Duty Free (27 page)

“We also did snorkelling in Langkawi last year and Apa even went diving,” added Noor. “They didn’t let me dive because I was too little. But Apa promised me when I was sixteen, she’d take me again. Didn’t you?”

“My Jonkers had asthma as a child,” announced Aunty Pussy. “So I never let him play any games. And he’s not one bit interested in it either. I also think it’s waste of time. And money.”

“My husband and son
tau
just love it,” I said quickly. “They also play tennis and go swimming and when they go to the village they do riding—on horses you know—”

“You have
horses
?” squealed Noor.

“Yes, in my husband’s village. I don’t go there much because I find it a bit bore to be honest, but if you like I’ll take you all. You must come and stay, Zahra Apa, you and Sana and Noor. I think so, you’ll like it. There are lots of skies there that you can paint. And, Sana, you like wildlife, don’t you? There’s loads of cows and sheep and horses and goats there. You must come, definitely. Maybe in Christmas holidays? Or even better, on the weekend because, honestly, I can’t take more than three days of village. I’m not like you, Sana, into nature and things. Sorry
haan
? You must meet my husband,
by the way. I don’t know why, but I have a feeling that both of you will get along very well.”

Sana laughed and Zahra said thank you, I was very kind and Noor asked if we could go next weekend and Mummy smiled and Aunty Pussy suddenly stood up and said angrily, “I’m leaving. Goodbye.” And walked out.

Let her go, I thought. Let her sit in the car and steam in her own anger. Good radiance! But then Mummy also slowly got to her feet with a sorry-type smile and said that she had enjoyed meeting them all very much and that the tea had been very nice and that she better go after Pussy because she hasn’t been feeling very well,
na
. So then I stood up also but I didn’t give a sorry-type smile and I didn’t make any loser-type excuses. Not at all. I kissed Sana and I kissed Noor and I went up to Zahra Apa and I took her hands in mine and I looked her in the eyes and told her what a lovely family she had and how lucky Jonkers would be to become a part of it. If they wanted him, that was. Because you know something? Suddenly I knew where I stood. And it certainly wasn’t with Aunty Pussy. It was with Jonkers and Janoo.

“Drop me at home,” Aunty Pussy ordered in the car.

“No, you’re coming home with me,” I said. “And Mummy, you too.” I must have said it in a dictator-type voice because neither of them did any arguing.

Once I got home, I took them to the sitting room, called Ameena, sorry Shameem, and told her to tell anyone who called for me that I wasn’t home and then I told the bearer to tell the guards the same outside and I sat Mummy and
Aunty Pussy down and then I gave them some pieces of my mind.

I told them I knew how upset they’d been at Jonkers’ secret marriage to Miss Shumaila. I had been also. I also knew how much they wanted him to marry a nice rich girl from a nice rich bagground. I had wanted it also. But if I was to put my hand on Kulchoo’s head and say truthfully why I’d wanted it, it was because I thought it would make my name heavy in the world and get me more respect from my kitty group. I wasn’t thinking of Jonkers’ happiness, I was thinking of my own. And okay there might be some very nice rich girls hiding in the world somewhere but the two or three we had met were not right for Jonkers. And the girl that he had found for himself was just right—strong, brave, loyal, and loving. She would be on his side.

“Yes,” snapped Aunty Pussy. “Like that thief Shumaila was on his side.”

“Pussy,” said Mummy. “Shumaila is over. I’m sure Jonkers also knows now that she was not right for him.”

“You can stop lecturing me, you mother and daughter. What about all the other two-bit girls that he liked before and would have married,
married
, if I hadn’t saved him?”

“Maybe, Aunty Pussy, he’s never felt comfortable with the types you wanted for him,” I said. “Because he had nothing to say to them and he wasn’t their type either. Tell me, what could he have said to that rude, spoilt Tanya?
Haan?
She didn’t even bother to look at him, let alone make talk with him. Had he married her he would always have been like a servant in
their house. And as for that poor Tasbeeh, she looked so unhappy herself, you honestly think she was going to make
him
happy? And you remember that day he came to the wedding with us to look at the girls we thought were right for him, he looked so uncomfortable, standing behind your seat, suffering silently in his suit.”

“He was comfortable with Shumaila? With her stealing his car? And my jewels?”

“Again, Pussy,” sighed Mummy. “Again you’re bringing up Shumaila. She’s in the past. Look at the future.”

