eBook
Related collections and offers
Overview
Mrs. Begum is the doting, anxious mother of three grown children—Tariq, an art curator with a secret he’s not quite ready to share with his parents; her baby, Shunduri, the pampered princess of the family; and her daughter Rohimum, who has returned home to rural England in shame. Mrs. Begum is determined to marry them off, and marry them off well. But where to start?
Mrs. Begum’s husband, the fastidious, stuffy Dr. Choudhury, has moved the family to a cottage on the grounds of Bourne Abbey, a grand but crumbling estate whose restoration he is overseeing. There, the Choudhury family lives alongside the estate’s youngish heirs—Henry and Richard.
The Bournes and the Choudhurys are equally snared in the spider-web of centuries-old tradition, but the Abbey itself houses a mystery that will reveal long-hidden entanglements—ones that the two families never anticipated…
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780698147485 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 12/02/2014 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Group |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 464 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
One
HOW CAN A good wife and loving mother end up with not one but three unmarriageable children? Mrs. Begum rocked back on her heels on the sitting-room floor, in the middle of a patch of late-afternoon sunshine and with the comfortable sound of Dr. Choudhury’s newspaper behind her, and chewed contemplatively on the wad of paan tucked into her cheek. She patted the photos spread out on the carpet. How handsome-clever they were. At least she could say that, for all the pain they had given her mother’s heart. They could not have grown so beautiful for nothing.
She picked up a photo of Tariq, in his robes on graduation day, and sighed with pleasure. Like a young Shah Rukh Khan he was, so proud and handsome, despite that dirty beard. Tall and light-skinned like his father, but her own face, not his father’s, Inshallah. And book-clever like Dr. Choudhury but without being a fool in the world.
Except for that fundamental business. Dressing like a village elder and talking that way too. “No smoking,” he had said to his father. “It’s a drug, against the Qur’an, as bad as alcohol.” His own father.
“How about honor your father and mother then, boy?” Dr. Choudhury had said. Not that the boy knew the first thing about that, going off to South Africa almost two years ago now. Not a visit for all of that time. What had they come to UK for, if not for him, and then he leaves them to go somewhere else. No wonder she had a hole in her heart.
Ten months you carry them in your womb, then they turn around and stab you in your heart. A mother’s lot, yes, she understood that, but why did he have to abandon them? What did it say about the love in their family, that it could not hold him close, stop him from flying away from them all as if they had died?
Mrs. Begum sat back on her haunches and sucked noisily on the paan, feeling the betel nut’s relaxing buzz start to run through her blood. Yes, she knew all about pain, from her own children. She stroked the line of light in the photo that followed Tariq’s perfect, straight nose, just like her own. What a lucky boy, not to have his father’s nose. Or sticky-out ears like Prince Charles. The Queen had done the best she could for Charles, the first time. Just a pity she had not managed Diana a bit more. Of course a motherless girl neglected by her husband was going to go off the railways—she could have told the Queen that. Warned her.
She looked up, toward the sitting-room window where, even from the floor, Bourne Abbey could be seen, balancing its bulk on the hilltop opposite. As big as Masjid al-Haram that one, and twice as much trouble, taking them away from their little house in Oxford and the Bangla community there. Though, given the curse that this family was under, probably a good thing that there was no community here.
Mrs. Begum turned to the other photo of Tariq and gave a heavy sigh. This was one of Mrs. Guri’s nephew Hakeem’s artistic efforts, with Tariq a few years younger, clean-shaven and much less stern, wearing his best deep-blue sherwani with the silver embroidery and looking dreamily past the photographer. That was his first year away at Oxford, before he became so angry about Dr. Choudhury’s occasional pipe and Rohimun’s blue-jeans.
Mrs. Begum, still squatting on the carpet, put Tariq aside and turned to the pile of eligible matches in front of her, each with its studio photo attached. Everyone now gave out these fancy ceevees, just like Hakeem had said: age, height, favorite Bollywood heroes. And the boys too: favorite sports, good jobs, what car they drove. Inky, ponky, poo . . . how does one choose? All nice girls and boys, all looking the same.
Soon Tariq would be back at last from those godless South Africans. What better time, when he would be feeling the first full rush of family love, to talk quietly one night of future plans, just mother and son. To say, how nice-nice it would be to see him happy and settled, now that she was beginning to feel her age. And then she would get up to make chai, leaving the photos and ceevees of all these pretty girls on the table. What man could resist a peek? Planting the seed, that was the important thing.
And Shunduri, her baby, look how stylish she had become, what a modern girl with her good bank job and studying still at the polytechnic. Surely she would be finished soon. And then a good boy for her, someone to keep her busy with lots of babies and a nice house. Not too near: it must be visits for a week or a month, not this next-door-just-a-cup-of-tea business.
Mrs. Begum picked up Shunduri’s photos, a whole bundle: each time a different sari, different jewelry. No smiles, chin as high as the sky, eyes half closed, breasts thrust forward. What had Hakeem been thinking of? Only one or two of them were suitable for a marriage ceevee. It was all her father’s fault. Calling her Shunduri, Beauty, was asking for trouble, and Dr. Choudhury should have known better.
Mrs. Begum selected the photo of Shunduri that most closely approximated maidenly modesty and thrust it up and behind her. It smacked into Dr. Choudhury’s wall of newspaper, and she felt his knees jump.
“What a beautiful daughter, nah?” Dr. Choudhury hurrumphed, and Mrs. Begum felt the photo pushed back into her hand. She thrust it up again. “Beautiful, nah?”
An irritated cough. “Yes, yes.”
She could hear the newspaper being put aside now, so she swiftly retracted Shunduri’s photo and picked up one of Tariq’s. “What a handsome boy. A good boy.”
Silence. An annoyed-but-listening silence.
She held up one of the prospective brides’ photos next to the photo of Tariq. “Mrs. Guri, you know, Hakeem’s auntie just here yesterday, said this girl very homely, does not go out. A good family.”
“Why are they wanting to send their daughter to South Africa then?”
She huffed sharply and turned to face her husband. “Tariq is coming home any day now. Any day.”
“Any day, any day for months now.”
“He called, two-days-ago-now. He said soon.”
Dr. Choudhury leaned toward her and tapped Shunduri’s photo with one long finger. “And what is the community going to think of this number-one silly girl? Maybe she thinks if she looks like a Bollywood actress she will get a hero in Mumbai.” He snorted at his own humor and sat back, reaching for the newspaper.
Mrs. Begum’s quick retort—“How could you say this of your own daughter?”—was lost as her paan was swallowed prematurely. By the time she had finished hawking, Dr. Choudhury’s newspaper was held firmly in place, in a manner designed to resist further photographic incursions.
Well then. She turned her back on him once more and pulled out a manila envelope from underneath the other photos. She gently slid its contents partway into her palm, trying to ignore the burning lump that the paan was becoming, just below her breastbone. More eight-by-ten glossies, these of a pretty young woman, short and slight, with long rippling dark hair, but no Bollywood poses here.
Her Rohimun, Munni, her first daughter, Tariq’s favorite sister, the other knife in her mother’s heart. Half smiling, half frowning, herchunna crooked and her fingers hooked into her bracelets as if she was trying to pull them off. As she probably had been. Mrs. Begum blinked tears and pressed her lips together. Look at Munni’s nails: broken and dirty as if she’d been planting rice in the paddies, not studying at that expensive royal college. Fine arts indeed. More like dirty arts: stinky oil paints that ruined good clothes, got in her hair and made her smell like Mrs. Darby’s port-and-stilton.
And what did that oh-so-so-big Royal College of Arts scholarship get Rohimun in the end? Her face in the papers like some pub-girl, laughing with men. Ruined for marriage, lost to her family, a blight on Shunduri’s prospects and maybe even Tariq’s. The pain in Mrs. Begum’s diaphragm climbed higher, and she burped quietly. She must put less lime powder in her paan.
There was a faint rustle behind her, and she sat perfectly still with Rohimun’s photos fanned out in her hand. The little room with its briar rose wallpaper, Taj Mahal clock and peacock fan fell silent. Nothing was said, but she knew that he had seen, and that nothing would be said.
After a short while, Mrs. Begum slid Rohimun’s photos back into their envelope and wiped her face with a corner of her sari. She bundled up Tariq, Shunduri and all the eligibles’ ceevees and stood up briskly. No more spilt milk, as Mrs. Darby would say. Time to make a curry of what remains. She would talk again to Dr. Choudhury.
When the ceevees were back on her recipe shelf nice-and-tidy, Mrs. Begum loaded up the pandan tray, her pride and joy, real silver, so heavy, nah? With its eight (eight! No one had as many!) matching silver bowls, brimming with their separate loads of fresh betel leaves, cumin seeds, aromatic cloves, dried tobacco leaves, pink perfumed sugar balls, acrid lime powder with its own lid and silver spoon, finely chopped betel nuts and, last but not least, the whole betel nuts, with the deadly little betel knife lying alongside.
