Birmingham Friends (46 page)

As Olivia walked towards her, Anna saw that the orange clothing was a sari. She came gliding across, wrapped in the graceful folds of silk, feet bare and silent on the coloured rugs which dotted the floor. Anna’s mind struggled to make sense of what she was seeing. She felt a second of panic. How should she react?

Olivia stopped a couple of feet away and searched Anna’s face with her eyes. Then she smiled, a transformation, showing small, creamy teeth and an immense vivacity which shone from her eyes. She put her hands to her own face, resting her fingers lightly against her cheeks, taking in the sight of her visitor with a childlike kind of wonder.

‘Anna, you’re the image of your father. What beautiful hair.’

Anna smiled shyly. In seconds any anger and hostility dissolved. She was enchanted. ‘Hello,’ she said foolishly. She found it hard to meet Olivia’s eyes, her gaze was so intense.

‘I’m so very glad you’ve come.’ Olivia reached out to shake hands with instinctive formality, and for a second Anna held her small, smooth hand. ‘Come and sit with us and take tea,’ she said, gesturing towards the table. As she spoke, Anna noticed an odd sing-song quality in her voice, like many Asians sounded speaking English. ‘Edith and I had almost finished. You won’t mind us cutting it a bit short today, will you?’

Edith, an awkward woman in her sixties, gave a nervous giggle. ‘No, we’ve done well today, haven’t we, Olivia? I think we deserve a rest.’

‘I’ll just go and see if Sean’s fallen asleep in the kitchen,’ Olivia said. ‘Sit, Anna – please.’

She took a chair, noticing a strong perfumed smell in the room. Edith was stowing books into her mock-leather bag. She had tired-looking skin even in this muted light, but large, interested grey eyes.

‘Are you another of Olivia’s young friends?’ she asked.

Just then there came an odd sound from the kitchen, a kind of muffled outburst. Edith pretended not to notice. Distracted, Anna said, ‘Er, sort of.’ She began to feel she was in a dream. ‘What is it Olivia teaches you?’

‘Bengali,’ Edith said, as if surprised that Anna didn’t know. ‘She’s very good, you know. Very gifted woman, what with all her music and everything. I’ve learned to speak the language quite a bit over the years what with one thing and another. Now I’ve retired I thought I’d do it properly and learn to read and write better.’ She gave a little giggle. ‘You know – Tagore in the original . . .’

There was another slam of the front door as she spoke and in seconds a black face topped by very short hair appeared panting round the door. ‘Awright?’ He nodded at them both. ‘Sean here?’

‘In the kitchen,’ Edith said. ‘Shall I . . .?’ She made to get up but the young man, in shorts and a sports shirt, was already across the room.

‘He’s going to get roasted, I tell you . . . Sean – the tournament? You were supposed to be down there an hour ago. Where’s your brain, man?’

There was a gasp. ‘Oh shit! – Sorry, Olivia. I forgot. Have they started?’

‘Course they’ve started. I paired up with Rob for the first set, but we need you there.’

‘Look, Theo – ’ Sean ran through, shouting back over his shoulder. ‘You go on. I’ll be down, OK?’

He was followed by a sweating Theo, shouting, ‘Don’t forget your racquet,’ and ‘See yer,’ in Anna and Edith’s direction. For an odd second Anna found herself missing Richard. She felt old, vulnerable and out of place with all these new people.

‘Who are these blokes around the place?’ she asked Edith.

‘They’re Olivia’s lodgers,’ Edith said, bravely accepting, but obviously not quite sure about it all. ‘They have the top floor, you see. There’s so much space. Sean studies engineering – I think – and Theo’s doing some sort of science, chemistry . . . And there’s Ben who you probably haven’t met. He’s a postgraduate. Something to do with languages.’

Anna frowned. ‘Surely it’s still the holidays?’

Edith looked perturbed. ‘Yes, I suppose it is. They don’t seem to go home though . . .’

Olivia came back in with a beautifully laid tray of tea, including a plate of Indian sweets, bright with the red and green of cherries and pistachio.

‘A good job I took over from Sean,’ she said, ‘or you’d have had a teabag in a cup and a stale Rich Tea biscuit.’ She offered the plate of sweets to them, telling Anna, ‘These are a treat on Bengali afternoons. Edith comes to me once a week.’

Anna nibbled a square of pistachio
barfi
, feeling its thick, milky sweetness slide over her tongue.

‘Mostly, you see, I make my living from teaching music – and the lodgers, of course,’ Olivia said, as she poured tea with an almost exaggerated grace.

