Shadow Play (5 page)

To begin with, it was unlawfully pushed down to the last item on the morning's agenda, which in itself showed me my place. Without so much as an apology I was thrust behind an impromptu presentation by the gardener who complained about local goats lunching on the premises because of deliberate breaches made in the fencing, and a kitchen staff representative
responding to a proposal on whether the faculty could be served different meals from the students.

The choice of Class Three's wall colours was my issue. The school was being repainted that year, classroom by classroom, and I had first preference in picking the shade for my boys. Which sounds like an entrusting of responsibility, but I soon grasped it was a ploy to set me up. The master of every other class was summoned before me, which didn't make sense any way you looked at it – neither alphabetically nor chronologically – so you had to believe they were out to provoke and inflame. It was also clear to me by now that my proposal was going to be unique, but that seemed no reason to back out. So what if everyone else had merely picked a colour of paint? Besides, what would I have to show if I didn't bring out my wallpaper?

As I rolled out my sample sheet over the large conference table, the very first reactions from the senior staff conveyed everything I was half-prepared to hear – just the sounds they made, the drawing-in of breath, the clucks and sighs. And as it lay there between us and the motion was opened for discussion, the censure gushed out thick and fast, in simple stabs that weren't even sentences, as well as through longer reasoned disquisitions. To Mrs Kejriwal it was ‘in awful taste', and Mr Chaudhuri thought it ‘frivolous and shallow'. Mr Myers thundered unstoppably for five minutes on how we were allowing the Americanization of our children, of an entire generation, with all the consequent lapses in standards.

‘Are students not even to be certain any more which is their playroom and which the classroom? And make no mistake, schools such as this are the last bastions of resistance, where at least some of the shadows of the principles the British have left
behind are enshrined and transmitted – discipline, application, manliness. Why, if we are going to let them be infected as early as Class Three, we might as well pack up and go the distance. Let the seniors grow their hair; let music and film posters be allowed in the rooms. We could sell cigarettes on the premises and even dispense with uniforms.' This wasn't just a generation gap, he reiterated every few lines. This was a question of the very future of the school, a crisis in its fabric, of the direction it would take and the values it vowed to preserve.

I didn't deign to defend myself, but my hands were shaking as I pulled out my resignation. I flung it on the table, on top of the wallpaper, which led to at least one person sighing sharply from the shock. Then followed an unfortunate moment of comedy that spoiled the whole effect, but such incidents always crop up at exactly these junctures. Just as someone reached for the envelope to pass it on to the Headmaster, I pulled at the wallpaper underneath it, upsetting three cups of tea that overflowed their saucers. As if that wasn't enough, I then found it almost impossible with my still-shaking hands to fold the sheet back like a newspaper, because part of it was now soggy from the tea. So for some time I stood there with no one venturing to help me, the paper outstretched in my arms, trying in vain to find the right creases. But it just wouldn't happen, and all that the table could see of me was a face peering out over the paper, and my fingers on either side.

Finally I realized I didn't care: I mean, why fold it back when it had been refused anyway? The newfound irreverence and freedom I'd earned from my as-yet unopened resignation letter enabled me to spring another surprise. I threw the wet paper on the floor, rose and wished the assembly ‘Good Morning', told them they would find all explanations when they opened the
letter, announced how glad I was to be taking their leave, and turned around and marched out of the room. It was only when I was outside and walking away that I realized there were tea stains all over my white shirt-front, and that the resignation letter might now be blurred and unreadable, in which case I wouldn't have the pleasure of the last laugh because they wouldn't even be able to make out the punch-line. But that couldn't mar my triumph, how suddenly I had snatched the pleasure from them of seeing me grovel in deference.

There was one last surprise before I left, but this time it was on me. I had always doubted that Sandeep really left each evening to ‘play bridge' with such unflagging enthusiasm, and that day I discovered the true import of the euphemism. His screen was up when I entered, but it was obvious there was activity in his bed. He was probably not expecting anyone back until after the meeting was over. I went straight to my corner, informing him of my resignation and immediate departure, when I noticed the screen didn't shield him from this side at all. So his ‘bridge' partner had been Miss Choksi, whose attention I'd been trying to earn that entire month. They were covered up to their necks but she was above him, I could see. I hadn't suspected a thing, nor had my roommates – whom I'd considered my only friends in the place – trusted me enough to share their secrets. And every day I'd postponed making a move on Miss Choksi, warning myself I must not seem too eager.

There was nothing for me to do except set up my screen and cover them from this angle, and then get on with my packing. At least they cared enough about what I'd announced not to immediately continue, and asked me all the usual questions about what had happened and what I thought lay ahead for me, but for a while my dominant feeling as I answered was not of
triumph or failure, or even of remorse and doubt, but an utterly incongruous arousal that didn't go at all with the hot tears I kept trying to squeeze back into my eyes. Why was I the only one who failed to belong anywhere when everyone else found a way to stay warm beneath their sheets and someone to keep them company?

As I gave up folding my things and started pushing them in so I could clear out as effectively and as soon as possible, I realized I had no idea where I could go next. If I could be in Delhi by the following day, and somehow find a berth on a train to Calcutta, I would have to provide an explanation to Ma within forty-eight hours as to why I'd decided to return to England. It wouldn't be easy, so soon after my equally grandiose (and unilateral) decision to move back here and ‘make arrangements' for both of us, especially since she had cautioned me repeatedly in her letter against such a sudden about-turn in my plans, and had asked me to be certain I was doing this for myself. For a moment, I even considered whether it would be easier all round if I remained in Delhi for a few days and simply explained in writing.

