The Friendly Ones. Philip Hensher

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СКАЧАТЬ took his beer. Sharif and Tinku exchanged a worried look. Was it a theatrical worried look? Or were they sincere? When the argument is won or lost by a single error of the opponent, how sincere is the triumph, and how much is the triumph performed? They left it to Aisha, who at least should be allowed to indicate how little her boyfriend had discovered about her, while lengthily explaining about Sicily.

      ‘We don’t have castes,’ Aisha said. ‘You’re thinking of Hindus. We don’t have a caste. We’re not Hindus. You’re probably thinking of India, too. We’re not from India.’

      Enrico appeared confused: his eyes went from face to face, and each of them looked downwards, performing an embarrassment that none of them probably felt. They were people dedicated to moving forward, dynamically, never resting, but they paused quietly, demonstrating what stilled embarrassment might look like if you performed it when other people found themselves in trouble.

      9.

      The twins were the only ones still left at the fence, and the old man up the ladder had stopped talking. They had eaten twenty loquats each and, without consulting or setting each other a challenge, were going for thirty. It amazed Raja and Omith that other people ate so little, could refuse food. They watched their aunt, their sister too, eat half a piece of cake with a fork, so dainty-dainty, like a bird pecking with its little beak at crumbs, then set her fork down, push away the half-left cake on its plate; they watched this spectacle incredulously, since they had finished their cakes ten minutes before. ‘Don’t wolf,’ people would say to Omith or, especially, to Raja – he was the real gannet, as a teacher had once called him in the dinner hall. Don’t wolf: but how could you not wolf when food was so little and hunger was so enormous? ‘You really will spoil your dinner,’ their mother used to say when she came in, and there they were, making a sandwich home from school, with their favourite mix, Marmite and sandwich spread. But they never had spoiled their dinner.

      They knew that Mummy would have their guts for garters if they went over to the table and made a start on what they really fancied, the samosas and pork pies and pickles. And the kitchen was full of people chopping and preparing things and bustling about: there was no way you could get into the fridge to make a sandwich to tide you over. Raja and Omith were absolutely starving. They had no idea what it might be like not to be hungry, almost all the time. They stood by the tree, and picked, and peeled, and stuffed the loquats into their mouths.

      ‘These are good,’ Raja said. ‘I really like these things.’ He popped another one into his mouth.

      ‘I really like them,’ Omith said. ‘I’m going to eat these things all summer. I’ve never …’

      But he trailed off now, because Raja was making a strange noise from the throat, trying to speak without success. Omith asked what it was, but Raja made glottal, ugly sounds; and bent over violently, as if to make himself sick. On the patio, the others had seen, and were standing up. Omith’s hands fluttered; decisively, he pushed his twin. But the choking continued, and now Raja’s face was darkening, filling with blood.

      ‘Cough, Raja, cough,’ Omith said. Raja made flapping motions with his arms; he was trying to cough. Omith hit him on the back, gently and then harder. There was no response. The caterers had been starting to cook the meat, but now were watching with curiosity. It must look as if Raja and Omith were fighting, but now Omith remembered something from school. He got behind Raja – he cursed himself for not remembering, not paying attention – and his hands joined together in a double fist, pulled heavily into the pit of Raja’s stomach. Mummy was running towards them, and, strangely, the old man from next door, climbing nimbly over the fence. Omith was punching into the stomach. So this is how your brother dies, he heard his mind horribly saying, and Mummy screaming, and knowing that nothing was happening, that he was just punching into the stomach and Raja was making an awful choked skriking noise, a noise of a throat in mud, and twitching and flailing, and then quite suddenly Raja went limp, his head falling to one side.

      The old man from next door was quite calm. ‘Put him down,’ he said. ‘There, on his back. Go and bring me a sharp knife – there must be one at the barbecue. Wipe it. Go on. And a pen,’ he said, turning to Aisha as her brother ran. ‘Just a biro would do. Take everything out, just the tube. Quick – good.’ Omith was back already, with a steak knife. The old man took it from him, running his finger along the blade. He knelt down, muttering, ‘I’m a doctor,’ in some kind of response to all this screaming, and reached out his hand for Aisha’s pen. She had found one in her bag, a new one, and tried with shaking hand to take off the lid, the stopper, to pull out the ink tube. The old man’s hand was patient, but steady, demanding; it was in that horizontal calm waiting that his professional standing was apparent. Aisha finally succeeded, and handed it to him. Before they could quite understand what he was doing, he had placed the tube in his shirt pocket, and with his left hand felt urgently at Raja’s throat. His hand stopped; held; and with a single gesture the other hand cut between his second and third fingers, into Raja’s throat. Raja made no movement as his flesh was sliced. The biro was taken from the upper pocket, and the old man – the doctor – plunged it firmly into the incision. There was a sound of whistling; you could feel the air re-inflating Raja. But Aisha was already leading her mother away to a little crowd of comforters. The flurry of action was over. The old man reached out, and pulled himself up with the aid of Omith.

      ‘He should be all right now,’ he said, to nobody in particular. ‘Has someone called for an ambulance?’ (Sharif was doing that, inside the house.) ‘The hospital will sort him out. I’ve done it once or twice before. Dramatic, but it leaves no ill effect.’

      ‘That was –’ Omith said, coming down to his brother. Raja was going to be all right, but he would come round with blood trickling down his throat and a biro stuck in his neck. He would want Omith to stay with him.

      The others were crowding round, appalled. ‘It’s best if you sit down,’ Tinku said and, placing his arms around Dolly, who was giving small piping noises of despair and helplessness, tried to push her in the direction of the patio. ‘Don’t – there’s nothing you can do here, Dolly. Come along.’

      The doctor was feeling Raja’s pulse, perhaps for the lack of something better to do, perhaps to go on seeming professional. ‘It looks frightening, I know,’ he said. ‘You’ve been taught the manoeuvre. It usually works, but if it doesn’t – well, you saw what to do. You have to decide you’re going to do that very quickly. I suppose it was one of the stones from the loquat tree he swallowed.’

      ‘It must have been that,’ Omith said.

      ‘Well, now you’ll be more careful eating them,’ the doctor said. ‘If it ever produces fruit again. The Tillotsons put it in. They loved it. I would say you’ve been lucky. I’m retired as a doctor – I was a GP. But you never forget these things. I once removed an appendix. That was the limit of my surgical experience. This was child’s play. I retired five years ago now. There’s a young fellow in my place ‒ you might know him. Dr Khan.’

      ‘Where is that?’ Omith said, with a sense of feeling dizzy. Raja had ordered him about all their lives, and that might have gone in a minute. His brother had nearly died and was still lying there faint and exhausted, his hand warm in his brother’s; this old man was talking to him about himself. Tinku and Bina were standing by, looking down as if awaiting instructions. It was for Omith to listen to the doctor talking.

      ‘Where is it?’ the old man said. ‘The surgery? On the Earlsfield road, just where it curves towards the top. We made a successful surgery out of it. I hope Dr Khan’s doing us proud. If you happen to see him, tell him Dr Spinster sends his best regards. My wife’s not at home. She’s in hospital herself.’

      But now Sharif was coming out of the house, and Tinku was going over to find out what news of the ambulance. СКАЧАТЬ