Towards the Within Read online

  TOWARDS THE WITHIN

  REECE WILLIS

  Copyright © Reece Willis 2018

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  First published 2018 by Worldworx Publishing

  www.worldworx.com

  Reece Willis asserts the moral right to be

  identified as the author of this work

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  A catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-9164301-1-2

  For further information about Reece Willis visit:

  www.reecewillis.com

  For Catherine,

  who was there every step of the way

  1

  I was surprised by how quiet it was. It wasn’t that I was anticipating seeing a man-eating tiger or a herd of stampeding elephants as soon as we arrived, but I expected more than this. Buildings worn grey and nicotine beige, loomed as if they’d topple at any moment. One already had judging by the pile of rubble that sat at the side of the road where our cab had come to an abrupt stop ten minutes ago. This wasn’t how I had imagined India to be.

  The disagreement between Aiden and the driver was impacting on the otherwise peaceful street. From the few that were beginning to crowd, I noticed a small girl, her pink dress smeared in dirt just like her face. She looked on in wonder at the two men yelling at one another, while a gentleman – her father I presumed – set up his rickety stall for the day.

  ‘You’re out of your mind if you think I’m paying you six hundred rupees. I keep telling you, we’ve already pre-paid.’ Aiden had no intention of backing down.

  Neither did the driver, ‘And I am telling you I am not pre-pay taxi. You are taking wrong taxi and you are a thief.’

  ‘Thief? You’re the thief. You take us from pillar to post, stopping off at your friends and relatives trying to sell us this and that, and you still want us to give you money? It’s taken ages to get from the airport.’

  ‘But you are saying you are wanting hotel, I am showing you four hotel,’ the driver exclaimed, holding up four fingers to emphasise his point.

  ‘Not the one we asked for though, eh? And when do carpet dealers, souvenir shops and travel agents count as hotels?’

  It was time to mediate, ‘Guys, guys, take it easy, I’m sure this can be all worked out.’

  ‘Yes, if you are paying me my money.’ The driver took his stand at the back of the car to prohibit access to our luggage.

  I’d already unstapled some notes from the stack of dirty rupees we’d exchanged at the airport. Leafing out six leathery one-hundred bills, I gave him the fare. He waggled his head, clicked the latch and lifted our backpacks and guitar cases from the car.

  Aiden was by now red faced and livid, ‘Have you taken leave of your senses, Sam?’

  ‘Look, we can stand here all day and argue or we can check into that, um, nice hotel over there, get a shower, something to eat and some rest. It's your call.’ He sneered at the cabbie who had already started the engine and was backing up. ‘Come on mate, let’s get you inside.’

  I’d only known Aiden for a few months. He’d wander into the music shop where I worked and tinker about on a guitar or two. He was different from everyone else. There was a certain charm in the way he carried himself; a sense of panache. His well-spoken English accent commanded immediate attention and he was a huge hit with the ladies. An itching restlessness hung over him however, as if he wanted more out of life.

  One Friday afternoon as I was closing, he asked, ‘If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?’

  I recalled memories of being a boy, hunting my parents loft for buried treasure and coming across old black and white pictures that had faded with time. Lavish palaces, domed mosques, snake charmers and all sorts of strange and interesting faces were captured forever in the room above me. I spent endless nights lying awake, staring up at those intriguing lands, imagining that one day I would go there and see all these sights for myself.

  My father didn't speak of his time serving in India during the Second World War. He didn’t speak to me much at all. I could tell there was something of those years that haunted him though, if only by the way the photographs had been tucked away, not once retrieved from their dark corner. I know this because I didn't get into trouble for messing with them, which can only be because he never found out. Whatever it was that had disturbed his mind remained his secret.

  'India,’ I answered.

  ‘Yeah, India sounds good,’ Aiden nodded and left it at that.

  The following morning, I awoke to an urgent banging at my front door. ‘Prepare yourself for three months in India,’ he said, beaming on the threshold. ‘I’ve just put a deposit down. We leave in one month.’

