The scene looked an hospital ward and concern etched my wife's face. Though it was her house, I had brusquely ordered them off my couch to show I had some authority and besides I didn't want his dirty blood staining my couch and remain a grim reminder of the circumstances that may turn me a homeless hobo.
"Get the hell off my couch, run away ....go..go...go now", I thundered and they hastened off the couch to the dining table where Darren lay his head enacting his final minute on earth .
Ammanie had taken control, she was a nurse and round in shape being fat both side to side and front to back, her huge mammaries dropping heavily down and countered by an mighty behind and if she had sharpened teeth,she could have been straightaway cast in jurrasic park .But the resemblance ended there, she was an extremely likeable person and was in complete command when she was around and stood by cradling his bleeding head against her huge chest and ordered her kids to get her emergency kit. Radha stood on his other side ,visibly flustered, the incident had taken out the joy of reunion and he moaned his make believe trauma and flopped his head between her exquisite bosom as well, a little too deeply for the miserly cut he had received. The slight gash had pulled the tight scalp apart and blood spurted in disproportion to the wound, making it look bloodier than it was. My son's eyes welled up, Captain Brainless, his hero, sat between two gorgons, mortally beaten to pulp and he whispered with little hiccups to me..
"Uncle Darren might not survive the hemorrhaging , we have to find the right blood type for a massive infusion , or he'll slip into a coma from which he may never wake up....Ever". .. so I pointed to wilkie at the foot of the door and asked whether the dog's blood would do.
"Papa , be serious... he is not used to our conditions and he could catch tetanus". That was a welcome thought, nobody survived tetanus for more than twentyfour hours, a relatively manageable interval, surely the hospital should be able to take care of that.
"Cruel.....Why did she have to do that, I think she over-reacted ...Look at her now , as if she cared!" she whispered in rage.Suchita was on my side, she couldn't comprehend the viciousness of the women who seemed to complement her in several aspects.
Overreacted! Ha ha .. who cared? whoo haahah!!.. I would have given half a hand if she could have as much penetrated an inch into the skull, deleting his floppy memory and wiped out ancient images and instances stored in his useless brain for at least the time they spent with us in India. What harm could he do from France, he couldn't even email and he had two families to look after when he found the time from transmitting aids with his fucking lifestyle.
Being the man of the situation he was taking advantage, playing up his injury,writhing and accidentally brushing Radha's rump as Ammanie isolated the cut on his head with a surgical blade and deftly sewed the skin together to stanch the slight ooze and wrapped a bandage around his head and contended with her work, she gave him a pat on his back, peck on his face, bit her lower lip , released it slowly while nodding her head and complemented Radha for her sharp aim. Hearing that ,Darren said
"What do you know, either she marries me or I'm claiming damages... tulips, ask your husband to sell your house" and Radha giggled bringing back memories in a flood. How long ago was it, twenty years since then ? In the loo, on the throne and locked in silence, my thoughts regressed to those carefree bachelor days and the subsequent truth I had come to know a few months ago. On the day of our house warming, after we returned to India , my brother- in -law came in after some emergency shopping and said he had seen a young girl in the neighbourhood who was a spitting image of my sister,his wife. We joked about my dad's trysts and concluded that he would have been too old to father a girl so young and speculated I could have been the one who had sown the wild oats.
Much later I was to see the young girl and my heart skipped several beats and I palpitated like a running dog shedding heat. I was at the grocery store and she was there with a women whom I had known briefly and had sex when I was a bachelor. I do not know whether the woman, Radha, tulips to us, recalled me from the drug induced haze of those days, if she did , she passed by without any hint of recognition. But I did and gasped , stunned by the realisation Radha was probably the girl's mother and the pretty young girl was my daughter and a feeling of uncontainable longing hit me. Then on,it was a search.
