In their vine-wrapped Middleton Street villa, Armenian sisters Anahid and Mariam hosted a luncheon for the old Anglo-Indian set. The table heaved with ancient silver, roast duck and pomelos, a forever ignored Dundee cake, and gossip. Sequins shimmered, chipped crystal goblets sweated.
Maisie Campbell-Rose, in dusty chintz and bohemian excess, hummed Our Last Summer while brandishing a breadstick like a sceptre. “Remember when we danced barefoot at the Bengal Club and blamed it on gin?” she laughed, to no one in particular.
Then he appeared — Armen — uninvited, assumed lost, but always welcome. Rivera-tanned, smelling of sandalwood and recklessness, holding an outstretched hand with a peeled clementine. “Still a fan,” he announced more than asked.
Anahid smiled, taking the bait.
The Boxer played softly: “After changes upon changes, we are more or less the same...”
Laughter abounded, summer resumed; sticky and sweet, like citrus on
fingers too elegant to ever lick clean.
