Om Shanti, Babe Read online

  Magazines and copies of the Hindu Times were scattered about the crowded tables. I sat down and gave the waiter my order. Everyone around me was busy eating so I checked my purchases while I waited for breakfast. I was a big postcard fan.

  I started the first one without thinking. ‘Rachie, babe! Inja hot but not very B’wood yet... I think our driver has a crush on Loopy Lu aaargh!!! He’s married though so I guess she’s safe...xoxo’

  I turned the card over and looked at the picture. I’d found some especially gruesome images of a Goddess waving a sword and a severed head. She was called Kali and she had four arms. She looked pretty angry about something. I imagined Rachel’s face cracking into a smile when the card arrived. The old Rachel. The new Rachel would do something else entirely.

  I sat and chewed on my nails for a bit, then tore the card into little pieces. The waiter came back with my food and I brushed the pieces on to the floor.

  The plate was stacked high and chunks of papaya sat in a pool of honey.

  ‘Enjoy,’ said the waiter.

  I got my head down for a serious calorie-fest and ate until my jaw actually hurt. Swallowing down the last of a pineapple smoothie, I let out a sigh of pleasure, leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. Conversations from the surrounding tables murmured soothingly in my head. I was seriously sleep-deprived and must have drifted off for a minute or two, as my head banging against the back wall woke me with a start. Some little kids at the next table looked away, giggling. I did a quick spittle check, but my chin was clear.

  The café was hitting rush hour and a line of people stood waiting. A group of local girls crowded round a mobile phone. They were laughing at a message or maybe it was a photo. Seeing me stand up, they hurried over and grabbed the empty seats. I heard them use a few English works mixed up with stuff I couldn’t understand. I guessed they learned English at school. I wondered if they’d like to practise. I could be their new British Best Friend.

  The waiter came to take their order. He cleared away my plate and I wished I hadn’t troughed my food down so fast. I smiled and tried a ‘Namaste’ to the girls, but I guess they didn’t hear me. They were exactly how I imagined they would be – really pretty with straight, dark hair and huge eyes. God, how lame I was! Of course they didn’t want to talk to me. I picked up my bag and left. They probably already had all the friends they needed.

  Just past the post office, I saw a shop with a painted wooden sign, Stop ‘n’ Save, hanging over the door. Bundles of plastic shopping bags dangled from hooks outside. The counter ran across the full length of the shop and lots of the stock was piled in boxes behind it. Sacks of rice, beans and nuts sat on the floor.

  There were no prices on anything and the displays looked a bit random. I thought Lula would have been very tsky-tsky if she’d seen it. But she was probably still heads-together with Mr Chaudhury.

  There seemed to be a special queuing system going on and I missed my turn a few times. Then, when it was only me left in the shop, I asked for Jungle Juice, a brand of mosquito cream I remembered seeing in the chemist at home.

  The man behind the counter looked confused and pointed to a crate of soft drinks. I tried again, carefully saying each word quite loudly.

  An old lady came into the shop and stood beside me. She said something quietly to the man. He shrugged and stared at my legs.

  I made a buzzing sound and pointed to an imaginary mosquito hovering over my arm. My finger followed its flight then stabbed me on the elbow. The old lady coughed and dabbed her eyes with her saree. The man just carried on staring.

  It was very hot in the shop and the shiny cover of the guidebook was slippery in my hands. I opened it and tried to find the word for mosquito cream. I heard the old lady’s bracelets jingling as she lifted her shopping bags impatiently from one arm to the other. I was having a bit of trouble breathing. The man was still staring down at my legs and then, just as I was about to cave, I saw the bit about malaria in the guidebook and shouted it out.

  ‘Ah! Odomos!’ the man and the old lady said at the same time.

  ‘Yes! Odomos! Can I buy two bottles, please?’

  ‘Yes, yes, but not from here. This is the wrong sort of shop. You must be in a different shop for such things. Goodbye.’

  The old lady stepped forward quickly to take her turn and I staggered out. I felt a bit stupid, but why didn’t they just sell the sort of stuff that visitors really needed?

