Of Marriageable Age (51 page)

Saroj was accepted as a scholarship pupil by an excellent school, half an hour's bus ride from their home, and immediately applied herself to her studies, earning laurels from all her teachers, for a girl of such focused scholarly zeal was rare in these days of miniskirts and free love. That earnestness won her once again the accustomed reputation of prudishness among her peers, but Saroj did not mind. She had things to do, goals to achieve, and the sour-grapes griping of a few pimple-faced adolescents did not bother and could not influence her; the names they called her, Ice-Princess and Snow-Queen, fell away from her like water off a duck's back.

London had been strange, at first: the rows and rows of tall dark terraced houses, with no spaces between them, no grass between them and the streets: just forbidding stairs, doors, basement windows below your feet. The bathrooms — the two taps, cold and hot, with the cold too cold and the hot too hot. Colleen had shown her how to fill the sink with water, rub soap into a flannel, and rub her body with the cloth — what a dirty way of keeping clean! She missed her twice-daily shower. Here you had a bath two or three times a week, wallowing in your own waste, emerging from the bathwater coated with slime. And the food so bland! As bland as the sun, which shone weak, as if filtered, sapped of all strength and energy. But she had adapted. London was her Promised Land: here she would grow her wings.

And now this letter. A throwback to a bygone age when Baba had ruled supreme. Though the letter itself carried no power, as Baba had done, still the very impudence of such a suggestion, the utter
gall
of the writer to even think of making it, and, yes, the twinge of guilt it evoked in spite of Saroj's steeling over of her heart, heated her emotions to boiling point.

It had been a harmless looking blue air-letter lying on the hall table next to the telephone, addressed to Saroj, and with Indian stamps. Saroj, hoping for news from Trixie, picked it up, checked the name, turned it over to check the sender, and carried it upstairs. It was, she noticed, from one Gopal Iyer. The name meant nothing to her, nor the fact that it was from Madras. She slipped a finger into the corner slit, ripped open the three sides of the form and folded open the flimsy paper.

Gopal began by introducing himself as her dear deceased mother's eldest living brother, and offering his heartfelt condolences. Typed with a machine which lacked the letters
e
and
m
as well as the apex of the
A
and a raised letter
d,
and somewhat garbled grammar, it was not easy reading. But Saroj understood quite well. And even before she finished she was incensed. Those references to her mother's 'last dying wish'! Which had been, according to Gopal, to see Saroj well married.

‘...and now that she has passed on under such tragic circumstances it is our sacred duty, dear Sarojini, to fulfil this heartfelt desire in order that her poor soul may finally find rest having achieved this one last accomplishment. Your mother wrote to me on the very day she was to die; as if she was acting under Will of God that I may know of this her last dying wish and set about bringing it to completion after her passing over to the other side. For as she informs me you are a headstrong girl refusing the suggestions of your own father in this matter, your sister also having written me a letter informing me of your reluctance to form a suitable match. She gave me your address and suggested I write you and persuade you to change your mind.

‘It was your mother's last wish that she should bring you to India to find a suitable match here and I am in agreement with her in this respect. I am the eldest living male on your mother's side of the family and I have a duty towards you. I have taken it upon myself to bring you into contact with a highly suitable young man of whom your dear mother highly approved. In fact this is the very boy she was hoping to see you married to which was the purpose of her proposed journey to India in your accompaniment. I must now humbly admit that this boy is my own son. So this boy I am thinking of is your own cousin. As your dear mother must have surely told you it is a tradition among Tamil families, and highly auspicious, when the son and daughter of brother and sister marry. And since your dear mother and I were very close, it is doubly auspicious!

‘Now, dear Sarojini, I know that you are a modern-minded girl and disapprove of arranged marriages. So do I in principle. I have always done so. But I have grown in the knowledge that this is indeed the better path. I have learned this through great misery, for I disobeyed my parents and married for love, and lived to regret the day. I married a very beautiful but rather modern English woman, a friend of your mother, who was also very modern-minded, and flighty as you might know, and tended to support me in this matter.’

