FLORA No, I’m pleased. It has rasa.

DAS I think so. Yes. I hope so.

FLORA I forget its name.

DAS (Pause) Shringara.

FLORA Yes. Shringara. The rasa of erotic love. Whose god is Vishnu.

DAS Yes.

FLORA Whose colour is blue-black.

DAS Shyama. Yes.

FLORA It seemed a strange colour for love.

DAS Krishna was often painted shyama.

FLORA Yes. I can see that now. It’s the colour he looked in the moonlight.

They stand still, and in the moment the moonlight clouds to darkness.

FLORA (Recorded)

‘Heat collects and holds as a pearl at my throat,
lets go and slides like a tongue-tip down a Modigliani,
spills into the delta, now in the salt-lick,
lost in the mangroves and the airless moisture,
a seed-pearl returning to the oyster—
et nos cedamus amori …’

Dawn. Flora lies inside the mosquito net. Approaching unseen, Pike and Dilip enter chanting.

PIKE AND DILIP ‘It’s no go the merrygoround, it’s no go the rickshaw,

All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peepshow.

Their knickers are made of crêpe de Chine, their shoes are made of python,

Their halls are lined with tiger rugs, and their walls with heads of bison.’

It is dawn for them, too. They have been up all night. They each have a bottle of beer. They are happy, not drunk.

PIKE AND DILIP ‘It’s no go the yogi-man, it’s no go Blavatsky, All we want is a bank balance and a bit of skirt in a taxi!’

PIKE (Toasting) Madame Blavatsky and Louis MacNeice!

DILIP (Toasting) Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society, coupled with Indian nationalism!

PIKE Really?

DILIP Oh yes. That’s why the Jummapur branch was suppressed. The study of Indian religions is a very fine thing, no doubt, but politics is always the baby in the bathwater. Excuse me, I’ll have a little rest.

Dilip lies on the ground on his back.

PIKE It’s no go the records of the Theosophical Society, it’s no go the newspaper files partitioned to ashes … All we want is the facts and to tell the truth in our fashion … Her knickers were made of crêpe-de-Chine, her poems were up in Bow Street, her list of friends laid end to end … weren’t in it for the poetry. But it’s no go the watercolour, it’s no go the Modigliani … The glass is falling hour by hour, and we’re back in the mulligatawny … But we will leave no Das unturned. He had a son. God, this country is so big!—Dilip—? (Dilip is asleep. Pike shakes him.) Dilip! It’s morning! (Dilip wakes refreshed.)

DILIP Ah yes. Would you like to come home for breakfast?

PIKE Oh … Thanks!

DILIP It’s going to be hot today.

PIKE It’s hot every day.

DILIP No, Eldon, you haven’t been hot yet. But you’re off to the hills, so you will be all right.

A car is heard approaching. Flora, putting on her robe, gets out of bed and comes to meet Durance at the steps of the verandah.