A Matter of Marriage (8 page)

That was okay, he wasn't naive, had endured much worse at school, but here, somehow, he'd expected better. At school, acceptance of a sort was inevitable, and he was no great novelty. At Oxford, he remained an exotic oddity, like the Rhodes scholars hosted from far-flung countries. No one wanted to know what made him the same as them: if anything there was a sense of disappointment that he was not exotic enough with his jeans and his local accent; not wandering around in Punjabi-pyjamas, or smoking a hookah in his study. These people, England's intellectual elite, still saw him through the lens of Tom Brown and Billy Bunter.

And everyone he saw seemed to be dating, holding hands with girls, kissing in public, living with them, breaking up, kissing someone else. The
goras
'
relationships disgusted Tariq with their irresponsible, often alcohol-fuelled self-indulgence, seemingly devoid of tenderness and respect. And he also recoiled from his old Asian friends' relationships, with their moonish hypocrisy. All that swearing of true love and eternal fealty in the full knowledge that, after graduation, they would each dutifully walk the prescribed path into separate arranged marriages, and never see each other again.

So he had become a minority on two fronts: not only an Asian Muslim in England's whitest university, but a man with no
lalmunni
, no sweetheart, however temporary, to yearn for and protect. He became preoccupied with thoughts of his family, how much he missed looking after his sisters and being looked up to by them, how dear their innocence and admiration was. In that first year, his weekend trips and phone calls home had had all the frequency that even a Bangladeshi mother could desire. And he felt that his special bond with Rohimun, where, childlike, she still told her baiyya everything and asked his advice and opinion on all matters, was most precious of all.

But gradually he went home less and less on weekends, and Rohimun headed to London to study at the RCA. He withdrew into his studies and worked ferociously, achieving academically as he no longer seemed to be able to socially. The walks to lectures and to the library became solitary. He started to avoid the college bar and eat in his room instead of the hall, with only his books for company. His loneliness became terrible, deforming.

Jesus, what a mess he'd been in then: even worse than what Munni was in now. It was up to him to fix it, fix himself, fix everything, make them all a family again. He ran his hands through his hair, started up the car and headed back to the cottage.

—

R
OHIMUN SAW
T
ARIQ
again that evening, carrying a full tiffin container and a bottle of water as well as a shopping bag packed with other things that Mum had thought of in the meantime. And he came again on Sunday morning, with more food, staying to chat, but with an uneasy manner that spoke of continuing hostility at home.

In the afternoon though, it had, to Rohimun's shock, been her father who'd delivered the tiffin. She'd heard a knock and opened the door to find him standing there. He didn't come in, or say a word, just stared over her into the room behind her, then passed her the tiffin and left.

Yet he must have seen more of her boredom and loneliness than he appeared to. Soon after noon on Monday, Tariq turned up with a full set of Winsor & Newton oil paints, bought in London early that day to replace her old paint set from school, telling her it was Dad's idea. And then, pride and pleasure in his face and his voice, Tariq lugged into the room a large raw stretched canvas, about six feet by four.

“I got this myself. Saw it at the HobbyCraft in Swindon.”

She folded her arms and scuffed the floor with the tip of her sandal, refusing to look at it. “Thanks, Bai.”

But after he'd left, she could not help eyeing it, though indirectly, like a passerby trying not to stare, wary of the hopelessness that had gripped her whenever she had looked at her canvases in Simon's flat. After a while, and just for something to do, she primed it, taking her time to make the job last, enjoying the feel of painting without the pressure of creation, but eventually the job was complete. After an equally elaborate cleaning of brushes and folding of rags, she was left again with nothing to do.

Rohimun still couldn't bear to think of her disastrous Thames series attempts, sitting in the London flat: the only other big canvases she'd ever worked on. She had a creeping feeling, when she looked at this large, pristine canvas, that her studies of that cold river had been generated more by her agent's comments about the corporate need for foyer-size paintings, than anything more visceral. And it had been obvious: sweeping landscape was not for her.

But neither could she bear to revert to painting some version of the society portraits that had made her such a success in London. The very thought sickened her. And she had never been drawn to abstraction: it had to be figurative. But of what?

After hours of trying to ignore the canvas completely, her toes curling with boredom, Rohimun accepted that the cheval mirror was showing her the one subject that she had never attempted, never wanted to attempt, in all her years of training and practice. She didn't want to analyze why this had been so: it was enough to grapple with exactly what, or who, she was intending to paint just now.

Initially it was a process of elimination. It would not be the old Munni who hated photos and tradition and dressing up, and worshipped her brother. And certainly not the lumpish, resentful woman, Simon's
love
, who only wore Western clothes and couldn't manage without him. Someone different again, still forming perhaps. Well, then, it wasn't going to be a real portrait: just a painting with her in it. And she wouldn't even go full-faced or three-quarter: profile only. The real subject would be something else entirely. For a while Rohimun was stuck again.

