A Matter of Marriage (41 page)

“Rab-bits! Rab-bits!” The boys took off down the side of the cottage.

“Richard, come and have a cup-of-tea.”

“Perhaps later.” He hesitated. “I'm sorry to intrude, but I've just heard and I thought you should know: Henry and Thea are planning to go to the Abbey tonight, to have a look at the upstairs rooms, for decorating. They're moving in a little sooner than expected.”

She dropped her duster, staggered backward, narrowly avoiding Richard's outstretched hand, and sat down on the hall carpet. What a good thing she had hoovered this morning.

“Richard, Richard, what can I do?” she wailed, but not so loud as to disturb her husband. She covered her face and started to rock back and forth.

Richard was silent. She peeked through her fingers and saw him staring down at her. Perhaps he needed some further direction.

She grasped his sleeve. “You, you will help, dear Richard. No one so proper, so capable as you!”

His long legs bent until he was squatting before her. His hands closed around her elbows and gently lifted her upright, putting her into something of a flutter. She had always made a point of touching his sleeve and patting his arm, as a mark of her seniority and to pull him into her family circle. But his touching her was a little much. No mind, she told herself, he is virtually my son-in-law.

As soon as she was standing, she batted him away and, when he persisted in offering her his arm, said faintly, “My duster.”

Richard, what a good boy, took the hint almost straight away and bent again to pick it up. He handed it to her, and she clasped it to her bosom and walked unsteadily to the hallstand's covered seat (big flowers, like Thea's new couches) and sat down. He approached again, and she waved the duster at him.

“Go, go to her, Richard. Save my Munni!”

He did not move. “Where shall I take her?”

If she told Richard outright to bring her here and Dr. Choudhury found out, after they'd had words over this very thing, her husband could ruin everything with his anger against her.

But if Richard acted on his own—everyone forgives a man in love. She made a choking sob, stuck a corner of the duster in her eye and produced a tear. He continued to wait, his tallness and wideness of shoulder blocking up her hallway. She sniffed loudly.

“Where shall I take her, Mrs. Begum? Will she be welcome here?”

He just would not take the hint. She began to feel positively irritated by his
gora
need for instruction, for every detail to be worked out in advance. This was an emergency, and Richard had to be the one to rescue Rohimun, to show the initiative of a hero. If he delayed any longer, Tariq would be the one rescuing his sister, and what would be the point of that? Rohimun needed to be grateful to Richard, and if they turned up on the doorstep of Windsor Cottage together, how could Dr. Choudhury refuse his daughter in front of the eldest Bourne?

“Oh, I cannot think, dear Richard . . .”

He was relentless in his silent waiting, she had to give him that.

“What can a poor mother do?” she sobbed.

“It's time she was home.”

“Yes, yes, please bring her home.” The words were out.

He was gone then, at last, like a good boy, moving with surprising speed for such a tall man.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Mrs. Begum stood and trotted rapidly to the kitchen. An intermittent rumble could be heard as she passed the sitting-room door. Dr. Choudhury was fully asleep then, and she spared a pinch of gratitude for his healthy-walk. It got him out of her way, during and afterward. And the less he knew the better.

She peered through the kitchen window for the boys, who had the rabbits out of the hutch and were trying to get them to race each other. She looked at her curtain and thought of Diana and Dodi, and of herself and the grief that a bitter and hostile elder can cause. Dr. Choudhury must be brought to a clear understanding and a wholehearted consent. Only this would truly solve Rohimun's disgrace, her exile and her dangerous unmarried state.

So there might be two extra for dinner then, as well as the Guris (if they stayed that long), plus Kareem and Baby. Her goat curry would go well for them. If she was quick she could also do a chicken korma for Richard: he'd had three helpings last time and still looked too thin.

She stopped in her tracks with another inspiration. She would invite Henry and Thea as well, when they came to pick up the boys. With all their packing up, she had seen the takeaway car go past Windsor Cottage to the Lodge twice in the last week. The more Bournes to watch and judge him, the more Dr. Choudhury would feel pressured to accept his daughter, and the greater the stamp of public approval for the future arrangement of Richard and Rohimun. She threw the duster into the kitchen sink. Perhaps an egg curry as well.