  So here we were, Paharganj, the backpacking hub of New Delhi, climbing a pristine marble staircase leading to our room. A shower, jam on toast and a cup of tea later, we collapsed until lunchtime.

  Muffled noises brought me to. Curiosity of what the outside world was doing got the better of me. Aiden didn’t stir as I padded across the cold tiles to the balcony. On first inspection, everything seemed as it did seven hours ago, but as I slid the glass across I soon realised I’d been lulled into a false sense of security. The intense, suffocating heat was accompanied by an overwhelming aroma, the components of which I tried to identify: wood smoke, garbage, burnt diesel, spiced cooking and cow dung I could easily pick out; quite a contrast to the delicate scent of jasmine that had welcomed us in the hotel lobby.

  My sense of smell wasn’t the only thing enjoying a workout; my ears were assaulted with the clamour of people talking and shouting, engines running and squealing, horns blasting – all of which seemed to echo for miles across the mass of flat concrete rooftops ahead of me. The sleepy street had transformed into utter chaos. Motorised and peddled rickshaws competed with cars and scooters to avoid a river of oblivious pedestrians. A couple of stray dogs fed from the edge of a mound of rubbish that was being monopolised by a huge white bull. Sitting cross-legged next to the garbage, a man fried something gnarled and greasy in a large blackened pan, while his neighbour hammered away at a worn leather boot. In front of them both, two skinny workmen in white vests smashed a hole into the concrete with pickaxes. I swished the door shut behind me, relieved by the whir of the air-conditioning unit.

  ‘Who was it then?’ Was he talking to me? I couldn’t be sure. He looked asleep. ‘Yeah, I know, didn’t I pass it to him when I bought the chocolate? Ha ha, yeah, we used to call him Froggy.’

  ‘Aiden.’ He groaned and turned his head. I increased the volume, ‘Aiden.’

  ‘Huh? Oh, Sam, what’s up?’ He looked around, unsure of his surroundings, still immersed in his dream.

  ‘I thought we might go out and do some sightseeing,’ I picked up the guide book and thumbed to the page marked, The Qutub Minar. ‘India’s tallest minaret was constructed in 1192 and stands as a tower of victory to Muslim rule, celebrating the fall of the last Hindu Kingdom in Delhi.’

  ‘Spare me the details mate, I’ve just woken up.’ He rubbed his eyes and took a swig from the half cup of cold tea he’d left earlier, dribbling it back upon realising the temperature, ‘Eww, what was I thinking?’

  ‘I really don’t know.’ I changed into the most inconspicuous shirt and trousers I could find. ‘So, who’s Froggy?’ I asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘N
ever mind.’

  Whilst Aiden got ready I waited in reception. ‘Yes sir, acha, of course sir, and again, I am very sorry sir,’ said the manager, the telephone wedged between his cheek and shoulder. His unfaltering smile went down with the receiver and he wiped the sweat from his brow. I caught his peripheral and his tired, smiling face switched on again, ‘Ah hello sir, I had not seen you there. How are you finding your stay?’

  ‘Yeah, good thanks. We’re going out in a minute, have you got a business card so we know where to come back to?’

  ‘Of course, sir, a business card is not a problem.’ He presented a white card with a little red logo, address and contact details below. ‘You are situated in Arakashan Road, sir.’ He waggled his head.

  ‘Thanks. What does the head-wag thing mean?’ I asked. He tilted his head to one side, trying to understand what I’d just said. I attempted a demonstration, though I found my head-wagging skills rather robotic.

  ‘Ah, yes sir, it mean many thing, you will see.’

  ‘What about acha?’

  He looked at his watch and sighed, ‘Acha mean okay or I understand or I agree, or maybe I understand or maybe I agree, or maybe I do not agree at all, but seem to agree for the sake of customer satisfaction.’

  ‘Acha.’ I raised my eyebrows and glanced to the ceiling in confusion.

  ‘Ha, now you are learning a little Hindi. Very good, sir.’ He stretched his smile as far as his patience would allow. ‘Now, if you will be excusing me sir, I really must be going.’

