Hot Water Man Read Free Page B

‘In the arena of life,’ he said – meaning India – ‘in the arena of life what disadvantage is that? There are more important things to be tested than
amo
and
amas
.’ Donald had just failed his Latin ‘O’ level. Grandad was reassuring about that, shrinking it to its proper perspective. His gaze stretched beyond.
    And Grandad had time. His Indian service had left him with a long retirement in the bungalow with the front porch, which he called the veranda, and its view over the sea. It faced the east. His life had dwindled to a lounge and those memories to which nobody else, Donald realized as he grew older, cared to listen. His brass objects were taken down, polished and put back again; they trapped the dust. Granny said. She hardly spoke of India. It was not her life as it was his, she had only lived there for thirty years before returning thankfully to dear old Britain. In fact there was not a lot you could say to Granny; she just existed from moment to moment, making things comfy.
    Yet there he sat, this noble man, enduring the inexplicable 1960s in which he seemed to be spending the last years of his life. He became more infirm. He just made it down to the esplanade. Teenagers giggled when he lifted his stick at the sea, mouthing words.
    Donald felt he was protecting a worn god from the faithless. Here was a man who had done more than their narrow spirits could imagine. A man who had led three hundred men through Burma; who had marched through the Delhi streets during Independence. One of those personally asked by Mountbatten to postpone his return for three more years so that he could help train up the native officers. Grandad had been given a signed photograph of Jinnah. Though intensely proud of it, Donald had not brought it to school. Jinnah who? they would say.
    He knew Christine long before he met her. He had seen her on the tennis courts. She was a summer visitor and wire mesh separated their games. She wore a white Aertex shirt and a pleated skirt; her honey-blonde hair was pulled back in a rubber band. She leapt for the ball. She was not that different from the others but he noticed her. She played high, soft, girl’s strokes and pressed a hand to her mouth, grimacing. Afterwards she was more at ease, spreading out her legs at the café table, tipping back her chair and sucking Pepsi through a straw. That first summer she was sometimes with girls and sometimes with youths, their hair damp from their exertions. It was only later that she told him she did not know them well; her parents, groan groan, had forced them on her.
    She told him this next summer when he talked to her for the first time. He had forgotten her during the winter. She was sitting on a wooden breakwater wearing what was to become the familiar blue-ribbed bathing suit. She swung her legs; she was alone; she was ready for anything. She was fifteen. Close up her face was less perfect, with its chapped lips. She walked along the beach with him, stepping over the sunbathing adults who lay torpid as logs.
    He splashed into the sea, showing off. She followed him with prancing, coltish steps, squealing. She floundered around; he impressed her with his manly crawl. Stepping out on to the beach she was bowed and shivering, her white legs goosepimpled. She looked thinner and smaller but he did not dare rub her dry. He longed to. Instead he whooped and they ran along the sand, jumping legs.
    She was there with her parents and her sister Joyce. Each year they rented a bungalow. He hung around, gawkily seventeen. They walked along the cliff path; he grasped her hand over the tricky bits but relinquished it when they were safe. They swung on the children’s swings; he was dizzy for her but he dared do nothing. To touch her would change her into his girlfriend; then at some point it must end. Presuming, indeed, that she would let him touch her in the first place.
    They were too casual to write. The London Christine,