With arms at full stretch, she hauled it from kitchen to sitting room, laid it on the tiny, twisty-legged occasional table next to her husband’s chair, and only then saw the photos of Rohimun on the floor, tipped out of their envelope. Dr. Choudhury was turned away from them, his shoulders drawn up and his fingers plucking at trouser corduroy as he stared unblinking at the wallpaper. Mrs. Begum thought suddenly of her uncle the tailor who had been so thin when he died, and drew close to her husband’s chair.
“I have made hidol satni.” His favorite. “And dahl.”
He was silent, and she drew closer. She could see the top of his head: the white hair that ran straight back from his forehead was overlain by a few longer strands that crossed from left to right, and some of these had been displaced, exposing small squares and rectangles of scalp. Mrs. Begum’s right hand crept out and started to order them and then her left hand came as well, to smooth down. Dr. Choudhury did not appear to notice, but after a while he withdrew his gaze from the wall and picked up the latest Roopmilan-Mumbai sari catalogue. His shoulders relaxed, his head tilted back to rest against a chair wing and he looked up from the pages.
Her hands moved to adjust her bracelets. “I will make you a hot salad too.”
The phone shrilled, and Mrs. Begum was in the hall before her husband had even managed to uncross his legs. At the telephone table, she stopped, took a breath and re-tucked the front pleats of her sari. It might be the Women’s Institute. But then Dr. Choudhury arrived in the hall, and she snatched up the handpiece. This call was not going to be answered like some fresh-out-of-the-village type, waiting for the caller to speak.
“Windsorr Cott-hage.” She paused. Mrs. Darby didn’t know everything. “Salaamalaikum.”
“Alaikumsalaam, Amma. Amma, I’m so tired like you wouldn’t believe. And the weather in London’s bin so stinking hot, yaah?”
“Aah, Baby!”
“Amma, what’s happenin’ wiv Affa, big sister? Have you heard from her? She was in the papers again! She was at some party, yaah . . .”
“What are you eating? When are you coming to visit your father?”
“Nah, Amma, the newspapers. Have you seen dem?”
“Papers-papers. What does your mother want with papers, when no one visits us as they should? We are getting old on our own while you are a Londoni modern girl.”
“Amma, I’m busy here like you wouldn’t believe: the bank, yaah . . .”
Mrs. Begum saw her husband reaching out to take the receiver and sidestepped to the right, still holding the phone. He followed, but in doing so was left square in front of the hall mirror and seemed to become distracted. She thought quickly, her desire to see her youngest child at war with her need to protect Rohimun from Shunduri’s loose tongue. Surely she could manage both.
“Aah, Baby, so much has been happening here. Too much is happening to this family . . .”
“What? Amma, what’s happenin’? Amma!”
“Your father is a wreck . . . What will the community be saying . . .” Mrs. Begum ended her disjointed hints with a convincing sniff and passed the receiver to her husband. Shunduri would not be able to resist coming down now, her mouth wide open like a little bird, for family drama, tears and shoutings, especially if it was Rohimun who was in trouble.
Dr. Choudhury grasped the phone and spoke absently to the mirror. “Aah . . . Baby . . . yes . . .” He slid his thumb between tie and shirtfront and slowly stroked his fingers down the length of the tie. “How are your studies?”
Mrs. Begum watched him closely, fairly certain that he would say nothing that would make Shunduri stay put in London. She hurried off to the kitchen, his voice echoing behind her.
“No, your mother may have. I only take The Times . . .”
—
MRS. GURI’S OTHER comments, the ones that Mrs. Begum hadn’t repeated to her husband, came back to her now. They had been made without preliminaries as Mrs. Guri sat in Mrs. Begum’s kitchen yesterday, with as much eyelid-drooping and table-pointing as if she had been asked for her matchmaking advice.
“Oh, Mrs. Begum, your daughter Shunduri, she is so busy, nah, I wonder she has time for her studies.”
Mrs. Begum had smiled and wrapped another paan leaf, with consternation in her heart. “Yes, yes, a very busy girl, a good girl, the bank . . .” Mrs. Guri had leaned forward, close enough for Mrs. Begum to smell the thick smear of Vicks under her nose. “Oh, Mrs. Begum, I know she is a good girl. A beautiful girl. But . . .”
Trouble follows beauty. Mrs. Begum finished the saying in her head, smiled and thought how Vicks would be of no help to Mrs. Guri if she was kicked in her fat face. What had she seen or heard to be giving such a warning?
“Have you thought, has your husband thought . . . There are so many good families looking for their sons now.” Mrs. Guri waited.
“We are not an old-fashioned family to be rushing her before she has finished her studies.”
“Such a lovely girl. So many friends. Do you know her friends?”
Mrs. Begum sat up a little straighter. “She is coming down this weekend.”
Mrs. Guri nodded, her cheeks jiggling a little. “That is as it should be. You are a very lucky mother to have her come to you at this time . . .”
Before it is too late. Mrs. Begum knew exactly what she meant, but smiled at the old gossip as airily as she could over the tightening in her stomach.
Mrs. Guri glanced at the clock and swallowed the last of her chai with finality. Selecting a paan, she tucked it into a corner of her cheek and dipped into her Harrods bag for a touch more Vicks before announcing she must go as Ahmed would be back now.
Mrs. Begum walked the fat, matchmaking, troublemaking cockroach to the door with fear in her bowels. If Mrs. Guri, knowing everyone in Brick Lane, in Tower Hamlets, was telling her this, what was it she knew? Or, rather, who? One last effort must be made, despite her anger.
“In London . . . is everyone . . . your daughters and their families well?”
Mrs. Guri slowed but was not so silly as to give a triumphant smile. “All well.”
“Inshallah.” Both women spoke at the same time, and they smiled as they walked outside and down the garden path. Across the road, Mrs. Guri’s son-in-law Ahmed was crouching by his car, rather forlornly wiping at a crumpled bumper with some paper towels.
They were almost at the gate now, and Mrs. Begum was growing desperate. She did not have Mrs. Guri’s London connections and her knowledge of the families and of reputations and rumors. She put her hand on Mrs. Guri’s upper arm, and her fingers sank in as if it was Mrs. Darby’s chocolate mousse.
“Perhaps you could let people know, that Shunduri is ready . . .”
Mrs. Guri, visibly gratified, stopped at the gate and rested against the post. She was waiting for more. Ahmed straightened when he saw them, then went back to trying to smooth the dent.
Mrs. Begum clasped her hands together. “I . . . a mother always worries . . . and London is so far away . . . You know all the best families.”
Mrs. Guri looked back at the house, and Mrs. Begum turned to look with her, at the Windsor Cottage brass plate that she had put up only this morning: just the right size, not too big, not too small, and with that veneer of hastily acquired verdigris, so hurtful to her house-proud instincts, but on a sharp-eyed walk through the village, apparently so necessary for the proper country look. She cursed country-look in her thoughts as she followed Mrs. Guri’s eyes. Why did country-look have to be so different to town-look? Why this need for falling-down and dirty?
Nothing was said. Mrs. Begum again swallowed her pride. “Please.”
Mrs. Guri nodded in gracious acknowledgement. “Mrs. Begum, you should never worry, you have good children.” She paused, then spoke again, in a lower voice. “Niece Indra, you know, my niece, Hakeem’s sister that married the doctor? She saw one night, Shunduri talking to a boy in his car. But it was dark, so easy to make mistakes . . .”
“Aah, yes,” said Mrs. Begum bitterly. “So easy.”
Mrs. Guri took a reviving sniff. “We all have these problems. These modern children, they think they must have everything . . . that they deserve happiness. What can you do?”
“Aaah,” they both said.
Mrs. Guri’s own eldest daughter—four children and two broken noses in three years and now on indefinite nyeri, family-visit, with her parents—was before them both, and Mrs. Begum’s anger faded. What could any of them do for their children’s happiness and safety, except pray?
Mrs. Guri touched Mrs. Begum’s shoulder and said with genuine kindness, “We will do our best to find her a good husband.”
“Inshallah.” Both women had spoken together again, this time with no animosity.
Mrs. Guri rested one hand on her stomach. “They are only safe in your womb, nah? Then your sorrows start.” She brought one plump hand up to her face, pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut, as if trying to recall. “He is a businessman, I think . . . Phones and cameras.”
Tears sprang to Mrs. Begum’s eyes. She had no pride left now, none at all. “Can you ask? Find out the important things?”
Mrs. Guri nodded heavily. “Yes, yes,” and pushed her bulk off the gatepost. It did not spring back.
Likewise, the mood of the two women, as they walked together across the roadway to Ahmed’s car, was unusually subdued. The current of strong emotions, genuine feelings, that flowed between them was not a comfortable thing, and so it was with some relief that Mrs. Begum, nodding and smiling, accepted her friend’s parting shot (an offer of Brasso for Windsor Cottage’s name plate) to resume the usual community hostilities.
—
MRS. BEGUM, STANDING in the kitchen and remembering every word of that visit, was aware that it would be a month, maybe more, before Mrs. Guri could return with news, and so much could happen in a month. If Mrs. Guri was telling her about one time, that meant many times, enough gossip to get her big bottom into Ahmed’s car for a two-hour drive to give her this sorrow and receive the satisfaction of Mrs. Begum begging for her matchmaking help. Images of Mrs. Begum’s own hasty marriage flashed before her eyes, and she gave a little moan. Baby. Shunduri must be brought back home before it was too late.
