“So where do you go out when you go partying? I mean, are you more like East End, or West End?”
“To be completely honest, I don’t really go out much these days.”
“Oh really”, she squealed, “what’s that about?”
His gaze switched from the invisible point of fascination that lay in the middle distance somewhat to the right of the girl he was talking to, to the kitchen door, through which a young man in a white smock with a tightly cropped black beard had just passed, holding two metal dishes in either hand. Having set one on each end of the second table, the waiter set down a small collection of what was described as venison kebab.
“Well, I just seem to have become”, he paused, leaned forward just slightly toward the steaming plate of meat, and drew toward his nostrils the sweet clove infused vapour it was giving off, “rather a suburbanite”. He smiled wryly as this was not altogether true.
“Oh, dear,” came the response which he assumed reflected the fact that she now had to dream up a new topic of conversation as much as it did commiserations that he was clearly so old at such a young age.
Moments passed. They both strained to hear what the other guests on the table, to their side and opposite were saying, and yet everyone seemed to have reached the same silent conclusion, and chatter has petered out. Luckily the bearded waiter returned bearing a metallic bowl set in a wooden base containing bright red curried prawns, and a white bowl containing a burnt gold lentil preparation. He glanced up toward the face that had announced the dish, and for a moment he looked into his deep brown reflective eyes. A polite smile and the waiter was gone.
“Smells wonderful”, she said as she wafted her hands energetically over the food, “I love small dishes, you know where you can try a bit of everything.”
“Indeed,” came the laconic response.
The blessed relief of flavour flooded his brain with pleasure as the first mouthful of the deep rusty venison hit the back of his tongue and the slightly gamey meat crept through a waterfall of fruity spices delicately combined to be at once sweet, fragrant and capable of being overpowered. Next came the prawns that had scrunched themselves into tight spirals as they were fried in ghee with bright red spices. The strength of the green chilli that so contrasted with the pungent red sauce they swam in, was just enough to send a ripple down the tip of his tongue and toward his tonsils, and yet was immediately tamed by the sugary almond and the delicate coconut that came with it.
He was aware of not having spoken for several minutes. At the precise moment of this recognition, the Chinese lady opposite had uttered the words “of course I always forget just how far away Clapham is from the centre of town” which drew groans of approval from the section of the table which she held in her court, and so he decided to reach across and relieve the man sat opposite of the obligation to eat all of the taster dish of tandoori cod that had appeared whilst he had been ruminating upon the lentil dhal and her banal commentary.
He ate and ate and became full followed by bloated. But he needed the variation that came with each mouthful, the entertainment that was lavished on his taste buds with every spoon of sauce, the textures and colours and smells and chilli that kept everything alive and relevant. The old map of India that was printed on the menu became the image of exploration and desire as the food its lines of latitude represented was presented to him. He had never been there, and yet for one moment he was lifted to a world that was thousands of miles away from Anna, millions of miles away from Su Lin and Essence PR Agency, and an unknowable distance from that inauspicious Soho basement.
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