Of Marriageable Age (49 page)

A
WEEK
before embarkation Nat took a bus to Bangalore, where the Bannerjis welcomed him with the warmth that only a loving family can give to a long lost son, as if somehow the years of absence had welded them all together, made Nat a part of them all. In spite of this Nat felt a stranger to them all. The luxurious house with all its comforts, the spacious, tree-shaded grounds with their English lawns carefully tended by a troop of Muslim gardeners, the tennis courts, the swimming pool (which was the latest addition to what could only be called an estate) made Nat feel as though he had strayed on to a film set somewhere and was playing a part, saying the right things, and doing what was expected of him. Meeting Govind again was more an embarrassment than a pleasure, for what on earth were they to talk about? Remembering their bawdy talk years ago, Nat made up his mind to avoid being alone with his friend, and should this be unavoidable, to only talk on serious subjects, such as the growth of the Bannerji empire.

However, the problem never arose for Govind too had changed; the dandy had become a devoted husband and a besotted father who carried his infant daughter around almost all the day, followed by a worried
ayah
anxious to reclaim the child into the folds of her sari.

Rani, Govind's wife, smiled with sphinx-like amusement at her husband's behaviour, and seeing her and the effect she had on Govind Nat wondered how many of Govind's tales of high jinks in Los Angeles, New York and London were true, and how many were wishful thinking.

'Nat, Nat, you must get married soon, you are getting to be an old man,' Govind teased him, and Nat lowered his eyes and smiled, shaking his head. They were sitting at a teak table at the swimming pool's edge, he and Govind and Arun in bathing trunks, Rani in white slacks that showed off the sleek lines of her legs and a blouse of yellow silk that seemed almost wet. She wore her hair loose; it fell straight to her shoulders in a curtain of black spun silk, held back from her face by a bundle of jasmine blossoms dipped above one ear. Govind, his skin goose-fleshed and still spotted with drops of water from his swim, jiggled his daughter on his knee.

'Plenty of time,' Nat said, and looked up at Rani, who graced him with one of her dazzling but enigmatic smiles.

'No, no, there's not plenty of time,' she disagreed. 'It is much better to marry early so you can look forward to a long life with your wife. You would make such a good husband, Nat; you must let us find a wife for you!'

She spoke as if she were several years older and wiser than he, though in fact she was one year younger. Nat had last seen her at her wedding, a remote and dignified young bride absorbed in the resonating voice of her veena, graceful as a young doe, and just as shy, about to embark on the untried ship of marriage. That ship must have weathered many storms, Nat felt, for from her eyes shone the calm strength that comes of perseverance, and when she turned them to her husband they spoke the silent language of love, not the besotted dizziness Nat had seen in the eyes of so many lovers, but a warm intimacy which seemed to close in around her husband and draw him to her.

Govind met those eyes and exchanged a knowing smile with her. 'Yes, Nat, and we've invited someone around this evening who might interest you. A lovely lady, as yet unmarried, an old school friend of Rani's.'

'You'll like her, Nat. Of course, she's quite old, twenty-three, but the only reason she's not married yet is that she's an orphan and she lives with an aunt who she's wrapped round her little finger, and she's been very picky about her husband.” Rani looked at her watch. ‘Govind, I'm going inside; the boys will be back from school any minute.'

She stood up, bowed her head slightly to Nat and walked towards the house, watched by Nat and Govind, Nat admiring, Govind proud.

'You see, Nat, that's a wife. A man needs a wife, believe me. Have a good look at Rhoda; I'm sure you two would suit each other.'

R
HODA WAS
a Parsi girl with eggshell-brown skin. She was small and slight and had the first face Nat had ever seen that was truly heart-shaped. She had a pert little nose and eyes that laughed with him and a mouth which curled up at the corners; cute, Nat said to himself, and wondered seriously if he should marry her, since she made no secret of the fact that she would marry him. There were no barriers of religion or caste here, and no father to raise all manner of objections, and marriage, to Nat, seemed the very best way to regulate his life in London, if London it had to be.