Phones. Businessman-businessman. Every gundah, yob, in the community was a businessman. All it meant was that there was no job and no family occupation, no restaurant or shop for them to attach themselves to. That they were boys alone and liable to go off into any direction. And Shunduri. She thumped the rice saucepan down hard on the stove and blue flames bellied. So busy with bank. Did Shunduri think her mother was born yesterday? This boy must be made to realize that Baby was not a girl without family.
And if he was halfway eligible . . . Mrs. Begum stirred the basmati vigorously. Rohimun’s antics had ruined this family. If he was onegrain eligible, then pressure could, must, be brought to bear. Mrs. Guri had not acquired her reputation as a matchmaker through her sugarcane sweetness. Mrs. Begum had heard here in UK of funchaits, the community councils of elders, being called, with the attendant beatings, to force love-match couples to wed, and of the girls who were getting too modern and were shipped off to Bangladesh to be married to traditional men who controlled their wives with traditional methods.
This phones-businessman, whoever he was, would be no match for the combined forces of Mrs. Guri and herself. The way things were going, Baby would be the only Choudhury daughter to marry within the community. And if this could be managed, the damage to the family’s reputation caused by Rohimun would be partially repaired. Even if it meant a funchait, this would be done.
Look at Princess Margaret when she was young: what a mess cleaned up there with just a little pressure from her affa, her big sister the Queen. Not a first-rate marriage perhaps, but the royal family would have known not to expect first-rate after that fuss with a man who had been married before. She must speak again to her neighbor Mrs. Darby, with her knowledge of all things royal, about how it had been done.
As for Rohimun . . . Mrs. Begum abandoned the rice and began to chop onions, tears filling the corners of her eyes. Perhaps marriage was possible if it was outside the community. Dodi and Diana. Yes, Dodi and Diana: such a thing could be managed. She just needed to be more practical, more accepting than the Queen and Prince Philip had been. Yes, it was for her, Mrs. Begum, to learn from their mistakes and acknowledge that, for Rohimun, even a mixed marriage would be a blessing. Rohimun was like that poor foolish girl Diana in other ways too: she needed a marital anchor, otherwise she was likely to drift into dangerous waters. As indeed she had.
Mrs. Begum scraped the onions into a saucepan and threw in a pinch of the big rock-salt crystals that Tariq had persuaded her, years ago now, to use instead of the fine-ground salt that everyone so admired in Bangladesh. Sons were always less predictable: they had more choices, more freedom to get away from family influences. With his looks, she had expected love-trouble at university as a certainty, yet all Tariq’s love then seemed to be for family and for Allah, peace be upon Him. And his precious art pictures. And it had turned out to be Tariq rather than her daughters who had been so sick for home at that time. Although of course he had been away in South Africa these last one-two years with no such yearning.
Twenty-seven was not too late for a man to marry in UK. Look at Prince Charles. Tariq just needed to be steered, no, nudged, very slightly, in the right direction. A nice homely girl. Someone to keep her mother-in-law company, be interested in the garden and the kitchen. Such a girl was considerably more likely to give her grandchildren than Rohimun or Shunduri. Tariq would be home soon, she could feel it in her stomach, ever since that phone call two days ago: the first since he’d left. Family was becoming more important to him.
And if there was a secret there, in the background, it could be managed. Camilla had not wrecked that royal marriage; it was Diana’s loneliness and lack of family help—Mrs. Darby and Mrs. Begum both agreed on that. A second wife, or mistress as they called her in UK, could stabilize an unhappy marriage, give a difficult husband someone else to bother, give both women a break. It could even have its own harmonies, especially if one of the wives, for some reason, was barren.
Mrs. Begum bent over the hissing onions and sniffed. Something was missing. Haldi. She took a generous teaspoonful of the golden turmeric powder, spice of weddings and all things fishy, and scattered it over the onion. Time to blend all the ingredients together now, and then wait, while the onions caramelized and the spices roasted, for the hidden flavors to reveal themselves.
Two
BABY WAS LOOKING good tonight. Shunduri stood back from the mirror and tossed her hair, tilted her head and affected to stare blankly as though at an admirer, conscious of length of leg and height of breast. She was never going to be one of those Asian girls who lost the plot as soon as they were married, getting fat and not doing their hair or nails; spending all their time watching Bollywood movies and filling their faces with samosas and pick ’n’ mix. When she married, she was going to be like Posh Spice, getting thinner and younger and better dressed every year, handsome rich husband, a flash car of her own. Yaah.
Affa, big sister Rohimun, had been stacking on the weight and not even betrothed yet. And probably never, now that everyone knew she had a gora boyfriend. Shunduri sniffed and tossed her hair again, watching its glossy swing under the bedroom light. Served Rohimun right, always criticizing her taste in clothes and friends, telling her she shouldn’t read rubbish, dissing her London Vogue and her Desi and Bollywood mags. What you need is serious reading to improve your mind, Baby.
Shunduri held her hands out in front of her: baby-blue nails, tipped in silver glitter. Perfect. As they should be—she’d only just finished doing them. She looked in the mirror again. Sass & Bide leggings in the same pale blue as her nails and a tight scarlet choli, the blouse taken from her latest sari. Scarlet stilettos, and blue and silver toenails. Without taking her eyes from the mirror, she picked up the matching veil from the bed, tucked one corner into the top of her leggings, wrapped it once around her waist then draped it diagonally across her torso, pulling it tight across her breasts before pinning it on her shoulder.
Shunduri turned sideways to admire the five feet of veil that hung down her back and the neatness of her bum in the shiny pants, visible through the draped chiffon. Then she grabbed her hairbrush, tipped her head over and brushed her hair vigorously before straightening up and enveloping herself in a cloud of Silhouette extra-strong hold.
Why hadn’t she gotten Mum’s hair? It was so unfair being stuck with Dad’s fine strands, though no one could say she hadn’t made the most of them. Not that she’d ever wanted a great big rope of the stuff like Affa had: just a bit more thickness, so she could grow it to her shoulderblades and not have to use hot rollers every time she needed a bit of volume. Affa had the hair alright, but what a waste. All she did was wear it down in a tangled mess, no styling whatsoever, or plait it back like a village girl. Shunduri would never let herself go like that. It was just a matter of making an effort, not being lazy. No one likes a slob.
She stared in the mirror again. Her legs were looking even longer tonight in leggings and three-inch heels, not to mention what the balconette bra was doing to her bust. Nothing much in the waist department despite all her dieting, but her stomach was as flat as a board, unlike Rohimun’s. Why she’d let herself go now, Shunduri couldn’t understand. Just when she was getting herself into the papers too. If she’d played her cards right with that blue-blooded boyfriend of hers, she could have been London’s first Desi It-girl.
Not that he was her type. She, Shunduri Choudhury, would never go out with a gora, a Christian: she was a true Muslim girl. But despite that, she’d done her best for Rohimun when she’d turned up that time. No money in her purse, not even a change of clothes, and crying on her doorstep as if Shunduri was the big sister. She’d looked after her, gotten in takeaway and fed her, put sheets on the couch and found some clothes that fit her (no easy task). And then Shunduri had called Simon, just to let him know the score, that Rohimun had family who cared, yaah, and then, before you know it, they were back together again. Not that Rohimun’d ever thanked her.
Just went to show, Affa knew nothing about men. About relationships. If she wasn’t careful, she’d lose Simon, and then who’d marry her? Shunduri stalked into the bathroom and found the tube of lip primer that she had bought earlier that day, unscrewed the cap and rolled it on the way the salesgirl had shown her. Something still wasn’t right though. Mum was throwing out these hints, and Rohimun hadn’t phoned since she’d left with Simon, ungrateful cow, and now she’d had her picture in the papers again.
Shunduri made smacking sounds with her lips and counted in her head to twenty to let the primer settle in, before applying lipstick in a vivid red. She clicked the lid back onto the lipstick and looked at her face in the mirror with complete satisfaction. That really finished her off. Yaah. Kareem was one lucky man.
—
SHUNDURI SWANNED INTO the cafe, head high despite the butterflies in her stomach that always clustered at these moments, striding from her waist the way the modelling course had taught her, stopping herself from making any of those giveaway touches to hair, clothes or face that advertised self-doubt. They’d also told her to say brush just before entering a room, to give the appearance of a natural smile, but Shunduri didn’t follow this advice. It was more dignified not to smile, cooler. Look at Posh Spice.
Only problem was, walking in like this made it hard to look around for her posse. But no matter, they would find her. Shunduri leaned on an empty chair to pull at a stiletto strap, and the next minute Amina and Aisha were by her side with hugs and air kisses and “Baby!” and the usual gasps and compliments for her outfit.
Soon they were all lolling back in cafe chairs, facing the street for maximum exposure, and Shunduri rearranged her veil and swung her sleek, shiny bob a little, well pleased with the reactions. She was still showing her posse how to dress, and from the looks other tables and passersby were sneaking, they weren’t the only ones.
