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‘…should have stayed there! Who does he think he is?’
‘Psht! If he hears you-’
‘I heard,’ I said.
From one moment to the next, a blanket silence fell over the crowd. Without looking, I pointed my cane over my shoulder, directly at the man who had spoken.
‘You have one week to get out of the city. By then, I will have squashed the company you work for and your job along with it.’
I reached the exit of the harbour without any further interruption, Karim close behind me.
‘I see you are in a good mood, today, Sahib,’ he said in what was, for Karim, almost a jovial voice. ‘You gave him a week.’
Nod.
‘That was very generous of you.’
Shrug.
‘Shall I order a cab for you, Sahib?’
Headshake.
‘Are we going to walk?’
Nod.
‘The address?’
I handed him a piece of paper on which I had noted the address.
‘This is where your new offices are?’
Nod.
‘Very well, then, Sahib. We shall walk.’
Nod.
I so enjoyed these lively conversations with my bodyguard. They really brightened my day.
Ten minutes later, the massive supports of a two-columned portico rose up out of the m
orning mist in front of us. The door under the portico stood wide open, and some strangely deluded fool had unrolled a red carpet all the way into the street. His idiot friends, meanwhile, had been busy decorating the outside of the building with garlands. Coloured garlands!
Very slowly, I turned my head towards my bodyguard and gave him a long, long look. ‘Karim?’
The Mohammedan shook his head. ‘This is not my doing, Sahib.’
‘I see.’
Taking a deep breath, I stepped through the door - and was almost blasted off my feet by the fanfare of the brass band arrayed at the opposite end of the hall. Quickly, my eyes took in the scene:
The brass band, the cheering people arrayed along both sides of the wastefully expensive-looking red carpet, the committee of what was probably senior staff awaiting me by the reception desk, headed by a sallow-faced man in a grey waistcoat. Behind them, the walls and ceiling were bedecked with banners and garlands.
I didn’t know any of these people. This was the first time I had set foot on British soil for over a decade. I’d had this office established in my absence. Not a single one of the staff members had I met in my entire life, and they had hung up garlands and banners for me?
I had to admit, they were accomplished bootlickers. But they had made a mistake, or even two. The first was that they, I was sure, had not paid for this welcome out of their own purses. And the second…
