Wish Upon a Star (32 page)

Claire didn’t know what to say. She thought the English had the reputation of being reserved but Imogen didn’t seem to fit the mold. Claire surreptitiously looked around. The place was wonderful, all emptiness and light. She desperately wanted to be asked to stay on.

‘Now, where are you from?’ Imogen asked.

‘New York, actually.’ Claire heard herself imitating Imogen’s intonation and told herself to stop. ‘I worked on Wall Street.’ Well, both of those statements were true.

‘Oh, and are you in the City now? That’s where Malcolm works—my boyfriend. He’s from Edinburgh and a chartered accountant. Dead boring, actually, but as it’s in numbers he could easily move.’ Imogen leaned back and finished her sherry. She lowered her voice. ‘Malcolm is actually a second cousin to the Queen. Not that it would do us any good if we got married. He does have a tea service from Sandringham, but I doubt we’d even get a wedding present.’ Then she smiled. ‘If we had children they’d be about three hundred and twenty-seventh in line to the succession. So I wouldn’t expect to be a Queen Mum.’

Claire wasn’t following everything, but she could see what Toby meant about ‘climbing’. She worried about how she could present her resumé. An unemployed tourist didn’t measure up to glamorous editor, not to mention a cousin by marriage to the Queen. Before Claire could get her thoughts organized, Imogen stood up. ‘Would you like to see the room?’ she asked. ‘It isn’t much, I’m afraid. If it were an annex to the bedroom I’d use it as a dressing room. But it does have windows. And as the bathroom is not
en suite
, I think we could manage.’

She walked through the living room and to a tiny kitchen with Claire trailing behind her. ‘The money would come in handy, but it’s just as important that someone be here. I spend some time at Malcolm’s and then most weekends we’re in the country. He has a place in Kent and my parents’ country house is in Essex—I know, an Essex girl!’

Claire had no idea what an Essex girl was, but it must be good. So she nodded and smiled. It seemed that Toby’s recommendation was all she needed—except, of course, for the money. Then they stepped into the little ‘box room’ and Claire was transfixed. ‘I know it’s quite tiny, and the mahogany washstand is absolutely hideous,’ Imogen said. ‘I hate Victoriana, though it is coming back. Once I’m married I’ll be getting some family furniture—Georgian, you know. And then Malcolm’s family has pots of stuff.’

The room was certainly small, perhaps ten by ten. But that was part of its charm. It looked as if it was something from a doll’s house. There were two windows on one side looking out over the gardens in the back, the walls were a lovely light lilac and the woodwork was linen white, though quite dusty. Claire compared it to the dingy room at Mrs. Watson’s, the peeling wallpaper and the rug that had seen the soles of far too many feet. There, she felt like the Little Match Girl. Here she would feel like…well, as small but as lovely as Thumbelina. There was a small bed built into the far wall with drawers under it. ‘There isn’t any linen. You’ll have to provide your own, but there is a washing machine.’ The Victorian washstand had a white marble top and was far from hideous. To Claire, in fact, it was charming. So were the bureau and the tiny chintz-upholstered chair.

‘There are no curtains, I’m afraid,’ Imogen said, ‘and the bed is just a single. No wardrobe, either, but you could use the hall cupboard. Does it seem as if it might do?’

Claire nodded, then forced herself to speak. She felt her heart would break if she didn’t get to stay here. It was the most inviting room she had ever seen. But could she manage to pay for it? ‘What would it cost?’ she asked, feeling as if her heart were literally in her throat. Something was, because she could barely manage to swallow.

‘Well, you know, my uncle owns the building.’ Imogen laughed. ‘We do seem to have a lot of uncles around, don’t we? Anyway, I don’t pay much. Do you think you could manage three hundred pounds a month?’

Claire quickly did ‘the maths’ as Safta would say. She couldn’t believe it! The room was almost a hundred pounds less than what she was paying now. That couldn’t be right, but Claire didn’t care. She’d do whatever she had to, to get to keep this adorable bower. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said. And she left clutching a set of keys, Imogen having said she could move in right away.

Trying to get to the tube she got confused and her map didn’t seem to help. What she needed was a much better one that had all the small streets named and drawn more carefully. She took a turn to the left, walked down a darling little street and then took a turn to the right. On her map it looked as if it would be a busy road but instead she was on a slightly grander lane with detached houses, lovely gardens and old trees.

When she got to the end of the lane she saw that it led into the busy street she was looking for. But that wasn’t the surprise. On her right side she saw the kitty corner door she knew. Surely there weren’t two like that.