  I was left alone in the cocoon of marble and incense, the doorway to the rest of India ahead of me. To say I was apprehensive about stepping outside was an understatement. It had slipped my mind to inform Aiden of my discovery on the balcony, and as he flip-flopped down the stairs in knee length shorts, a Hawaiian shirt with sleeves rolled-up to the elbows, sunglasses and a wide brimmed straw hat, I didn’t have the heart to tell him.

  ‘Just to confirm, you haven’t read any of the guidebook?’ I asked.

  He looked over my shoulder, sniffing out the new smells, twitching to get a better look, ‘I thought you’d read enough for the both of us.’

  ‘Only what I read on the plane. You've had hold of it most of the time, I haven’t had the chance.’

  He side-stepped me and confidently walked towards the door only to lunge back from the wall of heat with disbelief. He looked over his shoulder, ‘Have you seen it out there?’

  I joined him at the threshold, ‘I have. Are you ready?’

  I walked out on my own. Aiden still hovered at the door, ‘What’s it like?’ he called out.

  There were a lot of people, all staring. What I’d seen on the balcony was now eye level and I was the centre of attention. I looked over to the hotel for support, ‘Aiden, come on.’

  He stepped down as if entering a swimming pool for the first time, gingerly treading water and wading out to my position of safety. He would have made it if it weren’t for the collision with the boy on the oversized bike who wobbled but masterfully regained his balance. The boy rode on laughing, leaving Aiden unimpressed, ‘Did you see that? He tried to kill me.’

  ‘You’re all right though, yeah?’ I didn’t hear his answer. I, like Aiden, stood rooted not knowing what to do next. A naked toddler squatted before us, squirted out what looked like toffee ice cream and ran off, nearly straying in front of a passing car. I scanned for any distraught parents, but saw none. At the foot of the rubbish pile, a dog sniffed the air and tracked the scent to the child’s waste. It seized the dessert opportunity and slurped the path clean whilst Aiden and I looked on in horror.

  ‘Let’s just start walking, we’re bound to find a bus stop or something,’ I said, diverting our attention. We turned left for no apparent reason and said nothing to each other. We were too preoccupied finding ways of moving around parked cars and avoiding the waves of people from every angle. There was nothing that resembled a bus stop and there were no buses. Oddly enough, there were no backpackers either.

  ‘Have you got the guidebook?’ We’d come to a standstill.

  Aiden patted himself down, ‘Does it look like I’ve got the guidebook?’

  ‘What do we do then? We can’t just wander aimlessly.’

  The buzz of a tin bee hovering beside us saved us from ourselves, ‘Auto-rickshaw you like?’ said a voice from within. I coaxed Aiden into the back and squeezed in beside him.

  ‘Qutub Minar,’ I said, thinking my pronunciation was perfect, but the driver’s face suggested otherwise, lifting from a frown to a smile several times before a light flicked on behind his eyes. He tilted his head from side to side and said, ‘Acha,’ which made me wonder if I’d been understood at all.

  Throttling forward, we darted in and out of the crowds and saw life from a relatively safe distance. At the top of the street the driver pushed aside a cycle-rickshaw and turned into the gridlock of the main road. Behind us, the angry grill of a single deck bus growled in neutral, while ahead, the back of an orange goods carrier with a happy blue font of 'Horn Please' filled the cab with exhaust fumes. One wrong move from either neighbour would obliterate us.

  We edged our way forward accompanied by a chorus of blaring horns and revving engines while a policeman stood fruitlessly directing traffic from a concrete podium; shouting, blowing his whistle, slamming car bonnets and the sides of trucks with a bamboo cane. Presented with an opportunity to pop the bottleneck, the driver put his foot down and accelerated into a wide avenue lined with slender palm trees as we did our best to absorb this new world around us.

  Vehicles of all sizes hurtled towards us from all sides, narrowly missing us at the last second. Our driver wasn't any different. Keen and fearless to veer on the wrong side of the road, he overtook whenever opportunity presented itself, singing to himself as we held the steel railing, life dependant.

