A Matter of Marriage (17 page)

Perhaps because of the long hot spell, or Mrs. Begum's failure to fork the heap over, or even possibly some process connected with the ancient, dense substance hidden within it, the heat of the pyramidal pile had climbed and continued to climb. There was enough heat radiating from it now to cause small rippling distortions in the single shaft of moonlight that fell on its peak.

Then a tiny wisp of smoke appeared at the topmost part of the heap's cone. It rose, hung in the humid air. Just as it seemed about to disperse, another, slightly more definite coil of white appeared, then several more. The rich rotting scent of the compost began to be superseded, then swamped, by another smell, a powerful sweet bitterness.

The wisps became larger, more frequent, and merged into a continuous flow of white that moved steadily from the peak and down the sides of the mound, spreading out over the grass and vegetable garden toward the patio doors and beyond.

Before an hour had passed, the smoke had formed a dense white duvet that covered the lawns and had begun to flow down the hill toward the river, and along the side lane toward the High Street. The sleeping village, the Lodge and the Abbey itself, all lay in its path. Inside the cottage, Dr. Choudhury was once again snoring in his study chair, legs apart and covered in swathes of a pink and gold sari, his right hand resting on its
pallu
. A bitter scent drifted through the open window. He dreamt of material beauty: silk georgettes softer than velvet, damasks revealing the subtlety of their designs in candlelight, wedding
lehengas
so thick with gold wire embroidery that they could stand up on their own.

And then there he was: standing at the lectern in the Sheldonian Theatre, giving the Chancellor's opening speech to two thousand students and wearing, with his professor's bonnet, a most outstanding silk chiffon sari, deepest pink over a matching blouse, both spangled with gold wire, iridescent sequins and glass beads. He could feel the swinging weight of the embroidery as it pulled on the chiffon. He gloried in how it must look under the lighting and knew that every videoing parent would preserve him for posterity.

His speech concluded, and the students stood and gave three cheers, throwing their mortarboards into the air. Bowing graciously, the cynosure of all eyes, he turned on his heels to sway gracefully offstage, anticipating the crowd's reaction when they saw the sari's magnificent
pallu
, encrusted with gold and precious stones, as it followed the sinuous curve of his back . . .

—

M
RS.
B
EGUM, HEAD
ACHEY
even in her sleep and, despite the heat, cocooned in three-quarters of the marital duvet, also dreamt of beauty: the beauty of a perfect traditional wedding, with all the modern trimmings as well. At least twenty thousand pounds' worth. And she was somehow the perfect bride (young, beautiful, virginal, arranged, with lustrous hair and eyes so long and dark they hardly needed kohl) as well as being the bride's mother. She sailed triumphantly past envious aunties and neighbors in full knowledge of the perfection of the match, the super-abundance of the food, the enormousness of the dowry, the impressiveness of the in-laws, and the surpassing weight of the wedding gold (six kilos, nah) being heroically carried on head, neck, nose, ears, wrists and ankles by that perfect bride.

Mrs. Begum wriggled with pleasure at the sight, then moaned quietly as the white stretch limousine drew into view, to take away the bride and groom. Off to Mustique for their honeymoon, like Princess Margaret.

—

U
P AT THE
Lodge, Richard had delayed going to bed until Henry and Thea had settled in for the night, idling over the paper while goodnights were said and warnings were given, as always, about the dodgy downstairs loo. Then he went outside for one last cigarette in the certain, luxurious knowledge that he would not be interrupted. The usual evening breeze had failed to appear, leaving the garden still warm, although, strangely, he thought he could glimpse a bit of mist about. A hot day tomorrow then. He thought with resignation of the sofa bed and the single duvet, nylon-filled and covered by a pilling polyester Batman, that waited for him in the study. Christ knew how he was going to get to sleep at all.

