Fishy Chronicles 42: Blink, Blink. It’s Gone

I tasted the liver dish, but it wasn’t the culinary masterpiece that was Aunty Leila’s. I still didn't know what Aunty's dish was really called.

“Are you sure it's not a Parsi dish that you're mistaking for something Iranian?” Genie needled. I took a deep breath. 

I clicked my tongue once. The children playing downstairs used the tongue click to indicate nonchalant disagreement. Though it was a vulgar, impatient sound, it was a no-nonsense negative.

                                       ******

This is a fictional series about a 30-something Mumbai-based narrator whose former pet fish and former manservant have returned to stay awhile. Personal equations are different now.  

In this episode, the narrator cancels a lunch with family but is unwilling to say why.

                                       ******
I could see Genie shift uncertainly. After being the butt of his jokes all evening, I had started reacting to his comments – when pushed to respond – with tongue clicks and snorts. 

“What makes you think it's not a Parsi dish?” Genie said. This time he poked me hard between my shoulder blades with his elbow. 

“It's not.”

“How can you be sure?”

“It's called Lah Dee Dah Leila Liver."

“So?”

“So, even if Uncle was making a joke of it, he was serious about respecting copyright. So, he's bunged in Aunty's name to show she's the recipe's original creator.”

“We followed the recipe and it didn't turn out the same.” I turned around and glared at Genie. He moved back a pace, held up his hands and grinned. “Can't you just call her and ask?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“She doesn't like me.”

“How do you know that?”

“She never shared recipes with me. But I’d see her reciting them to Uncle and correcting his version.”
Genie tsked tsked behind me. Aunty Leila closed up whenever I turned up and hated my ex even more. She usually left soon after. Which was a pity, because she was a beautiful, magnificent woman and clearly lived life well. To me she was a star, a personality – someone I wanted to spy on even more than Roma's crush, the actor Arushmaan Verma (https://viewfromthetopofthetank.blogspot.com/2019/05/fishy-chronicles-21-love-thy-neighbour.html).

Genie tsked tsked again, this time in my ear. The only times Aunty Leila had called me was to ask about Uncle Nigel’s passing and his memorial service. His relatives had refused to entertain her calls and she called me and wailed in sorrow. She was in the US with her son then. The keening sound and the depths of her distress were awful. It left me in tears, feeling worn out and hollow. 

Uncle's relatives had been suspicious of all his friends, especially those who visited often. He had been a bachelor with a very wide social circle and there was not a thing his family could do to contain his extraordinary joie de vivre.

I looked at Uncle's recipe. Genie had decoded it, but I wondered if some ingredients were missing. When he had too much to drink, Uncle would toss in powders that I hadn't seen before. Until then I assumed they were new ingredients. 

“Do you know what I think?” Genie pushed my head into the recipe book and held me pinned down. I struggled and screamed in frustration, trying to free myself. Would Genie have dared make so much body contact if my parents had been alive!

“What?!” I finally screamed, thanking my stars that I was pressed into the pungent spice-smelling recipe book and not into the wet kitchen platform.

“I think Uncle's recipe is a Parsi one.”

“And Aunty Leila’s name in the title?” I said, trying to look at Genie. For a long time I thought it was the Parsi dish Alleti Palleti – I'd checked with a friend and YouTube too. But what was the Leila angle?

“All flights of fancy,” Genie said from above me. “No connection with the dish unless there's someone immediately around. Uncle thought Leila was larger than life – literally an exotic Iranian dish. Hence, the fancy title.”

“Huh!”

“How else do you explain Dikra Bomanooooo, Aloo Picky Tikki... or Govinda Jinga (prawn).”

“Right.” I didn’t know a Govinda. Maybe the actor? I was certain Uncle and Govinda hadn't rolled in the same circles.

“Now that we have that business cleared, you can tell me why you cancelled lunch with the Lonavala group,” Genie breathed into my face, his eyes boring mine. I felt panic. My head was still pinned under Genie's arm and there was no wiggle room between the platform and his body. 

