Duty Free (11 page)

Some of the mothers in Kulchoo’s school have been sending the IDPs bus-fulls of bottled water and biscuits and dried milk and I asked what else they needed and they said that they needed clothes and medicine and the kids needed books. So being the soft-headed, charitable soul that I am, I packed up two enormous cardboard boxes for them and sent them along to Kulchoo’s school. Honestly, nothing like doing charity to make you feel close to God.

Inside the boxes I put fourteen Mills and Boon novels and eighteen Barbara Cartland novels that I last read in June (including my favourite,
The Ruthless Rake
). I also put the last ten issues of
Good Times
, so the poor IDPs, they can also cheer up a little bit by looking at all the pictures of the best weddings and fab parties-sharties that we’ve been having here. Eight cartons of Lexxo (Lexotonil, my fave trankillizer) that I
had left over. I think so they are slightly passed their expiry date, but I think so worst they will do is make the IDPs sleep longer. And if that refugee camp is as crowded as they say it is, it must be noisy also. So good to sleep longer, no? And then I sent them some old ties of Janoo’s. Some
tau
were even designer like Armani and all but they were a bit old-fashioned type so I thought
chalo
some Pathan pheasant who’s never worn Armani before will become so happy. I also sent some old chiffon saris of mine with matching petty-coats and blouses that are a bit on the tight side now.

Come to think of it, I don’t think so I’ve seen Pathan women from the tribal areas wearing saris. Come to think of it, I don’t think so I’ve ever seen a Pathan woman from the tribal areas. I don’t think so anyone in the outside world has either. They’re a bit like those rare animals in African forests that you can’t see unless you go and live there in the heat and the damp with the mosquitoes and the snakes and no toilets for months and months, very quietly and never showing yourself and maybe, just maybe, one day you catch a glimpse of one. But
chalo
, poor things they can wear their chiffon saris underneath their
chaddars
. Like Saudi princesses who wear Versace minis under their
abayas
.

Last night was the Butt–Khan wedding. So all yesterday I was on tender hooks. Because my sick-sense told me tonight at this wedding, we’d find a girl for Jonkers. After all, every single illegible girl of Lahore was going to be there—you don’t show up and everyone thinks you’re the only poor loser who wasn’t invited to the wedding of the year. So even if you don’t want to, you go. For face.

At least three thousand people were invited. Because between groom’s father, Talwar Khan, and bride’s father, Khayam Butt, they knew everyone in the city. At least everyone who was worth knowing and doing “hello–hi” with. So if a suitable girl wasn’t at
this
wedding then I don’t know where she’d be. And if Aunty Pussy couldn’t find a candidate there, then I’m sorry to say she might just have to design herself to her fate.

I wore my seven-standed emerald, pearl and diamond necklace that had belonged to Janoo’s grandmother with the matching earrings. Because I knew there’d be lots of BNM—Big New Money—there. That’s why I chose my “we-were-here-first” hairloom jewellery. After all you’ve got to show people that even though you may not arrive in a sport car, it doesn’t mean you are hungry-naked.

Of course, kill-joy Janoo didn’t come. He said it would be mega circus, heaving with boot-lickers and arse-holes, and that no one would notice if he didn’t show up. I told him that even if ten thousand people were invited, our hosts would know immediately that he hadn’t come, not because he’s special but because they keep taps on who-all came and who-all didn’t and they would remember and they would mind and tomorrow Kulchoo would be growing up and with grace of Allah be getting married and if Janoo didn’t bother to go to anyone’s weddings today nobody would come to Kulchoo’s wedding tomorrow and everybody would say, “
Haw
, poor things, what a disaster their wedding was.” And he said that he didn’t care and I said fine, be like that and I was going and he said be my guest. I said, no
ji
, I’d be Khayam Butt and Talwar Khan’s guest. It’s not
your
wedding, okay? And then he said something back and then I said something back and then it became a proper fight with him shouting at me for being shallow and stupid and me shouting at him for being bore and a loser and now he’s gone off in a puff to Sharkpur. Good radiance!