(Ma? Flighty?)

‘The son of this union is a talented young man now living in London. He is studying to become a doctor. As he is half-English his complexion is wheatish, a most pleasing colour. Knowing that this match was your mother's last dying wish, surely you will be rushing to fulfil it as a dutiful daughter. Know that your beloved mother can never rest in peace if this burning desire is left unaccomplished! I rest assured that there will be no doubt in your own mind as to the necessity of such an action. Yet as your dear mother tells me you have been in the past highly rebellious as to your marriage, but I am sure now she has passed away you will surely change your mind as to this last dying wish. Thus I am waiting for your agreement as soon as possible so that I may proceed with the marriage arrangements.’

If only Trixie were here. She could have shared the letter, read it out loud. She'd have fumed and raged as Trixie nodded in understanding, and then Trixie would have made a farce of the letter, read it out dramatically, acted out the pathos, converted it back into the ludicrous piece of rubbish it was. With the whole matter back in perspective the two of them would have laughed till they cried. She'd have crumpled the letter into a ball and thrown it into the wastepaper basket and forgotten the whole thing. She missed Trixie more than she'd have thought possible.

T
HE NEXT DAY
, another letter, this time from Trixie:

‘… You won't believe this, you just won't, I love it here!’

‘I'm in a dorm with four girls, one of them's my best friend, her name's Alison Greer and she's from Malaya! (But she's English. White I mean. I'm the only black girl here which feels funny and some of the girls are snooty about it but Alison's on my side so what do I care?) We're in Lincoln West House, our colour is light blue and we're the best in lacrosse, there's also a Lincoln East and they're dark blue, there are eight houses but the two Lincolns are really the very best houses!! Alison and I are in a Spanish class together, just the two of us! And I'm already so good at Spanish, because of the
Montserrat
it's easy as pie! And I'm repeating O Levels in my bad subjects in December, because my French is a hundred per cent better and I'm certain to pass and even maths is okay.

‘But the most wonderful thing is this art teacher, her name is Mrs Graham and she's quite old, but she says I have a real gift, a very special gift, that's why they took me into this school in the first place. She said that I should take care of it and nourish it because people with gifts have a special mission, they're on the earth to bring joy and beauty into the lives of others and if I neglect it or use my gift in the wrong way I'll either lose it or I'll lose myself, one of the two.

‘She invited me into her study and we had tea and biscuits and a long long talk, when I left I was almost in tears. She says that if you have a gift and you don't nourish it to let it flower you're absolutely miserable and do stupid things and this has been my problem all my life. She says I have too little confidence, and that's because I don't see the gift I have as something miraculous, that I only see my own smallness and inadequacy and compare myself to others. She says my feeling small and inadequate doesn't matter, in fact it's good because art is something divine and great and the artist must always remain humble and grateful. Creativity is in my heart, not in my head, she says; the head must bow low and enter the heart, and not interfere. Now isn't that news?

‘And how are you? Sorry to hear your cousin Angie's such a beast, you could really be having a nice time in London if she'd bother to show you around a bit! When I get back we'll paint the town red, you and me. One of my aims in life is to go to a discotheque in the West End, maybe you could do some research on this score? One thing you should not believe is that because I'm going to be a serious artist I'm not going to have any more fun! Saroj, I'm afraid your life is going to get so dead boring, I mean come on, girl, you have to fall in love one of these days and if you just stay home and study how can you meet anyone interesting? At half-term we have to do some serious liming, you and me. Oh, and my stepmother Elaine is just absolutely super … she says she always wanted a daughter and I am that daughter!

‘Since Mrs Graham's talk I've been wondering about you, you know, if you have some gift too and if so, what it could be? In any case, sitting over a desk cramming all that stuff into your brain doesn't sound very joyful or beautiful.

‘See you at half-term, that's in two weeks!

‘Love, Trixie

‘PS Tell Ganesh Hi from me, and see if you can arrange a meeting at half-term.’

S
AROJ COULD NOT DELIVER
Trixie's message because by the time it arrived Ganesh had already left London for India, to sprinkle Ma's ashes in the Ganges.

