Hourston-Gordon and their life together at his family home in Ballater. The Lieutenant had been wholly sincere when he reminisced of his childhood in the Cairngorms and they talked of Yasmin’s future as Mrs. The delicious and intense affair was conducted in the rooms of Green’s and Watson’s Hotels over the course of the next year. I’ve been told that there was little that could have kept them apart that warm night in Colaba. Calum Hourston-Gordon, Highland Light Infantry. There, she encountered a certain straight-backed Lt. Wilful and rebellious, she drank and smoked and you might say that she found herself where she should not be, at the bar at Green’s Hotel. I used to idle here over Bun Maska and Chai and read my newspaper while fans stirred the warm air gently.įor the young Yasmin, life in the café had been dull and stuffy. I remember when this was just a large, sleepy Irani café owned by Yasmin’s father. Cine stars, at home on the page 3 society photos, chatter self-importantly about the latest talkie showing in the new cinema next door. Jazzmen, languid on rattan chairs, unwind to swing and jazz sounds. The obviously wealthy hobnob with the beautiful, the rakish and the occasional ne’er-do-wells. Each performance a hit, attended by all manner of Bombayites and revellers passing through this slightly wild port city. Yasmin loves these evenings in her café-cum-club like nothing else. “Come beti, sit with me,” suggests her mother, Yasmin, at the bar, drink in hand, strikingly beautiful in deep blue chiffon. She glides between tables, past where I am sitting, making her way to the bar. She bows slightly and floats off the stage. The glamorous of Bombay, members of the band, old friends, wayward sailors all clap and shout their praise. Her sari, draped and perfumed, is bottle-green and gold. She stands at the microphone, grins bashfully. I watch, entranced, as Ruby brings the last bars of her song to a wistful close.
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