‘Does your son live with you?’ Anna asked.

‘Krishna?’ Olivia’s face took on a glow. ‘Yes, he’s home at last. He’s just done his first year at college in London and is having a simply marvellous time.’ Anna noticed that the sing-song quality had gone from Olivia’s voice. Instead it had become gushing. ‘He’s out at the moment. He has an old friend in Kings Heath who owns a very nice furniture shop. Krish has done bits of work for him sometimes and poor Jake’s marriage seems to have broken up so I think Krish is company for him. Krishna would cheer anyone up, wouldn’t he, Edith?’

Edith managed, ingeniously, through a mouthful of
barfi
, to adapt concerned cluckings over Jake’s marriage to noises of agreement and mirth concerning Krishna.

‘He’s doing his degree in anthropology,’ Olivia went on proudly. ‘And learning Bengali. He’s adoring it. Finding out about a culture that’s half his, after all. His father was from Calcutta, you see. I met him when I was studying in London myself after the war. He had a visiting lectureship.’ She related this in the tones of someone telling a fairy story. ‘I don’t make any secret of the fact that I’ve been a single parent – after all, it’s almost the mode nowadays. At first, though, I called myself Mrs, of course. It wasn’t the same at all in the early 1960s . . . It’s not at all easy bringing up a child by yourself – especially as my family couldn’t cope with what I’d done. But Krishna’s been the most wonderful child – I can hardly begin to tell you.’

Edith nodded enthusiastically. ‘He’s a lovely boy. And I’m sure you’ve been a tower of strength, Olivia.’

Olivia accepted this compliment graciously. ‘He’s the one who’s given me all the strength in the world. We keep in touch all the time when he’s away. We’re so close – sometimes it’s quite uncanny.’

Anna watched her, fascinated. Sitting nearer Olivia now, she could see the slackness of her skin, a truer indication of her age. But she found herself mesmerized by her vivacity, coupled with an apparent openness and vulnerability which took her quite by surprise.

When Edith had drunk her tea she departed, full of thanks, saying, ‘I’ll look forward to next Tuesday!’

Olivia showed her out, then glided back into the room. Still in the charming voice, she said, ‘Edith used to be a missionary in Bangladesh. With the Baptists. Now she’s retired I think she’s a bit lost, poor soul. This gives her a purpose.’

She moved to the piano, stood against it, her back very straight. Her face altered, as if something had dropped from it. In a tight voice, she said. ‘Did she want you to come?’

Half prepared, Anna said truthfully, ‘I’m not sure.’

‘Then why did you?’

‘Because I wanted to.’

‘She told you about me?’

‘All the time when I was little. About your childhood together, your friendship. It made me long to have a friend like that myself. You had something very special.’

Olivia’s eyes were fixed away from Anna across the room. In their expression Anna thought she glimpsed something hard and malevolent. Then, as if roused from her thoughts, she said, ‘Look, I’m terribly sorry, but I’ve another pupil due in a few minutes – piano this time. Would you be free to come again, say tomorrow evening? I don’t have any teaching late tomorrow and you could meet Krishna.’ She gave Anna one of her sudden, overwhelming smiles. ‘I’d so like to have a talk with you and hear about Kate after all this time. She was, as you say, my very best friend.’

Anna found herself agreeing eagerly. At the front door, Olivia took her gently by her upper arms and reached up to kiss her. Anna felt Olivia’s breath on her cheek, smelled again the pungent perfume she had noticed in the room, some sort of scented hair oil.

‘You will come, won’t you?’ Olivia stood looking tiny under the high doorway, vulnerable again now.

‘Of course. Seven o’clock.’ Anna waved, backing down the drive.

In the car she sat for a time once more, breathing heavily, aware of the fast beating of her heart.

What on earth’s come over me? she thought. She knew that her emotion stemmed partly from the strangeness of touching the past, of beginning to close a circle. But it was more than that. It was something in Olivia herself that had stirred her in this way, and not to anger or resentment, the emotions she had felt obliged to carry with her, but to something quite unexpected. Reaching down to try and put the key in the ignition she realized her hands were shaking. She was fluttery and energized as if newly in love.

Ben opened the door the next evening, still in the flip-flops.

‘Hi.’ He squinted out through the round spectacles like a mole, round face pressed into an anxious look, then smiled. ‘You’re Anna.’ He stood back to let her in. The house felt cool. She had put on an old sleeveless dress made of Indian cotton in pale blue and white stripes, long unworn because Richard said it made her look like Little Bo-Peep. She carried a bunch of white roses.