  Directly opposite was the entrance to a funky-looking bookstore. A Harry Potter was in the window and I stepped inside. Comics piled on a shelf rustled gently, their pages rising and falling as a ceiling fan stirred the air.

  A woman behind the counter glanced up from the till and said, ‘Namaste.’ Her hair was plaited and she had a red dot between her eyes.

  I said ‘Namaste’ back, putting the palms of my hands together to copy the little bow thing she’d done.

  It took a few minutes for my eyes to forget the bright sunshine outside and, until I could see properly again, I just ran my fingers along the book spines. The shelves were tightly packed, loaded with cookbooks, yoga manuals, travel guides and second-hand novels that tourists had traded in. I picked through other people’s reading, feeling like a spy. Someone had made notes in One Night at the Call Centre – a total double-digit-death-stare offence, yes indeed!

  ‘You might like this.’ A girl sorting books in the next row was holding up a paperback, The Peacock Spring by Rumer Godden.

  ‘What’s the story?’

  ‘Actually, it’s about a British girl who comes to India and gets herself into all sorts of trouble.’

  ‘Is it funny?’

  ‘No! Not at all!’

  ‘Does it have a happy ending?’

  She didn’t answer straight away, which wasn’t a good sign. ‘In a manner of speaking... the girl, Una, goes back to school and actually that is what she really wanted all the time.’

  ‘Sounds perfect,’ I said, but I didn’t mean it. How could going back to school ever be a happy ending? I read the blurb on the back. It sounded like she was in for a hard time. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You are most welcome. This copy is trade-in, so it is with discount too.’ With a smile, she handed me the book and went back to alphabetising the shelves.

  I couldn’t put it back, but when she wasn’t looking I grabbed something from the fast cars and random explosions section as well, checking out the cover which showed a man on a jet-ski, waving a big gun.

  The lady at the till watched as I sorted out Lula’s rupees, and then gave me my change. She dropped the books into a cloth bag with the name of the shop printed on in thick ink.

  ‘Excuse me, do you know where I can buy some Odomos, please?’

  ‘Yes, there is a chemist shop nearby. Mosquito cream is very sensible, though keeping covered up will help greatly, you know.’ She pointed over the counter at my legs.

  What was these people’s problem with skin? Even Loopy Lu was on my case. It seemed like now we’d arrived she was acting even more mentalist than usual. Maybe Mr Chaudhury was a bad influence.

  No one was about when I got back to the guest house. I changed into long trousers and wandered round the garden for a bit, hoping Lula would appear.

  Why had she gone off without me and where had she gone, anyway? I wanted to give her the Odomos and tell her all about breakfast and the bookshop. There was no sign of Mr Chaudhury either. The lawn sprinkler was still turning and I let jets of cool water run over my grubby feet.

  Mrs Chaudhury waved at me through the kitchen window and said that Lula would be back very, very soon and that I should rest before lunch. She passed me an icy glass of soda.

  I went upstairs, took a pile of cushions off the beds and sat out on the roof, sipping my drink. It was a mixture of lime and ginger. I really wanted a Coke, but in a weird way the spicy taste sort of suited the view.

  I read the blurb on the back cover of The Peacock Spring again. It looked interesting, but I wasn’
t in the mood for a proper girl story and I cracked the spine on Mr Jet-ski instead. He didn’t let me down, the body count hitting double figures well before the pages did.

  As I finished my drink, I heard someone talking on the downstairs terrace. I leaned over to see if it was Lula back again. I couldn’t see very well through the leaves, but her voice carried up to the roof.

  ‘I hope she’s OK... nothing serious, anyway.’

  I guessed she was talking about me and I ducked back behind the plants.

  A man’s voice came in reply. ‘It is all probably just storm in a teacup.’ It sounded like Mr Chaudhury.

  ‘She’s been moping around the shop for weeks.’

  ‘We will keep her busy.’

  ‘I expect the sunshine will do her good, too.’

  ‘And what about you, Luella? You have enough on your plate without dramas cooked up by teenage girls.’

  ‘This trip would be easier if she’d stayed in London. I just wish she was happy at school.’