The night was warm and still, and the darkened room with its oversized furniture and heavy drapes, felt claustrophobic after a day of doing nothing, with no television to lose herself in.

Finally, with her heart in her mouth, and jumping at every noise, Rohimun crept down the pitch-black stairs and unbolted the outer door. With the night air on her skin, she went for a cautious wander and found a walled garden area at the side of the building. Inside, an enchanted place, hidden from the world by its outer walls and further divided inside by little tiled streamlets. A garden out of Rossetti, or an illustration in a medieval hymnal. It reminded her of something else too, just outside her grasp.

She smelled the roses before she saw them, surprised by the strength of their heady night-scent. The roses themselves, bleached by moonlight into silver and grey, were far less spectacular than their fragrance, but for the sake of the exotic perfume she worked her nails into the thick stem of a two-headed specimen until it broke free, and carried it back to her room to sit in her water bottle.

When Rohimun woke the next morning, her roses revealed themselves. The outer half-inch of each petal was a coppery yellow that deepened to apricot and finally a dark, almost burnt orange at the center. She had her real subject. Rohimun stood at the window and slowly pulled apart one of the blooms, petal by petal, down to the stamen and beyond, examining each piece, then laying it on the sill. Each petal was a work of art in itself. She remembered the injunctions the RCA first-years had been constantly given: to look properly, to really see. She'd always applied it to people's faces, their hands, how they sat and stood as indications of character and personality: never to nature.

The diaphanous quality of each petal, combined with the reflected internal light of the whole: how could this be painted? She wished she'd paid more attention to van Aelst and Redouté, those masters of the rose, and tried to re-create in her mind's eye some of their paintings: how they showed both the fragility and the depth of the bloom, its pigmented translucence.

For the first time in more than two years she felt excited about painting, and when her father unexpectedly arrived again that morning with his mournful, averted face and her tiffin, she passed him last night's supper container with a note tucked into its lid that listed the additional paint colors, mediums and brushes that she would need. He opened it, and she saw his face startle before returning to its resting expression of noble suffering.

“For Tariq, Abba,” she muttered, embarrassed when she realized that he had expected something else: an apology, perhaps, for everything. Not likely. She was beyond that now. Not sure where exactly, but not there.

K
AREE
M'S
GPS
HAD
been silent for the last half-hour except for the occasional plaintive
No signal connection
and
Unable to calculate
. Dark clouds covered what sky could be seen between the trees, and the
weep weep
of the wipers were an unwelcome reminder of the sunny weather that Kareem and Shunduri had left behind in London. Even the stuffed peacock in the back seat, a gift from a new supplier that Kareem had decided at the last minute would do as a family present, seemed uneasy as it gazed out the left side-window with tightly closed beak and beady eyes.

For the past few minutes, ever since the rain had begun, Kareem had been driving steeply downhill on a winding single-lane road with no visible signposts, so crowded by trees and bushes on both sides that there was nowhere to turn around. But his princess, put into the back seat with the peacock fifteen minutes ago for reasons of respectability, did not appreciate this point.

“It's an all-wheel drive, yaah?”

“I'm not getting dis car dirty for anyone, Princess. Know how long it took to shine up?” And all done earlier this morning than any Asian man should ever be getting up, due to Shunduri's multiple texts telling him to get up.

“What are you going to do, then?”

He shrugged irritably, concentrating on keeping all four wheels of the large vehicle on the narrow strip of tarmac and away from the reaching arms of the undergrowth. He'd have to go over everything with a chamois once they were out of this wilderness. “We just keep going, innit?”

“What, so we just keep going on down like this for evah, yaah? Me and this stupid bird?” Shunduri sniffed, and he could see in the rear-view that she had folded her arms and was staring at the peacock with a kind of competitive hostility. “I don't
think
so.”

As she spoke, the dark road started to twist and rise, then they passed between two stone statues: a wolf and a lion. It looked like private property to Kareem, and he adjusted his shoulders uncomfortably, tense from holding the car positioned in the middle of the road and from looking for a way out. He must have been dreaming to have gotten himself this lost.

But just as they encountered another statue on their right, a leopard or cheetah, and he was readying himself to ask whether there was some kind of safari park near her parents' place, the tarmac gave way to a broad sweep of creamy gravel with a gigantic grey stone building at its end. He leaned forward and stared up through the windscreen. Jesus Christ, it was as big as Buckingham Palace. Some kind of hospital, or country club, maybe. He turned off the engine and started to fiddle with the GPS.

“Somefin's wrong wiv dis, for sure.”

Shunduri bounced in her seat. “It's the Abbey. Bourne Abbey. Look. We must've come up the back way.” She pointed at a small white sign stuck into the lawn right in front of the building, and he twisted around to read it.