Her cream-coffee, when it came, was in a deep red cup that contrasted beautifully with her nails, and even dear Amina and Aisha had decked themselves out in pastels, which made them fade into the pinkish walls of the cafe almost as much as she stood out. What good friends they were. Amina and Aisha oohed and aahed, telling Shunduri who was walking in the door and who was looking at them, and she half closed her eyes and took microscopic sips and pretended not to be interested.
Where was Kareem? She wanted him to come and see her like this: Queen of the Cafe, surrounded by admirers. She could just imagine what Affa would say, seeing her here. Empty-headed. Why, her head was crowded out with thoughts and plans and schemes for the future. Most of them involving Kareem, her man, who made her look so good and treated her like the princess she was.
Look how well she was doing at the bank: always on time, never a day off, quicker on the keyboards and with the money than some of the women who’d been there years. Promoted onto the money transfer and currency exchange counter after only three months, already seen as the one to sort out difficulties and assist the manager with end-of-month problems. Self-possessed and decisive, her last review had said. Looking good in the uniform too. You had to think ahead in this life, think ahead all the time. She was the most go-getting girl she knew, and the most sensible, the most rational, leaving nothing to chance. She knew what she needed to succeed in life: a good job, good clothes and a man like her—ambitious, successful, stylish.
Shunduri glanced at her besties, heads together and giggling over some text message. Where were they going to be in three years’ time? Wherever they were pushed. Amina’s parents were already looking for her: a good Hindu match. They wanted a nice accountant from the Punjab, but with Amina having dropped out of college without a degree, they were changing the bio data on her CV to read “traditional homely girl, loves children and cooking,” which was playing very risky, maybe ending up with a traditional man who would never let her out of the house and would want babies straight away. And what a shock he’d get. Nails longer than her smokes and wouldn’t know what to do with a saucepan if it jumped out of her Louis Vuitton knockoff handbag and smacked her.
Aisha was no better: still hanging on by her toenails at the poly like Shunduri, doing one subject just to keep the accommodation going and to stop her mum and dad bringing her home. Being Christian, her parents were no help at all finding a husband, instead putting all the pressure on her to find herself a match and give them grandchildren. And where do you start? All the decent Asian Christians were in India, not here. And even if they weren’t, Aisha’s parents were so determined to integrate that they only spoke English at home, never met up with their neighbors at Diwali or Eid, knew no one. Aisha was already talking about putting her own ad on the Internet, was at her wits’ end trying to find a husband who was Asian but would speak to her parents in English, was Christian but not a pub-man, street-cool but with a good job.
Shunduri knew she was the best-looking, the best-dressed, the standout in her crowd—and always had been—but that knowledge had started to pall. Mirrors, once her friends and able to be turned to at any time for a shot of confidence about her future, had become temperamental oracles that she only approached after careful preparation and proper lighting. Twenty-three. She wasn’t some gora career girl who only married in her thirties, if at all. Desi girls were seen as over the hill by twenty-four unless they were film stars or heiresses. She’d started to hate going to other girls’ betrothals and weddings. It didn’t matter, she’d discovered, if you could out-dress and out-dazzle the bride-to-be. You were still not the bride.
A black Golf cruised past. Was that Kareem through the tinted glass? She felt a surge of excitement, but the car continued on, and she affected boredom and recrossed her gleaming blue legs. At least Mum and Dad weren’t putting the pressure on and lining up prospective grooms right, left and center. This was probably the last year she could swing it living in London, with her one subject due to finish soon. Working full-time at the bank on top of her college allowance, she’d been able to keep herself in Dolce & Gabbana and good Versace knockoffs. And surely Kareem would be giving her the word soon: he’d be a fool not to, with no real family here and money to burn. Girls like her didn’t come along every day.
She remembered that day in the bank when Kareem had sauntered in, suited and smiling. She’d tilted her head back and looked at him, eye to eye, deadpan.
“How can I help you today, sir?”
He’d just continued grinning right back. “Nice day, innit?” he’d said, as if she had all the time in the world, was working in a takeaway and not on the international money transfer counter of the biggest bank in Britain. The bank that likes to say yes. She touched the company scarf at her neck, tied and angled perfectly, to make the point.
“Yes. How can I help you?”
He smiled on, looking her in the eyes and pushed a bundle of notes, one hundred and fifty pounds’ worth, under the Perspex barrier. “For my family,” he said. “In Bangladesh. You from dere?”
“None of your business,” she said calmly, taking the money and counting it as rapidly as the machines, red nails flashing.
“Have you filled out the transfer form?”
“Nah. Bein’ an ignorant Desi boy, I was hopin’ you could help me wiv dat,” he said, and she knew even then that he was playing up his East End accent, playing the peasant for her.
She picked up a pen. “Name?”
“Kareem Guri. And you are Shunduri Choudhury, right there on your badge. I think my auntie knows your—”
“Full address, please.”
“I’m a Brick Lane, Tower Hamlets boy, of course. Can’t you tell?”
“Oh yaah,” she said, heavy on the sarcasm, using the ID he’d pushed under the grille to complete the form.
The transaction was over in a few minutes and she’d been expecting him to try to hang around, try to chat, but instead he’d said, “See you next Monday, Princess,” and left before she’d had a chance to ignore him.
Next thing she knew, she was running into him all the time: at the clubs and the big Brick Lane melas for weddings and betrothals, and even on the street. They’d been together for six months now, but keeping it real quiet. Word was going to get around about the two of them, she knew it, and Kareem had been telling her that he loved her, she was the girl for him, but he didn’t deserve her, no, he didn’t, until he’d shown her what he could really do and pulled off a certain business deal first. For their future. Then he’d get Uncle and Auntie to speak to her parents, make some arrangements.
But it was June already, and Kareem was still planning the big business deal, still talking it up, and she was . . . well, she’d given him everything and she wasn’t one to cry about it, but he had to come through now. He had to. How had she gotten herself into this position, where if Kareem were to fail her she would be ruined?
There was a flurry of oohs and aahs from the ever-reliable Amina and Aisha, and Shunduri looked out the cafe window to see a car stopped at the front and a figure emerging from the back of it, clad head to toe in a flowing Saudi-style abaya and niqab, as black as night. A man in the driver’s seat, in an oversized American football jersey and several necklaces, was glaring at the cafe crowd. The woman approached the cafe door, and Amina gasped.
“It’s Shilpi, it’s Shilpi, innit!”
Aisha stood up to stare. “It’s Shilpi. Oh my God!”
They tottered to the door to greet her, and within minutes half the cafe was clustered around her with salaamalaikums and Shilpi-is-that-yous, and Shunduri was left on her own, sitting at the table, her graceful slouch feeling a little stiff. No one was looking at her. She felt invisible. Shilpi, for it was her, was replying to the crowd in a muffled voice and waving one hand encased in a black satin glove, in a dignified sort of way. In fact she looked more dignified and more substantial than Shunduri had ever seen.
“I can’t stay for long, yaah,” she was saying to everyone. “My baiyya, my big bruvver’s just dropped me off for half an hour, den he’s pickin’ me up again, for evening prayer.”
“Wow, Shilpi, you look amazin’ . . . I never thought . . .” Aisha ran out of steam in a dazed sort of way, and Shunduri thought to herself, No, you never do think, do you, dear friend that always follows whatever is newest. Some friend you are. So shallow. She tossed her hair again, recrossed her legs, but this time no one noticed. The changed atmosphere in the cafe was affecting everything. Shilpi’s dramatic monochrome presence made Shunduri feel gaudy and obvious, and she noticed that the polish had started to peel off the nail of her right index finger. She hid it under the table.
Next thing she knew, an escorted Shilpi was lowering herself gracefully onto the chair opposite her, flanked by Amina and Aisha, whose pastel salwars now looked delicate and feminine next to the black microfiber. Not an inch of Shilpi’s skin was to be seen, except between cheekbone and eyebrows. The edge of the niqab around Shilpi’s eyes and across her nose was decorated with small black beads in a pattern of interlocking zigzags, and the same pattern traced the cuffs of her sleeves. Her eyes, thickly lined with kohl, flashed large and round in their bead frame, drawing the light.
Good move, thought Shunduri. With Shilpi’s bad skin and dumpy figure, of course covering would be an improvement.
But it was more than that. Shunduri had noticed the growing group of girls at college who were covering. Some did it with a swaggering fuck you, I’m proud of who I am attitude. And some did it because being a born-again fundamentalist was suddenly cool. Those girls formed their own cliques: walking and sitting together and avoiding contact with Shunduri and her friends in such a way that made it clear that they saw themselves as morally superior to the Asian-princess crowd and the coolie-girls.
And despite joking about them, calling them ninja chicks, everyone’s behavior toward them seemed to acknowledge it. College lecturers were disconcerted by them, library staff and security guards looked at them askance but never challenged them. And everyone made way for them when it was time for takbir or a rally.