  ‘Happy or unhappy, the sooner Cassia is back pursuing her education the better.’ His words flew through the bunches of green tomatoes and landed with a slap.

  Without thinking, I picked up the book I’d been reading and threw it into the garden as hard as I could. My lips felt trembly and I took a couple of deep breaths.

  What did my mum mean and why were they talking about me? Our life was none of Mr Chaudhury’s stupid business. This was supposed to be our time together, just me and Lula. I was supposed to look after the order book and help her with the shop business, not him.

  I wasn’t going back to school. I was going to work in the shop with Lula for ever, and nosy Mr Chaudhury wasn’t going to get in between us.

  The next morning I found Lula sitting on the terrace, eating breakfast. As I sat down at the table, she looked up from the paper she was reading.

  ‘Morning, slumber-beast, have some food.’

  ‘Not hungry.’

  ‘Please, have something.’

  ‘Can we go swimming today?’

  ‘There isn’t a beach nearby, Cass.’

  ‘I was reading about this place in the guidebook, Serenity Spa, on Bolghatty Island. It sounds super-swishy.’

  ‘I’ve been there before, it’s super-expensive!’

  ‘I could use some of Dad’s Christmas money.’

  ‘Sorry, Cassie, I hate playing tourist when I’m here. Besides, I’ve got an appointment at the bank this morning.’

  ‘Can I come with you?’

  Lula fiddled with one of her earrings, twisting it round and round between her thumb and forefinger.

  ‘How about, instead, I drop you at the spa?’

  I took a piece of toast from under its anti-fly tent and peeled away the crusts. I dipped them one by one in a pot of honey. Normally, Lula does death-stare deluxe when I do this, but today she said nothing.

  ‘Don’t they have any cereal here?’ I said, but she wasn’t listening any more. She was reading the newspaper. ‘Oh for goodness sake, some pop star is visiting and it’s a bigger story than the fair-trade conference.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jonny something... Jonny Gold.’

  If sound had a colour, then the squealing noise I made was super-pink. Lula’s eyebrows went shooting up her forehead.

  ‘Hand over that paper right now!’ I practically shrieked.

  With a sigh, she tore out the page and flipped it across the table. There he was, my supercrush, Jonny Gold, tousled hair, dark eyes, little-boy-lost expression and a killer tattoo on his suntanned forearms.

  The story had a bit about his new single, Om Shanti, Babe, but it seemed like the reporter was more interested in his “stunning (and now ex) film-star girlfriend” than in Jonny’s music. He guessed Jonny was sulking somewhere Taj Mahalish – miaow!

  My dad would have called this a kiss-kiss-cry-cry story. He was a proper journalist and spent half his life in a flak jacket and the other half going through people’s bins. Lula called him ‘the ink pig’ when she thought I wasn’t listening.

  ‘Come on, Cass. If we’re going to catch the ferry to Bolghatty we need to get our skates on.’

  I carefully folded up the picture of Jonny Gold and slid it into my back pocket. ‘Will it be OK to wear my bikini?’

  ‘You’ll be in tourist world, sweetie. I don’t suppose anyone will mind.’ The way she said it reminded me of going to nursery school in a fairy costume and clicky-clacky shoes. No one had minded that either, but I was just a little kid then.

  Lula came with me as far as the reception desk, and said she would be back to pick me up at lunchtime. Aside from the staff, no one else was around and I felt a bit abandoned when she left. I mean, I was all by myself in a strange country. Dad would not have approved.

  Lula hadn’t said much on the boat-ride either, and kept making notes in the order book. Losing this notebook was the one thing, aside from global poverty, that sent Lula into a complete, hysterical panic. It had a note taped on the front cover offering a big reward to finders in Malayalam, Hindi, Urdu, and about fifteen other languages including English.

  In the back of the book were the names and addresses of her regular customers and she’d spent ages this year writing them all extra-special Christmas cards. Lula seemed super-stressy today, but I guessed it was just one too many breakfast coffees.

