For The Love Of Goddess Radha
By Nialvan
Nialvan@yahoo.co.uk
Chapter Two: Remembering Radha
The door of the office suddenly creaked opened. Sam quickly grabbed the two cards that were on the table and placed them in the pocket of his jacket as Ross entered the room brandishing a cup and saucer.
‘That was quick’ said Sam.
‘I don’t wait around you know’ said Ross as he gently placed the cup and saucer on the table. ‘Anyway it is not as if I got anything better to do have I?’
Sam again smiled at Ross’s cheeky humour.
Suddenly Ross froze abruptly. His face then grimaced. It was if he was having a fit. Sam became concerned by his friend’s bizarre manner.
‘You okay kid?’ asked Sam concernedly.
‘Oh goddamit!’ said Ross as he begun tearing at his hair. ‘I knew I forgot something’.
Ross then reached inside his jacket and took out a large brown envelope which he then placed on the table in front of Sam.
‘What is this?’ asked Sam.
‘Sorry mate I forgot’ replied Ross. ‘It’s for you. It came this morning’.
‘It came this morning and yet you gave it to me this evening?’ said Sam raising a quizzical eyebrow.
‘Well … er … yes’ said Ross sheepishly. ‘Like I said before … I … er … forgot’.
Sam looked carefully at the tatty envelope that was on the table.
‘Was it in this scruffy condition when it arrived?’ asked Sam.
‘Er … no’ said Ross, the embarrassment now killing him. ‘It has been in my jacket all day’.
Sam again smiled and shook his head in disbelief. It was a typical ‘McKenna Moment’ as Sam calls it. If there was an award for incompetence then you can bet your last dollar that Ross McKenna would have won it hands down. Sam probably would have been annoyed at this sort of behaviour in other people. But Ross seemed to carry it off in such a way that you can only laugh at him.
Sam then picked up the envelope and examined it.
‘What is this?’ said Sam.
‘I haven’t got the faintest idea’ replied Ross.
The envelope had a large logo on the top left hand corner.
Sam read it out aloud:
‘L & S domestic employment agency’.
‘Ah that explains everything’ said Ross. ‘You were after a servant weren’t you?’
‘Yes’.
‘It is probably something from the agency’ said Ross. ‘They are probably forwarding a CV and references of a potential maid. Let us hope they send over a nice model sort, instead of the usual fat ugly motherly types that they tend to lumber you with’.
‘Hey that don’t bother me’ said Sam as Ross laughed. ‘Just as long as they could do the job, I don’t give a monkeys what they look like. I would rather have an Indira Gandhi type that could cook and clean than a Shilpa Shetty sort that can’t do the housework for the love of money’.
‘Hey give me Shilpa Shetty as my maid any day’ said Ross. ‘I can’t say no to Shilpa’.
‘You want Shilpa Shetty as your maid?’
‘I will be queer not to’.
‘Even if she is shit at housework and can’t cook for toffee?’
‘Wouldn’t bother me in the slightest’ said Ross. ‘I will just have to walk over the rubbish and get used to eating outside. Or better still, get Shilpa’s mother to come round to do the housework instead’.
Ross then burst out laughing. Sam couldn’t keep a straight face any longer and he too begun to break into fits of giggles.
‘You know something’ said Ross when he finally stopped laughing. ‘I think it is probably best if you do get married’.
‘Me get a wife?’ said Sam incredulously.
‘Yeah you could marry one of these Indian maids’ said Ross. ‘In that way you don’t have to pay them any wages and since they have a reputation of treating their husbands like masters she probably work a lot harder too’.
‘You can be a right pillock when you want to be McKenna’ said Sam with a chuckle as he mused at his friend’s latest tongue in cheek idea.
‘Don’t you want a woman in your life’ said Ross.
‘I don’t mind a woman in my life and I can get a woman in my life if I wanted to’ said Sam. ‘It is just that I don’t need a wife’.
‘Well you need to have an heir don’t you?’ said Ross.
‘You are beginning to sound just like my father’ said Sam. ‘I don’t need a wife thank you very much’.
‘Oh come on Sammy, you need to have a missus’ said Ross. ‘Everyone needs a wife. It is an essential piece of domestic equipment’.
‘An essential piece of domestic equipment?!’ said Sam as he raised a quizzical eyebrow at a typical chauvinist remark that was so in character with Ross’s nature.
‘Oh yes’ said Sam. ‘You know it is an acronym that’.
‘What is?’
‘Wife’ said Ross. ‘It stands for Washing, Ironing, Fucking etc’.
Ross then roared with laughter. Sam again was unable to keep a straight face and couldn’t help but chuckle. Ross’s sense of humour can be silly at times and he could say some corny things but the delivery of his gags was his true gift. He could make the most hackneyed and unoriginal of jokes so funny.