Shunduri’s coffee was cold, and she felt flat and sour. Eight people were at their little table now, and all of them were focused on Shilpi, on her news, her movements. Before she’d covered, Amina, even Aisha, would scarcely have given her the time of day, let alone have asked her opinion of the latest Bollywood movies, which kohl she used and whether she was going to Rukhsana’s wedding. Shunduri couldn’t take it anymore. She stood up, straightening to her full height, tucked her hair back on one side to show off one of her diamond earrings (presents from Kareem to match his, one carat each) and flicked her veil. No one even noticed.
“Eh, Princess.”
She turned and Kareem was there behind her, and he too was staring at the woman in black.
“Who’s dat?”
Shunduri glared at him. “Shilpi. You remember Shilpi.”
“Ahh, yeah. Course I do.” He frowned, then snapped his fingers and gave a laugh of recognition. “Eh, she’s a ninja chick now. A funda-woman-talist,” he said, nodding and salaaming Shilpi when she caught his eye. “Just a tick, Princess.”
And Kareem left her, just like that, to cruise through the cafe doing his meet-and-greet with each table, letting people know where he was going to be tonight and when: which club and which kebab shop. Shunduri watched him through slitted eyes. All fuckin’ Muslim men were the same then. The more you covered up and denied access, the more they wanted you. So where did that leave her?
There was no point in staying now. She moved away from the table, then made the mistake of looking back. Someone had already taken her chair, and Shilpi was holding court with a poise that she’d never had in her salwar and chunky platforms and too much cover-up on her spots.
It was so unfair, after all the effort Shunduri had put in for tonight. It was like someone had changed the rules without telling her. She picked up her handbag, stalked to the toilet and locked the door. She started to reapply her lipstick, but then stopped and put it back in her bag.
She pulled the free end of her veil over her head, wrapping it across her nose, and stared at herself. Mysterious, fascinating. She would look better in a niqab than Shilpi ever would. She tissued off her lipstick until there was just a hint of color, found some eyeliner in her bag and, bracing her elbow against the wall next to the mirror, ran a cool wet line along the tops of her eyelashes, flicking it out and up at the ends. There. It was all in the eyes.
When she came out of the Ladies’, Kareem was at the counter, paying for her table’s coffees. She ignored him and hugged and kissed Amina and Aisha goodbye, arranged to see them at Aisha’s dorm room in a couple of hours to oil each other’s hair and watch Sky Asia’s premiere movie. She ta-rah’d Shilpi and the others with a wiggle of her fingers.
Shilpi gave her a pompous little wave. “Salaamalaikum, sister. See you round.”
Shunduri bared her teeth in what was almost a smile. “Inshallah. Alaikumsalaam, sister.” Pious ninja bitch, just doing it for the attention. Two could play at that game.
Kareem was right behind her, moving toward the door, holding it open. As she passed by him, he whispered, “Princess,” and his breath was hot on her neck. She felt a spurt of pleasure in her stomach and fought back a smile. No one called Shilpi that. And only Shunduri had Kareem. No one else had anyone like him: handsome, street-cool, going places, with his own council flat on the side, for business. And privacy. Everything was going to be alright.
They walked down the street together, Shunduri acutely aware of his rolling walk, the swing of his shoulders. He would never touch her in public, no Muslim couple would except maybe modern newlyweds, but Kareem’s tone, his stance, promised intimacies later. An image of the bridal sari in the main window of Mumbai Magic floated through her mind: deep pink with red-gold embroidery over stiff gold gauze. If he wore the biggest wedding turban, she could wear three-inch heels and he would still look taller than her.
Kareem took her around the corner, down an alleyway, and tucked her hand into the crook of his arm.
“I’ve got to go round the clubs later—Varanasi, Rome and Salem tonight—but there’s something I want to show you first.”
“What?” She forgot herself enough to clutch his arm and tried to see if he was holding something in his other hand, had something in his pocket.
He laughed and pulled her closer, squeezed her against his side. “Look, Princess. Whaddaya think?” He gestured with his free hand at a large black SUV parked up at the rear of the cafe.
“A car?”
Its lights blipped on, and Kareem steered her around to the front passenger seat, urging her inside, up a high step and into a cabin that smelled of newness and leather and luxury. She sank into a seat as large and soft as the rocker-recliner at Amina’s house that only her dad was allowed to sit in. Kareem shut her door and went around. From the driver’s seat, he reached across and fastened her seatbelt, brushing his arm across her breasts as he did so.
“How about I take you for a drive tomorrow? A long drive, like for the day, out of London, see what this baby can do?”
She stared at him, still caught up in that moment where she’d thought he was going to give her a present, or perhaps something even better.
He seemed to recognize the disappointment in her eyes and took her hand and kissed it, watching her. “It’s all for you, Princess, you know that.” He started the engine, which thrummed and roared. “That’s Jag V8 direct injection that Rover use. Classy and powerful: like you and me, yeah. And Rover’s been bought out by Tata, so it’s a real Asian car, man.”
A car. He had bought a car. What did he think that was telling her?
Kareem was pointing at the dials, saying something about the features. “See, Princess? We’re in the money now, and this is just the beginning. I’ll take you for a drive—anywhere you like.”
Shunduri looked at him, challenge in her eyes. “I haven’t seen Mum and Dad in ages, yaah.”
He fiddled with the stereo, then smiled brilliantly at her. “Yeah. Anytime you want.”
She pressed her advantage, smiled back at him just as brightly. “Tuesday? I’ve got a lieu day from the bank.”
Kareem’s hesitation was more obvious now. “We’d have to go early, Princess: in the morning. I’ve gotta be back for business, yeah.”
“I’m up to start work at nine every day, yaah. You’re the one who lives on Asian mean time.”
“Alright, first thing, yeah. I’ll be round at the dorm.”
Maybe ten if I’m lucky, she thought. Her palms felt clammy and, as Kareem drove them back to his flat, she slid her hands under her thighs, like she used to do at school when she was trying not to bite her nails. As an unrelated male, he could only get away with driving her down to see her parents once. Once would be an exception, able to be overlooked provided he showed them enough respect, kept his distance from her, and never did it again.
Or became an official suitor.
And then what? He would have to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Guri about them soon, or they would have to elope. And there was no way she was going to be one of those couples running off to Brighton, parents disowning them, brothers and uncles looking for them to beat the shit out of them or worse, and a funchait to force her marriage, as a ruined girl, to a reluctant Kareem.
No, she wanted a proper wedding with all the trimmings: the betrothal party, then the full nikkah: the proper Muslim ceremony, with her in a sari stiff with gold thread, weighed down with gold jewelry, at least two kilos’ worth, seated upstairs in Mum and Dad’s bedroom and all the women around her, saying Nah, nah, to the mullah, and then the third time he asks, “Do you consent to marry Al-Mohammed Kareem Guri?” Mum prompting her to say, with every appearance of reluctance, Jioii. Yes. Then the haldi mendhi for her and all her friends and female relatives with music and dancing and singing going all night, and Shunduri in green and gold having her feet and hands rubbed with turmeric. Then the visit to the registry office to do the gora legals, perhaps in a hot pink lehenga and gold veil, and Kareem in one of his Savile Row suits.
Then off to the rukhsati, the reception, to sit on the red and gold thrones on the stage in Oxford’s grandest reception center with Kareem in a white and gold sherwani and matching turban, with everyone sliding rings on her fingers and bracelets on her wrists, her head bowed down, her expression sweet, modest, a little sad. And, after the reception, the tears and clinging to Mum as she is torn away from her family to start a new life with this man, subsiding tearily into the stretch limousine and the protective concern of her new husband and the chaperones.
And a full walima for the newlyweds a week later, where she is allowed to smile as much as she likes, as she accepts everyone’s best wishes and compliments as to how much married life is agreeing with her. And not to forget all the visits she would be making as a new bride, wearing all her finery, to drink the pistachio and sherbet at the houses of all their wedding guests for months and months afterward . . . She wanted it all, every bit, including the astonishment and envy of her friends, the pride of her parents, and the look in Kareem’s eyes when he sees her in her wedding sari. Shilpi would just die.
“Eh, Princess, we’re here, my place,” Kareem said softly, undoing her seatbelt.
Shunduri blinked and turned to open the car door. There was a tearing sound. The end of her veil had caught on Kareem’s buckle, and her careless movement had resulted in a long slit in the chiffon. He dropped the end on her lap.
“Sorry, Princess. I dunno if you can fix that.”
She bundled the torn end out of the way. “Mum’ll know what to do. I’ll give it to her when we visit.”
Kareem came round to her side of the car and, since there was no one in the car park, she slid into his arms.
“On Tuesday,” she said.
“Eh?”
“The veil. I’ll give it to Mum on Tuesday, when we visit. You promised.”
“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said, kissing her neck and shoulder. “You look so hot, Princess. Did you dress for me tonight? Did you?”
“Oh yaah.” Shunduri caught hold of his tie and pulled hard. “As if.”
“Eh, watch the tie, man!”
She tugged the silk knot tighter. “Desi boy, think I’d dress on your account?”
Kareem carefully lifted each of her fingers off his double Windsor and pushed her hand down, past his belt buckle. “Come upstairs. I’ll drop you back to college when I go to the clubs.”