  The pool was shaded by jungly creepers that scaled the walls around the courtyard and formed a green ceiling high above the water. I floated on my back, staring up at pink flowers dangling down like grow-your-own earrings. Through half-closed eyes, I watched tiny birds darting from flower to flower, their wings all blurry against the leaves.

  A waterfall bubbled out of the wall and splashed on to the painted tiles lining the pool. Even the tables were inlaid with glass, and the whole place felt like a shrine to Saint Deluxury.

  As I floated across the pool, I could hear the thud of my heart beating. It vibrated in my head, mixing with the gurgling sound of the water. Just then, I wondered what sound my soul would make – maybe a humming noise or something like a purring cat asleep in the sun.

  There was a Jonny Gold song I loved that said your soul could travel no faster than a galloping horse, so when we zoom about it takes a while to catch up.

  As I floated in the deep end, the noises around the pool muffled by the water in my ears, I imagined my soul somewhere near Mumbai heading south, a tiny firefly of pulsing pink light homing in on me from high in the sky. I wondered what happened if you kept moving so fast that your soul never found you again....

  A shadow passed over the sun. I lost concentration and sank. Underwater, my normally uncooperative hair floated gently around like a shampoo advert and I held my breath for as long as I could. Would I still have friends if I had shampoo-advert hair?

  I pictured myself swimming up to the surface and spotting my ex-best-friend Rachel sunbathing, poolside. I’d sneak up to her and shake cold water all over her back. She’d be a bit mad with me, but she wouldn’t look at me like she hated me. Then we would order a big plate of chips and go for a swim and argue about what we would wear that night. We would talk about Jonny Gold, and dream about meeting him and getting back-stage passes and him thinking we were so cool and dedicating a song to us.

  I surfaced with a gasp. It was time to get out. I kept my eyes closed as long as I could, but Rachel wasn’t lying on a lounger. I was still all by myself. I ordered a cheese toastie and a Coke and started on my Peacock girl-in-trouble book.

  It was weird reading about an English girl coming to India. It’s not like we were similar or anything – Una, the heroine, was a big-brain, rich kid who wrote to her dad, Edward, in Latin for fun! Her mum was dead and she was not as pretty as her little sister, Hal. Plus her governess, Alix, was kind of mean because she was secretly sleeping with Una’s dad and everyone disapproved, especially the servants, who thought she was not quite Pukka, whatever that meant. Everyone was keeping secrets and it was getting them all int
o trouble.

  I finished my Coke and ordered an ice-cream. I was about to dip my spoon into a creamy mound of chocolate when a shadow fell across the table.

  ‘I am very sorry, Cassia, but that is not a good idea.’ It was Mr Chaudhury. He picked up the plate of ice-cream and gave it back to a passing waiter. ‘Actually, I am of the opinion that ice-cream is best left to our American cousins. It is not really an Indian speciality and you do not want to get sick in your first week here, do you, m’n?’

  I was so surprised that I dropped the spoon. It landed on the table with a clatter.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’

  ‘Her meeting has gone on a bit. She said she is very sorry and I have come to collect you, instead.’ He was smiling at me and his smile was wide and friendly, but I felt furious about my ice-cream.

  ‘Pack up your things, Cassia. There is a ferry due soon and on the journey we can talk. It will be pleasant to get to know you a little better.’

  But all I thought was, “I definitely don’t want to get to know you, Mr Creepy-ice-cream-stealer, so why do you care about getting to know me?”

  We walked in silence to the ferry. Well, I walked in silence while Mr Please-call-me-Vikram did his tourist-guide thing. I sat in the women’s section of the boat and, from the other side, he pointed out crummy old buildings that lined the banks.

  When we landed, he launched into the history of Kochi. He did know loads about the place and I had to admit that some of it was interesting. But I was still annoyed about my lost ice-cream and stuck with giving him the silent treatment.

  He had run out of Boys’ Own Fascinating Facts by the time we reached the guest house, which was a relief. But to my complete horror, as we approached the gate I saw the jet-ski book lying on the step. I hadn’t expected to see it ever again. Hopefully, Call-me-V would just think a tourist had dropped it or something.