  On the approach to a set of traffic lights we relaxed into a line of cars. A man no older than me appeared at my side of the rickshaw with an upturned palm thrust forward. His far away eyes were set deep within the sockets of a skull shrink-wrapped in broken skin. I reached into my pocket and took the first note my hand touched; a fifty, which he gently took and held to his forehead in gratitude.

  Aiden and I observed our surroundings, saying nothing to each other until the Qutub Minar towered into view. We were welcomed by a gathering of souvenir touts all gunning for our attention, blurring our vision with postcards, trinkets and joss sticks. I bought a book of postcards in hope it would disperse the struggle, but it only intensified the rush. Squeezing through the pandemonium into the main entrance, we came into a clearing of well-tended gardens where our eyes were drawn to the cylindrical brick tower. Intricate bands of Arabic calligraphy worked their way to the tapered summit.

  ‘The sandstone inscriptions you see are verses from the Quran.’ I turned to see a middle-aged man with a salt and pepper beard, white kufi cap and an immaculately pressed kurta.

  ‘Thanks mate, but we don’t need a tour guide,’ Aiden snapped and walked off.

  The gentleman frowned, ‘I am not a tour guide, though I am not blaming your friend for thinking otherwise. I come here now and then to find a little peace from the city.’

  ‘Sorry about Aiden, it’s our first day in India.’

  ‘Which country are you from?’

  ‘England.’

  ‘I thought you are all leaving in 1947,’ he chuckled, thrilled with his timing. ‘Apologies for my humour, my wife say it will get me into a good deal of trouble one day. Speaking of my wife, if I do not return home soon for my afternoon meal, there will be no marriage to be speaking of.’ He shook my hand energetically and bowed his head, ‘Salam Alaikum. Peace be upon you.’

  I found Aiden slouched against a wall smoking a cigarette, ‘Made a new friend I see,’ he said, smirking.

  ‘He wasn't a tour guide.’

  ‘Whatever, I’m boiling sitting here, let’s go.’

  We wandered the ruins of the funerary buildings, stopp
ing momentarily to observe an ancient iron pillar protruding from the patchwork of paving, but by now the sun was burning our fair skin so we took shade beneath a straw canopy. A young man appeared with a tray of soft drinks, looking much like an usher ready to sell interval refreshments. The short sleeves of his worn grey t-shirt hung loose and redundant, his neck having to bear the full weight of the tray with the help of some rope that was tied each side through a couple of crudely drilled holes. An additional piece of string was also making use of the one to his left, on the end of which was a bottle opener. I helped myself to two bottles of cola, removed the caps and placed the money on the tray. Listening to the throngs of Indian holidaymakers echoing the monuments, we sat back for a few relaxing moments savouring the taste of the sweet fizzy pop.

  I suggested to Aiden we get something to eat at a nice hotel and restaurant I’d seen earlier in Arakashan Road. We returned the empty bottles on our way back to the gates and jumped into one of the many auto-rickshaws poised for tourists like us.

  Doused in chilled air as soon as we entered, the reception offered a welcome relief from the heat outside. We were directed through a set of glass doors into the restaurant and shown to our seats. The air conditioning didn't extend to this part of the building, but the ceiling fans provided a comfortable temperature. As Aiden sat down I noticed a sign above him that read “DO NOT BEFRIEND STRANGERS”. It had been printed on old-school computer paper and tacked on to the wall. I wondered what had prompted the need for such a motto and felt a little uneasy of my surroundings. We each ordered a vegetable biryani and a sweet lassi.

  There were only two other people in the restaurant: a bald European man in his mid-thirties with oval spectacles and denim dungarees, and an Indian lady in her early forties, who had just paid her bill and was preparing to leave. As she opened the door, a sparrow flew past her, headed for the dining area. The man called out to the waiter to switch off the overhead fans and as they slowed to a stop, he clambered over the furniture to prevent the bird coming to any harm. He came over to where we were seated and asked if he could use a chair at our table to stand on. Using a rolled-up newspaper he tried to entice the sparrow from a ledge above Aiden’s head. As he did so he accidentally tore the banner. The noise was enough to startle the bird into flight again. This time it made for the open door and flew to its freedom.