He went off with a Swiss girl, Saroj wrote to Trixie, ‘and right now he's working in a restaurant in Switzerland trying to earn the money for the overland trip to India, and he's broken off his studies and doesn't want to be a lawyer any more. So I think you'd better forget him after all. He's one of those hippies and he's growing his hair, can you imagine it! Very irresponsible. I hope he's not taking drugs.’

‘I never see old Deodat any more thank heavens (I'll never call him Baba again!). He lives with my half-brother Walter who's a barrister and D thought he could work for him, but Walter doesn't want him and his wife hates him, so he kind of hangs around reading files and doing nothing (so I've heard). He seems to be having some heart trouble. Anyway I only wish him the worst and I hope he's getting a taste of his own medicine! My other half-brother James (the one I'm staying with) is a chemist and says I can work for him a bit in the dispensary during the summer hols, and I'm looking forward to that. So I can earn a bit of money — for what? Who knows! I'll save it.’

S
HE OPENED HER DESK
, tidied her books within it, removed those she would need, and packed them into the leather satchel she wore over her shoulder. She was alone in the classroom. The others seemed to have all vanished together, girls and boys in laughing, joshing groups, hardly throwing her a backward glance, leaving her alone to make some final notes before leaving. Whatever interest they had shown when she first joined the class had evaporated. She had felt awkward, self-conscious about her Indianness, sure that they were all staring at her behind her back, sneering at her, and had been slow to respond. What she feared she heard confirmed in the casual comments tossed out in her earshot: Saroj was an egghead, a teacher's pet, they said, and they left her alone.

She left the classroom, closed the door behind her, turned to walk down the deserted corridor, past the knots of schoolmates in the courtyard. She could feel them looking at her as she walked past, imagine their whispered comments. What do I care! She lifted her nose a degree higher, clasped her books tighter to her chest.

It had hurt, at first, this feeling of being on her own. How could she say that she was just shy and needed a friend? Someone who knew her inside and out, to open her heart to, someone who knew her past and her present and future and would not misjudge and misinterpret and stick her in a drawer with a label on it? How could she tell them that they, Londoners all, emitted a sophistication and a worldliness and a knowledge of the ways of the city which scared her and made her retreat inside herself, close her provincial wings around her, and huddle down with books as her only comfort? How could she say that she needed time, and patience, and understanding, before she could truly belong? She missed Trixie desperately, those first few weeks.

Who am I?
she cried out to herself. Guyanese? Indian? English? No, certainly not English. Do I want to become English? Do I belong here? Should I have come? Should I go home? Where is home? Here, or there? Can I be reconciled to the here, give up the there completely, cast myself off and merge with these people? But they don't want me. They have shown they do not want me. They show no interest. They are happy, complete within themselves. Who wants to know a naive little me from the backwaters? Who cares?

If only Trixie were nearby, or Ganesh. Sometimes a face came to her memory, a quiet, familiar face looking at her from the bustle of a Southampton platform through a grubby train window. A face with eyes that looked into hers and recognised her, just as she had recognised him. But then the face faded, and the memory, and she was alone once more. Alone in the world. Orphaned…

But no. Not orphaned, after all. Her mother was dead, but her father? For the first time Saroj began to reflect on who he could be. The very idea of Ma
committing adultery
had seemed preposterous; that was why, at the time of discovery, it had been so hard to accept. Ma never spoke to men familiarly, never exchanged pleasantries, never engaged in small talk, never looked them in the eye. She kept her eyes lowered in their presence, or left the room. When they had male visitors Ma would serve them silently before slipping off to the kitchen. And men, in their turn, did not see Ma, never spoke to her, treating her as if she were as invisible as she pretended to be. When in the course of her duties she had to deal with men — Mr Gupta for instance, or Dr Lachmansingh — she was curt and matter-of-fact. Where would she even have met a stranger, with her retiring lifestyle and manner? But was he a stranger, even? Perhaps not. Perhaps he was someone Saroj knew… and in that moment she did know.