Rhoda's parents had died in a car accident when she was an infant and had left her with a comfortable income from the family business, and under the charge of an elderly aunt who had little control over her. Rhoda had gone to the same music academy as Rani where she had studied piano, not an Indian instrument; for all things Western fascinated her. She also made no secret of the fact that she had made several attempts to find a Western-based husband through the
Times of India,
and all but proposed marriage herself. She wore an emerald-green silk sari which hugged her curves and rustled at the slightest movement; she was more than pretty, but not yet beautiful, and would certainly make some man a wonderful wife.

But not Nat. To everyone's disappointment, after Rhoda had left, he said no.

'Why not?' cried Govind and Rani. Rhoda was in every way suitable, they argued, and even her age was in these modern times no objection. Nat had a hard time persuading them that, yes, he was certain, and no, he couldn't explain why not, but he just couldn't marry her.

'I'll never understand you, Nat,' said Govind. 'You might have been raised by an Englishman, but your soul is Indian. Just don't let me hear you've gone and married an English girl.'

T
HEY ARRIVED
in Southampton early on a September morning. Arun was met by his sister, brother-in-law and two cousins who had driven down from Birmingham to pick him up, and who apologised to Nat that they could not possibly take him back with them as there was no more room in the car, and anyway, they were returning to Birmingham and not to London. So Nat went to the station to take the next train. By the time he reached the platform the train was already packed and he stood for a moment wondering whether to turn left, towards the engine, or right, to the tail of the train, and as his eyes strayed to the window in front of him, vaguely assessing if there were, after all, room for him in the carriage before him, they were brought up short by a pair of eyes he recognised at once — not recognised, but
cognised,
for he sort of tumbled through them, into them, or rather, into what lay beyond them. All this happened in the fraction of a second, and in the next fraction Nat became aware of the face surrounding those eyes, the face of an Indian girl which in spite of the grubby glass of the window between them shone with such innocence: guileless, so exquisite in its open-eyed wonder (he did not, in that moment, realise that he himself was the source of that wonder; how could he, absorbed as he was in his own wonder?) it made his heart ache. His hand, which he had raised to push back a lock of hair behind his ear, stopped in mid-air, startled into a greeting.

A whistle blew, jolting him to attention. He turned and hurried forward to the carriage door but the entrance there was blocked, so he hurried forward to the next door, and that too was blocked. The whistle blew once more and the train lurched forward. He hastened his stride but every single door he passed was clogged with clustering, chattering Indians and their indispensable luggage: the bundled mattresses, valises, trunks, boxes and even pieces of furniture… it was hopeless.

Doors closed. The whistle blew again. The train lurched forward, stopped, lurched again, and glided into movement, gathering force, finding its pace, moving out of reach. He stood on the platform and watched the train slide into the distance, and never in all his life had he felt so alone.

44

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

SAROJ

Georgetown, 1969

T
HE FIRST THING
Saroj did when she got her O Level results was telephone Baba. She hit him with them first, and then she said, 'Baba, Ganesh told me you're planning on emigrating to England.'

'Yes, yes, that's true. And…'

'Listen. Listen carefully: I'm coming too. Either you take me with you and let me do my A Levels there, or I stay here with Miss Quentin and try for the Guyana Scholarship, and I'll win it too. I swear I'll win it. And I'll go to England anyway. But one thing is for sure, Baba, I'm not going to get married. Did you hear that?
I'm not going to get married.
Miss Quentin is on my side, and she'll fight for me against all your efforts to marry me off against my will, and she'll win. Right now you're public enemy number one in this country. So you have the choice.'

She slammed down the receiver and the gladness that washed through her was the sweetest thing she'd felt for weeks. No revenge could ever be sweeter.

'
E
IGHT
A
'S
!' Lucy Quentin could not keep the wonder and the envy out of her voice. Trixie just sat there, her head hanging. Saroj wanted to take her in her arms, shut out Lucy Quentin and her biting remarks and snapping eyes. Trixie had achieved an A in art. Everything else was abysmal. Saroj was more upset for Trixie than she was proud of herself.