“At what? At a two-bit travel agent?”

“Yes,” I said, “at a travel agent. Who Jonkers is proud of. Who he loves and respects.”

“How can he respect someone with no standing, no name?”

“Sometimes, Pussy,” said Mummy in a tired voice, “sometimes we have to forget all those things and think only of our child’s happiness.”

“Fine coming from you,” shouted Aunty Pussy, “you with your Oxford-educated, wealthy son-in-law from an old landed family. I’m sorry but I’m not allowing Jonkers to marry Sana in my house. If he wants another miserable wedding in a mosque he’s welcome to it.”

“He won’t have to, Aunty Pussy,” I said. “Because he can get married from
my
house. Mine and Janoo’s. We’ll be proud to host his wedding to Sana.”

“You! You! You traitor!” shouted Aunty Pussy. She picked up her bag and rushed out of the room.

“Oh,
beta
,” sighed Mummy. “Think before you speak like
that. You remember what happened to Kulchoo last time you got into a thing with Pussy? You have just one child. Go after her and say sorry.”

“I damn care,” I said.

But between you, me, and the four walls, I’d totally forgotten about Kulchoo’s accident that had started this thing in the first place. “That was an accident,” I said, crossing my fingers behind my back and quickly saying a prayer for Kulchoo’s safety under my breaths. “And besides, I’m not supercilious any more.”

That night as Kulchoo slept in his bed, I crept into his room on tiptoe and stood by his pillow and said three special prayers from the Holy Koran, to keep away black magic and evil eyes, then I blew on Kulchoo from his head to his foot three times making sure the prayers covered his whole body. There! Now we were safe!

Last Tuesday was Jonkers’ wedding. In our front lawn. It was tiny. Just two hundred people. But even if I say it with my own mouth, it was very tastily done. Mulloo arranged it. It was a favour I did her, giving her her first do as an event manager. But by now you must be knowing that I’m like that—soft headed, charitable soul. By the way, I also beat Sunny to it, and now everyone in my kitty group will remember how it was me and not Sunny who launched Mulloo’s carrier as an event manager. And must say, Mulloo did it very nicely even though she organized whole thing in one week. Because once Sana agreed and Zahra agreed, then Jonkers wanted to get married straight away and as Janoo said: “Why ever not?”

So it was mad rush because we had to fit it in before Muharram but I think so, we managed. One good thing about marrying someone who is not so well-reknowned is that your guest list is small and also Jonkers and Sana are not the big splashy dowry-type people, so we didn’t have to wait for months having furniture made to order and special sets of jewellery brought from India and bags and shoes from London and Dubai and so on and so fourth.

The flowers were all local—pink roses and mauve glads—and
the garden was lit with pink fairy lights. Don’t ask me how but Mulloo found a mauve velvet tent-type thing from somewhere and we put that up in the front lawn and spattered small, small tables all around with rose petals and white table-cloths and pink candles. And it was all warm and smug inside because we had those standing-up heater-type things—I think so they’re called brassieres.

Zain did the music and Kulchoo and Farhad and Irum brought all their friends and there was non-stop dancing for three full nights. Even Sunny and Akbar and Baby and Jammy and Nina and Maha joined in, and Jonkers and Janoo played hosts. There was only one dish because bore guvmunt order is still in place, in fact it’s become worst, but no one complained because it was Mulloo’s famous mutton
karahi
and anyways, everyone had had so much of wine that they were past caring.

Even Zeenat came and she was very nice about it and gave Jonkers and Sana a beautiful painting. I wore a fab new outfit in pink and mauve, designer of course, with grey contacts (green is so past it) and a ruby necklace and matching earrings. I’d have ordered a Tarun Tahliani sari for myself from India with Sarvoski crystals but there was a time problem,
na
.
Chalo
, at Kulchoo’s wedding then. I also wanted Sana to buy a fab new outfit from a designer, ready-made unfortunately, because again we didn’t have time to order. It was to be Janoo’s and my present,
na
, but she said no, she wanted to wear her mother’s wedding clothes. She wore a cream and gold
gharara
and between you, me, and the four walls, it was a bit old-fashioned and a bit on the simple side but she carried it away.

And Zahra wept and Noor danced and Jonkers grinned so much that I thought his face would break in two. By the way, he was wearing such a nice Italian wool suit, that don’t even ask. Charcole gray, with a deep, rich sheen. And without his glasses and his old nervous way of gulping-shulping, he actually looked quite dishy. Promise, by God, I’m not joking.

