A Matter of Marriage (3 page)

“I can't stay for long, yaah,” she was saying to everyone. “My baiyya, my big bruvver's just dropped me off for half an hour, den he's pickin' me up again, for evening prayer.”

“Wow, Shilpi, you look amazin' . . . I never thought . . .” Aisha ran out of steam in a dazed sort of way, and Shunduri thought to herself, No, you never do think, do you, dear friend that always follows whatever is newest. Some friend you are. So shallow. She tossed her hair again, recrossed her legs, but this time no one noticed. The changed atmosphere in the cafe was affecting everything. Shilpi's dramatic monochrome presence made Shunduri feel gaudy and obvious, and she noticed that the polish had started to peel off the nail of her right index finger. She hid it under the table.

Next thing she knew, an escorted Shilpi was lowering herself gracefully onto the chair opposite her, flanked by Amina and Aisha, whose pastel
salwars
now looked delicate and feminine next to the black microfiber. Not an inch of Shilpi's skin was to be seen, except between cheekbone and eyebrows. The edge of the
niqab
around Shilpi's eyes and across her nose was decorated with small black beads in a pattern of interlocking zigzags, and the same pattern traced the cuffs of her sleeves. Her eyes, thickly lined with kohl, flashed large and round in their bead frame, drawing the light.

Good move, thought Shunduri. With Shilpi's bad skin and dumpy figure, of course covering would be an improvement.

But it was more than that. Shunduri had noticed the growing group of girls at college who were covering. Some did it with a swaggering
fuck you, I'm proud of who I am
attitude. And some did it because being a born-again fundamentalist was suddenly cool. Those girls formed their own cliques: walking and sitting together and avoiding contact with Shunduri and her friends in such a way that made it clear that they saw themselves as morally superior to the Asian-princess crowd and the coolie-girls.

And despite joking about them, calling them ninja chicks, everyone's behavior toward them seemed to acknowledge it. College lecturers were disconcerted by them, library staff and security guards looked at them askance but never challenged them. And everyone made way for them when it was time for
takbir
or a rally.

Shunduri's coffee was cold, and she felt flat and sour. Eight people were at their little table now, and all of them were focused on Shilpi, on her news, her movements. Before she'd covered, Amina, even Aisha, would scarcely have given her the time of day, let alone have asked her opinion of the latest Bollywood movies, which kohl she used and whether she was going to Rukhsana's wedding. Shunduri couldn't take it anymore. She stood up, straightening to her full height, tucked her hair back on one side to show off one of her diamond earrings (presents from Kareem to match his, one carat each) and flicked her veil. No one even noticed.

“Eh, Princess.”

She turned and Kareem was there behind her, and he too was staring at the woman in black.

“Who's dat?”

Shunduri glared at him. “Shilpi. You remember Shilpi.”

“Ahh, yeah. Course I do.” He frowned, then snapped his fingers and gave a laugh of recognition. “Eh, she's a ninja chick now. A funda-woman-talist,” he said, nodding and
salaaming
Shilpi when she caught his eye. “Just a tick, Princess.”

And Kareem left her, just like that, to cruise through the cafe doing his meet-and-greet with each table, letting people know where he was going to be tonight and when: which club and which kebab shop. Shunduri watched him through slitted eyes. All fuckin' Muslim men were the same then. The more you covered up and denied access, the more they wanted you. So where did that leave her?

There was no point in staying now. She moved away from the table, then made the mistake of looking back. Someone had already taken her chair, and Shilpi was holding court with a poise that she'd never had in her
salwar
and chunky platforms and too much cover-up on her spots.

It was so unfair, after all the effort Shunduri had put in for tonight. It was like someone had changed the rules without telling her. She picked up her handbag, stalked to the toilet and locked the door. She started to reapply her lipstick, but then stopped and put it back in her bag.