She crossed the lane and found herself in front of Knitting Kitting. Claire blinked once or twice. Here she was, just a few blocks away from her new home and beside her favorite—well, not counting Toby’s or Mrs. Patel’s—shop in London. She had almost finished her second glove but realized that she couldn’t go in for more wool. A polite sign said, S
ORRY
. W
E ARE CLOSED
. P
LEASE COME AGAIN
. And the hours of the shop were posted below it. Claire realized the place was only open on weekdays and Saturday mornings nine to twelve. Rather silly when you thought about it, since most women would shop after work or on the weekends. Still, Claire took the proximity as a very good omen. And perhaps she could get a job if she offered to extend the hours. It was worth a try and after all the success she had had, she was beginning to believe the adage ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’.

‘But why do they call it prime?’ Safta asked.

As the oldest, Safta seemed to take everything quite seriously, from supervising her two younger siblings to achieving the best possible grades in school. Her eyebrows were such exact copies of her mother’s, that if anyone had doubted Mendel’s theory of genetics they would have only to look at Mrs. Patel and Safta to see the power of DNA.

One could also see the power of environment. Instead of arching her brow in the gesture of questioning contempt that her mother routinely used, Safta made a little pucker just at the bottom of her forehead, slightly to the right of her nose. The pucker in her brow indicated worry, confusion, dissatisfaction and all the other negative emotions that Safta the elegant perfectionist was forced to live with.

Claire smiled at her and looked down at the textbook. ‘They’re prime numbers because they can’t be evenly divided by any other number.’

‘Well, what’s so prime about that? It makes them irregular or unevenly divisible, or annoying. I don’t see why it makes them prime.’

‘That’s one way to look at it,’ Claire agreed. ‘But the official definition is a whole number that has itself and unity as its only factor. It isn’t like other numbers that aren’t prime, and it also isn’t like other prime numbers. Because they have their own unity.’

Safta looked down at the textbook and then up at Claire. ‘I’m so stupid,’ she said. It wasn’t true, but Claire had already noticed that Safta didn’t feel good about herself. She hated her glasses, her school uniform, the practical shoes her mother bought her, the traditional way she was forced to wear her hair, living in the back of a grocery store, and the foolish programs her sister liked to watch on the telly. She was a serious girl who had already confided to Claire that she never wanted ‘to marry and have all those bloody babies’, but wanted instead to be a botanist. ‘So prime numbers have one quality that they share, but that is their uniqueness,’ she said.

Claire nodded.

‘That’s rather like me,’ Safta said. ‘I have uniqueness and unity.’

Claire sat back from the table and glanced over at Mrs. Patel who was busy at the stove stirring something, while she held Devi on one hip and scolded Fala. Aside from dining regularly with the Patels, Claire had begun tutoring Safta, a job that she was enjoying very much. In addition, she was learning about real Indian—or Pakistani—cuisine, very different from the biranis and kormas Claire had had before in restaurants. ‘Garbage,’ Mrs. Patel had sniffed. ‘They don’t bother to do anything right.’ Claire had to admit that tonight’s dinner was more extravagant than the previous meals she had eaten at the Patels’. The beautifully spiced vegetables, the lamb and chicken served in small pieces amidst healthy greens, and the dressings of dhal and homemade relishes were not only healthful and fresh but they also seemed to help her effortlessly continue to slim down. She had actually had to borrow sewing things from Mrs. Patel and, with her help, had taken in the waist and the back seam of her two pairs of slacks as well as her skirt. How odd, she thought, that she was losing weight now without trying when she had failed to in New York, trying so hard.

Claire looked back at Safta and nodded. Safta was one of those children with gifts that did not help them to ‘fit in’. She was too intelligent and mature in school, she was too fastidious at home and, unlike Claire, she didn’t escape from her reality with novels but, rather, observed everything with a scientific detachment and the slightly puckered brow. Claire might have felt sorry for her if she wasn’t so very formidable.

‘Is the table clear?’ Mrs. Patel called out. ‘Safta, get Devi his feeder.’ That turned out to be a bib, and Claire helped fasten it around Devi’s neck. All of the pots were steaming, Devi had stopped fussing and Fala was carrying a tin cup to the table.

‘We’d better put these books away,’ Claire said and in a moment Safta had jumped up, neatly replaced the books on her shelf, wiped down the plastic tablecloth and put out strange round trays that held smaller metal cups and bowls. There were no china dishes, knives or forks. The children took their places and Mrs. Patel began spooning out fragrant vari-colored messes into all of the bowls on each tray.