The Lonavala group were the folks from my holiday a couple of weeks ago – my cousin Roma and assorted family. I could feel Genie's breath fan my face every time he exhaled. I kept my eyes trained on the water bottles in front of me. Their outsides needed washing. There was a cobweb forming in the corner – between the empty bottles of ketchup and wine that I wanted to recycle and hadn't got around too. Suddenly the dishcloth landed on my face, my whole world going dark. “Hey!” I started to struggle and kick backwards. 

“Hey, you yourself. I want to know what is going on! You dashing out early in the morning and returning a mess late in the evening. You’re losing weight. Not eating... not cooking! I was surprised you actually wanted to cook this dish. And Roma has been calling me everyday to find out what's going on with you and why you aren't taking her calls!”

I stopped struggling. Roma knew why. Talking and giving her explanations were more than I could handle. Her father, my father’s older brother, had also called. I could anticipate his derision and, hence, had not picked up the phone. Here I was... no job, no money. I was a damned mess.

My ears flattened painfully against my head with the pressure of Genie leaning over me to look into my face. “Roma didn't tell you?” I said.

“She threatened to turn up if you didn't call her back.”

“Not now. I can't bear to listen to an I-told-you-so lecture.”

“Maybe you’re judging her harshly.”

I tried to wriggle around to glare at him, feeling intense rage, but I couldn't move. Two could duel – so I clamped my mouth shut and stayed still. I heard my phone ring. It rang for an eternity, and several times. It could only be Roma. She had been calling me for days. I was surprised she hadn't come home and thrashed me.

Genie leaned closer, “Have you never thought that she might be the only one who cares for you?”

I felt rage peak, but I soon started feeling like a shit. Roma was the only one who cared. The only one who called regularly. Who dragged me to family dos when the rest of my family had forgotten me.

The phone stopped ringing. After five minutes, Genie's phone – in his pocket – started to ring. I groaned. He pulled it out, “Yes, Roma. Just a moment.”

He placed the phone on my ear and I listened to Roma ordering me to come home, telling me that they were worried about me and that all would be okay and that it was only money that I had lost. 

“Did you hear what I said?!” Roma panicked. For once my cousin didn't sound impatient with me. She seemed genuinely upset. 

Genie spoke into the phone, his voice deeper than usual. “Yes, Roma. She heard.” He cleared his throat. “We'll call you back in some time.” He switched off the phone, righted me and wiped my tears with the dishcloth from which I got the faint odour of rancid oil.

He pulled me into the sitting room, made me sit on the sofa and pushed tissues into my hands. After several days of tension and fear, I finally had a good cry. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Genie asked.

I shook my head, looking down at the white tissues in my hands. 

“Okay. I'll make tea. We can talk about it later,” he said.

“You know what it is?” I asked, blowing my nose. 

He hesitated. “Yes.”

“How?”

“I used to drive Papa to the bank.” He took my hands and held them tight.

“I've lost my savings of the past eight years,” I told him, unable to look him in the eyes. The bank I was banking with had folded suddenly.

“Not all of it, surely.”

“Most of it. The bank had offered two percent more of interest than the others. It made sense to move my money there since I had quit work and I'd been hoping to live on the interest. Now it seems I'll have to go back to work and cut expenses in every way I know how.”

We sat and listened to the children playing outside. I felt bleak. I hadn't been able to summon up any interest in cooking lunch for the Lonavala group. Worse, I wasn't sure I'd be able to hide my worries or appear happy.

I’d been looking forward to my sabbatical ever since I divorced and both my parents passed away. I had kept my resignation secret from my closest family and friends, all the while hoping I'd propel my vague plan in motion – I was going to travel around India and come back in several months. It was the most adventurous I'd ever been.

And now, it seemed, it wasn't going to be. 

From where I stood, I was going to stay poor, I had no support and I only seemed to be making more stupid decisions every day. And now, the whole world knew.

Fishy Chronicles 41: Eggs Extraordinaire

“Why did you postpone lunch?” Genie asked, leaning against the kitchen doorway, effectively blocking my chances of escape.

“Er, yes.”

“And?”

“And?”

“Why did you cancel?”

“Who told you?”

“Zeba. Roma. You ordered coconuts and rice and then cancelled the order.”

