John Irving - A Son of the Circus

Now Rahul was off whispering to Mr. Sethna, who disapproved of women whispering to men—for whatever reason.

“My dear Mr. Sethna,” the second Mrs. Dogar said. “I do hope you’ll forgive my aggressive behavior, but he’s simply not fit to wander about the club—much less drive a car. I’m sure he’s the one who’s been killing the flowers.”

Mr. Sethna was shocked by this allegation, but he was also eager to believe it was true. Something or someone was killing the flowers. An undiagnosed blight had struck patches of the bougainvillea. The head mali was stymied. Here, at last, was an answer: Mr. Dogar had been pissing on the flowers!

“He’s… incontinent?” Mr. Sethna inquired.

“Not at all,” said Mrs. Dogar. “He’s doing it deliberately.”

“He wants to kill the flowers?” Mr, Sethna asked.

“I’m glad you understand,” Mrs. Dogar replied. “Poor man.” With a wave, she indicated the surrounding golf course. “Naturally, he wanders out there only after dark. Like a dog, he always goes to the same spots!”

“Territorial, I suppose,” said Mr. Sethna.

“I’m glad you understand,” Mrs. Dogar said. “Now, where’s our cab?”

In the taxi, old Mr. Dogar looked as if he wasn’t sure if he should apologize or complain. But, before he could decide, his younger wife once more surprised him.

“Oh, darling, never let me treat you like that again—at least not in public. I’m so ashamed!” she cried. “They’ll think I bully you. You mustn’t let me. If I ever tell you that you can’t drive a car again, here’s what you must do… are you listening, or are you too drunk?” Mrs. Dogar asked him.

“No… I mean yes , I’m listening,” Mr. Dogar said. “No, I’m not too drunk,” the old man assured her.

“You must throw the keys on the floor and make me pick them up, as if I were your servant,” Mrs. Dogar told him.

“What?” he asked.

“Then tell me that you always carry an extra set of keys and that you’ll drive the car home, when and if you choose. Then tell me to go —tell me you wouldn’t drive me home if I begged you!” Mrs. Dogar cried.

“But, Promila, I would never …” Mr. Dogar began to say, but his wife cut him off.

“Just promise me one thing—never back down to me,” she told him. Then she seized his face in her hands and kissed him on his mouth. “First, you should tell me to take a taxi—you just carry on sitting at the dinner table, as if you’re smoldering with rage. Then you should go to the men’s room and wash your face.”

“Wash my face?” said Mr. Dogar with surprise.

“I can’t stand the smell of food on your face, darling,” Mrs. Dogar told her husband. “Just wash your face—soap and warm water. Then come home to me. I’ll be waiting for you. That’s how I want you to treat me. Only you must wash your face first. Promise me.”

It had been years since Mr. Dogar had been so aroused, nor had he ever been so confused. It was difficult to understand a younger woman, he decided—yet surely worth it.

This was a pretty good first draft, Rahul felt certain. The next time, Mr. Dogar would do as he was told. He would be abusive to her and tell her to go. But she would take the taxi no farther than the access road to the Duckworth Club, or perhaps three quarters of the length of the driveway—just out of the reach of the overhead lamps. She’d tell the driver to wait for her because she’d forgotten her purse. Then she’d cross the first green of the golf course and enter the clubhouse through the rear door, which she would have previously unlocked. She’d take off her shoes and cross the dark locker room and wait there until she heard her husband washing his face. She’d either kill him with a single blow from one of the “retired” golf clubs in the locker room, or (if possible) kill him by lifting his head by his hair and smashing his skull against the sink. Her preference for the latter method was because she preferred the swimming-pool ending. She’d be careful to clean the sink; then Mrs. Dogar would drag her husband’s body out the rear door of the clubhouse and dump him in the deep end of the empty pool. She wouldn’t keep her taxi waiting long—at the most, 10 minutes.

But killing him with a golf club would certainly be easier. After she had clubbed her husband to death, she would put a two-rupee note in his mouth and stuff his body in his locker. The note, which Mrs. Dogar already carried in her purse, displayed a typed message on the serial-number side of the money.

…BECAUSE DHAR IS STILL A MEMBER

It was an intriguing decision—which ending Rahul would choose—for although she liked the appearance of the “accidental” death in the deep end of the pool, she also favored the attention-getting murder of another Duckworthian, especially if Inspector Dhar didn’t give up his membership. The second Mrs. Dogar was quite sure that Dhar wouldn’t resign, at least not without another killing to coax him into it.

It was an embarrassed and exhausted-looking Mr. Dogar who appeared at the Duckworth Club before 7:00 the next morning, looking every inch the portrait of a hangover. But it wasn’t alcohol that had wrecked him. Mrs. Dogar had made violent love to him the previous night; she’d scarcely waited for the taxi to depart their driveway, or for Mr. Dogar to unlock the door—she’d given him back his keys. They were fortunate that the servants didn’t mistake them for intruders, for Mrs. Dogar had pounced on her husband in the front hall; she’d torn the clothes off both of them while they were still on the first floor of the house. Then she’d made the old man run up the stairs after her, and she’d straddled him on the bedroom floor; she wouldn’t let him crawl a few feet farther so that they could do it on the bed—nor had she once volunteered to relinquish the top position.

This was, of course, another first-draft possibility… that old Mr. Dogar would suffer a heart attack while Rahul was deliberately overexciting him. But the second Mrs. Dogar had resolved that she wouldn’t wait as long as a year for this “natural” ending to occur. It was simply too boring. If it happened soon, fine. If not, there was always the golf-club, locker-room ending; in this version, it amused the second Mrs. Dogar to imagine how they might finally find the body.

She would report that her husband had not come home for the night. They would find his car in the Duckworth Club parking lot. The wait-staff would relate what had transpired after the Dogars had eaten their dinner; doubtless, Mr. Sethna would convey more intimate information. It was possible that no one would think to look for Mr. Dogar in his locker until the body began to stink.

But the swimming-pool version also intrigued Rahul, The Bannerjees would confide to the authorities that such a dive in the pool was reputed to be the old fool’s inclination. Mrs. Dogar herself could always say, “I told you so.” For Rahul, the hard part about this version would be maintaining a straight face. And the rumor that old Mr. Dogar was pissing on the bougainvillea was already established.

When the ashamed Mr. Dogar appeared at the Duckworth Club to claim his car, he spoke in apologetic tones to the disapproving Mr. Sethna, to whom the very idea of urinating outdoors was repugnant.

“Did I seem especially drunk to you, Mr. Sethna?” Mr. Dogar asked the venerable steward. “I’m really very sorry… if I behaved insensitively.”

“Nothing happened, really,” Mr. Sethna replied coldly. He’d already spoken to the head mali about the bougainvillea. The fool gardener confirmed that there were only isolated patches of the blight. The dead spots in the bougainvillea bordered the green at the fifth and the ninth holes; both these greens were out of sight of the Duckworth Club dining room and the clubhouse—also, they couldn’t be seen from the Ladies’ Garden. As for that bougainvillea which surrounded the Ladies’ Garden, there was only one dead patch and it was suspiciously in a spot that was out of sight from any of the club’s facilities. Mr. Sethna surmised that this gave credence to Mrs. Dogar’s urine theory—poor old Mr. Dogar was peeing on the flowers!