Lost for Words: A Novel Read Free

deliver the witty and magnanimous acceptance speech he had already sketched out a dozen times. ‘I want to thank the judges for their enlightened decision. Enlightenment is something we Indians know a thing or two about, but tonight it’s England’s turn…’ He imagined the shudder of laughter breaking out in the Banqueting Room of the illustrious Fishmongers’ Hall. He would be encouraging to the lesser talents, and humble in the face of greatness.
    Katherine watched Sonny murmuring to himself. He was reclining on silk cushions in the corner of a frantically carved daybed, his legs tucked towards him, a slender hand clasping one of his ankles. She could see his eyes swivelling under their lids in a way that reminded her of the rapid eye movement of a dreamer, as well as the ceaseless vigilance of the blind. A pair of yellow slippers idled on the carpet. Two turbaned servants were placing dozens of silver pots onto the engraved silver table in the middle of the room. Her throne of castellated mahogany, too deep to sit back in and too jagged to lean against, made her long to leave.
    She wished she hadn’t asked Didier to call Sonny before she left England. Like all her ex-lovers, except for the occasional Spartacus who would lead a gallant but futile revolt, easily crushed by a friendly email or a chance encounter, Didier remained her slave. If only he had been a little more reluctant to get in touch with his grand Indian acquaintance. He hadn’t seen Sonny for ten years and he warned Katherine that she would find him ‘ exotique , but totally crazy’. Before leaving England ‘totally crazy’ seemed a fair price for ‘ exotique ’, but after three weeks of travelling in India she felt the opposite. Tonight, thank God, she was flying back to the welcome dullness of London in early March.
    Sonny’s head turned as if synchronized with the arrival of the elderly woman in a maroon and gold sari who now stood in the doorway.
    ‘Auntie!’ said Sonny, rising from the daybed. ‘May I present Katherine Burns, she’s a lady novelist from London.’
    ‘Oh, how delightful,’ said Auntie and then, noticing that Katherine hadn’t moved, she added, ‘Don’t get up, my dear, nobody curtsies any more these days; or only the old stick in the muds,’ her voice filled with mock-horror at the mention of this category. ‘We’re just having a cosy little lunch, nothing formal.’
    She sat on the edge of the daybed and toyed with the folds of her sari.
    ‘You’re just the person I need,’ she began, conscious of the favour she was doing Katherine. ‘I’ve written the most marvellous cookery book – full of family portraits – and, of course, recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation by the cooks at the old palace.’ She hurried over this detail as if it were hardly worth mentioning. ‘You’re in the publishing world, could you take one of the manuscripts back with you and place it with a London publisher for me? We used to know the great English writers, Somerset Maugham and dear old Paddy Leigh Fermor, but they all seem to be dead now, or out of commission. So, you see, my dear, I’m relying on you.’
    ‘Of course,’ said Katherine, trying to assemble a smile.

 
    4
    Over the last few weeks, Penny had been so preoccupied by becoming a member of the Elysian Prize committee that she had neglected her own writing, but she was determined to get back to work on her current thriller, Roger and Out . She clicked, a little nervously, on its icon and found herself confronted by sentences she hadn’t looked at for ages. To give herself a running jump, she re-read the beginning of the latest chapter.

    It was evening in St James’s Park and the sun, sinking in a westerly direction, had turned the clouds into pink balls of cotton wool. Meanwhile, at ground level, the puddles had already turned into dark pools of glossy chocolate.
    Sitting in her battered grey Audi A6 3.0 litre TDI with all leather