‘Nope. Mom’s with him. I’ve just been hanging around pretending to be useful.’

‘Okay, let’s do it. Where do you want to go?’

‘The Eros at Churchgate is screening a remastered version of Gladiator. I like guys in skirts.’

Eram didn’t think that was odd because he himself found girls in shirts extremely attractive. Especially if they had cookie crumbs all over them.

Later, just after midnight, Eram and Gehna were wandering aimlessly outside the theatre. Eram was telling her about a poker game he’d once been invited to.

‘It’s a serious sport, but these guys thought it was just another excuse to party.’

Rich people who wanted to entertain other rich people at parties could call an agency which would send a dozen or more women over. You could place your order by their nationality, hair colour, skin colour and body type. Or you could leave it to the agency to provide an assortment, like one of those Krispy Kreme doughnut boxes. That meant you sometimes got sent a few women who didn’t understand anything but Belarusian or whichever dialect they spoke in whatever East Slavic shithole they were smuggled in from. That, however, wasn’t a problem since the women were not, generally speaking, hired for their linguistic capabilities.

‘So what are they hired for, then?’ Gehna wanted to know.

Her curiosity shifted easily between what Eram was saying and what he was eating. They had caught the late-night show and he was still holding on to some leftover popcorn. It was tricky business, walking in lockstep with someone and trying to grab a fistful out of a box that was in perpetual motion. As much as she didn’t want to interrupt Eram’s flow, she also wanted the popcorn.

‘They’re called hostesses. Like geishas or something. These women, they . . . what’re you doing, G? Here, just take the damn box . . . I don’t know, it’s like they’re supposed to lend chemistry to an event.’

Gehna, gratified to finally be in control of the popcorn, steered them towards Marine Drive. ‘Mm. Chemistry, yes.’ At night, it was cool enough to walk along the bay, and she liked seeing the joggers, the couples, the ice cream hawkers, the noisy gulls, all gathered together on that one arc of the promenade like mismatched beads on a necklace. ‘So that the guests can have sex if the mood suddenly overpowers them.’

‘No, not so that the guests . . . Look, it’s more subtle than that. Everyone likes to see pretty girls at a party. Sure, they’ll dance with you and laugh at your drunk jokes, but you can’t automatically assume that you can have sex with them. They’re not paid to do that.’

‘They’re not prostitutes.’

‘They’re essential party supplies. Like serviettes or kebabs.’

‘Oh, well, as long as the women are kebabs, that’s all right.’

Gehna slammed the popcorn bucket into Eram’s chest. She was glaring at him, but he could tell it wasn’t a lasting upset. It was too mellow an evening to stay mad at anything. They found a relatively isolated stretch of the parapet to sit on, with their feet dangling above the stacks of concrete tetrapods that broke the incoming Arabian Sea. Fifty feet on either side of them were young couples seated exactly as they were. Not owning apartments or cars of their own, Marine Drive was where they came to touch each other. The only privacy in that highly public place was the silent consensus by which everyone did exactly as everyone else.