Seahorse (17 page)

“No good,” said Santanu. “Either you comprehend the specular self-sufficiency of the artist's body. Or you don't.”

“In which case, everyone should be experimenting with farts or crap.”

“You said it, my friend, I didn't.”

The evening stirred to life as we passed the station, lit up by crowds and lights. A busker sang an Oasis song.
Back beat, the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out…
A man with a bull terrier held out copies of the Big Issue. We kept our heads down, pushing through people, pressing our hands into our coats. The way to Camden was dotted with overflowing pubs and restaurants, and oddly quiet stretches where boys with beer cans gathered on the sidewalk, attracted to the dark like nocturnal animals.

We talked about a movie we'd watched together earlier that afternoon at the Prince Charles theatre.
Fish Tank.
About a girl who lived in a housing estate, a desperate dancer, trying to free a white horse from behind barbed wires. Our conversation drifted—a new Japanese shop near Green Park selling wagashi, delicate, rice-powder sweets in the shape of seasonal flowers. Plans for the holidays next month in December.

“Don't say I didn't warn you… but there's a work party you'll have to attend.”

I said I didn't mind, that I hadn't made other plans anyway.

“You should travel out of the city if you get a chance,” he said. “Do you have friends outside London?”

“No, not really.”

“What about that guy from when we were in university?”

“Who?”

“The academic… wasn't he Brit? Didn't you know him well?”

A double-decker roared dully past us.

Nicholas and I only ever casually acknowledged each other if we met in college, and I'd walk away burning with the knowledge that I'd see
him later, more privately, back in the bungalow. As far as I knew, we'd been careful, there'd been no “talk”, not like with Adheer, who'd sought him out relentlessly, carelessly. Santanu's voice betrayed nothing more than casual interest, though, so perhaps—in my small panic—I was reading far too much into, what could be, an innocuous query.

“We lost touch.”

“Pity.”

I was silent, my breath misting in the cold air.

He continued, “Still, you should get out for a bit.”

“I will,” I said. “It's been good though… Eva always has something planned.”

“That's because Stefan isn't around. Once he's back, she'll vanish like a bubble… for a month or two. Until, that is, he leaves again.”

“He's never there… it can't be easy.”

“Not as hard as it used to be…” While in college in Delhi, he said, he was seeing a girl in Calcutta. They'd write letters, speak to each other once a week. “I'd save up to call from a PCO. We managed that way until she also came to London the first year I was here.”

“And then?”

“We broke up.”

Camden High Street throbbed with life and music. Its early Victorian buildings, with open fronts, flat roofs, and boldly painted façades, taken over by tattoo parlours, vintage shops, and used records stores. Now, though, bars and clubs stayed open, their music thudding out onto litter-strewn sidewalks. We passed a number of seedy betting shops and cash points, a pub called At World's End and an extensive selection of cheap fast food joints.

“Where the hell is this place?” muttered Santanu, whipping out his phone. Following GPS instructions, we took a left into a tangle of narrow alleys, and crossed an empty yard, used during the day as an
open-air market—skeletal stalls were piled along its sides. At the far end, I glimpsed the glimmering waters of Regent's canal. We walked toward a line of restaurants, quieter than the ones we'd passed on the high street. Youngsters smoked outside a place that called itself The Mexican; they all looked in their mid-twenties—a huddle of skinny jeans, fitted jackets and converse trainers. One girl, with cropped blonde hair, wearing a black floral dress and red buckle shoes, was holding up a phone, and taking photographs of her friends. Another, in a long patchwork skirt, was rolling a cigarette.

The Mexican was compact and crowded—a bar ran down the length of the room, ending just before an open space for tables and a small performance platform in front of a window that overlooked the canal. We ordered our drinks and joined Eva at a table she'd reserved. She was sitting alone.

“Where's Tamsin?” we asked.

“Oh… she couldn't make it. She… she's down with the flu.”

“Are you feeling alright?” I slipped into the seat beside her. Her eyes were unusually red-rimmed and tired.

“Yes… yes…” She laughed, a little, I thought, nervously. “I might've picked up a bug too.”

“Here,” I said, pushing my drink toward her. “Nothing a Bloody Maria can't vanquish.”

Soon, the crowd settled and quietened. Everyone's attention drawn to the musician. That evening, a dark-eyed girl from Portugal, wildly beautiful, with a face that reminded me of a seashell.

“Boa tarde, everybody.” Her voice was surprisingly deep, rolling over us like a plume of smoke. “I'm Mariana… Thank you all for coming.” She plucked at the guitar, her fingers slender and nimble. “I'll play a selection of my songs for you tonight… written over these past few years, and now to be compiled in an album. This first song… was written when I visited America… and it's about road trips.”

She was a deft, soulful musician—lingering on the slow and dreamy, moving between Portuguese and English. Her voice molded the air, sweetly melodious, a sultry rasp lingering at the edges of her notes. Sometimes, she closed her eyes. Or gazed at the people sitting closest to her in the front. Toward the back. She played for almost an hour. When the show ended, there were cries for an encore.

She laughed and strummed her guitar casually. Easily like Lenny.

This next number was special, she said. Even though she hardly played it. It was called Dead Birds. “It's a song about leaving and moving on. Migration. Going forward. It's about leaving my family mainly… but also people and a country that were making me unhappy and holding me back. Leaving people who don't dream, don't take risks, don't try to live life fully and are scared of everything, and try to keep you in a cage too. Dead birds. It's about being forced to leave people who're making you unhappy, even if you love them. I guess it also carries a certain amount of guilt for not being able to save them, for turning my back on them. It's a very sad song. When I started writing it I couldn't even play it to myself…”

Amanhã

Não vai voltar

Amanhã

Não vai voltar

E se eu quiser lá chegar

Não vou voltar

Não vou voltar

Dead birds

Don't ever smile

Dead birds

So scared to fly

And that's why we left years ago

We had to grow

And off we go

It peeled away the skin around my heart.