But when he finally lay down in the Lodge's study, the masked avenger sitting clammily across his chest, and his own feet hanging over the bed end, he fell into sleep as suddenly and heavily as falling off a cliff. He occasionally came to, disturbed by cravings for nicotine and his king-sized mattress in Knightsbridge, breathed in the sweet, smoky atmosphere, then dozed and woke and slept again, returning each time to confused dreams of omission and failure.

In the Abbey Rohimun woke from a nightmare of fire and destruction to a painfully full bladder. She eyed the Tupperware container Tariq had given her for emergencies. No way.

The green velvet hangings were silver-grey in the moonlight, and a night breeze bellied them out as if the old house was breathing. Hundreds of men and women must have wakened like her, in this room in the night. Had any of them been exiled, she wondered, out of favor on some royal whim or error of judgement. Perhaps they spent their time here waiting on a message, not knowing whether to expect pardon or condemnation. Perhaps they were relieved to be exiled, free from all the pressure of having to keep other people happy. At least they had chamber pots, not bloody Tupperware.

She wriggled out of sleeping bag and camp bed, stood, then stretched her arms over her head and arched backward to get the kinks out. Oh, for a decent bed. She creaked open the door and trotted cautiously down the corridor to the bathroom.

But once she was back, she wasn't sleepy. She moved to the window and looked out. Moonlight, titanium white, flickered between bands of scudding summer cirrus, strobing the garden's topiary creatures into almost-life. The giant yew hedge, darker than the night, loomed like a wall between her and the rest of the world. A greyish-white mist had crept up from the river and over the lawn, spreading out as if to encircle the Abbey.

She needed some fresh air. Rohimun wiggled open the window and leaned out to take a deep breath. The air was smoky and bitter tonight, like wet leaves burning, and made her think of gardens, and gardeners. How satisfying to create a garden like that spread out below, to know that at least some of it would last for generations. How many paintings did that, out of all the dross that was produced. Nothing of hers, for sure. Not yet.

While she was still a student, and Dad had just started to get involved with Bourne Abbey, he had told her some of the stories of the Abbey and the people who had stayed in this room. The famous Victorian Islamic convert Lord Headley Al-Farooq. The colonial adventurer and translator Marmaduke Pickthall. Lady Evelyn Cobbold, who had been buried upright facing Mecca on her Scottish country estate. Poor artistic Edward Lear, so fat and lonely. And now her. Rohimun turned to look at the great bed. It was testered in a deep green velvet, which also covered the undulating down mattress, fifty years old at least. Her camp bed squatted next to it, runt-like, the repository of all the bad dreams that had followed her from London.

She shivered again and pulled her tracksuit top down over her tummy. It slid back up, exposing a roll of flesh to the cold. What was the difference between her and Lear anyway? She turned away from the window and aimed a vicious kick at the camp bed. Fucking hell that hurt. The camp bed took off like a rocket with the force of her kick, sliding over the floorboards until it had almost disappeared from view under the great bed's green coverings.

Rohimun limped over to the old bed and rested against it, then fished around and pulled her sleeping bag out from where it had hidden itself. The bed stood as high as her waist, so she hoicked herself awkwardly up over its side, taking the bag with her. She crawled across the velvet cover into the middle and, tracksuit top around her armpits, wormed into her sleeping bag in the soft sinking center of the mattress. The bed had probably last been slept in before central heating was installed. Rohimun sneezed, then yawned, her anger and her headache evaporating. She pulled her long rope of hair out from under her back, twisting it up above her head and throwing it over the top of the bolster. Then she moved further down, nestling in. Within minutes Rohimun had fallen asleep, dreaming only of swinging in a hammock under green trees.

N
OTHING, THOUGHT
D
R.
Choudhury, could be more pleasant on a late Saturday afternoon than a happy wife and the eye-burning hiss of roasting spices in the kitchen. Especially after a morning where everyone seemed to have gotten out of bed on the wrong side. The kitchen window's curtains billowed, showing glimpses of green grass and sunshine. Tariq should be walking Rohimun over from the Abbey about now, and it would soon behoove Dr. Choudhury to prepare himself for this meeting.