She pulled a face. “Why can’t I go with you?”
“It’s work, Princess. And your friends’re expectin’ you, innit?” She rolled her eyes, and he smiled, ran his hands over her bottom and squeezed it gently. “I’m only thinking of you, you know. Taking care of Princess’s reputation, yeah.”
“I can take care of myself.” She slid her fingers under his jacket and pulled him closer so that they stood eye to eye, nose to nose. With her heels on, they were the same height, and she tried to fix his gaze.
“Nine o’clock Tuesday, yaah? Nine.”
“Yeah, Princess. I’m all yours. I’ll be there.”
Only then did Shunduri let him kiss her on the mouth and, by degrees, urge her to the stairwell and inside.
Three
THE DOORBELL RANG and then, as Rohimun was halfway down the hall to answer it, Simon’s key crunched in the lock. She diverted sullenly into the spare bedroom where her easels sat, and that god-awful mess on the two large canvases, gathering dust.
She turned around and went out again, trying not to breathe in the smell of linseed oil and turps. Shutting the door hard, she bumped into Simon, whose arm fell around her and pulled her against him, pinching the skin at her waist.
“Wotcher, love,” he said in a parody of a working-class accent, and laughed at his own joke.
He smelled of wine and cigarettes over expensive aftershave, and she thought to herself, I’d rather the turps. He dragged her along with him as far as the kitchen, then seemed to lose interest, dropping the mail he was carrying on the counter and getting out his smokes. Rohimun edged away discreetly, reaching to pull out an envelope from the pile of junk mail and bills. It was large and square, withRohimun Choudhury written in sprawling, elegant handwriting diagonally across the envelope. But Simon, cigarette already wedged between his first and second fingers, twitched it out of her hands.
“What’s this, love?” Without waiting for an answer, he tore the envelope so that it ripped halfway through her name, and pulled out a crimson card with black gothic lettering. Victoria & Albert: Portraits and Studies. “Ooh,” Simon said, his Eton accent taking on a campCoronation Street edge as he looked at the back of the invitation. “Tommorer. Eye-talian rooms also open.”
Rohimun was silent. He would only taunt her if she tried to take it back, so she folded her arms and pretended to ignore him while he drew on his cigarette and continued to hold the card out in front of her and read it at his leisure. The new portrait exhibition. Who could have sent it? She’d thought no one at the RCA knew, or cared, where she was now. Old teachers and friends would be there. Hopefully not her former agent, Inshallah, for what could she say to him now?
Simon tossed the card in the bin and moved around the countertop toward the sofa.
She busied herself making tea for them both, but once Simon was lying on the sofa, his second home, a perverse instinct drove her to pick the card out of the bin, place it on the mantelpiece and stand by it, waiting for him to notice. And when he did, he didn’t get off the sofa and tear it up, or even say a word. Just turned his face away so that his cheek rested against the sofa cushion, pretending that he hadn’t seen a thing.
The TV went on, and Simon popped a downer with his whiskey and talked about his day like he always did, while Rohimun halfheartedly wiped things down in the kitchen. Her eyes kept flicking to the invitation; she knew better than to indicate any desire to attend.
In the end, to escape the boredom, they headed out to the pub to meet up with Simon’s friends, Rohimun agreeing for the first time in weeks to tag along, because of a vague idea of larger battles looming. As soon as they arrived, Simon was transformed into the old Simon: public Simon with his porkpie hat tipped over one eye, full of laughter and good cheer, at the center of things. But it was a magic circle that she no longer wished to enter, so Rohimun, relieved to be away from the atmosphere in the flat, balanced on the outer edge of the snug, making small talk to new or less familiar arrivals.
Now that they were out together, she was his love as if he meant it, and he was talking about how much he missed her when he was at work, and how they were going to go away together soon, to Amsterdam or Morocco, just the two of them; and his friends were laughing and saying Never thought you’d settle down and Simey, what a sweetie you are, isn’t he? Especially as he was putting his card behind the bar like the big man he was.
He pushed a second double G&T in front of her, and she shook her head, not quite looking at him.
“Oh, love,” he said, concerned, and put his arm around her, sliding his fingers under her top and pinching the tender skin beneath her breast. She tried not to jump. “Drink up fast, love. You’re getting behind.”
When she picked up the glass, he kissed her cheek with a hard, smacking motion, and leaned back to laugh at something someone else had said.
Rohimun took a small sip of her drink, then another. Nothing was real here. She could see, more clearly than the blurred faces around her or the ashtrays and dirty glasses collecting on the table, the V&A invitation waiting in the flat, like a drugged-out guest from the night before, or a bill that they had no money to pay.
When they returned home, the thing was still not mentioned, but lay between them as they fucked joylessly, looking past each other. Afterward, she lay awake with her eyes closed. Perhaps it was just a phase they were in now, after the early, heady, can’t-keep-their-hands-off-each-other times, the will-do-anything-for-you times, when she’d been so grateful to defer to Simon all the vexed decisions, from how to deal with her agent and what invitations to accept, to what to wear to gora functions with their infinite gradations of dress, and when to arrive and leave. It had been so easy to let him steer her from group to group, to hang out with his friends who never asked her why she wasn’t painting anymore.
She had never thought, when she’d met him, that she could have been lonelier than she was then, when Tariq, her big brother, two years older and her best friend, had dropped out of her life, all their lives, with no word of warning. From her very first day of primary school, through to those scary early weeks at the RCA, living away from her parents, he had always been there for her, sticking up for her, then supporting her choice of a fine arts degree, the two of them standing firm against Mum’s marriage plans and Dad’s criticisms.
For Tariq to have gone fundo like that, then disappear altogether, soon after her graduation and the first euphoria of positive reviews and acquiring her own agent and a list of commissions that seemed to be a mile long, had felt like the worst of betrayals. Perhaps he’d thought she no longer needed him. Or perhaps his favorite sister just wasn’t that important anymore.
The last time she’d heard Tariq’s voice was in a phone message that she’d discovered late the night before her first solo exhibition. She had not recognized his voice at first, the high-pitched, too-loud tone in which he spoke, almost gabbling the words, as if he was on a time limit.
“Salaamalaikum, Rohimun, I bid you farewell. I have joined the legion of the soldiers of God, the mujahideen, for the holy jihad. It is the duty of every Muslim and, Rohimun, listen, you must listen, your painting is idolatry and must be put away, you have to cover, live a pious life, and you must tell Mum and Dad, tell them . . .” A wave of static engulfed the line, then cleared. “I have to go. Tell them I’ve gone away to study. Overseas. Africa.” There was a rapid despairing gasp, as if he had run out of air, and the connection severed abruptly.
When she had tried to call him back, all she could get was a mechanical voice telling her that the number was not available. She’d sat in bed and listened to his words again and again, with that terminating gasp, until she found herself breathing with it, gulping for air as it clicked off.
The next day, when she should have been checking the hanging of her pictures, she’d wandered around in a daze. It was with only an hour to go before her first solo exhibition that she’d managed to dress and get out of the flat. How could he do this to her now. Now that she was having doubts, having second thoughts about these paintings of hers that were so popular, so well reviewed and so quickly sold.
She’d turned up late for her own show, shamed by the staring of strangers and resentful at her agent’s hissed queries and the expectation that she stand next to her paintings for photos, like a mannequin or a statue. Who was she without her brother to lean on, to tell her that her paintings were good, better, best; to deflect the needy and resist the pushy; and to laugh at this rent-a-crowd who talked to each other with their backs to the artwork and kissed each other without touching.
She felt like she was drowning. Tariq, one of those crazy fundos who went to fight in foreign wars. Pressure, responsibility, loneliness and no one to help her.
Then a man, dark-haired and with Tariq’s slender build, breezed into the gallery, half hidden by the crowd, and for an instant she’d thought it’d never happened, here he was. But he came closer, and it wasn’t Tariq at all. He was gora, not Asian, as pale as a night-worker and walking with a cocky air, as if the crowd was there to see him, looking like a musician or an artist in his tight black jeans and t-shirt, pointy-toed black boots and porkpie hat. He caught her staring at him and held her gaze, kept walking until he was at her side then stood as if he belonged there and called her Princess Jasmine, making her laugh at the Disney reference. He beckoned a waiter over with a salver of glasses holding very yellow champagne, lifted one off and pressed it on her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
She didn’t say, I’m the artist, these are my paintings—didn’t want to say that. She wanted nothing to do with those daubs on the walls with their spreading pox of little red stickers. She was sure he could tell they were rubbish, like all the people there, who were either just being polite or were too stupid to know.
“I’m Rohimun.”
“Simon. Drink up, love,” he said, with the casual authority of an expert in these matters, and she had drunk then, automatically obedient to his confidence, his sureness of touch, the waiter’s deference to his Eton accent. She drank the whole glass down, as if she was a patient in casualty told to take her medicine, or a bride swallowing her sherbet drink, and the yeasty bitterness made the wound of Tariq’s condemnation and abandonment throb more softly, for a while.