When it ended, there was long, ardent applause. The musician stepped away gracefully, laughing, taking a bow. Then the murmur of conversation returned, people moved to the bar to refill their drinks, turned to talk to each other. I played with my glass, long empty. Eva, I noticed, was similarly muted. Santanu, on the other hand, had his phone out to write a text. When he was done, he said he was leaving.

“What? Why?”

To meet Yara in Brixton.

“Brixton?” said Eva.

“Yes, what's wrong with Brixton?”

“Nothing… only it's quite far.”

“Which is why… sorry guys… I'm leaving now…” He gathered his coat draped on the chair, wound a woollen scarf around his neck, and headed outside.

“Five seconds,” said Eva later, as we walked to the tube station. “That's how long it took for him to be out the door. He even left his pint unfinished.” We were convinced. He must truly be in love.

It was half-past ten, and the streets of Camden were still buoyantly alive—youngsters shouted and play-fought across sidewalks. Despite the biting cold, people spilled out to smoke, clutching at their glasses and coats. At the station, oddly, the crowd lightened. Bright, white light reflecting off the corridor tiles made me feel as though I were in a hospital. A solitary black man busked on a saxophone, the sound echoing through the station in strange, rich echoes.
Dream a little dream of me.
Eva dropped a few coins into his hat as we passed by. He nodded in acknowledgement, not missing a beat. The Northern line carriage we stepped into was mostly empty, clattering in the darkness. A couple nearby, madly tattooed, sat in silence, punching the keypads on their phones. Further down, a group of inebriated youth, mostly male and white, loudly declared their allegiance to a football team. Names
scattered past—Mornington Crescent, Euston, Warren Street, Goodge Street, Tottenham Court Road. I'd get off at Embankment, as I usually did, and walk home. Eva would change to the District Line.

When we got there, though, she seemed reluctant to part. “Do you… are you hungry?

I shrugged. “Sure.” I didn't feel like going home either.

“Come, I know just the place.”

Chinatown, around the corner from Leicester Square, lay waiting like a colorful golden-red surprise. With its elaborate gated archway, strings of paper lanterns criss-crossing the sky, and shops gaily lit up in yellow, orange and white. Its restaurants with rows of whole roasted duck, skewered and hung at display windows. Pasted on walls, posters for ingredients I hadn't come across before, bars hidden in shadowy crevices. We stopped at Café Hong Kong, a deftly functional yet disarming place, divided into compact cubicles with wooden benches and tables. It looked more like a canteen than a restaurant. Blue fairy lights, strung perfunctorily along the walls, illuminated unframed Chinese movie posters—
Tai Chi Hero, Moon Warriors, City Under Siege.
Our waiter, dressed in a red and black striped uniform, hovered nearby as we studied the menu. The list was helpfully accompanied by pictures—food, if it were to be believed, that looked uniformly glazed in something shiny, like clear melted plastic.

“Minced beef thick soup.” For me.

“Luo Han Zai Beancurd.” For Eva.

The waiter jotted it down.

“And a Tiger beer,” I added.

“Make that two.”

A few booths down sat a noisy, giggly trio—two Chinese boys and a girl—incongruously well-dressed for the venue, repeatedly holding out their iPhones to each other. In one corner, a couple—they could have been Indian—whispered, intertwining fingers across the table.
At another, a large mixed group of friends, what were called “young working professionals,” had come to the end of their meal.

While we waited, Cantopop streamed over the speakers in synthesized sweetness. The singer belted out verse after heartfelt verse before the song dissolved in a drizzle of piano notes. Eva and I glanced at each other; despite the traces of sadness that had clung to us in Camden, we smiled.

“The first time I came here was with Stefan… I tell him that this music will now forever remind me of him.”

The waiter deposited our beer on the table.

“To Stefan,” I said, tapping the side of my bottle against hers.

She smiled, but didn't echo the toast.

“When's he next in town?” I asked casually.

“Oh, soon, I should think.”

I'd read about a Garry Winogrand retrospective opening someplace soon; perhaps we could catch it together?

“Yes, of course, we could.”

At times like these, I didn't know whether to enquire further, to ask about how it was between them, whether it took its toll, being apart. We talked freely about things easy to discuss—art, music, the weather—but little else more intimate, unless it was Santanu and Yara, or someone else at work embroiled in some stage of emotional engagement or error. Eva and I were friends, yes, but there was something in her deeply of this island. Reserved, closely guarded. A secret core wedged within an ancient coastal shelf.

The moment hung in awkward silence before it was saved by the waiter.

On my mat, he placed a wide, deep bowl brimming with meat topped with spring onions. And on Eva's, a plate of noodles with an assortment of vegetables and tofu. We ate briskly, and quietly. Eva spiked her noodles with the chopsticks, twisting and turning them with expert ease.

“I wonder…” she said suddenly, as though continuing a conversation she'd started in her head, “how inextricably bound some relationships are to particular places. Can we imagine ourselves with a person elsewhere? Under other circumstances. Would everything fall apart in another city? Another time in our lives?”

I coughed; my soup was strong and spicy, heavy with the saltiness of meat.

“I guess what's important is not the place, but how it changes you… or the other person.