I flew to Bombay to pick up five thousand dollars. When I saw the diminished pile left in the box, I promised myself I wouldn't buy another gram of coke. At this rate. I'd be penniless before the end of the season.

Back in Goa, I scored a gram before returning to the house.

Neal and Eve and the baby returned after an uneventful and nonlucrative monsoon. Neal hadn't been able to send money to reserve his house, and his landlord had rented it to someone else. The only place they could find was a dark room at the north end of the beach on the other side of the road. Inconvenient and ugly, it became even uglier because of their continuing indigence.

'Wow, Mahara's grown so big!' I said, entering the hovel.

Eve stared into space and whispered, 'She can't pronounce Mahara. She calls herself Ha.'

'Hello, Ha,' I said, stepping over a trail of ants that led to a discarded mango pit. Something floated legs-up in a glass of lemon water.

Neal looked at me. Magic sparked between us still. But—friends. We would be friends. I'd sworn to keep my hands off him, and he'd sworn himself to Eve and the baby. We would only be friends.

He seemed distressed. 'I was so glad to get your telegram from Canada asking if I needed money,' he said. 'We were in a bad way. But when I called your hotel, they said you'd checked out.'

'Oh, no! Pin sorry. Mental called first and said Giuliano was after me. So I moved.' Oh shit! I'd let my friend down. 'You didn't do any business during the monsoon?' I asked.

Neal shook his bangs. 'Nothing. I'm still hoping to hear from the connection in California. As soon as I do, I start something.'

'I'm sorry I switched hotels,' I said, feeling like a traitor. 'I waited to hear from you, then figured you'd left on a scam.' Something was crawling up my leg, but Eve was watching me, so I ignored it. Bad form to get excited over a bug.

'I called as soon as I received the cable,' Neal told me.

'Oh!' I stamped my foot, hoping the thing would be shaken off. 'I'm so sorry!' The creepy-crawly held on. 'What bad timing!'

A depressing visit. I hated to see Neal in such dreadful straits. I missed his happy laugh and jolly storytelling. And as I crossed the paddy field to return home, I realized that Neal hadn't offered me a line of anything. Not once had I heard the familiar CLICK, CLICK of the razor blade on his glass block.

After that, I went often to see Neal and turn him on with my drugs. On one visit, I heard Serge's voice on the porch. Serge! I'd been waiting half a year to see him. I couldn't have Neal, and I couldn't have Narayan, but Serge—my Serge was back!

'Hello, Miss Cleo.'

He tossed his pink scarf over his shoulder. So cute. He sat next to me. Oh, those big, brown eyes! I wanted to pounce on.

'I just got in last night,' he said.

'Did you have a nice monsoon?'

'Yes, and you?'

'Yes, I went to Moscow and Korea.'

'That's nice.'

We giggled.

'How's your house?'

'Fine.'

'I'm glad.'

We smiled at each other and giggled some more. 'How are you?'

'Fine.'

'That's good.'

Then I asked where he was staying, and he told me about the Frenchie.

'I'm here with a French girl,' he said. 'She's never been to India before. I met her in France, and she helped me get over missing you. You know, I was very upset because of you. She helped me through it.' My Serge had a girlfriend with him! I couldn't say anything, could only stare at him. 'You made me so unhappy when you didn't show up,' he continued. 'I don't know what I'd have done without her.' I wasn't going to get my Serge back. He would use the Frenchie as a shield against me. 'I owe her a lot. Miss Cleo.' Oh, my Serge had a girlfriend! 'I really needed her to get over you.'

Get over me! He got over me. Like last year's bout of flu.

A crow mode a noisy landing on the porch, looking for food to snatch. When Serge's eyes shifted focus, I released the lungful of air I didn't know I was holding in.

I picked up my silver stash box and asked, 'Everybody want a line?'

I made another bank trip.

The event of the season was the wedding of Gigi and Marco. For years French Gigi and Italian Marco had been living in one of the grandest houses in Goa, situated on the road between Anjuna and Calangute. Gigi and Marco already had a five-year-old daughter, and no one understood why they wanted to marry. Freak weddings were rare. As a matter of fact, Gigi and Marco's was the only one, ever.

A government official performed the ceremony in Mapusa. I filmed it. I'd been filming all important Anjuna Beach affairs.

That night there was to be a feast. Sima and Bernard and Bernard's French friends slaughtered lambs one after the other, all afternoon, in the courtyard at the centre of the house. They skinned the animals by inserting a bicycle pump into slits in the bodies so the pumped-in air blew the hide off the flesh. The dead beasts inflated to grotesque size as the mosaic floor ran with their blood.

Serge, the presiding chef at barbecues, came early to start the fire. I hated to see him. I couldn't bear being in the same place and not being with him. He smiled at me with eyes outlined strikingly in kohl. Oh.

That night people flocked in from the other beaches. Dancers and people sitting on mats packed the are a in front of the house. 'BOMBOLAI!' The Anjuna crowd hogged the inside.

The attention outdoors centred on Serge and the dozen lambs he was roasting over the fire. They seemed to take forever to cook. The later it got, the better they smelled, and the more everyone complained of hunger.

'Come on, Serge, old boy. We're ravenously awaiting the victuals,' said Dayid.