Moni Mohsin - Duty Free

“Near Harrods?”

“And Harvey Nicholas. And also Pak embassy, in case you lose your passport.”

And then I thought about how I have to beg Janoo every summers about renting a flat in London so I can also go and do my little London trip, like Sunny and Maha and Faiza do, and how much fighting we do over it when he says no he wants to do a safari instead — as if there aren’t enough beasts in his own family. Sometimes he wants to go to some bore place like Cambodia to see temples — look at him, as if we were Hindus off to do puja —and I have to beg and beg. Now I’d have my own place, well, almost, and that also on the backside of Knightsbridge. How jay Sunny would be. How Faiza would burn with envy.

So I called Jonkers and I said that he should think again.

“But Apa, you said her father was a drug smuggler.”

“Who knows who smuggles what, Jonkers? It’s not nice to be so judging. Maybe he’s just a seedha-saadha , honest-type smuggler who only smuggles nice things like Bosh washing machines and Samsonnight suitcases. You can make good money with that also, you know.”

“But what about the girl herself? You said she was a mouse and that she was completely under her mother’s thumb.”

“Maybe it was just a not so good day for her, Jonky. Maybe she got shy in front of us. Or maybe she’d just seen a sad film. I remember after I saw that Indian film Paa, you know in which Amitabh Bachchan is a little boy with a big bald head, I remember I was depress for a whole week. Maybe she’s also too sensitive like me. Otherwise tau she’s probably, you know, real joking laughing type.”

He was quiet for so long after that I thought he’d hanged up.

“Hello, Jonkers? Have you gone?”

“Apa,” he said at last. “I’m sorry but I have to ask you something. Please don’t get angry, but is there something in this for you?”

“Meaning?”

“Please don’t mind my asking, but are you being bribed?”

“ Haw , Jonkers! Bribe? Me? And after everything I’ve done for you. Imagine! You saying such a thing … to your Apa.”

“Look, I’m sorry but just the other day you were saying that they were completely different to us and the mother was a bully, the father was a criminal, the house was ghastly, the girl was hopeless, the servants were shabby, the food inedible. There wasn’t a single thing about them that you liked. Except that they were loaded but even their crores couldn’t make up for their lack of background. And now you’re saying that the father’s straight and the girl is the life and soul of the party and no doubt you’ll say in a minute that the mother’s a delight. And if I needed any further proof that the girl’s not for me, it’s my mother’s wholehearted approval of the family. I don’t expect my mother to look for anything other than money, but you’re meant to be looking out for my soulmate. I’m sorry but I smell a rat.”

“What rat-shat, yaar ? You don’t want nice house and cars and servants, haan ?”

“I already have a house. And servants. And a car.”

“No you don’t. Miss Shumaila took it.”

“I’ve bought another.”

“And you have flat in London also? On backside of Harrods, haan ? Where you can go and stay the whole of summers and do shopping all day, all night? That also you have?”

“So that’s the lure. The flat in London.”

“Girl is not bad also, Jonkers. She’s quiet, mediocre type. Like you wanted. All she needs is a make-out. I’ll get her a fab new wardrope and Loubootin platforms and then I’ll take her to Nabeela’s and she’ll give her a fab haircut and pluck her eyebrows thin, thin and put highlights—”

“Apa, if there’s one thing that my marriage ought to have told you, it’s that I’m not looking for money.”

“Jonkers, you are crack.”

“Besides I want to tell you something. I’ve met—”

“I’m not interested.” And I slammed the phone.

Today is Holloween. Kulchoo’s been invited to a fancy dress party thrown by the daughter of General Shaheed Bull. General Bull is owner of Punjab Chemicals. They have huge house on Main Boulevard with fifteen-foot walls outside with barb-wire on top. Just the kind of people Kulchoo should be making friends with. I shouldn’t say this because he’s my son but unfortunately, Kulchoo is becoming antisocialist loser — just like his father. He won’t go to the Chemicals party because he says it won’t be a good scene. So I told him the scene would be very nice because Sunny tells me the floors are of Italian marble and there are fountains inside and—

“Not that kind of scene,” he groaned.

“Then what type scene?”

“The social scene. You don’t know the kind of kids who’ll be there.”

“I know them. They are all nice, rich children from nice, rich homes.”

“Yeah, right. They’re all obnoxious, rich kids who get high on coke, and then go looking for a phudda. ”

“So who’s asking you to fight with them? You sit on one side talking nicely and if they offer you Coke, you say no thanks, I’ll take Fanta.”

“Jeez, mum, not that Coke. Forget it. I’m going to Farhad’s house. More my thing.”

See what I mean about antisocialist loser? Farhad’s father has a small business doing land-escape gardening. His mother does dramas in the TV about bore, bore things like honour killings and child marriages and female infanty-side, all the unpatriotic things that give bad impression about us to foreigners. She wears cotton saris and her glasses on a string round her neck and her hair in a grey bun. Bore NGO-type, if you know what I mean. And they live in a small house near the Ganda Nala. Farhad wants to be an artist. Not a business magnet, not a politician, not a general but an artist. Loser. He makes these big, big paintings with cartoon-type people fighting with sticks against really loud, gody yellow and red baggrounds and Janoo says they are clever and witty but I think so they are useless.

Last time Farhad was here I asked him why he didn’t make nice scenes of fields and trees and clouds in greens and beiges that matched my curtains and sofas? That way he would become Lahore’s top artist because all my friends would buy. But before he could make a reply, Kulchoo grabbed him by the arm and said, “Farhad, yaar , come and see this fantastic new computer game I’ve got,” and pushed him out of the room. I don’t know where Kulchoo’s manners have gone. Honestly.

I said to Janoo, last year we were invited to three Holloween parties and this year we’ve only been invited to one. Why are there no more witches’ and monsters’ parties this year? And Janoo said it was because everyday life had become a waking nightmare. Why wait till 31 October, when horror was being visited on us every day? And I said to Janoo, I said, “Janoo, I think so you need to go on Prozac.”

I told Janoo about Jonkers’ refusal to marry fundo Farva’s dwarf daughter. Janoo said we should all give three chairs for Jonkers. And I said that Jonkers was biggest crack in Gulberg, if not Lahore. And that he, Janoo, was crack number two. He said no, I was the one who was crack for even getting involved in people’s marriage proposals in the first place and how did I know who would suit Jonkers and who wouldn’t and couldn’t I find something better to do with my time? Uff, aik tau I’m so bored of that lecture of his. Honestly, he’s doing time-wasting sewing wheat and cotton on his lands. He should be a schoolmaster. But then I wouldn’t have married him because you can’t even buy one Mulberry wallet with a schoolmaster’s pay.