‘We’ve heard a lot about you.’

Anna turned, startled. ‘From Olivia?’

‘No need to look so worried. All we’ve gathered is that you were the most beautiful baby the world’s ever seen – after Krish of course!’ Ben laughed. He spoke very fast, with a nervous fussiness about him. ‘That’s just Olivia. She’s very extravagant – things she says.’

‘I see,’ Anna said, rather uncertainly. She was distracted by noises from the rest of the house: voices, laughter, the pulsing of music. The hall was filled with a delicious, spicy smell.

‘Krish’s upstairs with Jake,’ Ben told her. ‘I’ll take you through. Olivia’s getting one of her feasts together.’

‘Are we all eating together then?’ Anna frowned. From what Olivia said the day before she had expected to be alone with her.

‘She does this every so often,’ Ben said as he showed her into the long room again. ‘Family meal she calls it. It’s just hard luck if we’ve got things on. We have to cancel or she’ll be under a cloud for days.’ Anna noticed the tone of indulgence in his voice. ‘As it’s out of term now there’s not much going on anyway, luckily.’

Anna was peeved for a few seconds, feeling childishly that she wanted Olivia all to herself. But as soon as she walked into the long room she felt uplifted and found herself smiling. She had been alone so much this week: it would be good to have company.

The round table was laid with a scarlet cloth, and Theo was putting cutlery on it, jigging around to a tune that must have been going on in his head, twirling forks in the air and catching them with a flourish before setting them down. At the other end of the room where there were a sofa and easy chairs, Sean was watching TV, perched forward on the edge of his seat. He didn’t look round, sat with shoulders hunched, Rizlas and lighter on the table, a skinny cigarette held close to his face. His hair looked lank and unkempt.

‘This is Anna,’ Ben told Theo.

Theo stepped forward and to Anna’s surprise, shook hands with solemn formality. ‘Good to meet you properly – saw you yesterday, didn’t I?’

Anna liked Theo immediately. ‘D’you need a hand with anything?’

‘No – I’m getting on fine thanks.’

Theo went back to finish his juggling and table laying. Ben was just relieving Anna of the flowers when there was a soft rustling sound in the doorway.

‘Don’t try that with the glasses, Theo.’ Olivia made her entrance carrying a small tray of pickles. This time the sari was vivid blue, catching the light in a host of parrot shades.

‘Anna, my dear . . . Oh, and roses – how lovely, my favourite!’ She handed the tray regally to Theo and came to embrace her as if they were the closest of friends. Anna caught herself feeling gratified, her cheeks glowing, and was struck again by the contrariness of her feelings. Shouldn’t she feel more hostility and reservation, at least for Kate’s sake? Who was she here for after all – Kate or herself?

‘Now – you must sit down and bear with us for a few moments,’ Olivia was saying. ‘Ben will take care of you until it’s ready.’ Again Anna noticed the sing-song tone of her voice.

‘Oh, I don’t need looking after.’ She laughed.

‘Will you have a glass of wine? Or
lassi
? I’ve made it nice and salty.’

‘Wine, please.’ Anna glanced across at Sean. ‘All right if I smoke too?’

‘No problem,’ Ben said. ‘There’s an ashtray on the piano somewhere.’

Anna sat on the piano stool sipping red wine, a cigarette in her other hand, looking round the room. There was a beautiful lightness about it – the pale wood of the floor and the long shelves across the room – with splashes of colour: rugs on the boards, rich silk saris at the windows and also bunched and draped across the high corners of the room. On either side of the piano were leaded fireplaces, and on the walls above them, in simple wood frames, hung batik pictures, one a brightly decorated elephant, the other a scene from an Indian village in sky blue and straw colours.

Olivia bustled in and out carrying dishes, calling orders to Ben and Theo. ‘And Sean,’ she called. ‘You’re doing littlest of all. Please come and help me with the plates.’ She spoke in an imperious tone.

Sean stood up slowly, pushing down the legs of his jeans, and paused to grind out his cigarette in a saucer.

‘Ben – go and fetch Krishna and Jake. It’s all ready.’

Anna watched, fascinated by all this activity and by Olivia’s unquestioned authority over the household.

‘You’re working so hard,’ she commented.

‘I adore cooking,’ Olivia said, ‘especially this food. Useless doing it for one, though. Theo – water please. We’ll need a jug on the side there.’