“Okay.” I tried to stay nonchalant. I continued to shred the potatoes. I was going to deep fry them later... if Genie stopped interrogating me. He was now standing next to me, his eyes boring a hole into the top of my head. I dearly hoped he wasn’t doing a pensieve or a Professor Dumbledore on me. I tried to push past the wall of muscle, but only felt his finger duelling with my chin to try and lift it to make me look at him. Finally he gave up and pulled his index finger away. Genie bent double, leaned down, planted his elbow on the untidy kitchen platform, turned his body my way and smiled. Someone else would have looked comical in that awkward pose, but Genie refused to fit an ‘anybody’ mould.

I took in his wholesome form. There was barely space to squeeze through between the fridge and Genie's buttocks. It was unfair – handsome guy, small space, unbidden lust, you name it. Plus nothing was going to happen.

I sighed and turned back, wondering what to do. I moved three paces to the sink and poured water into the bowl with the shredded potatoes, then put three tablespoons of salt in the mix. I saw Genie's mouth curl.

“What!”

“You don’t need to take it out on the potatoes – salting them to death!” Genie said.

I laughed. “Monkey! I’m making those little chippies that go with that Irani dish.”

“Aha. I see. You're trying to replicate Aunty Leila's liver dish. Do you even know what it is called?”

I didn’t. Aunty Leila was a friend of Uncle Nigel. Her family had farms in Nasik, but she, an Iranian Muslim, had married a Parsi and moved to Mumbai, many many years ago. Her food had a wholesome and sometimes rustic quality, which Uncle had attributed to her early years in Shiraz, Iran. When I told him Shiraz was a major city in Iran and was unlikely to have ever been a village or rustic, he laughed.

I always hoped Aunty Leila would feel sorry for him and want to cook Uncle Nigel a meal, because then I learned something new. I needn’t have fretted, Uncle gave me his recipe books.

Only there was a problem.

Genie leaned over Uncle's book and smirked. “Let me get this straight, you tried to cook it before with this recipe, but it didn’t taste like the real thing.”

I thought Uncle loved me too much to want to finger me from his spot in the netherworld, but, at times, especially when I tried to reproduce a dish, I felt it was a distinct possibility. 

                                       ******

This is a fictional series about a 30-something Mumbai-based narrator whose former pet fish and former manservant have returned to stay awhile. Personal equations are different now.  

In this episode, the narrator tries to replicate an Iranian dish from Uncle Nigel's recipe book but hits a road block.

                                        ******

I felt a gentle poke. “Well?” Genie asked.

“Yes. It was awful. Of course I couldn’t feed it to anyone and...” another poke, “... and Uncle did not seem surprised.”

Genie took the book and read the recipe closely and then flipped pages back and forth.

I moved closer to him, “What are you looking for?”

“Uncle's egg recipes.”

I took the book from his hand. I had never looked at those simply because I made them well, and I had favourites. I opened the book to Uncle's versions of Akoori and an egg curry.

I could feel Genie's breath on the back of my ear. “Well?”

The recipe was weird. Someone would die of food poisoning with the measures and ingredients Uncle was using. Uncle's meals were legendary. He had had the best vessels and the most exotic condiments and his talent suffused his meals. But these instructions were preposterous. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed before. One recipe was even named Dikra Bomanooooo. I kid you not about the number of Os. Around the recipe he had drawn little hearts being shot at by obese, naked archers.

“Cupid, not naked archers,” Genie corrected me. I gave him a dirty look and went back to look at the instructions. “Do you want some advice?”

“About what?” I asked, feeling frustration bubble up. Genie took the book from my hand.

“Don’t you think Uncle was more complicated than you gave him credit for?” Genie placed the book on the platform, located another recipe, held a bunch of pages upright with his index finger and thumb and compared the two recipes on either side.

I hopped in frustration, “Of course! He was a brilliant man...”

“I wasn't talking about his brains. We know he was brilliant and extraordinarily creative. But don’t you get that everything he thought of was well considered, that they didn't, and wouldn't, make sense until they were supposed to?”

I was flummoxed. Genie was speaking like a drunk philosopher. And I couldn’t understand a thing! I took a deep breath. “Come again,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Come closer. Have you ever known Uncle to share anything of importance easily?” Genie asked, still comparing the recipes.

