‘Here,’ ordered Champak, slapping her calf muscles. ‘It hurts here.’ She drew up her kimono to her thighs and spread out her legs. The boy pressed without daring to look up. After a few minutes he looked up to press the other leg. His mistress was bare up to her buttocks. She seemed fast asleep. The boy was overcome with a maddening desire. He clutched his mistress by the waist, then sank back exhausted.

‘What is the matter with you?’ asked Champak waking up.

‘Nothing, Bibiji,’ answered the boy trembling.

‘Go back to the kitchen. You don’t know how to press.’ Champak let out the boy and bolted her bedroom door. She switched off the radio and fell asleep.

When she woke, the shadow of the wall had spread across the courtyard. Sparrows were gathered by the hundreds for their evening twitters before going to roost. All the family were in except her husband.

Champak’s mood changed when her husband came back. She had slept all day, and was wide awake and full of herself. After a perfunctory inquiry about what he had been doing, she came back to her favourite subject—herself. ‘I had a very quiet day. All your family was away so I washed my hair and read and read and read. Did you know John Barrymore was dead? He died yesterday. I was very sad. He was my favourite film star. I wish we had someone like him in the Indian films. Our films are just singing and dancing. Nothing else. That reminds me, you must do something about this Mundoo, you really must.’

‘What has he been up to?’

‘Without knocking or warning he came into the room. I had nothing on, not a stitch. My God!’

Sher Singh knew that this sort of conversation always ended in the same thing and he wasn’t in the mood.

‘The fellow said nothing. Just gaped at me stupidly with his mouth wide open as if I were something to eat. I ran into the bathroom and put on my dressing gown.’

‘Why didn’t you tick him off?’

‘I did. I told him if he came into my room again without knocking I would have him whipped. He simply said he had come in to listen to the radio. He has got film music in his blood. It’s these films that give him ideas. How old do you think he is?’

‘I don’t know, thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen.’

‘I used to be so innocent at that age. We were brought up so strictly and Mummy did not tell us one single thing about life. This fellow, I am sure, knows all about sex already. Don’t you think so?’

Sher Singh did not like after-dinner conversation turning to sex, so he changed the subject abruptly. ‘It must be the heat or something. I have never felt as tired out as I do today,’ He said, speaking through a yawn.