Mrs. Begum, sari-end tucked into her waistband, was shallow-frying fish cutlets coated in coriander and turmeric for
mas biran
, and the stove was full of metalware. Looking over his wife's head he could see
muki
, taro, on a rolling boil in one pot, almost ready to be tipped into the rich brown sauce of
bamaloh
, what his damn stupid colleagues called Bombay duck. But this was set off in a way they would never see in a restaurant, by his wife's specialty: emerald green floating clusters of
lottha
, water-lily shoots, national flower of Bangladesh and staple of the villages. At the rear of the stove was Mrs. Begum's largest pot holding a whole chicken simmering in a turmeric-golden sauce, the glorious
muruk murgh moshla
, gubbing and bubbing in a slow bass-note to the scream of frying fish and his wife's flying hands.

He clasped his hands behind his back and considered the kitchen table. His favorite salad—green tomatoes, chilli, garlic, onion and coriander—already stood near to his placemat, and there was a bunch of rather raggedy pinkish flowers in a glass in the center of the table. Dr. Choudhury raised his eyebrows but refrained from comment. It had only ever been Rohimun who picked flowers for the house. Tables were for food.

On the placemat for their eldest daughter was a small gold-rimmed glass of sherbet milk. He bent down disbelievingly to smell the distinctive mixture of pistachio and rosewater, then straightened. This welcome drink for honored guests, new brides, was utterly unsuitable for a disgraced, unmarriageable runaway. This could not be allowed.

He turned to face Mrs. Begum's plump back and cleared his throat loudly for her full attention, but she did not seem to hear him over the frying and gub-bubbing. He cleared his throat again, and his wife whirled around but sank below his line of sight to the floor behind the kitchen table.

Was this an attempt to avoid him? It was not his place, as the husband and father, to chase his wife around the kitchen to get her attention, let alone to go onto hands and knees under a table to catch her eyes.

He leaned forward a little, careful not to move his feet from their dignified, magisterial position, and knocked sharply on the tabletop. Mrs. Begum's head bobbed up at the level of the table, and as she was now paying him the attention she should, he felt able to stroll to the sink, which brought him to her side of the table. Her eyes followed him silently.

Having reached his target (for he had required a small glass of water), he could see that Mrs. Begum was squatting on the ground, yellow and black sari folds tucked through under her bottom, and the long and deadly
dhaa
blade upright on the floor between her thighs as she slowly sliced into the firm flesh of a papaya.

She was still working as she watched him, and he could see her thigh muscles flex through the thin cotton as her right foot, placed firmly on the base of the
dhaa
, braced against the strain on that sharpest of edges. One gentle brush on the blade and deep gold gave way to a dark-seeded center, the fruit opening up again and again as she continued to work.

Dr. Choudhury opened his mouth, then shut it again. His wife, despite her position on the kitchen lino, was staring at him in such a disconcertingly direct manner that he felt as if his back was pinned to the kitchen sink. Without shifting her gaze, she put the papaya segments down on a piece of newspaper and rested the fingers of her right hand, glistening with juice, on the flat of the large blade. He felt the need for a small sip of the refreshing water, nature's champagne, and swallowed carefully.

“You have made sherbet milk.”

Mrs. Begum's eyes narrowed. “
Jiioi.
”

Yes. What could he do with yes? This was not how conversations were supposed to flow between husband and wife. And why did she have to be using the
dhaa
at such a time? She showed no inclination to move, to approach him in an appropriately supplicating manner, as would befit the anxious mother of an exiled daughter. The sound of the frying fish, covered now, droned in an off-key, and the
muki
buzzed frantically against one another in their pot. She continued to stare, and he felt his back slip against the counter's edge.

He hurrumphed loudly. “Be sure that all this mess is cleared up soon, Mrs. Begum.” He clicked his glass onto the draining board in a decisive manner, folded his hands behind his back and, still hurrumphing, retreated toward the sitting room. He would wait there for his children. At least he knew how to do things properly.

