flew out of the room into the humming crowd of the garden. Neil did not run after her, but he did go and check the garden for signs of the ‘emerald lady’. He wanted to know her better. He strolled seemingly casually through the party, while peering out of his eyeholes on the lookout for her. But she was nowhere to be seen.
Somebody nudged him. It was Manush. “Yo. Meera tells me you’re running late on your thesis man. So am I, so am I. But I’ll tell you what, after all this is done, college and all this bullshit, let’s start a feni business. That’s going to really sell. “
Meera joined them shortly and they began to laugh over common memories. Neil’s mind kept wandering over to the sequined dress, the scent of rose and coconut hair-oil, was it Parachute? he wondered absentmindedly, and then he forgot.
— — — — — — — — — — -
“Sorry! I know I’m always late,” Neil told the receptionist at Dr.Kakkar’s rushing in like a strong gust of wind. Every month he visited the doctor to get his eyes checked. His power had increased since working for continuous long hours in front of the laptop. He had been given reading glasses, but the doctor had warned him it could get worse if he didn’t watch out.
The receptionist smiled at him. “I’ll just call him,” she replied.
Neil sat down on one of the pastel blue seats that lined the waiting room, and began to jiggle his restless left foot.
“The doctor will see you now,”
Neil pushed a white door that had a picture of the lower part of a woman’s face: she had on a deep red lipstick and her teeth were white, whiter than pearls to be honest because pearls are often yellowish. Neil didn’t notice as he rushed off into Dr. Kakkar’s office.
Within ten minutes he was out.
“ Phew! I don’t have to keep coming here anymore he says,” Neil told the receptionist, pointing back at the door he had left and grinning wide. “My power seems to have stopped fluctuating since last month. He’s just given me an eye-solution to put in every one hour. By the way what is that smell? It’s kind of familiar…and delicious….”
“Vanilla,” the receptionist whispered, looking directly at him.
Neil wasn’t paying attention. He took out a silver-and-gold ten-rupee coin from his trouser pocket and flipped it in the air. “Hmmm…tails” she heard him say as he let himself out of the clinic.