She pulled the free end of her veil over her head, wrapping it across her nose, and stared at herself. Mysterious, fascinating. She would look better in a
niqab
than Shilpi ever would. She tissued off her lipstick until there was just a hint of color, found some eyeliner in her bag and, bracing her elbow against the wall next to the mirror, ran a cool wet line along the tops of her eyelashes, flicking it out and up at the ends. There. It was all in the eyes.

When she came out of the Ladies', Kareem was at the counter, paying for her table's coffees. She ignored him and hugged and kissed Amina and Aisha goodbye, arranged to see them at Aisha's dorm room in a couple of hours to oil each other's hair and watch Sky Asia's premiere movie. She ta-rah'd Shilpi and the others with a wiggle of her fingers.

Shilpi gave her a pompous little wave. “
Salaamalaikum
, sister. See you round.”

Shunduri bared her teeth in what was almost a smile. “
Inshallah
.
Alaikumsalaam
, sister.” Pious ninja bitch, just doing it for the attention. Two could play at that game.

Kareem was right behind her, moving toward the door, holding it open. As she passed by him, he whispered, “Princess,” and his breath was hot on her neck. She felt a spurt of pleasure in her stomach and fought back a smile. No one called Shilpi that. And only Shunduri had Kareem. No one else had anyone like him: handsome, street-cool, going places, with his own council flat on the side, for business. And privacy. Everything was going to be alright.

They walked down the street together, Shunduri acutely aware of his rolling walk, the swing of his shoulders. He would never touch her in public, no Muslim couple would except maybe modern newlyweds, but Kareem's tone, his stance, promised intimacies later. An image of the bridal sari in the main window of Mumbai Magic floated through her mind: deep pink with red-gold embroidery over stiff gold gauze. If he wore the biggest wedding turban, she could wear three-inch heels and he would still look taller than her.

Kareem took her around the corner, down an alleyway, and tucked her hand into the crook of his arm.

“I've got to go round the clubs later—Varanasi, Rome and Salem tonight—but there's something I want to show you first.”

“What?” She forgot herself enough to clutch his arm and tried to see if he was holding something in his other hand, had something in his pocket.

He laughed and pulled her closer, squeezed her against his side. “Look, Princess. Whaddaya think?” He gestured with his free hand at a large black SUV parked up at the rear of the cafe.

“A car?”

Its lights blipped on, and Kareem steered her around to the front passenger seat, urging her inside, up a high step and into a cabin that smelled of newness and leather and luxury. She sank into a seat as large and soft as the rocker-recliner at Amina's house that only her dad was allowed to sit in. Kareem shut her door and went around. From the driver's seat, he reached across and fastened her seatbelt, brushing his arm across her breasts as he did so.

“How about I take you for a drive tomorrow? A long drive, like for the day, out of London, see what this baby can do?”

She stared at him, still caught up in that moment where she'd thought he was going to give her a present, or perhaps something even better.

He seemed to recognize the disappointment in her eyes and took her hand and kissed it, watching her. “It's all for you, Princess, you know that.” He started the engine, which thrummed and roared. “That's Jag V8 direct injection that Rover use. Classy and powerful: like you and me, yeah. And Rover's been bought out by Tata, so it's a real Asian car, man.”

A car. He had bought a car. What did he think that was telling her?

Kareem was pointing at the dials, saying something about the features. “See, Princess? We're in the money now, and this is just the beginning. I'll take you for a drive—anywhere you like.”

Shunduri looked at him, challenge in her eyes. “I haven't seen Mum and Dad in ages, yaah.”

He fiddled with the stereo, then smiled brilliantly at her. “Yeah. Anytime you want.”

She pressed her advantage, smiled back at him just as brightly. “Tuesday? I've got a lieu day from the bank.”

Kareem's hesitation was more obvious now. “We'd have to go early, Princess: in the morning. I've gotta be back for business, yeah.”

“
I'm
up to start work at nine every day, yaah. You're the one who lives on Asian mean time.”

“Alright, first thing, yeah. I'll be round at the dorm.”