—

T
ARIQ WATCHED
R
OHIMUN
fuss with her clothes. This meeting with Mum and Dad had come about sooner than he'd expected.

“It's no good,” she said. “Nothing fits.”

He couldn't believe Rohimun, of all people, was getting in a state about what to wear. She'd become plumper since he'd been away, and her old college
salwarkameez
, in fashionable-again pastels, strained across her chest and hips. Staring at the old cheval glass, she plucked vainly at the fabric, which had formed horizontal ripples over her breasts, and pulled down on the side seams.

“You'll rip it.”

She glared at him through the cheval. “Who asked you? It's
fine
, yeah?”

“If you say so.”

“Well, are we going or what?”

“Alright, alright.” He picked up the matching scarf from the bed and handed it to her. “Don't forget your
chunna
. I'll go first,” he said, pretending not to see her roll her eyes, and led their cautious procession along corridors and down stairwells until they were outside.

Halfway across the stretch of lawn that sloped from the Abbey's front, he turned to face his sister. “It's not going to be as bad as you're thinking, yeah? Mum and Dad have changed too.”

Rohimun, rushing behind, promptly ran into him. She dragged a length of the
chunna
back around her neck and pulled at her
salwar
. “It's wrapping round me like a bloody bedspread.”

“It must be a result of their moving here, out of the community,” he continued. “Or maybe all of us leaving home. It's like they've gotten younger, more modern.” He took Rohimun's hand to walk, automatically smoothing her wrist with his thumb to move non-existent bracelets out of the way. He felt it twitch with annoyance. “They've got new interests. New friends. Mum's joined the Women's Institute.”

“I know. It
is
only a year since I was here. They're not that different. Bai!” One end of the
chunna
had fallen again, then caught on a bush. She tugged at it. “Can you help me out here?”

“You're making it worse. Why'd you wear it if—”

“You bloody gave it to me. And you know why,” she retorted, wrenching on it now.

Since when did his own sister swear in front of him? Tariq started to speak, then reminded himself she was stressed, afraid, didn't know what she was saying. Everything hinged on this meeting: her whole future.

“Can you see me taking the beats in jeans?” Tiny silver beads sprayed onto the grass as she snapped threads and tore muslin to free herself.

He winced at the damage, so unnecessary, and broke off the offending twigs to forestall further destruction. “Look, there won't be any beats. All I'm saying is don't expect the worst. Dad took it pretty well, considering. And you know Mum. She's the one's been putting all the soft bones in your meat curry.”

In fact, the long uncomfortable talk they'd had early that first Saturday morning, about Rohimun and her past, his mother standing while he and his father sat at the kitchen table, had for him marked that seminal point that most of his friends had experienced in their last years of school, where they suddenly found themselves with more presence and authority within the family than before.

He remembered Ali, whose father, like most of his friends' fathers, had kept the family in line with beatings, arriving for class in what was to be his last year of school, with a black eye and bruised chin, and announcing that he was head of the family now. There would be no more beats from his father. Ali had told them how he'd blocked his father's arm, preventing him from hitting his mother and sisters, and after a few blows, his father had suddenly folded, left the house for some hours and, on his return, asked him to pay the restaurant staff's wages.

Tariq's own father, his friends always joked, had always been more like the stereotypical henpecked Hindu father, with his easygoing attitude, white-collar job and managing, ambitious wife. But then he was a Dhaka man, from the capital, not the villages. He had always been legal, had never cleaned toilets or driven taxis, and they had been one of the first Bengali families in Oxford to get their children through A-levels.

So Tariq had stayed “the boy,” and when he had occasionally fixed something around the house, or deputized for his father at a wedding or a funeral, Dr. Choudhury would say with stagey wonder, “Who would have thought he'd become so useful!”