For now, from the tiny church-shaped window above my bed, I could see the village far below, beyond the chasm after the terraced rice fields, where I hadn't returned since the day I arrived at the station. One morning I'd lifted the glass pane and stuck my head out quite comfortably, but the drop of the cliff beneath and the size of the window left me so terrified of being trapped that I never once opened it again. I would have to walk at this time of day; nothing else could be arranged at such short notice, and the school wouldn't do me any favours. I could feel already, in the very near distance, only as far away as the road
outside the gate where I would arrive in fifteen minutes, a great exhaustion approaching, which I must brave if I wasn't going to let myself collapse, as had happened so many times before – the exhaustion so familiar of knowing that I would have to begin again, and that I had no idea yet where the next starting point would be.

 

He appeared as direct about his business as I always am about mine, which should have marked him out as all the more threatening. His first and only move was an unsigned letter under my door. ‘Saturday, March the 8th,' it stated, ‘I was there on Clapham Common. Since then I have thought about you, after I saw your way of working. Now I feel we must meet. Come to Shoreditch tube station at seven this Monday evening. Don't look for me, I'll find you.'

It was the middle of April and the days had started to lengthen. I'd first arrived in Britain more than twenty-five years ago, but I still hadn't stopped noticing the different phases of late-evening gold and orange, or being grateful for them – the miracle of a day extending so far beyond daytime. I stepped off the train thinking how I would rather have been left alone to go for a walk on such an evening; I would have headed westward as everything turned more golden.

It was the most unlikely-looking man who sought me out, nothing like his letter persona. I made the mistake of relaxing immediately. A Bangladeshi who barely rose to my shoulders, bald, chewing constantly and smiling, his first words were my
name and then a suggestion that we repair for coffee to his friend's restaurant.

It was empty but for two customers, three waiters and his friend the manager. I was even introduced by my real name, and what followed was the most curious of exchanges. He said nothing in particular, spoke in a normal voice, and asked me generally about my years in London. Where in India did I come from; what kind of jobs had I held here; which parts of the city had I lived in? He'd only arrived seven years ago, yet in each neighbourhood I named he knew people, none of whom I'd ever encountered. After half an hour we moved outside. He shook my hand, declared it had been a pleasure and that he would be in touch again.

He would be in touch if I let him. Next morning, I awoke in a hotel in Streatham. Instead of returning north, that was where I headed from Shoreditch. It was the way I had planned it before the meeting – that no matter what happened that day, I was disappearing. So all my cash was in my pocket while I was with him, but I'd taken nothing else with me. Nor had I been in Streatham anytime since he'd first contacted me; I didn't even know about this hotel. Since randomness had always been my greatest aid, I picked Streatham randomly that morning and decided to arrive and find myself lodgings. My thinking was like a castle of calculations, one atop another. What were the odds that he was working alone, I asked myself. What were the odds he hadn't yet told anybody? What were the odds it was going to be blackmail? Because, above all, what were the odds that it was an ordinary man who had stumbled upon such an incident one night: ordinary with no experience of anything like this, ordinary and knowing no one he could trust with such a secret, ordinary no matter how opportunistic?

When I saw Faisul, I had felt my gambles would pay off completely, that my instincts had been more correct than I could ever have hoped for. He hadn't dared to meet me alone; rather, in the heart of his neighbourhood. Furthermore, he'd apparently chickened out at the last minute and not even put a price on the table. Physically I had nothing to fear from him, and he was a restaurateur by profession. It was almost like paying him an unnecessary compliment to go through with my plan after meeting him, but I have always been careful by nature.

In the next week I moved from Streatham to Ealing, and then back again to Tooting Broadway, deciding solely on impulse what I would do each time. I also watched the news and read the papers: as I'd expected, Faisul had no plans to contact the police. He must have been terrified by what he had witnessed – after all, I could murder someone from a standing start in one smooth motion. He had no way of knowing that
his
days weren't numbered, that I only killed at random. For all he knew, I might have disappeared so successfully because I was always well hidden behind him: how could he ever conceive that I spent my days on Primrose Hill and at a picnic on the Heath, walking down Highgate Village and lunching one day in East Ham? My defence systems remained what they'd always been – my casualness, because I had learnt never to step out of line if no one was calling my name, and never to seem nervous unless I was sure I was being watched. I didn't need any other precautions: my hiding place was daily life and the rhythms of simple impulsiveness, the size of the city and the walls of my skull. How could anyone figure me out or keep track of me if I only ever decided on a whim what I was going to do next, and if I never told or consulted anybody?

Of course, I imagine you exclaiming, there were so many clues. How could you have misread so many things simultaneously? He tailed you that night through all those neighbourhoods and found out where you lived without your becoming aware of him. Despite the inexperience you so easily attribute, he was cool enough to plan his next move without panicking. Despite your assurance that he would have confided in nobody, he brought you out into the open where others could see you and – no matter what they knew and whatever happened afterwards – remember your face for future reference. Besides, why would he meet you alone after seeing what you did to people you found alone with you? What you interpret so casually as his cowardice should have cautioned you even further: he had you so perfectly where he wanted you that he didn't even bother to discuss business at that first meeting. And how could you have been so certain he lacked resources even after he informed you about the friends he had in disparate places? Most of all, you silly fuck, you were in Clapham Common at two that morning and so was he. With all your experience – though you looked around before you made your move – you still didn't spot him!