Much like yourself, Dude! I stared at Genie's handsome profile and enormous moustache. I pulled the end of his large moustache and his head whipped around and he glared at me. I grinned and moved closer, trying to concentrate on the recipes but thinking about moustache-pulling retribution.

“The measures and ingredients are ridiculous,” I said.

“What exactly is?”

“The quantities.”

“How about the ingredients?”

“They’re too exotic and shouldn’t find a place in this recipe,” I pointed at an Indian egg dish – in fact a Malayali egg roast. For sure, Uncle had got this from one of his neighbours. For a while Mr Mathai suspected Uncle of trying to have an affair with Mrs Mathai, until Uncle came back from a foreign trip with a bottle of Chivas Regal and told Mr Mathai his ugly secret. After the Chivas, Uncle became a welcome guest in the Mathai household.

I felt a poke and dragged my attention back to the book. “See, if Uncle planned to use these recipes, there’s got to be a method to his envisaged madness.” Another nudge. “Right?” Genie looked at me, nodding his head and looking at the book and back at me in turns.

“Do you have a girlfriend, Genie?” The look of shock was well worth the annoyance he had put me through. I grinned, pulled the book closer to me and stared at the numbers. For instance, Uncle had written “50 grams Epsom Salt. Stir in...” All his recipes had Epsom or some weird variety of salt in it, but no actual rock or table salt. “Chop 30 barracudas and grind by hand.” How the hell did one catch a deep sea barracuda? Would any part of a barracuda fit into Uncle’s mortar? How many months would it take him to grind 30 very large fish and how many thousands of people would that feed? I had had utter confusion looking at his recipes, but while he was alive I had just watched him cook and, a little later, written them down.

“Anything strike you?” Genie prodded, sounding annoyed.

“Everything's multiplied by 10. Some ingredients are code words. Like barracudas, probably coming from Uncle's fascination for sea life, could be chillies, because,” I flipped several pages that mentioned dishes I knew well, “Epsom salt and barracudas figure in all of them and could only be salt and chillies... in the recipes, I mean,” I looked up, happy. A light bulb had suddenly flickered into life and was blasting bright. And I realised Genie was way smarter than I had given him credit for. But what did I really know about him? And why was he staring at me that way?

He blinked and pulled the book back towards him. He put his head back and laughed. “What's cow? Three cows, roasted and powdered? I wish I’d known Uncle Nigel... a little more at least.”

“Yeah. I wish I did too. This book is crazy.”

“It’s not meant for the faint hearted or lazy people.”

I eyed Uncle's lovely old world, curly, large handwriting. This trick recipe book wasn’t a joke for Uncle. It had a special rack to hold it and had many of his prized recipes in it. Some of his mother's too. Yet, everything in it seemed like a game.

“You know what I think?” Genie murmured in my ear, his arm on my shoulder.

“What?” I mumbled back.

“He didn’t want just anyone to have it.”

“He had a strange way of showing it.”

“I’m thinking you’d have figured it out and enjoyed the game in time.”

Oh! I was so slow. Of course, that’s what it was. I was being challenged and being shown something I’d never see otherwise. I had to keep myself open to possibilities. Loosen up. Stop clinging to clichés. Etc, etc, etc. Uncle had left me the strangest things. Keys. A briefcase full of objects I could make no sense of, some more in cartons in my loft. Old books that collectors had begged me for, but I had resisted selling. His will was being contested by some of his relatives, but it was ironclad – so his lawyer said. I dreaded meeting them. One of his cousins called me a gold digger at the lawyer's office. I had...

“Hey!” Genie shook me. “Are we going to make this dish or not?”

“You're going to help me?”

“Of course! You’re never going to figure it out on your own.”

I held back my irritation. Genie's point was debatable. I could see Genie look at me slyly from the corner of his eyes and a slow smile appeared. “At least, I think you'll need my help figuring some of these codes,” he tilted his head at the book.

“Yes. Two heads are better than one – in this case, at least. Come on, let's crush some barracudas and toast those cows.”