Simon watched her empty her glass, laughed in the face of her agent’s disapproving stare, then spoke softly, close to her ear. “Let’s go, love. Let’s get out of here. Fuck them, you’ve had enough of this function.”
“I can’t.”
“Love, you can do anything you want: it’s your show. Come with me. They’ve had enough of you, those vultures.”
And he gave her a wide, can-do-anything grin that was surely sympathetic, and she had felt suddenly released from a great burden, flying upward like a diver who had slipped a weight belt and was rising irresistibly to the surface of things. Why should she stay when she hated it so much, felt so uncomfortable?
Afterward, Rohimun had never given a thought to going back. Not even on that first Monday morning when she lay in Simon’s bed and watched him put on his suit and transform into a city stockbroker. Not when, a mere two weeks later, Simon, high as a kite, left her at a party while he was chasing some deal and forgot to come back. What was there to go back to anyway? A lonely merry-go-round of more second-rate paintings and more rubbish commissions, or going home to Mum and Dad and letting them marry her off to some Desi optometrist or accountant. She’d made her bed.
If Tariq had been there, the old Tariq, perhaps at least she’d have been able to see the differences between him and Simon. Whatever they were. But then, what was worse: the humorless judgemental fundo prick that Tariq had become, or the revelation of Simon as a snob and a casra charsi, a dirty addict? Or indeed, herself: a painter who couldn’t paint, a fat whiny girlfriend, a casra sudary, dirty slut.
—
WHEN ROHIMUN WOKE late the next day, Simon was still in bed. She should have known that he would take the day off, to keep an eye on her on the day of the exhibition. For the rest of Friday morning, she lay on the very edge of the bed with her eyes closed, feeling the grittiness of unwashed sheets and the thick itch of dirty hair. While she pretended to sleep, tried to ignore Simon’s hungover body weighing down the mattress behind her, she thought about the invitation and what it meant. But then he rolled into her back, and she held on to the side of the bed and feigned lumpish unconsciousness as he fumbled with her halfheartedly, trying to jam his half-soft cock between her legs from behind. He soon gave up, giving her one last mean shove before getting up and going into the kitchen.
The sucking kiss of the fridge door and the rattle of ice against glass announced that he was not coming back to bed. She thought of who would be at the V&A tonight, and what she could wear that would not cause trouble, and why she was suddenly so willing to court it at all. The creak of sofa springs from the sitting room was drowned out almost immediately by the staccato cheeriness of television ads, then the thoughtful, reasoned voices of two men.
There go the seagulls . . .
The crowd certainly enjoyed that. And who knows what surprises this player might be bringing to the field today . . .
Those seagulls are settling again.
Yes, raw talent here, up against a fair bit of aggression . . . could put the selectors off though.
Rohimun opened her eyes, then squinted, trying not to see the room just yet, instead focusing on a point midway to the window, on the sifting beams of sunlight, in which floated thousands of particles of dust. Wasn’t it meant to be skin?
And there go the seagulls, rising and wheeling to the east . . .
Thousands and millions of parts of herself and Simon mixed together and drifting aimlessly. White lead mixed roughly with titanium and barium yellow would give that hazy gleam, with a dry roller rolled softly over the wet paint to break it up, make it both more and less solid.
I don’t know about that first ball. Shades of Murali, if you know what I mean. But the umpire’s ignoring it for now.
How had they come to this? Food going off in the fridge and clothes piling up unwashed because, even though the days seemed endless, there never seemed to be enough time or energy to sort things out.
It’s a perfectly clear blue sky here today at Old Trafford.
Was their life now, full of daytime TV, takeaway, late-night calls and taxis to meet Simon’s dealer or to get the money to pay him, just a temporarily not-so-good phase?
The test will be the second ball. I don’t think the umpire could ignore a second ball like that.
Now that she looked back, their frantic need to be together, for which she had given away her painting and everything else, seemed to have segued straight into this loveless, grey existence. The wonderful bright joyousness of painting all day, and going out at night with her RCA friends and even the odd one from Brick Lane, had turned into a flat that she felt she hardly left. Simon usually went out on his own now, to meet up with his friends: a lot of Hooray Henry brokers and trustafarians. And she refused to go with him on his twice-weekly visits to the one friend, the essential man, who always answered his mobile, who always had what Simon needed.
My mistake. It looks like there’s just one small cloud here in this blue sky, directly over the batsman in fact, from our point of view in the commentary box . . .
And no painting at all, because she just didn’t seem to be able to begin anymore, and anyway, she had been so stressed in that existence, after she got a name for herself and Tariq went fundo and stopped visiting, and before she and Simon had gotten together, hadn’t she? Not knowing how to cope with gallery owners and agents, all the invitations and phone calls. All the trappings of success. Not such a problem now, that was for sure.
This almost wraps things up before lunch . . .
Simon had recently started to do a line before leaving the flat on Monday mornings and, from the scraps of foil she found in his jacket pockets, she suspected that he was now using at work as well, perhaps before big meetings or tricky interviews.
Memories of that brilliant century by Tendulkar . . .
And for some reason, even when he was at work or asleep on the couch, she could no longer paint, although since yesterday, when the invitation had arrived, she’d found herself pining for it. Like she used to.
An untraditional choice for the selectors: a high-risk choice, even. Team players have usually been preferred . . .
She hauled herself to a sitting position just as the televised crowd roared approvingly: someone must have hit a six. She considered going straight to her easel, but she’d already thought about it too much, so she dressed, squeezing into too-tight jeans, then trainers and a hoodie. She walked into the living area, thumped down in an armchair next to the television and contemplated Simon, wanting him to react.
That cloud’s getting bigger . . .
His left arm was curled around an ashtray on his chest, and from where she sat, she could still smell on him the beer and ash of last night. He stretched out his right hand toward her and beckoned her forward, for a cuddle or a fight. She ignored it and stared at the ashtray.
His other hand moved then, to pull on his cigarette and tap it delicately into the ashtray, a heavy glass one with Cat & Fiddle stamped around its sides. Cat & Fiddle. Simon must have lifted it from the pub last night. He smiled at her suddenly, and her stomach tensed.
“Catholic and Infidel, eh? I don’t forget what you tell me. I don’t forget anything.”
“I never told you to take it.”
“Thought you’d appreciate it. Old times,” he said, drawing out the last two words as breathily as if they were the title of a Mills & Boon novel.
Richie, this day will truly be one for the history books.
The crowd roared again.
Rohimun could remember, at the beginning, holding forth to Simon, just like her father, about the political significance of old English pub names, how some of them went back to the Crusades and earlier, but she hated to remember talking to him like that, so freely and enthusiastically, how starry-eyed she’d been, how much she’d assumed about his interests and his values. She tried to dispel the memory, the sense of unease and disappointment it evoked. She’d far rather be angry.
She got up, trying to look purposeful, crossed onto the kitchen lino, and opened the fridge door.
“I’ll get some milk.” She despised herself for needing to say something to ease the tension, give herself an excuse to leave.
“Some smokes too, love.” Simon spoke around his cigarette without missing a beat, as if he’d known exactly what she had been going to say before she’d said it.
Get them yourself, you bastard. She picked up her purse and shuffled out of the kitchen. Love was for charladies and barmaids. She knew now that he’d never call any of the women in his crowd that. Just went to show, didn’t it. But Rohimun didn’t really want to think any more about what exactly it showed, just wanted to get out into the fresher, cleaner air of the street.
As she turned into the passage, her eyes flicked involuntarily, covetously, to the reassuring, shining square of the V&A invitation above the empty fireplace, like a talisman. Mum was always safety-pinning one of those onto Rohimun’s vest before she went to school, especially before exams, or in winter if she had a cold. Little flat boxes of beaten silver sealed with wax, dangling from one of Mum’s big nappy pins with a yellow teddy or pink duck on it, pulled out of the pleats of her sari at the last minute. The little boxes held a favoredsurah from the Qur’an that had been blessed by some village mullah back in Bangladesh and were supposed to protect you from harm, bring good luck. But if it was a PE day, once they were on their way to school, Rohimun would fumble it undone and tuck it in her pocket, to save herself embarrassment in the changing room.
She hesitated at the front door, wanting to go back and pick up the invitation, feel its stiff pasteboard safely between her fingers. But then Simon shifted on the couch, and she stepped out quickly and shut the door before he could decide to keep her company.
Outside, the air was warm, although the sky threatened rain later. Rohimun wandered past the park and the local shops, enjoying the midday dawdling as long as she could avoid the Desi shopkeepers. When she reached the local shopping center and saw the hairdressers just within the entrance, she ducked inside.
They could fit her in. She just had to wait her turn, so she sat and flicked the pages of a magazine, grateful for the clutter and activity. Older women complained comfortably about husbands, and teenage girls with dazzling fluorescent nails bitched about bosses and boyfriends. The hairdresser washed Rohimun’s hair, joking about not having a sink big enough, needing a forklift for this lot.
After she muttered something about a wedding, the hairdresser dried it and pulled it back tightly and smoothly in a way Rohimun had never mastered, and coiled and pinned and sprayed it into a monstrous chignon, almost as big as her head. Its tight stiffness was loathsome, but should keep Simon happy, and would be one less thing to worry about tonight. And a clear announcement of her plans.
She spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the streets trying to avoid her reflection in shop windows, her stomach gradually tightening as the day wore on, and she walked and walked, too on edge to while away the time sitting in a cafe. I don’t care, she kept saying to herself. Today is my day, and tonight is going to be mine as well.
Four
“IT’S YOUR BROTHER on the line . . .”
Susan’s invisible, inimitable voice was hesitant, its pitch rising with the tonality of a question. Very different to her usual brisk neutrality.
Richard Bourne looked at the clean expanse of his desk: only four briefs sitting patiently in the far left corner, a half-full in-box and the desk clock at three forty-five. For the first time in a while, he had no good reason to put Henry off. The hint of judgement from his Chambers’ longest-serving secretary gave Richard an extra frisson of irritation. Knowing Henry, he’d have Susan thoroughly onside by now, had probably been sending her birthday cards and asking after her children. If she had any: Richard couldn’t quite recall.
“Thank you, Susan.” His hand stretched out automatically to put the caller on speaker, then he changed his mind and picked up the receiver. Henry hated speakerphone and always ended up shouting as if he were calling his dogs across a field.
“Richard!” The line sounded as if his brother were in a roadside phone booth in some Third World country, rather than two hours’ drive away.
“Henry. How are you? How’s the new grant application?” Richard said, pulling the blotter toward himself and flattening its curling edges with his free hand. Amazing how restricting it felt, not having both hands available to fiddle with something.
“Oh, I didn’t call about that. But, ah, as you mention it, perhaps you could, you know, when you next come down. The National Trust are so picky . . .”
How Henry had ever finished his degree, Richard did not know. “Shoot the details through to me and I’ll get on to it.”
The blotting paper was tired and grimy, covered with illegible notations and calculations from his last trial. Richard propped the receiver under his chin and used both hands to edge each corner of the paper out from under its leather frame.
“Why don’t you pop down in person this weekend? Or if that doesn’t suit, maybe next. It’s been a while. You’d want to see what’s been done with the Abbey outbuildings. All the lath and plasterwork completely restored, using all the old methods. Absolutely brilliant.”
“I’ve seen the plans: they’re looking good, all credit to you. And the builders’ report.”
The old blotter was completely free now. Richard folded it on his knee one-handed, as quietly as he could, and wedged it into his wastepaper basket.
“Nothing like seeing it in the flesh though. And the sunken garden is amazing: looks like there used to be a well in the middle. Come on, Richard, you deserve the weekend off. Thee and the boys, they haven’t seen you in ages.”
Richard picked up his fountain pen, wiped the sides of its nib on the pristine blotter, and started to turn the resulting smears of deep-blue ink into something more symmetrical. His recent run of back-to-back trials had finished, and the current briefs could be put off easily enough.
“Is Deirdre still around? You could bring her too, you know, or whoever. We could make do, and use the put-me-up. Or just come for the day.”
“It’s not really Deirdre’s thing.” To put it mildly. Deirdre in the country, Deirdre sleeping on a camp bed, Deirdre sharing a family bathroom were things unimaginable. Richard raised his eyebrows at the thought. “Look, I’ll think about it. Perhaps I could manage a day. How’re the boys?”
“Fantastic. Never better. Jonathon’s going to be as tall as you, I think. And Andrew’s turning into a killer footballer. So, you’ll come?”
“I’ll let you know.”
There was a small uncharacteristic pause: Henry was usually so keen to fill in every conversational gap.
“Thee’s missing you too, you know. She always perks up when you come down.”
The line was tinny and faint, but even so, Henry’s voice seemed to have gone unusually flat. Richard frowned and lifted his gaze to the blue and gold Persian rug on the wall opposite: Bourne Abbey’s only contribution to his Chambers. Beautiful—though it had never looked entirely comfortable with the cool minimalism of the rest of the fittings.
No point in asking Henry if anything else was wrong; he was never one to come to the point, particularly over the phone. He would just warble on about the weather and the dogs and what was nesting in the hedgerows. If there was anything awry, Richard would have to visit in person. And he had been remiss lately.
“Look, I’ll try to get down this month. Or thereabouts.” He heard a breath taken in: Henry wanting to pin him down, lock in a definite date. He quickly cut in. “I have to go, Henry. I’ll call you next week.”
Henry didn’t object, but after Richard had hung up he left his hand sitting on the receiver, wondering if he’d been too abrupt. It was true: his trips home were getting to be rarer, more easily put off. Maybe he would go down next weekend. Depending.
The phone rang again, just as the clockface flicked to 4:00. Susan’s calm tones echoed slightly on the speakerphone.
“Richard, I have Felicity Harporth holding for you on the Reid matter. This is the third time she’s called today. Would you like me to take a message?”
Richard suppressed a sigh. Some instructing solicitors were needier than others, and Felicity was a wonderful example of that genus.
“No, thank you, Susan. Put her through.”
“Richard, thank you so much for giving me a moment so late in the week: it’s in relation to the Reid Family Trust matter. We just received your formal advice this morning and the Reids have already been in to discuss it. They are very keen to reduce Trust payments to their son to the minimum, as soon as possible. I was hoping to meet with you regarding what, ah, what you think the minimum would be, given the family. The rich are not like the rest of us, you know.”
“I’m happy to do that. Perhaps a meeting with the Reids present as well?” Felicity did sound more than keen to pass him this particular hot potato.
“That would be most satisfactory and—”
“I’ll leave it to the capable Susan to organize the time. I’ll look forward to seeing you then.” He paused. Some further direction was needed, especially as Felicity tended to be driven by her clients. “I would agree with you that this is a very difficult situation for the Reids: they will need to be considering all the implications, legal and otherwise, of any decision that they may make.”
“Oh, yes, but they’re so happy that—”
“Yes. I’ll look forward to meeting with you all, at that date to be fixed.”
“Thank you so much, Richard. The clients are most happy with—”
“You’re welcome, Felicity. Enjoy the weekend. Goodbye.”
That must be some kind of a record for getting Felicity off the phone. The Reids were messed up as only the rich knew how, as Felicity herself might have said. And even now, with all that had happened, thinking that if they paid out enough money, held the purse strings tightly enough, that they could somehow fix their son up into the man they wanted him to be, rather than the well-dressed parasite that he was.
Four demands for additional funds the son had made in the last six months: all granted because the old family solicitor was as weak as dishwater and far too in awe of the family to say no to anything. At least Felicity was one step up from that. But she was clearly not managing her clients’ expectations, so he was going to have to do it for her: ensure that the Reids were fully apprised of the fact that this was a lose-lose situation, however much was paid to solicitors and barristers.
The bad news coming from him would probably be taken better and be less likely to taint the solicitor–client relationship. He would have to think very carefully about moving the Reids’ focus away from his own initial, purely legal advice that they could make all further extra Trust payments conditional upon their son’s attendance at some expensive private rehabilitation center. And shift it to the extra-legal consequences: that, chances were, the fashionable rehabilitation center attended under duress would become a revolving door, leading inevitably to further demands for money, escalating threats from the parents and then complete estrangement.
He is lost to you either way, was the thing Richard could not say. You can’t save people from themselves. I should know. The Trustmoney, whatever you do with it, fixes nothing. He thought of the young man who was the sole beneficiary of the Trust. You will be fielding abusive phone calls from your own son, or hearing how he lied to and stole from your friends and relatives to feed his various addictions, and then be reduced to fighting him through the courts for the Trust money. Just goes to show: family can be productive of the greatest misery of all.
What People are Saying About This
Praise for A Matter of Marriage
(Previously published as Cat & Fiddle)
“A big-hearted, clamorous comedy of East-meets-West…This jet-fueled melodrama crashes from one unprecedented crisis to the next, taking in desperate family secrets, betrayals, misunderstandings, walled-up mysteries, and delicious coincidence.”—The Sydney Herald
“Occasionally you love a book so much that it’s difficult to close the door on its world. [A Matter of Marriage]—with its warm, evocative, and hysterically funny story—is such a book. A whiff of Pride and Prejudice is brilliantly mixed in with colorful layers of Indian culture.”—Good Reading Magazine
“This is a big, fat, satisfying read, which will appeal to fans of books featuring intricate plots, family webs, rollicking love stories, multiculturalism (particularly with a sub-continental theme), and clashes between tradition and modernity, religion and culture. I adored this sprawling, funny novel. This is highly recommended late-summer reading.”—Bookseller & Publisher (Starred Review)
“Lesley Jørgensen explores [her characters’] lives with exquisite sensitivity and delicious irony…[Her] benevolent storytelling...has a whimsical surface on which the most commonplace happenings are greeted with something like wonder…A remarkable accomplishment.”—The Saturday Age
“Jørgensen steps so adroitly in and out of the heads of these wonderful characters that it’s as if she’s at your shoulder, the perfect traveling companion on the novel’s journey: chatty, warm, compassionate, and funny. An exuberant debut, bubbling with energy and insight.”—Cate Kennedy, Author of Like a House on Fire