Mummy tried very hard to make Aunty Pussy come but you know,
na
, that she is proud, stubborn-type and said till the last minute that she would come over her own dead body. I said to Jonkers,
chalo
, never mind she’ll come around when you have your first child. But on the day of the
nikah
she suddenly turned up with poor old Uncle Kaukab in toe. She brought her old diamond necklace—a bit dirty looking because as usual she’d saved on the polishing—and she put it around Sana’s neck and she didn’t say anything but she took Sana’s face in her hands and kissed Sana’s forehead. And Uncle Kaukab put a shaking hand on Jonkers’ head and said, “All my love and blessings, always.”

Between you, me, and the four walls, I was a little bit edgy about the security. More bombs burst last week. One in DG Khan that killed twenty-four. Another in Peshawar that I don’t know killed how many. And more shootings in Karachi. In a mosque. Janoo was looking at the papers the day before the wedding and he said in his special Doomday voice, “This year more people have died in bombs and shootings in Pakistan than in Iraq. What will become of us?”

“Now don’t do talk like that,” I said. “We have to be happy. We have a wedding in our house. We can’t go around looking depress. Doesn’t look nice.”

But thanks God everything went off okay at our wedding. And when Janoo and I were standing together and watching Sunny and Kulchoo doing the twist and a drunken Tony waving his glass and pottering around them and wolf-whistling, and an embarrassed Irum hiding behind her laughing mother, Janoo put his arm around me and said, “Still want to move to Dubai?”

I looked up at him and said, “Maybe not tonight.”

And then I asked, “Still feeling lonely?”

He laughed and dropping a kiss on top of my head, he said, “Maybe not tonight.”

Yesterday we had our kitty (it was Mulloo’s turn to host this time) and all the girls said that even if the wedding was small it was lovely, like olden times when it used to be just nears and dears and not thousands of distants. I looked carefully at their faces just to see if they were being fakely nice, but I think so, they meant it. And Mulloo’s got lots more bookings because of me and so I told her: “Mulloo
yaar
, don’t forget,
haan
, how I started your business?”

Jonkers has taken Sana on a safari to a place called Boats Wana for their honeymoon. In her place I’d have chosen London or Singapore for the shopping but no, she said, she wanted to commute with nature. Crack! Janoo gave her a fab-type camera and she flew over the moon with happiness. Double crack! And Janoo and Kulchoo both said to Jonkers and Sana that come and show us the pictures when you return and then maybe we’ll all go next year as well. I’ll go over my dead body to a jungle to watch dirty, smelly animals, I said under my breaths but on top I smiled and said, “
Haan
, what a fab idea!” And then
I thought to myself, “Why not?” So I said to Jonkers and Sana, “Make sure to find a nice five-stars-
wallah
hotel because I’m not staying in some horrid camp-shamp.”

While Jonkers and Sana are away, Mummy and I are getting Aunty Pussy to paint the house and change the sofas which sag when you sit on them and also to shampoo the Persian carpets whose designs you can’t see any more and hang new curtains and buy new heaters and make it all nice and ready for the bride’s home-coming. Also, I’ve forced her to get poor old Ghulam a new set of fake teeth. Of course, Aunty Pussy grumbled a bit at first about the expense on the house but I think so secretly she’s quite happy. One, because everybody praised the bride and said how pretty and natural she looked and two, it turns out everyone who matters to Aunty Pussy knows and likes Sana because they’ve all been buying their tickets from her for ever and also because Sana wants to keep working at her job and although on top she said “What’s the need?,” inside Aunty Pussy’s very happy that she will be earning her keeps. And lastly, Zeenat Kuraishi told Aunty Pussy that she was lucky to have people as special as Sana and Zahra as part of her family and you know,
na
, that whatever Zeenat says is holy Braille for Aunty Pussy. So, between you, me, and the four walls, Aunty Pussy and Sana might have a few fights at first—because Aunty Pussy is bossy and Sana is not taking-it-quietly type—but you wait and see, after a while, they’ll get along fine. Oh yes, and Jonkers and Sana will be very happy. How do I know?
Haw
, haven’t I told you? I have a sick-sense about these things. Didn’t I tell you Jonkers would find a girl at the Butt–Khan wedding? Past your mind back …