The Last Theorem - Arthur Charles Clarke [46]
Ranjit obliged, and got one from Maggie as well. “By the way,” Gamini added as they turned to go, “don’t worry about the check. It all goes on my father’s tab. Come on, sweets.” And as he and Maggie threaded their way between tables to the door, Ranjit understood what the plural pronoun had implied.
And there Ranjit was, just him and the girl named Pru.
He lacked experience to tell him what was expected of him under these circumstances. He had, however, seen enough American films to get a clue. “Would you like another drink?” he said politely.
She shook her head, grinning. She nodded at the nearly full glass in front of her. “I’ve barely wounded the last one. Anyway, I think another drink would be pretty superfluous, don’t you?”
He did, but he was running out of ideas for the next step. In the films, at this point the man might ask the woman if she would care to dance. That wasn’t an option here; no dancing was going on in this hotel bar, and anyway Ranjit didn’t know how.
Pru saved him. “It’s been a very nice evening, Ranjit Subramanian,” she told him, “but I want to get up and do some sightseeing tomorrow. Do you think the waiter can get me a taxi?”
Ranjit was surprised. “You aren’t in this hotel?”
“Booked the accommodation before we left London, and we took what they gave us. It’s only about a five-minute ride away.”
At that point Ranjit knew what to do, and did. Pru was glad to be given a ride in the temple’s van—even if Ranjit was a little drunk behind the wheel—and she was interested to hear about Ranjit’s father’s position in the temple, along with a sketchy outline of the long and colorful history of Tiru Koneswaram. Enough so that she invited him in to sober up with a cup of coffee when they got to her hotel.
The travel agency in London had given the girls a young people’s hotel, with a lot of young people making the lobby a bit too noisy for a conversation, so Pru invited Ranjit up to her room. They talked, sitting companionably close, and propinquity worked its magic. Within an hour Ranjit had lost his virginity, or at least his cross-gender virginity. He enjoyed it very much. So did Pru, enough so that they did it twice more before they finally got to sleep.
The sun was high and hot when the sound of a key in the lock woke them. It was Maggie, and she did not seem surprised to find both Ranjit and Pru in one of the room’s twin beds. Gamini? Oh, he was long gone, had jumped out of the bed and into his clothes when reception called to say that his father was waiting for him in the lobby. “And anyway,” Maggie said, giving Pru an inquiring look, “we’re supposed to be taken to lunch by your life-drawing instructor’s cousin at the embassy, and it’s a quarter after ten.”
Ranjit, who was getting into his clothes as fast as he could, took that for an exit cue. What he wasn’t sure of was how to take leave of Pru, and this time she was not helpful. She did give him a hearty good-bye kiss. But when he tentatively suggested that if they wanted sightseeing he was available, she couldn’t see a way of fitting him into their other obligations that day, or any other day, for that matter.
Ranjit got the message. He kissed her again, with the intensity dimmed down much lower this time, waved a farewell to Maggie, and left.
Back in the van, he considered. He had the van and his own freedom for at least a week. But there was nothing to keep him in Colombo, and nothing to attract him to any other part of Sri Lanka. So he shrugged and started the engine and began the long drive back to Trinco.
An hour later he was outside of the Colombo city limits, and wondering what his father would say when he returned the van so early. Most of his wondering, though, was devoted to the subject of Ms. Pru Never-Did-Know-Her-Last-Name. Why had she behaved in the way—no, in the several contradictorily different ways—that she had in their short but, at least for Ranjit, highly significant relationship? He was nearly thirty kilometers down