Bourne Abbey Tea Rooms, National Trust, This Waye
, and a gothic arrow that pointed away from them. No one was to be seen, and it was very quiet. Even the rain had stopped.

“Dad knows these people,” she said.

“Your dad?”

“Yaah. He's been advising them. On the building, fixin' it up an' that, for years now. That's why they moved here from Oxford.”

What appeared to be the main entrance was deep in shadow and, with its iron-studded door, it looked straight out of a
Dracula
movie. All it needed was a creepy butler squeaking it open. He leaned back in his seat, feeling observed, despite the car's tinted windows.

“They
live
here?”

“Mum and Dad? Nah, they moved close to here, in Lydiard. The village. That's where we're
supposed
to be.”

Kareem started up the engine again.

“What are you doing?”

“Turning round, innit? Plenty of room to turn round here.”

“Forget that. I'm gettin' out and asking for directions. Seein' as your GPS is so fine.”

“Eh, Princess, no need for that,” he said faintly. Hadn't she seen any horror movies? They had half a tank of petrol and no need at all to hang round here. Next thing, she'd go missing and he'd have to go looking for her. Straight out of
Hammer House of Horror
. Never go exploring, never split up. Didn't she know anything?

But she was already unclipping her seatbelt, and Kareem, doomed, gave one last despairing rev before switching off the engine.

“We're not splitting up, yeah? I'm comin' wiv you.”

Shunduri stared at him, clearly irritated. “What are you talkin' about?”

Lightning flickered, putting the Abbey into silhouette behind her, and he bit his fingertips to ward off the evil around him.

—

“
O
H,” SAID
T
HEA.
“Very
Mission Impossible
. But who would turn up at the Abbey now? No one knows we're here except the decorator.”

She and Henry had risen from the National Trust guidelines, fabric swatches and paint chips spread out on the sitting-room table, and were spying through one of the rear-facing windows, drawn by the sound of a car turning onto the gravel outside. She'd wanted to get to the Abbey early before the decorator came, but who could this be?

The shiny black SUV had stopped, facing the house, but no one got out. Thea had to resist an urge to press her nose against the glass. The car windows were so dark that she was unable to see inside, and the effect was such that the car seemed to be looking at them. She could hear Henry just behind her, fidgeting restlessly.

“It must be the decorator. Why doesn't she get out?” he said.

“The decorator's not coming till later.”

“I thought we were meeting her this morning. That's why we're here . . .”

She didn't recognize the car. Were they trying to force her and Henry to come out to greet them? Was this some kind of power play?

“I wanted to get here early so we could look at the fabrics and paint samples in this room and make some decisions. Then the decorator for lunch at one, then we work, then afternoon tea before she leaves. That's why Audrey's here. I can't do everything myself, you know.”

Henry made his nervous, throat-clearing sound. “Do we know them? Are they, ah, family?”

“You mean
my
family when you say that, don't you?”

“I'm just caught a bit by surprise, Thee. You know me.”

She did not deign to reply. The SUV's side passenger door swung open and, in one twisting, sinuous motion, a figure emerged and slid to the ground. She wore a long-sleeved, boat-necked black dress with ruched sides, sheer black stockings, black three-inch heels, black gloves, a black headscarf tightly bound and knotted around her head and neck, and sunglasses that obscured most of her face. She looked like a negative print of Grace Kelly. The woman paused, facing the house, then slammed the car door shut and started, with some apparent difficulty, to traverse the remaining loose gravel between herself and the back door.

At the first of the three steps up to the entrance, she stopped, one hand on hip and one outstretched diagonally behind her, as if reaching for something that should be there.

Thea stared. “Alaïa, I can just tell. Blahnik heels. I don't know about the glasses though. If they're not copies, that's that new Dior shape that even Pip can't get her hands on yet.” She clicked her tongue. “
Christos
. If tight from neck to ankle is the new silhouette, I'll have to lose twenty pounds.”

“Ah, Thee.” Henry took a step away from the window. “Is this some relative you haven't told me about? Because she looks cross and you know I'm not . . .”

Thea, still entranced, flapped her hand in negation. “Who
is
she?”

“She looks Greek. She's got that look.” Henry's voice was lugubrious. “Remember your Auntie Alex? She wore black too. And no one told me she'd put a curse on me for taking you away from the true church. Remember? She said that if she'd had anything to do with the Kiriakis Trust, I'd have to pay back every drachma . . .”

Thea pressed her lips together. A pillar of strength he was. Without taking her eyes from the window, she reached behind her, caught Henry's sleeve and pulled him forward. “Look.” She pointed with her free hand. “There's another one!”

