The Seed Collectors (5 page)

Sometimes one of the newer celebrities will make an observation about the lack of a coherent spirituality in the house. The massages are Ayurvedic, because Ketki does them. Ish, Ketki’s husband, does both Ayurvedic and macrobiotic consultations, and is also a trained acupuncturist and cranial osteopath. The food is mostly Indian, sometimes Ayurvedic, and made by Ketki’s ancient aunt Bluebell. She specialises in kulfis – Indian ice creams made with condensed milk, cardamom pods and saffron – but which she often makes into the shape of Daleks. Everything else is a jumble of Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Hinduism, Wicca and who knows what else. Oleander famously believed in ‘everything’. There’s a tapestry halfway up the west-wing staircase with a profound religious significance that no one can quite pin down, not even the Prophet, who has an eye for such things.

After checking the first floor again, Fleur goes down the east-wing staircase – avoiding not just the tapestry but also the White Lady, who often comes out on a Sunday, or after someone has ‘moved on’ – and through the library with its huge peace lilies and rubber plants and that tarry, tobaccoey smell of old leather bindings, and she wonders where on earth Ketki could be. She checks the orangery again, and the kitchens, with their unmistakeable smell of fenugreek, coriander and, of course, the curry plants, which Fleur now waters for the third time today. All around are big Kilner jars of yellow split peas, red, brown and green lentils, four different types of rice, whole oats, sultanas and desiccated coconut. Silicone Dalek moulds, but no Bluebell. A half-drunk mug of Earl Grey tea, but no Ketki.

This is infuriating. There is, after all, so much planning to do. Ketki has said she’ll make curries for the wake if Fleur will help. She has also suggested that her two daughters might come up from their professional lives in London and do some cooking. Unlikely, frankly. And Fleur herself is actually going to be quite busy on the day of the funeral and . . . Fleur sighs. Goes up to the second floor, with its long corridor of guest suites with the original servant bells that she had mended years ago, and then to the third floor, to the original servants’ corridor where the ‘servants’ still live and in which the bells sometimes still tinkle, late at night, if one of the celebrities has overdosed, become enlightened or wants a cup of hot chocolate. Now, of course, it’s just Ketki, Ish and Bluebell up there, but years ago Fleur and her mother had their cramped little rooms at the north end of the servants’ corridor. And, after her parents’ disappearance, Bryony stayed in one of the old servants’ rooms for almost a year until James’s parents took her in. Ketki’s daughters – dramatically rescued from somewhere in the Punjab region, by Oleander, who saved them from almost certain abduction, rape and forced marriage – to Muslims,
imagine
– grew up in the house. They were joined at the south end of the servants’ corridor by their cousin
Pi, who was himself rescued, but from something else entirely, quite a lot later.

Of course no one has suggested that Pi, who moved out of his tiny room years ago and is now a famous author in London, should come and make curries. No one has suggested that
his
eldest daughter should take time off from
Vogue
photo shoots to come and make curries. His wife never comes to Namaste House so at least that isn’t an issue. But anyway, why not get Clem, Charlie and Bryony – Oleander’s actual relations, who are presumably about to inherit everything – to come and make the curries? The Prophet has, to Fleur’s knowledge, never even been in the kitchen, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t help in an emergency. But some things never change; however much time you spend with supposedly enlightened people, in a house so brimming and glowing with enlightenment it’s sometimes like being in one of those fish tanks that . . .
Shut up, for God’s sake
. Fleur closes her eyes. Enlightenment is so difficult and tiresome, and Fleur isn’t sure she’s going to get there in this lifetime, but she could really do with a stiller mind. As usual, when she tries to stop her thoughts, her ego goes into a sulk for about one second and there’s peace. Then the whole thing starts up again.

She eventually finds Ketki folding towels in Treatment Room 3. It’s almost as if the old woman has been avoiding her.

‘There’s still time to get it catered,’ Fleur says. ‘We’ve got the money.’

