The bloody bitch! I muttered to myself. What she needs is to be put across the knee, her jeans ripped off and a few hard smacks on her large, melon-sized bottom. Followed by buggery.

At the Coffee House I found myself telling my cronies about Georgine. I didn’t like my Sikh journalist friend referring to her as ‘another quail I had trapped.’ Nor the politician warning me against carnal knowledge of a girl of sixteen. When I came out of the Coffee House, it was late in the afternoon. The jamun trees were alive with the screeching of parakeets. I wanted to fill my chest and yell her name so loudly that it would be heard all over Connaught Circus; ‘Georgine’ —and the traffic would come to a halt, ‘Georgin’ —and the parakeets would stop screaming. And the only sound to be heard would be ‘Georgine, Georgine, Georgine,’ echoing round and round the Circus.

That evening I told Bhagmati about Georgine. As usual she did not like my being so enthusiastic about anyone except her. I tried to laugh it off by reminding her that Georgine was forty years younger than me. That did not reassure her. And when I took her with greater gusto than usual, she asked, ‘What is the matter with you today?’ Meaning: You are not taking me but that fat-bottomed sixteen-year-old white girl.’ She was right.

I was less exuberant in the morning. However, I spent twenty minutes in my cold, damp bathroom dyeing my beard. By the time I turned up at Carlyle’s house I was apprehensive of the kind of reception I would get.

Georgine was outside soaking in the sun. She looked more grown up. ‘How do you like my new hair-do?’ she asked turning her head sideways. The hair was bunched on top of her head and tied in a chignon. It made her neck look longer and bared her small pink ears.

‘Very nice! Makes you look like a lady.’

‘I am that. Shucks!’

In the car she asked me if I slept with my turban on my head.

I replied: ‘If you were a little older, I would have said, “Come and find out for yourself!”’

Her face flushed. ‘You are an ole lech! You makin’ a pass at me or somethin’?’

It was my turn to be embarrassed. ‘I said if you were older and I meant a lot older. I must be older than your father.’

‘I don’t buy that kind of crap!’

I laid on some flattery. White people are not used to flattery and succumb very easily. She gave me an opening by taking my hand and apologizing: ‘Don’t be mad with me. I don’t mean to be nasty.’

‘You are not nasty,’ I replied taking a grip on her hand, ‘you are the nicest Missy Baba I’ve met.’

‘Messy what?’ she asked, raising her voice.

‘Not messy, Missy. No flattery, it is not often I have anyone as pretty to take around.’