Friday 30^th November

A Tribute to Pete

Some things you need to know about Pete… He is a terrible tease.  Sometimes I get home from work after having been teased ALL day by our registrar Allan (also a St Virgils boy – did they teach them this skill at school???  Was it a major part of the curriculum??) and there is Pete, full of jolly japes… I say STOP!  Have you been conspiring with Allan to drive me MAD???  I can imagine he tormented his poor sisters to distraction, when they were all children, not to mention his kindly mother and father.

BUT – and this is very important – when the chips are down there is nobody kinder or more considerate.

I have proof of this!  When I was lying in bed on Sunday (glowing, yes, like a lobster,) reading my book and (obviously) not paying much attention to anything at all, Pete came upstairs.  He stopped just inside the door and I could hear his brain ticking over.  Umm…  Marguerite… I can’t quite believe this... Actually…I think maybe you should go downstairs, into the kitchen, and stay there for a few minutes.

I stared at him in sudden comprehension and horror for a few nanoseconds then leapt from my prone position and rushed downstairs to shudder in the kitchen – I knew exactly what this meant – there would be a large and hairy spider in my immediate vicinity…

And indeed there was!  Pete couldn’t believe that I hadn’t set eyes on it; it was immediately in front of me, above the arched window, and it was, he said graphically, as big as a PLATE.

So you see what I mean, about Pete’s kindness in my time of need… I am pathetically frightened of large and hairy spiders.  I freeze, and then cry, and tremble, when I see one.  I don’t actually hate spiders, not at all, and am not in the least bothered by “normal” spiders, who live in webs, or burrows, or even funnels.  But the large and hairy sort which saunters about, or crawls into your sneakers (yes, Claire, you have my every sympathy) – well they are just too much for me to contemplate.  What an opportunity for Pete to have teased and tormented me – a spider as big as a plate!  But…he didn’t.  I think, as he stood just inside the door, he must have thought, oh the fun I could have…

But he didn’t act on this impulse, and I am SO very grateful.

India #32

Mary and I had accumulated just a bit of extra baggage.  She had a bright idea – let’s send parcels home to ourselves; we won’t have to carry the extra weight!  This seemed like a great idea.  We found a small shy post office at the end of the street, around the corner from the big monkey temple, and left Vish and Pete sipping coffee at Geeta’s.  We were due to go off in two autorickshaws to see the sights of Hampi within half an hour and we thought this was PLENTY of time for a small postal transaction.  Mary had quite a big bundle, I had a small modest one – a sarong, a beaded bag, a few necklaces and a book. 

The young postal clerk sent us in different directions.  Mary, mysteriously, was to take her bundle to the icecream shop, where apparently someone would construct a parcel for her.  As for me, could I please follow my new postal clerk friend.  Outside, up the side street, and way way up behind the temple, amongst all sorts of slabs of stone and ruins.  I kept thinking, ummm…hmmm…oh dear…are these sacrificial altars, am I about to be very much regretting going with this seemingly pleasant young man?  He led me nearly a kilometre away, up high, and then asked me to sit near him on a big fallen lintel.  By then I had just decided to go with the flow; what else could I do?  I was very much aware that my friends would be wondering (a) where I was and (b) whether we were going to miss part of our tour of Hampi because of my tardiness – this did cause me no small amount of anxiety, I am excessively punctual… But…breathe in and out…go with the flow… My young bloke took my sarong-wrapped bundle, took out of his pocket a white muslin bag and a large curved needle, and started to assemble the parcel and to sew it up with string, with extremely neat symmetrical stitches.  This took ages, and was just fascinating.  He told me all about his life – his wife and young children, his schooling – under a tree in Hampi, before the school opposite Padma’s had been developed.  His wife is apparently a tailor and would love to whip me up an outfit, it would only take a few hours and I could have anything I wanted.  My mind went totally blank – clothes?  Did I want any?  Well I should have had a work-suit made up, of course, but I was too hot to think of such things.  When he had finished sewing up my parcel, he held out his hands and asked for 100 rupees.  Aha!  That was why we were way up the hill, out of hearing of other humans – I was paying an illegal bribe.  No probs!  Now could we please just go back to the PO and SEND the parcel? 

Well this is India, nothing is ever that easy.  The small shy postoffice was not only hidden, it was now also padlocked, not a sign of the post mistress.  “She has gone to the temple to pray, of course,” said my clerk.  More deep breathing…go with the FLOW…don’t think of your friends waiting and worrying… Finally she came back.  She weighed the parcel and started very complicated calculations with what looked like an abacus while my newly-bribed friend peeled off a vast page of stamps and put thick brown glue on them.  I was committed to the whole thing by then, but I was totally horrified when she said, “that will be 870 rupees.”  HOW MUCH???  This was nearly $30, far more than the contents were worth.  I was definitely going win our Mug of the Day competition… Never mind, pay up, I had no choice, although I was sure I would never see my things again.  The funny thing is, the weirdo parcel did turn up at my house not two weeks later, with the stamps still firmly glued in place. 

By this stage, Mary had come back to the post ffice again to look for me.  She was mightily relieved.  She had gone to the icecream shop with her things and had been told her parcel was impossible to construct, too big, so she came back to find me, only minutes after she had left me, only to see the padlocked PO and no sign of me.  She had had to go back and say to Vish and Pete “well…I have no idea where Marguerite is…maybe White Slavers have taken her….”