Indeed. Those packages that the Prophet still sends off. And Fleur’s big ideas, like those huge clouds floating above everyone until suddenly, splat, you are covered in rain. There’s absolutely no shortage of money. Even after the Inland Revenue came round a couple of years ago. Especially when one of them went away with his own mantra, a yin/yang necklace, a shaved head and a fondness for chickpeas.

‘I want to do this for Oleander,’ says Ketki. ‘She would have liked . . .’

‘She would have liked you to be able to relax and grieve for her
in peace. We’ve got no idea who’s going to turn up for this. There’ll be the press as well. I mean, not in the house, obviously, but causing trouble around the place. You know what they’re like. I mean, let’s face it,
Paul McCartney
might come. He probably won’t, but . . .’

‘Paul McCartney.’ Ketki bobbles her head and almost smiles. She and her family arrived at Namaste House not long after George Harrison had been there, at least according to the tabloids, for a two-week meditation and yoga retreat with Oleander and some notorious wise-woman Fleur barely remembers but who used to live in the rooms looking down on the orangery that the Prophet now has. Fleur has a dim memory of patchouli oil, guitars and smoke, although most of her childhood was like that, especially before her mother disappeared. But by then there were mixing desks and DJs as well. The wise-woman grew the rare, impossible frankincense tree from seed, Fleur remembers. She put a spell on it, or said she did. If someone sold this place then what would happen to the frankincense tree? No one else would know how to look after it. Perhaps a botanical garden would take it, although moving it would probably kill it. Fleur will have to ask Charlie.

‘Well . . .’ says Ketki.

‘And I’ll have some people back to the cottage afterwards.’

‘What people?’

‘You know, Clem, Bryony, Charlie, if he comes. Pi. I guess just anyone who’s around and wants to stay up late chatting. I’ll do a small supper. That way we won’t disturb you, Bluebell and Ish.’

Ketki knows that ‘chatting’ means drinking too much, and ‘staying up late’ means having sex and taking drugs. She’s read her nephew’s novels. She knows what Fleur does in that cottage. She turns back to the towels.

The room smells of the oils Ketki uses in her massages. For a long time she made her own essential oils from flowers in the garden and grew marigolds to use in her aromatic face packs. In fact, once upon a time Fleur was her assistant, and learned how to make all the classic
Ayurvedic plant remedies, massage oils and balms. Together they used to grind sandalwood and cinnamon sticks, and make their own besan flour from chickpeas, although Bluebell often insisted they use her flour, which was a bit more lumpy. They grew and harvested hibiscus flowers, marshmallow roots and chamomile. They even grew their own turmeric in one of the greenhouses. Now Fleur runs the whole show and insists that most of the oils and dried plants come by mail order, although she does still let Ketki help collect the rosebuds, lavender and rosemary. The only thing Fleur harvests is the opium which, yes, Ketki also knows about.

‘I suppose there’s James,’ Fleur says. ‘He’d probably help. He’s a good cook.’

‘Who is James?’

‘You know. James Croft. Bryony’s husband.’

James is just one of several people Ketki believes Fleur to be involved with, secretly.

‘Help with what?’

‘Make curries for the wake, if that’s what you really want to do.’

‘I just think that we should.’

Oleander always said that the word ‘should’ should always be ignored. Then she laughed until whoever she was talking to noticed the paradox.

‘OK,’ says Fleur. ‘I’ll do a big soup, then, as well.’

‘Lentil soup I think,’ says Ketki. ‘And several carrot cakes.’ She bobbles her head again, which means it’s all settled.

When Fleur leaves the room she thinks of going to see Oleander, and then remembers that Oleander isn’t there any more. She sighs. Ketki’s husband Ish is in the meditation area, reading the
Observer
. Fleur half tries to catch his eye, but he doesn’t look up. Ish doesn’t hear very well now, and it’s possible that he just has not sensed her in the room. Then he does look up.

‘Go easy on her,’ he says. ‘She has lost her oldest friend.’