Fishy Chronicles 40: Rude Awakening

Rudy pays Fish a visit

Last night 
Fish had a dream.
They called it
their Recurring Nightmare.

They dreamt of Rudy, 
the great red shark,
the devil from the deep sea,
their arch enemy,
and
the reason for many, many, 
many, many
sleepless nights.

They dreamt Rudy
was standing 
at the foot of their bed
salivating
and shouting
in turns.

He poked Penaaz
and she continued 
to pretend to sleep.

Rudy
plucked Gregory's bow tie
but it stayed in place.

Finally,
Rudy left
tired of waiting 
to see Fish afraid.

It's a dream,
I told Fish.

No! they cried, 
upset I didn't believe them.

How do you know
he was here? I asked.

There's a red, wet
patch on the rug.
He left his mark.
He knows where 
we live! Fish cried.

And Fish scurried off
to hide behind
the biggest shrub 
in their tank.

Fish ordered us
to keep the windows 
and doors 
closed
and 
not to entertain visitors 
ever!

To keep the peace 
we agreed.

Fish got back into their bed
and slept 
with both eyes open.

Fishy Chronicles 39: Genie Throws A Googly

"Well, hello there. Just where have you been?" a cold, honeyed voice asked from behind me. I dropped the eggs on the counter of the shop.

"Madam! Be careful!" The shopkeeper felt the bottom of the paper packet and handed it back to me. But my thoughts were very far from any fractured eggs.

I turned. I had no choice. I could feel my Genie-hungry neighbour Zeba's abundant bosom heave into the back of my shoulders. She was slightly taller than me but the very high heels she chose to wear created the mischief. I cleared my throat and tried to wriggle out of her chest. She pushed into me with a vengeance. I ducked and squeezed out through a narrow gap between Zeba and the egg shop counter. I gasped for breath and my face felt hot. I backed away several steps from the warrior princess. I could see several men stop to look. She had that kind of effect on men, so I wondered why Genie was immune to her charms. He was immune to her and I was suffering for it.

"Where did you disappear to?" She repeated, a tad louder.

"I disappeared?" If you recall, some days ago we, Genie, Fish and I, returned from a trip to Lonavala with my cousin Roma's in laws and some of our relatives. 

"The two public holidays and the weekend," Zeba reminded me. "Genie went with you," her eyes narrowed and she looked at me like I was nasty business.

"Really?" I backed away some more. "Let me see. I went off with my cousins. You're right, Genie joined us. And Fish. I figured they'd be lonesome without me!"

Zeba's mouth opened and closed. I grinned and walked away quickly.

Walking towards my building, my phone rang. "Yes, Aunty Glory?"

"You weren't at home?"

I looked up at Aunty's balcony involuntarily. Aunty Glory had been my parents friend and was mine too now. Despite her advanced age her heart was like that of a crazy teen and if she could have moved faster, she would have been absolute trouble. My parents had had nothing in common with Aunty Glory except being of a similar age.

She was looking at me. "No, Aunty. I went out to buy eggs. I met Zeba. She asked where Genie and I had disappeared to."

Aunty snorted into her phone. "Well, she's thorough. I just saw her leave Genie. She sat there for an eternity. He made her tea. How long does it take to buy eggs from next door?" Aunty was upset. It came through in her voice.

"Er... I went for a walk. And had to buy groceries."

"Why isn't Genie doing that?"

"He's my guest..."

"Bunkum! What's going on between you two?"

"You too, Aunty? I'm coming up. Er, is Genie still at home?"

"Yes."

I wanted to ask why she was spying on Genie, but who didn't in Peaceful Society. Sometimes I was tempted to put up see-through opaque glass around my balcony and on my windows. But then I'd think of how it would shut out the light and air. Plus, it all cost. Peaceful Society residents were welcome to eyeball us.

                                        ******

This is a fictional series about a 30-something Mumbai-based narrator whose former pet fish and parents' former man Friday have returned to stay awhile. Personal equations are different now.  

In this episode, the normally cool and can't-put-a-foot-wrong Genie does put a foot wrong. Unusually, and unwittingly, he creates a situation that the narrator is forced to face head on. 