So where was I?
Haan
, at the wedding. It was at the Royal Elephant Club,
na
. After the Marriott bomb wedding-sheddings are not in hotels any more. Too much of security headache because anyone can walk into a hotel and blow themselves up. Not like reclusive clubs where only members can blow themselves up. The reception was in a big tent on the front lawns. It wasn’t cold enough to need a tent but I think so they got it because of security. At the entrance they had those empty doorway-type things like they do at airports that you have to
step through. Thanks God the people doing the checking didn’t prod and poke us and go through our handbags and open our lipsticks and say “
Hai
, what nice shade, is it from foreign?” like those greedy police-type women do at the airport. Anyways, they should know it’s not the well-offs like us, but the hungry-nakeds who do the suicide bombings.

The wedding tent was fab. Customs-made of course—all red velvet, red lanterns, and golden satin bows. I think so the theme was Chinese New Years or was it Moulin Rogue? Whatever it was, it was to die for. Everywhere there were big red lilies—hung from the ceiling and in huge golden vases, standing on golden stands. Mulloo had already said they’d come from Holland, the lilies, not the stands, and that they’d costed forty
lakhs
. The tent was bulging with people. So thanks God there was air conditioning.

Everyone was there—my coffee group, my kitty group, my charity group, relatives, relatives of relatives, old school friends, new society friends—honestly, it’s so nice to be so well reknowned. At once I started mingling-shingling, chatting away, while also scanning the crowds for a pretty girl. One thing I’ll say about me: unlike that bitch Jameela, I’m the loyal type. I never start enjoying myself so much that I forget why I’m there.

And then I spotted Shabnam Butt, the bride’s mother, shadowed by a servant girl. At once I made a bee-hive for her. You have to register your attendance,
na
, otherwise who’s to know whether you came or not? I had in my hand a pink silk purse—paper envelopes are
tau
so past it—on top of which I’d had “congratulations” embroidered in thick, gold thread. Inside it
I’d put a tiny name card and five thou in crisp new notes. Wedding present,
na
. We give five at weddings of distants—for nears and dears we give ten. And for family we give fifty—unless it’s Janoo’s family, when I give less. But while I was putting the money into the silk purse I thought that these people probably give five as tips to their servants, being so rich and all.

I tapped Shabnam on her shoulder. Slowly she turned around. Hanging around her neck was a bib coming down to her waste, like babies wear, but made of diamonds. Promise by God. Matching diamond purses on diamond chains hung from her ears. Her mud-brown face was caked with white foundation. She looked at me through half-closed eyes ringed by fake lashes that were like thorn hedges.

“Hello,
jaan
,” she murmured.

“Congratulations,” I said, pressing the purse into her hands. “What a fab necklace.”

“Thanks, yours is sweet too.” Holding my gift by a finger and thumb, like it was a used tissue, she passed it to her maid. The maid rubbed it between her fingers and thumb. I think so she was checking how many notes I’d given. I knew it! I should have given ten. I looked away as she dropped the purse into a fat, zipped General Life Insurance bag she’d got cramped in her armpit.

“How nicely you’ve done all this,” I said to Shabnam, waving a hand around at the tent and flowers and all.

“Event managers,” she murmured. “Why to take tension? What’s money for, if you have to take tension? Hmm?”

Then she just turned and went. Without a bye-bye, or have a nice time, or thank you for coming even.

Where
was Mummy? And Aunty Pussy? After all, I was here for them only. And that stuppid Jonkers. Last thing I wanted was to come to this circus and be pushed around by noovo-rich loser-types in their over jewellery who couldn’t recognize hairlooms when they saw them. Sweet, she called my necklace, as if it was some two-
paisa
plastic locket from Anarkali. What cheeks!

Suddenly, I saw Mulloo waving from the distance. Thanks God for friends. She was with her daughter, Irum. Irum is seventeen. Between you, me and the four walls, she’s a bit young to be paraded around at weddings in the hope of attracting proposals. But as Janoo says to Kulchoo, who is always late for school, early bird gets the worm. And because of Tony’s factory closing and him defaulting on all those loans he’d taken from guvmunt banks I think so they need to marry Irum off richly. And quickly.