He had resented this, but at the same time had been well aware that he did not want the situation to change anytime soon. That same year, Ali's parents had entered into marriage negotiations with a Brick Lane family of good standing in the community, and two months after Ali left school and joined the restaurant full-time, he was betrothed. Head of the family brought with it many responsibilities, in the community as well as the family, and a responsible man was a married man.

“I'll just be glad when it's over, you know,” Rohimun muttered suddenly.

Tariq, startled, agreed without thinking, then swallowed a rising irritation. She must know herself that it was simply a matter of going through the motions. Kneel, touch Mum's and Dad's feet, a few slaps, a few tears, and it was all done. Wayward second-generation daughters weren't exactly unknown in the community. All he had to do was babysit her, keep his mouth shut. Not every problem had a formula like that.

With a breeze came a faint musical sound: some instrument being played. The notes rose, then faded. Tariq watched Rohimun stop to look around for their source, tugging down on her tunic again.

The player came into view: as Tariq suspected, it was Denny, leaning against a pine tree, a tin whistle in his mouth.

“Who's that, then?”

“Oh, no one,” said Tariq. “I think he works here.”

Denny grinned and waved at them, and went back to his playing—only the most ragged semblance of a tune.

“Do you know him?”

“Not really. We chat sometimes.”

“He'd better not give up his day job, yeah. Whatever that is. He looks like a traveller.”

“He's Colin the gardener's son. He helps out a bit, that's all. Come on, we're going to be late.”

As they walked on, Tariq turned for a last glimpse of Denny. He'd slip out to meet him later, in their usual place near the river, after everyone was in bed.

Through the trees ahead, Tariq could see his mother's washing on the line: gold, purple, deep pink and turquoise. All madly flapping in the breeze, only a fence's breadth from Mrs. Darby's line, where a strict white-on-white policy seemed to be in operation. No wonder Mum never appreciated the washing-powder ads. “What's that whitey-white?” she would say to the television. “Plenty of time for whitey-white when I'm a widow, till then, browny-brown, bluey-blue, greeny-green . . .” And Dad would give his newspaper a tiny expert flick and remark to no one in particular, and in Bangla for maximum sarcasm, that Mrs. Begum should be consoled by the fact that she could avoid the whitey-white of widowhood altogether if she was to meet with Allah before him.

He felt a tug on his hand, and saw Rohimun's face tensed in profile.

“Look. There's Mum.”

Just visible in the garden was a tiny yellow-and-black figure that stood in an attitude of frozen concentration, before abandoning a laundry basket on the grass near the washing line and scuttling inside the cottage. The tinny slam of the back door was just audible.

Rohimun groaned. “What does that mean? They've changed their minds?”

“You know Mum. They want to do the big forgiveness scene through the front door, yeah?” Tariq tried to make it a joke, but his voice came out harsh with tension. “At least you'll get to kneel on carpet, not lino.”

She stared at the cottage, then tore off her
chunna
as if it was choking her, and dropped it. “Shit.”

Disgusted, he let go of her hand and moved toward the trees. These were really old: oaks, probably planted by the monks of the original Abbey. Had they ever intervened in family quarrels, he wondered. Or had they kept to themselves, spiritual brotherhood being more important than blood. Or maybe they were only there because their families wanted nothing more to do with them.

He remembered how one endless, lonely Friday, in his second year at university, living in college and away from home and community, he'd found himself wandering only a street away from the central mosque when the
azan zuhur
, the call to midday prayer, sounded out. He felt transparent, ghost-like, as he drifted with the crowd of men making their way to the front entrance of the mosque.

When he'd reached the top of the first flight of steps, almost inside, he'd stopped. What was he doing there? He hadn't been to the
Jumma
, the special Friday prayers, for almost five years, and he had nothing to cover his head. But he could not bring himself to turn around and walk back into all the curious and condemnatory stares that such an act would attract. He felt so delicately poised, on the very edge of existence, that it would only take one more act of coldness or misunderstanding to tip him into extinction.