                                        ******

"Are you in love with Genie?" Aunty Glory asked from my shoulder. Uncle John and Aunty Glory were standing on either side of me near the stove in their small kitchen. I felt Aunty's thin arm around my waist. The gesture blunted the force of the interrogation.

"No, Aunty. You know Roma made Genie and me join the family on the Lonavala trip because she couldn't handle the extra drama."

"You mean your cousin Eva bringing a boyfriend..."

"... and her husband Ashok also there..." Uncle John added.

"It's a good thing I went. Not only did Eva bring a boyfriend, he, Arief, happened to be a friend of Ashok!"

Uncle and Aunty made polite rude noises. I continued. "But the good thing is that Eva and Ashok kissed and made up."

"Oh, so sweet," Aunty said.

"Wonderful, wonderful!" Uncle exuberantly spat at the back of my ear. They were true romantics and believed there was a love story at the end of every tunnel... even if Aunty G went to great lengths to rubbish it.

"And we're not sure if something is brewing between Arief and Nidhi," I said, knowing Uncle and Aunty would want to hear about the great Indian tamasha that was our Lonavala trip.

There was silence and I felt the slight movements in their bodies when Uncle and Aunty looked at each other. They knew Nidhi well. She had once hit me on the head with a pencil case in Sunday School. My parents had been upset but her parents had sought out mine in church and apologised. In school, one of Nidhi's bully friends had pushed me against the lavatory wall and told me Nidhi's father had yelled at Nidhi and her mother had given her a good shake. My only thought at that moment was of all the germs that were crawling into me from the smelly loo wall I was plastered against - I wouldn't be able to disinfect myself until I reached home. When I thought hard about it, I think I developed OCD and some of my current paranoia in that moment.

I had tried to avoid Nidhi since. When we moved away from that area Nidhi slipped out of my mind. Sadly, she came back into my life like a persistent rash when her brother Ashok and Eva (my father's sister Saroj's daughter) fell in love and married. 

I remembered I was with Aunty Glory and Uncle John, making them tea and upma. "And how did the holiday go?" Uncle said.

That question felt forced - like it was filling an uncomfortable silence. Uncle John was not curious. My head tilted to the side and it dawned on me that there was a snitch in my household. Someone had leaked my fizz, stolen my thunder and filled in the Gonsalveses on what would have been a juicy horror story the telling of which would have stretched over some weeks. "Genie told you?!" I said in disbelief.

Aunty's thin, wrinkled hand was on my mouth, trying to shut it, and then stroking my chin - I do not know why. She held me tightly. I couldn't believe she was afraid Genie could get hurt. Stay calm and focus, I told myself. I strained the tea and quickly made the upma. I then stood at the kitchen window and phoned Genie and asked him to come to the Gonsalves home for breakfast.

"Oh dear. You're going to give him the third degree. Men don't like that," Uncle John shook his head over his pretty rose-patterned plate. 

"Don't be a shrew, dear," Aunty said, sitting opposite her husband. "We were curious and Genie made it all sound hilarious."

"What did he say?" I was curious too. I could barely get out a whole sentence from Genie, but here he had apparently given the Gonsalveses fulsome details of everything and everyone at our Lonavala trip. I felt heat creep into my cheeks. Did he tell them about my troublesome episodes with Arief, Ashok and Nidhi? I wanted to pump out my chest and claim to have brought Ashok and Eva back together, but that would sound cheesy now.

In any case, in the few minutes it took Genie to rush across the courtyard, mostly to avoid the women suddenly emerging into the courtyard and blocking his path, I got a brief rundown of events in Lonavala (dear reader, please refer to previous Fishy Chronicles 22 to 36 to know what transpired). And Uncle and Aunty snorted and laughed. I felt mortified in places, but added my two bits by telling them how I snored at night to scare Nidhi and how she attacked me in my bed. Her penchant for violence had not abated in her adulthood.

We heard the door open. Yes, Genie, or rather we, had a key to the Gonsalves home for practical purposes.

Genie listened to Uncle and Aunty and smiled at me, his horrible dimples showing. He showed me the peace sign when the others weren't looking. When they got up to wash their hands, Genie sat near me and said, "Are you annoyed with me?"