Mulloo was wearing a sequenced sari I’d seen twenty times before and so much of blush that she looked as if she’d just been given two tight slaps. A thin little choker with tiny, tiny diamonds was buried in roles of fat in her throat. She grinned at me. I wondered if I should tell her that she had lipstick on her teeth. She noted my necklace with her slitty little eyes but didn’t compliment. Typical.

“Mulloo, sweetie, you have lipstick on your teeth.”

“Ammi,” Irum said to Mulloo, “I’m going to hang with my friends. You’ve got Aunty here with you now. Byee.” And she
went off in a swish of pink chiffon the exact same colour of Rose Petal toilet tissue.

“Has your husband come?” Mulloo asked me. “Or has he abandoned you for his village again? Better watch out, sweetie, you know feudals can get up to all sorts of naughty things.” She laughed fakely.

“Janoo’s got flu. Where’s Tony?”

“Inside only. Khayam’s arranged a big bar there in one of the upstairs rooms. I’ve heard he’s spent seven million on booze alone. Seven! Sunny was saying that last week when Akbar called his bootlegger for his usual whisky–vodka order, he said: ‘Sorry Saab, Khayam Saab’s cleaned out all of Lahore and half of Islamabad also. You’ll have to wait after New Year’s now. Then I’ll get some for you from the embassies in Islamabad.’ He has a special relationship with the Russian ambassador’s cook,
na.
”

“And this tent and stands and lanterns they’ve had made specially and everything, that must have cost Shabnam and Khayam also,” I said.

“Two arms, two legs, and I don’t know what else. But as I always say,” she said lowering her voice and leaning into me, “who are they trying to impress, hmm? I have seen it all before. A hundred, hundred times.”

“And frankly,” I whispered back, “between you, me, and the four walls, that necklace that Shabnam is wearing—so gody, so new-new and recent-looking. But then what can you expect from someone whose name even no one had heard nine years ago?”

“Eight,” said Mulloo. “That’s when they got that first contract on that Gulberg children’s park, don’t you remember? When he persuaded,” she rubbed thumb and fingers together, “Talwar Khan to fence off the public park and turn it into townhouses?”

“I know,” I said. “Before that
tau
they were total non-identities.”

Just then my mobile rang. It was Mummy.

“Where are you?”
she shrieked. “Me and Pussy and Jonkers, we’ve been sitting here at this bloody wedding for nearly
two hours
. Our bottoms have gone to sleep.”

“How many times have I told you, Mummy, to come on time?” I shouted back. Honestly, these old-types, they have no sense of time. They think just because card says nine it means nine. Hundred, hundred times I’ve told Mummy nine means eleven. Hopefully that stuppid Jonkers hadn’t shown up wearing a safari suit and looking like a low-level bureau-cat. “Honestly, why don’t you ever
listen
? Where are you sitting? Okay, okay, stay there. I’m coming.” I shut up the phone.

“Your aunty still looking for girl?” Mulloo asked, checking her lipstick in her compact mirror.

I was not befooled by her casual enquiry. Not for one second even. She’s always up to some little plot or plan or something. One thing about Mulloo, she’s very sly. Can’t let your guards down with her.

“Girls,
tau
, as you know, are plenty,” I said casually. “But we are picky, you know. Not like all these easily satisfied people who’ll be happy with first thing they see.”

“Of course, darling, of course,” she smiled, closing her compact with a tight little click, as if that was final word on
everything. “Shall we go find your mother?” She linked her arm in mine and because I didn’t know how to shake her off I had to take her along—like chewing gum under my shoe.

Because Mummy and Aunty Pussy are so early for everything they always manage to grab the best seats. Now they were right by the stage where bride and groom were sitting, on the seats that are normally reserved for the in-laws. You know,
na
, that once Mummy decides she’s going to sit somewhere not even wild asses can move her. So there they were, sitting in the best seats. Everyone who went to congratulate the bridal couple and press envelopes into their hands had to pass by them. Best place for checking out prospectus girls.