—

D
R.
C
HOUDHURY SNORTED
himself awake, surprised as always to find he had slept. It was only two-thirty so the guests weren't due yet, and he shuffled in socked feet to the study, where his most comfortable chair would be sitting in afternoon sunshine at this time. But within minutes of his settling in, there was a wifely rustling outside the door. He stood stiffly to turn the key and let Mrs. Begum in.

She was carrying half a cup of steaming tea and a flowered saucer with two green paan packages on it. He sat back down in the swivel chair and watched her arrange cup and saucer before him. There was a wooden stool next to the sari cupboard, used by Mrs. Begum to reach the topmost shelves, and she arranged herself on it, her head only a little higher than his knees.

Once he had taken his paan, she took the other. They both chewed quietly for a while. In his wife's presence and with the calming buzz of betel nut in his blood, he felt the burdens of fatherhood lift a little.

Mrs. Begum spoke, her voice thickened and slowed by the paan still in her mouth. “The boys are here. Henry-Thea coming to eat.”

“Ah.”

“Richard was just here.”

“I did not hear him. Did he seek my counsel?”

“No, no. He did not come in.” She fiddled with her talisman. “Have you noticed, my husband, how often Richard Bourne comes here now. How concerned he is for us, how much he wishes to please you.”

“But of course. We have much in common. We talk of Oxford, of London, of the Abbey . . .”

His wife looked at him, as if waiting for more, then leaned closer to him with her hands on her knees and spoke in a half-whisper. “Of course you have much in common. But
he
is not married.”

He stared at her and only just stopped himself from reminding his wife that she was unavailable for suitors.

She leaned even further forward. “I think, maybe,
he
is ready to marry.”

“On what are you basing this. Merely on his being unmarried and wealthy and visiting this neighborhood? You know that gossip and matchmaking are no interest of mine.”

His wife clasped her hands together over her talisman and leaned so far forward that her chin almost connected with the corner of the study desk. “He told me, just now, that he has seen Rohimun. He has discovered her.” She hurried on before he could react. “By accident. He saw her once, um, a few days ago. When he realized that she was your daughter, he told her that she could stay in the Abbey, and he has since taken great pains to acquaint himself further with you, with Tariq, with all of us. In a way most respectful.”

Dr. Choudhury could feel a headache beginning in the center of his forehead and radiating to his eyes. He pressed his fingertips to his brow and closed his eyelids.

“Please believe me, my husband, on my life, on my children's lives, he has been most honorable, most discreet. Tariq has been watching him, chaperoning Munni at all times. Richard has now told me that he has only been waiting for the right time to approach you. A sign that you saw him as an acceptable suitor. He has such respect, such admiration for you.”

He could not speak. It was many minutes before he was able to comprehend what he had just been told. At length he started to recover.

“Mr. Richard Bourne. In this family?”

So this too had been taken out of his hands. Relief and astonishment rose in his heart, but was supplanted by disbelief. It was all wishful thinking: Shunduri-and-Kareem had created, in his wife's head, Rohimun-and-Richard. The mother of his children was desperate, he knew, and most likely had concocted this ridiculous story as a last resort to get his agreement to allow Rohimun back into the house for the meeting with the Guris. Perhaps there was also a motive of one-upmanship here, given that she had gone to so much trouble to eclipse his own news of the Haj with her talk of Shunduri being betrothed. Perhaps she was also jealous of his great friendship with Richard. Hah. But . . .

“Have you spoken with him much?”

“Oh no, not before today. Just now.” She fiddled with her talisman again. “Although I saw something in his eyes, I felt something in my stomach, with some of the questions that he asked about our family and our daughters, at the party at the Lodge. And, just now, Richard called to say that Thea and Henry are moving into the Lodge very-soon and are visiting upstairs tonight. He wished to warn us. He is a true friend of this family.”