'Well, Trixie, what do you say to that? Eight As! The world is open for Saroj, and what will you do now? Scrub floors?'

Trixie cringed under the withering gaze of her mother. She picked at her food, not saying a word, and Saroj could feel the tears she was holding back in her own eyes.

'Look at me, child!'

Trixie looked up and her eyes were huge and glistening.

'I — I'm just stupid, I suppose! And you made me take six subjects, not five like I wanted, and…'

'Stupid, my eye. How could anybody fail in
geography!
You know very well what you can do if you want to! You're just lazy, spending your time buried in those comics — oh yes, I know where you hide them — dreaming up at the clouds, gathering wool all day, doodling around with a pencil. How on earth do you expect to get ahead in this world? After all I invested in you! I had such hopes for you, nothing was too expensive; you were to have every opportunity and… Anyway, now it's too late. You've had your chance and you've — oh, God, I could just…'

Lucy Quentin threw her knife at her uneaten food, scraped back her chair so that it toppled over, and strode off, the rage almost zapping out of her. She stomped down the stairs to her office.

Saroj put a hand over Trixie's.

'Never mind, everyone knows you're going to be a brilliant artist. Wait till you're famous, then see what she says.'

'I… I… Oh Saroj, I'm just so thick, just so…' She flopped forward and buried her head in Saroj's arms and sobbed with heart-wrenching abandon. Saroj held her close, trying to give comfort.

'You're not thick, Trixie. It's just that, well, you have your own special strengths.'

'To hell with my strengths!' Trixie's voice was bitter. 'Look at you, you get A’s just like that . . .' She snapped her fingers. 'It means you're my mother's dream daughter, you're probably going to be a doctor or something and I'm just, just a failure and she can't stand the sight of me, and…'

'Look, Trixie, she's just angry because you can't live up to her expectations, but maybe her expectations are wrong! I mean, why can't she be proud of your artistic ability? I'd give anything to paint like you do and that's just as good as being a doctor or whatever she wants you to be!'

'Painting! Poof !' Trixie waved her hand in dismissal. 'For my mother that's just child's play. It’s not
serious.
And now with these results, what can I do? Can't go into Sixth Form. Can't get a decent job. Not even in a bloody bank with that maths exam, thank goodness for small mercies.'

'You could repeat the subjects you failed.'

'Okay, and what then, some bloody job somewhere? I just wish I could… get married and have done with it. Why couldn't I have been pregnant! But now Ganesh's gone and you're going and I'll be here all alone in this dead-end country, and…'

'My goodness, Trixie, grow up! D'you really think a
baby
would have solved your problems ?'

'Yes,' said Trixie. 'I'm just a failure, can't even get pregnant properly!'

'You're not a failure. You're the best person in the world. You're so good it shines in your hair.'

T
HAT EVENING
they were sitting around reading, Trixie her comics and Saroj a book, when Lucy Quentin called up the stairwell, 'Trixie, come down here, please. We need to talk.'

'Oh
shit,
what's she want now?'

'You'd better go and see.'

'Another tongue-lashing. Oh hell, Saroj, I can't take it again. Come with me and hold my hand!'

Together they walked down the stairs and into the office. Trixie entered first, Saroj close on her heels. Lucy Quentin sat at her desk at the far end of her office, her back to the girls. The walls were lined with bookshelves, these filled with rows of the stuffiest looking books. Piles of papers, files, ledgers, all covered the floor in some sort of order known only to Lucy Quentin herself. Saroj was positively certain that if Lucy Quentin wanted a certain paper hidden among those piles she'd know exactly where it was and would whip it out in a second. She swivelled around in her chair as they entered. To Saroj's surprise the disgruntled mask had left her face and the smile she flashed them was almost cheerful.

'Mum, I wanted to —' Trixie burst out but Lucy Quentin interrupted.

'Yes, dear, I know you're as disappointed as I am, and I've been doing some thinking. I know exactly what we're going to do. In fact, I've already more or less solved the problem; that is, if you agree…'

Trixie and Saroj exchanged a puzzled glance. Lucy Quentin beamed at them, then gestured towards the typewriter.