‘I know,’ says Fleur. She does not add that she has now lost almost everyone, and is probably about to lose almost everything.

Here’s what Fleur’s ego says, stirred by these thoughts. It says, What about
me
? What about what
I’ve
lost? It also says, Lentil soup and
carrot
cake? But that’s what they make for the retreats. That’s what they make for the spa weekends. That’s what they
always
make, even though basically everyone who comes to Namaste House now requests a low-carb diet, and absolutely no one eats pulses of their own accord any more apart from Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow. And anyway, Oleander is dead. She is
dead
. Can they not,
just this once
, do something different? Can they not have . . . (even the ego sometimes needs to pause and think, although this is often just for effect) cocktails and canapés? No. Of course not. Well,
Fleur
will have cocktails and canapés over at the cottage. She’ll cook aubergine and homemade paneer wrapped in poppy leaves and intricately flavoured with her homemade black spice blend, and then a fragrant pistachio korma with soft white rice, and little mousses made from bitter chocolate and quail’s eggs. In the cottage they will see off Oleander in style, whatever Ketki wants to do in the house. Fleur tells her ego to shut up. Of course she does. But she has to acknowledge that it has come up with a lovely menu. And it would be good to make the thing in the cottage different from the thing in the house. And have something for all the gluten-free, low-carb people like Skye Turner – if she comes – and Charlie – if he comes. She will hand-make some chocolates too. Rose creams, and hibiscus truffles.

Back in the cottage, she starts making a list, remembering what Oleander has been saying so much recently: on the level of form, nothing matters. In this world, you can do what you like.
Doing
is not what makes you enlightened. This is good, after all the things Fleur has done. She may have put off enlightenment for now, but she hasn’t put it off forever.

On Monday morning there’s a knock at Clem’s door. It’s Zoe.

‘Hey,’ she says. ‘You busy?’

‘I wish the university server would explode again,’ says Clem. ‘Or whatever it did last time it lost all my emails. Come in.’

Zoe comes in but doesn’t sit down. She is very tall and always has her blonde hair tied up in a ponytail that would make anyone else look eight, or a bit backward. Today she is wearing ripped jeans, cheap pink flip flops (even though it is only thirteen degrees outside) and a faded yellow Sonic Youth T-shirt. She has a ring through one nostril and never wears make-up unless there’s something official going on, like her job interview, for which she wore black eyeliner only on her top lids, sheer red lipstick and an oddly intoxicating perfume that smelled like a bag of sweets left in a men’s locker room for too long. She teaches screenwriting.

‘I’m just on my way to staff development,’ Zoe says. ‘Do you want me to steal you some Jammie Dodgers?’

‘What is it this time?’

‘Dignity in the workplace.’

‘How can anyone be dignified in any workplace?’

‘Yeah. I’ll definitely make that point.’

‘God.’ Clem stretches languidly and slowly spins her chair away from her computer. ‘I’m being smothered in family.’

‘In what way?’

‘Oh, sorry, don’t worry.’ She smiles, and shakes her head as if she had water in her ears. ‘Thinking out loud.’

‘No, go on. Your family is always interesting.’

‘Oh, OK, well, my great-aunt just died – no, don’t worry, it’s all right, I barely knew her. She’s the one who took in my cousin and my best friend when our mothers went missing – you know about that, right? And she used to hang out with the Beatles and everything . . . ? Anyway, my grandmother Beatrix, who’s about a hundred and fifty and should not know how to use email, is basically driving
us all mad making arrangements for her and my father to come to the funeral, even though they totally hated her. They thought, or think, that Oleander – that’s my great-aunt – was responsible for the deaths of my mother, my aunt, my uncle and my best friend’s mother.’

‘Why? What did she do to them?’

‘No one knows. Back in the late eighties they went off to find a miracle plant and never came back. We think the plant has this seed pod that looks like vanilla and has supposedly magical or mystical properties – only no one knows how to get the good effects without dropping dead. Oleander wasn’t even there.’