And indeed, another figure, also in black, had descended from the driver's side of the car. This second figure was as clearly male as his companion was not. Dressed in a skin-tight, black Savile Row suit with a charcoal stripe, black shirt and tie, driving gloves and wrap sunglasses, his head was shaven, his ears glittered, and he had a boxer's broad shoulders, wasp waist and chicken legs. With no discernible hurry, he swaggered around the front of the car to his companion, who grabbed his sleeve and used it as leverage to pull herself, hobbled by the long tight dress, up the steps.

Henry gave a sigh partway between resignation and martyrdom. “I'll go to the door.”

“No, wait. I'm not ready.” Thea glanced at the mantel mirror, bent over and shook out her bob, and stood back up to comb it through with her fingers so that it flowed back from her face in a glossy black helmet. On tiptoe, she could just see reflected her favorite brooch, a cream-on-rose Helen of Troy cameo, circled with gold. Her fingers flicked it as she briefly surveyed the room.
This is my territory now
.

“Quick! Help me get the dust covers off the sofas.”

As Henry folded the covers and dropped them, at her direction, through the doorway that led to the servants' passage, she took a quick look around. This room was presentable enough, impressive enough, for unexpected visitors, with its view over the Park and a fire burning in the hearth, and Colin's wife Audrey in the Abbey kitchen to look after them. Good thing she'd put on the McQueen cashmere this morning, with its breastplate design woven into the pattern. Very cutting-edge.

In the mirror she met her husband's eyes, and was startled into a smile when he grimaced at her seriousness. He came closer, and his hand brushed her shoulder. “Girding our loins?”

She shook her head at him wryly. Easy for you to say, she thought. No one questions your right to be here.

The doorbell pealed just as he opened his mouth to speak.

“They're
not
family.” Thea knew what he had been about to ask. Again. “I've never seen them before.” She took a seat at the table so as to face the double doors that led off the main hall, threw the Biro in the wastepaper basket and found the Mont Blanc fountain pen in her handbag.

“Oh.” Henry walked to the table and shuffled the loose papers into disorder for her. “So, ah, we wait then?”

She could sense him hovering but refused to look up. “Yes.” The doorbell pealed again.

Eventually Audrey could be heard on her way, muttering under her breath, to answer the back door. Thea waited, head down and fountain pen raised, as if confronted by a particularly tricky National Trust issue. Audrey's knock at the sitting-room doors was soon heard, followed straight after by Audrey herself, flowered pinny on and tea towel in her hand. Opening doors was not her job.

“Oh, that's where you be, Mrs. Kreekis,” she said in a carrying tone, making her position on having to leave the kitchen clear. “There's a man an' lady.”

Thea hesitated, torn between going too far with Audrey and a real need for information. “Did you get their names, Audrey?”

Audrey sniffed. “Summat
furrin
'.” She looked pointedly at Thea. “Couldna' make head nor tail ovvit.”

Thea drew breath to speak, but Audrey slapped the tea towel against her flank and turned away to show that she had no intention of taking this front-of-house rubbish any further. “I'm showin' them in then,” she threw over her shoulder.

Audrey returned almost immediately and proceeded to open only one half of the double doors that led into the sitting room from the hall. She flattened her bulk against the door with exaggerated care, waving the mysterious visitors past her with a flip of her tea towel. The woman in black stalked in first, brushing past Audrey without a second glance.

The man followed her, but he had to turn sideways to pass. Broad-shouldered but short, he was no match for Audrey's big-boned, farmer's-wife build, which gave her the necessary height to talk eye to eye with a reluctant Henry when his breakfasting habits got too messy. The man had made the mistake of facing Audrey to slip past, which put him at eye level with her massive floral bosom. Acres of cornflowers. For a second he froze, transfixed. She stared back at him unsmiling and, somehow diminished, he turned his head to the side and made his escape into the room.

“Here they be then. From Lunnon,” Audrey said flatly, turning to exit, but not quite fast enough.

Thea, having learned her lesson, spoke at once. “Thank you, Audrey. Can we have coffee and cake, please.
Proper
coffee.” She turned to her guests, rising from her chair and smiling, her voice slowing and smoothing to pure transatlantic caramel. “I'm so sorry. I didn't catch your names.”

In the hurly-burly of first-name introductions, and talk of GPSes and roadworks detours, the obscuring sunglasses were finally removed, and Thea found herself staring at a young woman whose swarthy coloring, slim build and designer clothes were close enough to her own old London appearance to feel familiar, and whose head-high, nervy aggression also gave Thea the sharpest stab of self-recognition.

Here was fifteen-years-ago Thea, new to school in England, escaping a fractured, feuding family back in Athens. Trying to break into the little cliques that mattered, but always the shortest and darkest, always the accent that singled her out. And then, after the hiatus of her undergraduate years in Stanford, it was also ten-years-ago Thea doing the whole thing again at Oxford for her master's, always on the outside, always pretending not to care but, underneath, paddling frantically to catch up, to break into the magic circle of belonging.