Maybe ten if I'm lucky, she thought. Her palms felt clammy and, as Kareem drove them back to his flat, she slid her hands under her thighs, like she used to do at school when she was trying not to bite her nails. As an unrelated male, he could only get away with driving her down to see her parents once. Once would be an exception, able to be overlooked provided he showed them enough respect, kept his distance from her, and never did it again.

Or became an official suitor.

And then what? He would have to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Guri about them soon, or they would have to elope. And there was no way she was going to be one of those couples running off to Brighton, parents disowning them, brothers and uncles looking for them to beat the shit out of them or worse, and a
funchait
to force her marriage, as a ruined girl, to a reluctant Kareem.

No, she wanted a proper wedding with all the trimmings: the betrothal party, then the full
nikkah
: the proper Muslim ceremony, with her in a sari stiff with gold thread, weighed down with gold jewelry, at least two kilos' worth, seated upstairs in Mum and Dad's bedroom and all the women around her, saying
Nah, nah
, to the mullah, and then the third time he asks, “Do you consent to marry Al-Mohammed Kareem Guri?” Mum prompting her to say, with every appearance of reluctance,
Jioii
. Yes. Then the
haldi mendhi
for her and all her friends and female relatives with music and dancing and singing going all night, and Shunduri in green and gold having her feet and hands rubbed with turmeric. Then the visit to the registry office to do the
gora
legals, perhaps in a hot pink
lehenga
and gold veil, and Kareem in one of his Savile Row suits.

Then off to the
rukhsati
, the reception, to sit on the red and gold thrones on the stage in Oxford's grandest reception center with Kareem in a white and gold
sherwani
and matching turban, with everyone sliding rings on her fingers and bracelets on her wrists, her head bowed down, her expression sweet, modest, a little sad. And, after the reception, the tears and clinging to Mum as she is torn away from her family to start a new life with this man, subsiding tearily into the stretch limousine and the protective concern of her new husband and the chaperones.

And a full
walima
for the newlyweds a week later, where she is allowed to smile as much as she likes, as she accepts everyone's best wishes and compliments as to how much married life is agreeing with her. And not to forget all the visits she would be making as a new bride, wearing all her finery, to drink the pistachio and sherbet at the houses of all their wedding guests for months and months afterward . . . She wanted it all, every bit, including the astonishment and envy of her friends, the pride of her parents, and the look in Kareem's eyes when he sees her in her wedding sari. Shilpi would just die.

“Eh, Princess, we're here, my place,” Kareem said softly, undoing her seatbelt.

Shunduri blinked and turned to open the car door. There was a tearing sound. The end of her veil had caught on Kareem's buckle, and her careless movement had resulted in a long slit in the chiffon. He dropped the end on her lap.

“Sorry, Princess. I dunno if you can fix that.”

She bundled the torn end out of the way. “Mum'll know what to do. I'll give it to her when we visit.”

Kareem came round to her side of the car and, since there was no one in the car park, she slid into his arms.

“On Tuesday,” she said.

“Eh?”

“The veil. I'll give it to Mum on Tuesday, when we visit. You promised.”

“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said, kissing her neck and shoulder. “You look so hot, Princess. Did you dress for me tonight? Did you?”

“Oh
yaah
.” Shunduri caught hold of his tie and pulled hard. “As
if
.”

“Eh, watch the tie, man!”

She tugged the silk knot tighter. “Desi boy, think I'd dress on your account?”

Kareem carefully lifted each of her fingers off his double Windsor and pushed her hand down, past his belt buckle. “Come upstairs. I'll drop you back to college when I go to the clubs.”

She pulled a face. “Why can't I go with you?”

“It's work, Princess. And your friends're expectin' you, innit?” She rolled her eyes, and he smiled, ran his hands over her bottom and squeezed it gently. “I'm only thinking of you, you know. Taking care of Princess's reputation, yeah.”

“I can take care of myself.” She slid her fingers under his jacket and pulled him closer so that they stood eye to eye, nose to nose. With her heels on, they were the same height, and she tried to fix his gaze.

