It is 4.30 p.m. I press open the door of Hoity-Toity’s room and shut it behind me. She sleeps with the bedsheet drawn over her head like a corpse in a shroud. I shake her by what appears to be her shoulder. She flings the sheet off her face. ‘What time is it?

I tell her.

She yawns and stretches her arms. Yellow, fungoid growth in her armpits. She props herself against her pillow and holds the bedsheet under her chin. ‘Be a darling and hand me a cigarette.’ I give her a cigarette and light it for her. She sends jets of smoke through her nostrils, ahs and oohs with pleasure. ‘Hand me my dressing-gown,’ she says pointing to the garment hanging on the latch of the bathroom door.

I get her the dressing-gown. She leaps out of bed. Stark naked: small, wrinkled breasts; nipples looking downwards and dejected; wrinkled belly with a slight paunch beneath the navel; scraggy-brown pubic hair. I put the gown round her shoulders and close my hands over her breasts. She turns to stone. ‘What do you think you are trying to do?’ she demands.

‘Well I . . .’

‘Well, you what? Don’t get silly notions in your head.’ She picks up her shirt and denims lying at the foot of the bed and walks into the bathroom. She does not bother to shut the door. I do not bother to look.

She comes back, puts her hands on my shoulder. ‘Don’t be cross. I’m a bit of a cock-teaser.’ She gives me a smelly kiss on the nose to seal her forgiveness. My feelings are hurt, I want to hurt her. Her halitosis encourages me to be rude to her. I snigger. ‘What’s the joke?’ she asks.

‘You! You remind me of my city Delhi. We have a saying: “Ruins proclaim the past splendour of an ancient monument.”’

She shrivels. ‘That’s not a nice thing to say.’

We step out of the bungalow as strangers. We walk alongside with a wall of silence between us. It is hot. Sandstone boulders burn under the sun. In the shade of trees sit peacocks panting for breath with their beaks open. We walk a mile or more without exchanging a word or looking at each other.

We come to the end of the Ridge. In front stretch cultivated fields growing wheat and mustard. Out of the flat sea of green and pale yellow rise rocky islands covered with the flame. Beyond the islands is the village Anangpur. It is the kind of scene that cannot be appreciated by people with a wall of misunderstanding between them. I take Hoity-Toity’s hand and ask, ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ She replies, ‘Isn’t it! Let’s sit down somewhere.’