“What?” He stood, patting his pockets for keys. “Quick-quick. Tariq must go.”

“Tariq is with his sister already, but Richard said . . . said he would also go and warn her.” His wife touched the talisman on her blouse again.

“I will not have more disgrace fall on this house, wife. Even if it is Richard Bourne, there will be no boyfriend-girlfriend business in this house, in this family.”

Mrs. Begum let go of his sleeve and spoke with solemn certainty. “He will marry her. I will make it happen. But this cannot be done from the Abbey. She must be here, for things to be arranged properly, for him to become part of our family in the proper way.”

A wave of anger and disappointment rose in him. He had had enough of women and their scheming ways, their obsession with love and marriage. He'd thought that Richard was coming to see him, was interested in him, not some flibbertigibbet daughter. He had thought there was more to Richard than that. This house was like a marriage broker's, so completely lacking in intellectual and spiritual tone that it was.

He gestured in a dignified way for her to leave. “I will not listen to this nonsense about Richard Bourne. Hah. What next? Perhaps if any young women come for Tariq, send them in, for I am quite at leisure.”

His wife exited then, without another word, and he shut and locked the door behind her. Sarcasm would of course be lost on Mrs. Begum and, besides, he had a sneaking suspicion that even with Tariq, she would get her own way in the end.

He turned to the sari cupboard with, somehow, a lighter heart, recalling that Mrs. Begum had completed the false hem on one of the new saris: a symphony in green and gold that he had prevailed upon her to purchase last spring. He would pull it out and see how it draped with the extra weight. If what Mrs. Begum had been saying about Shunduri was correct, Baby would be wearing green and gold for her
haldi mendhi
any day now.

And if, he could not help thinking, in the unlikely event that Richard Bourne was to touch his feet and ask for Rohimun's hand, well . . . perhaps being able to say that Richard Bourne, barrister, of Bourne Abbey and Kings Chambers, London, was his son-in-law, could have its compensations.

He would dwell no more on this, he decided, except for a brief thought that if it really were true, he would be rescued from the terrible conundrum of Rohimun's future and, indeed, would be persuaded to let them marry from this house. He hummed as he draped the sari's
pallu
across his chest and turned to his friend the cheval. Summer was a lovely time for weddings.

—

K
AREEM SLOWED THE
Rover further and made a show of fiddling with the radio and the GPS to block his passengers' view of the speedometer. He had to somehow get Auntie and Uncle into the frame of mind they were in yesterday, when he had spoken to them on the phone. Before those dirty police had come knocking on their door this morning.

He could picture it all. The police car, angled half across the road directly in front of the house, sending flashes of red and blue onto everyone's front windows, just to make sure that every two-up two-down in the street was aware that the Guris were in trouble. The loud, tireless knocking on that modest front door, until Auntie and Uncle themselves, bleary and dishevelled and scared, opened it and were walked backward down their own hallway and interviewed in their own sitting room.

And after the police had left, and the tears and shouting between them had subsided, their great need to get out of Brick Lane, the instinctive urge for escape, to put time and geography between them and the police and the gossiping of their neighbors, would have been the only thing impelling them to still come here despite their likely desire to wash their hands of him.

“Shunduri Choudhury?” said Auntie.

He braked and swerved to avoid a nonexistent car. How the hell did she know?

“Yes, Khalama.” He should have realized that she had her finger in every curry and her eye in every sitting-room window. A glance in the rear-view mirror showed Auntie's forehead pushed upward into a series of bulging corrugations.

Her eyes swivelled to meet and hold his as she spoke the words again. “Shunduri Choudhury.”

“Yes, Khalama, it is her.” He spoke rapidly, trying to avert any explosions. “I saw her at a wedding. I have met her family, but you have been as my parents here in UK. I would never make such a decision without your blessing.”

“Why such a hurry now? Is she a good girl?”

He swallowed. “Yes, yes, she is a good girl.”

Uncle cut in. “Then why the hurry to make this girl wife number two? And what of your wife in Bangladesh. Have you . . . have you divorced her? She knows? Her family knows?”