"Grossly."

"Oh, that's a pity." He grinned, his dimples disturbing my peace of mind. "I did my best to make you look good. Avoided the messy bits. I should have warned you though." He took my hand and kissed it, his eyes twinkling all the while.

It was hard to stay angry. "Aunty's version seemed sanitised. And luckily for me, despite my role in annoying Nidhi, they still think she's pure evil." Genie laughed. "Why did Zeba visit?" I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders and looked away.

"Aunty said you had a long chat." Genie made to get up. I grabbed his arm, "What did Fish say?"

He grinned, "They gave me an earful when Zeba left. Said I was 'colluding with the enemy', called me 'an enemy of the state' and said they were calling in a 'commando' to deal with me."

"Which movie is the Commando?"

"An old Arnold Schwarzenegger one. Was on TV last night. You've got to do something about all their TV bingeing."

"Why can't you tell them?"

"They don't listen."

"What makes you think they'll listen to me?"

"You feed them and take them out. For some reason, they watch you all the time," Genie said.

The flattery loosened me. "They crib about everything I do."

"Maybe."

"No thanks whatsoever."

"Hmm..." Genie got up and moved to the kitchen with his plate.

I waited till he washed it. He came out, wiped his hands with his handkerchief, smiled broadly at me and the Gonsalveses and began to move to the door.

"Wait," I said. Genie was behaving oddly. Unnecessary smiling. He didn't chat with Uncle and Aunty. He didn't offer to make us tea! "Why are Fish so angry?"

He turned at the door and I saw his teeth in a rare smile. "They're pissed off, for sure."

"Please elaborate." 

"It's got to do with Zeba."

Fish hated my neighbour Zeba. "Yes?"

Genie scraped at a spot on the door with his index finger and concentrated his gaze on the ceiling.

"No cobwebs there, Son. We cleared them on Friday. Why don't you just tell us why Fish are upset with you," Uncle John said.

Genie straightened up from the doorway and looked me in the eye. "I should have asked you..."

"What?"

"... but things got out of hand..."

"Er, you were making out... on my sofa?" I sounded shrill. I was going to remove that cover and wash it under cover of darkness! No wonder Fish were distressed. He was definitely an enemy of the state.

"No, of course not!"

"Then what?!"

"I invited Zeba for appams and stew... on Saturday," Genie watched me, expressionlessly. For a big man that had a dangerous past, I was surprised at his fear. Aunty and Uncle were looking back and forth at me and Genie in shock. I had invited them for lunch too and Saturday promised to be pure fireworks.

I felt gobsmacked, but my rage gave way to amusement looking at Genie hiding behind the main door.

"Are you angry?" he asked finally.

No 'sorry for inviting the she devil'. "I don't know," I said.

He stared at me, a bit confused. "What do you mean? You're okay with her coming?"

"I don't know." I could see Aunty beginning to look annoyed. But whichever way I looked at it there was fog in my brain.

"Why don't you let Genie fob her off," Aunty suggested testily.

"That's very rude, Glory. It's unnecessary. Let Zeba come. Things may be different. I've never really spoken to Zeba. I'd like to have a chat. What do you say, my dear?" Uncle turned to look at me.

"Sure, Uncle. I don't see any sense in hurting Zeba's feelings. We'll try and make sure she has a good time."

All three of them looked at me strangely. Mostly incredulous at my volte face - I would have been taken aback too.

"Uncle and Aunty, I do not plan to poison the appams or stew. Genie, God help me, between now and Saturday I will have to relearn some good manners and make peace with Zeba."

"Sorry," Genie said.

"Oh, never mind. We'll have fun watching people mingle."

"Doesn't sound like fun."

"Maybe."

The three continued to stare at me. But all I could think of was the sudden brainwave I had. I couldn't stop smiling at them. I knew how I was going to play Saturday's game of chess. I couldn't wait.

"Just one question, Genie."

"Shoot."

"If you spent a considerable amount of time with Zeba this morning, including making her a cup of tea, etc, etc, why is it you didn't tell her that we went to Lonavala?"

The door slammed and I laughed.

Revenge was probably going to be sweet, easy and good fun, after all.