‘These are lentils,’ she said. ‘They are mixed with a kind of onion. And this is sahg. Spinach, you know. We mix it with cheese.’ Claire’s face must have shown some of her dubiousness because Mrs. Patel continued. ‘I know if you just look at it, it might be enough to put you off your feed. But try some.’

Claire tried not to show any more dismay at the idea of spinach and cheese. It certainly didn’t look like either one. ‘And this is korma which has yogurt and almonds and raisins.’

‘Korma! Hooray!’ said Devi. ‘And rice. And peas. And…’

All the little bowls were filled. Devi, Mrs. Patel and Fala ate with their hands, delicately mixing the various dishes with the rice. Safta fetched two teaspoons, handed one to Claire and began eating with the other. Tentatively at first, then with greater pleasure Claire tasted dish after dish and found they were all very good.

‘Dish up some dhal for Claire,’ Mrs. Patel chided Safta. ‘You put it on your rice, Claire.’

Claire did, and it was delicious. So were the sweet chutney and even the spinach and cheese. The stainless steel plates and the cups from which they drank water seemed strange, but as the family ate and talked and teased one another it all began to seem not only natural but sensible. As she continued eating, Claire felt the back of her tongue and the top of her throat react to the flavors. It wasn’t just spicy. It was subtle and most things had an aftertaste and mixed with whatever new flavor she spooned into her mouth. ‘Do you often eat like this?’ Claire asked.

‘No,’ Safta said disapprovingly. ‘Sometimes we eat in front of the telly.’

‘Not if I am here,’ Mrs. Patel said. ‘Devi, put the bowl down. You’ll spill.’ But Claire noticed that, even if some of the contents spilled, they were caught by the metal tray the bowls sat on.

‘What I meant was, do you eat this way, and I mean all this food, often?’

‘Oh, yes. This isn’t much. If I had time I would have baked roti and made some mutton. When my sister comes to visit we have big meals.’

‘Auntie! Auntie! I want Auntie!’ Devi yelled.

‘I want you to sit down and to be a good boy or there will be no Auntie,’ Mrs. Patel told him. He did as he was told.

Claire looked across the table as Mrs. Patel supervised Fala eating and then wiped Devi’s hands. She refilled the water cups and managed to finish her own dinner as well. Claire wondered at it all. Her mother had sometimes only managed bologna sandwiches, and complained about that. Mrs. Patel was raising three children, bearing a fourth, stocking, staffing and managing a shop, keeping house, and seemed to think that none of it was too much. Her slim arms moved over the table, her wedding bracelets flashing and tinkling, adding to the clatter as she collected the empty dinner plates.

‘Safta, you do the washing up, Fala, help your sister.’ She looked at her youngest. ‘Devi, you keep out of the Fairy liquid.’ She gave his hair a loving pat then, as if to make up for it, she added, ‘Sometimes you’re enough to make me go spare.’ Mrs. Patel turned to Claire. ‘I’m going back to reopen the shop,’ she said. ‘Thank you for joining us for dinner.’

‘Thank
you
,’ Claire said. ‘It was delicious.’

‘Mummy, can I show Claire my room?’ Safta asked.

‘Mummy, can I show Claire my room?’ Fala echoed.

‘Yes,’ Mrs. Patel said. ‘Safta, put on the kettle and bring me some tea. Claire, would you like a cup as well?’ Claire nodded. She couldn’t get over how many cups of tea everybody drank at all times. Even the children had milk and tea morning and night.

Claire helped Safta clear the table, put the dishes in a pan of hot water to soak and then watched as she filled a kettle which, like Toby’s, instead of putting on the cooker you plugged into an outlet. Claire thought what a convenience it would be to have one like it for herself but before she got any further with the thought Safta turned and pointed down the little hallway.

‘Would you like to see my room?’ she asked shyly. Claire nodded.

With Devi and Fala on their heels they made their way down the dark narrow hall and into the overcrowded room the two sisters shared. There, Claire was met by another surprise. Along the windowsill, on a shelf, arranged on the desk and even under the bed Safta had grouped small pots of plants. African violets, sansevieria, Irish moss, and a host of other plants that were unfamiliar to Claire were arranged on trays of pebbles or in open plastic boxes. There was also a terrarium filled with ferns and mosses. On Safta’s desk a notebook lay open with a drawing of a plant. But it wasn’t a sentimental little flower, it was a botanically accurate rendering of a carnation. Complete with leaves, flower and roots.