‘I could see why you can’t get a girl yourself’ said Sam. ‘You are mad you are’.
‘But it makes perfect sense doesn’t it?’ asked Ross.
‘No it flipping doesn’t’ replied Sam. ‘And if you must know I don’t find Indian ladies attractive’.
Ross then gave Sam a stare of bewilderment, which was so obvious that it didn’t go unnoticed on Sam.
‘And just what is that look suppose to signify?’ asked Sam taking note of Ross’s expression.
‘I can’t believe you had just said that’ said Ross. ‘I must remind you of the time when you once had a crush on an Indian woman’.
‘When was this?’ said Sam.
‘In your secondary school years’ said Ross. ‘That Indian maid that used to work for your old man’.
‘Which one was this then?’ asked Sam.
‘The one who used to work for your father for about a year’ said Ross. ‘You were so upset when she left, why you even told me that one day you will marry her—even though she was old enough to be your mother’.
Sam then froze when he realised that Ross was talking about Radha, the beautiful Indian maid that was in his father’s employee when he was about fourteen. God he had forgotten all about her.
Ross might have been teasing Sam but then again he wasn’t further from the truth. Radha was his fantasy woman from childhood. Her beauty and her entrancing figure helped him through puberty all those years ago. It was true that he was in love with her and when she finally left his father’s employee he was heartbroken. It wasn’t just a passing crush either. He was in mourning for years after her departure and wouldn’t even look at another woman.
Time however was the perfect healer and as the years rolled on he learned to live with his ‘loss’. Of course he would occasionally think of her now and again but overall he learned to accept the fact that he was never going to see her again. He consoled himself by accepting that it was never going to be. Besides these days she probably wasn’t the porcelain beauty that he had once known. She should be in her late forties by now and (taking into account of the diet of Southern Indians and the general poverty of the local maids) possibly had aged and become fat.
‘Hey Mr. I-don’t-need-a-spouse’ said Ross snapping his fingers at Sam’s face. ‘Wake up’.
Sam then shook his head. He was deep in thought and had drifted into his own little world. These days it was not very often that he thought about Radha, but whenever he did think about her (usually when someone mentions her name) she had his undivided attention.
‘See what I mean’ said Ross. ‘The mere mention of her name is enough for you to start daydreaming’.
Sam looked away sheepishly.
‘Now that was one Indian woman that you had fancied’ said Ross.
‘That was a one off’ said Sam in his defence. ‘One of the follies of my youth. Anyway I certainly would not have married her’.
‘But you said you were gonna one day?’
‘Since when?’
‘Since when you were fifteen’.
‘That was years ago, you muppet’.
‘But you still think about her don’t you?’ said Ross. ‘You just slipped into a daydream when we were just talking about her. Go on admit it. You still have feelings for her don’t you?’
‘I was only a boy then’ protested Sam. ‘I did all kinds of stupid things at that age’.
‘Oh Ross what am I going to do now?’ said Ross, mimicking his friend’s voice as he re-enacted a scene from their childhood. ‘I will never see my beloved Radha again. I don’t want to live … bhoo whoo …’
Ross then buried his head in his hands and pretended to cry.
‘I am not going to get into this’ said Sam in annoyance at his friend’s over dramatisation of events from their past.
Sam was now getting really wound up. Ross may have been exaggerating things a little but there is no deny the fact that all that he had said were true. Sam was not liking this one bit as he particularly hated it when he is proven wrong or was backed into a corner. Sam then picked up the envelope.
‘This L & S’ he said pointing to the logo on the top left hand corner of the envelope as he tried to change the subject.
‘What about them?’ said Ross who, sensing Sam’s annoyance, decided to drop the matter of the beautiful Indian maid.
‘I don’t remember ever signing up with this agency’.
‘But you have signed up with an agency right?’
‘Two actually’ said Sam. ‘But not this one’.
‘Well there you go then’ said Ross. ‘You of all people should know what this town is like. Things spread like wildfire. As soon as one agency hears that you are after a maid, they will all get to know about it and soon they will all be knocking on your door’.
‘But I never heard of this agency before’ said Sam.
‘Which is not surprising’ said Ross. ‘It was probably newly set up. They are all trying to muscle in on the trade these days. Since this place had recently been redeveloped with new office complexes and new homes and is being industrialised there has been a recent heavy demand for maids’.
The explanation was plausible enough, although Sam found the envelope strange. He noticed another (smaller) logo at the bottom right hand corner of the envelope:
‘Part of the Goddess Company Group’ said Sam as he read out the quote on the logo. ‘Strange, really strange’.
‘Well aren’t you gonna open it?’ asked Ross.
‘Sod it’ said Sam putting the envelope on the table. He then picked up the tea that Ross had made for him. ‘It can wait till I get home …’