“Nine o'clock Tuesday, yaah? Nine.”

“Yeah, Princess. I'm all yours. I'll be there.”

Only then did Shunduri let him kiss her on the mouth and, by degrees, urge her to the stairwell and inside.

T
HE DOORBELL RANG
and then, as Rohimun was halfway down the hall to answer it, Simon's key crunched in the lock. She diverted sullenly into the spare bedroom where her easels sat, and that god-awful mess on the two large canvases, gathering dust.

She turned around and went out again, trying not to breathe in the smell of linseed oil and turps. Shutting the door hard, she bumped into Simon, whose arm fell around her and pulled her against him, pinching the skin at her waist.

“Wotcher, love,” he said in a parody of a working-class accent, and laughed at his own joke.

He smelled of wine and cigarettes over expensive aftershave, and she thought to herself, I'd rather the turps. He dragged her along with him as far as the kitchen, then seemed to lose interest, dropping the mail he was carrying on the counter and getting out his smokes. Rohimun edged away discreetly, reaching to pull out an envelope from the pile of junk mail and bills. It was large and square, with
Rohimun Choudhury
written in sprawling, elegant handwriting diagonally across the envelope. But Simon, cigarette already wedged between his first and second fingers, twitched it out of her hands.

“What's this, love?” Without waiting for an answer, he tore the envelope so that it ripped halfway through her name, and pulled out a crimson card with black gothic lettering.
Victoria & Albert: Portraits and Studies.
“Ooh,” Simon said, his Eton accent taking on a camp
Coronation Street
edge as he looked at the back of the invitation. “
Tommorer. Eye-talian rooms also open
.”

Rohimun was silent. He would only taunt her if she tried to take it back, so she folded her arms and pretended to ignore him while he drew on his cigarette and continued to hold the card out in front of her and read it at his leisure. The new portrait exhibition. Who could have sent it? She'd thought no one at the RCA knew, or cared, where she was now. Old teachers and friends would be there. Hopefully not her former agent,
Inshallah
, for what could she say to him now?

Simon tossed the card in the bin and moved around the countertop toward the sofa.

She busied herself making tea for them both, but once Simon was lying on the sofa, his second home, a perverse instinct drove her to pick the card out of the bin, place it on the mantelpiece and stand by it, waiting for him to notice. And when he did, he didn't get off the sofa and tear it up, or even say a word. Just turned his face away so that his cheek rested against the sofa cushion, pretending that he hadn't seen a thing.

The TV went on, and Simon popped a downer with his whiskey and talked about his day like he always did, while Rohimun halfheartedly wiped things down in the kitchen. Her eyes kept flicking to the invitation; she knew better than to indicate any desire to attend.

In the end, to escape the boredom, they headed out to the pub to meet up with Simon's friends, Rohimun agreeing for the first time in weeks to tag along, because of a vague idea of larger battles looming. As soon as they arrived, Simon was transformed into the old Simon: public Simon with his porkpie hat tipped over one eye, full of laughter and good cheer, at the center of things. But it was a magic circle that she no longer wished to enter, so Rohimun, relieved to be away from the atmosphere in the flat, balanced on the outer edge of the snug, making small talk to new or less familiar arrivals.

Now that they were out together, she was his
love
as if he meant it, and he was talking about how much he missed her when he was at work, and how they were going to go away together soon, to Amsterdam or Morocco, just the two of them; and his friends were laughing and saying
Never thought you'd settle down
and
Simey, what a sweetie you are, isn't he?
Especially as he was putting his card behind the bar like the big man he was.

He pushed a second double G&T in front of her, and she shook her head, not quite looking at him.

“Oh,
love
,” he said, concerned, and put his arm around her, sliding his fingers under her top and pinching the tender skin beneath her breast. She tried not to jump. “Drink up fast, love. You're getting behind.”

When she picked up the glass, he kissed her cheek with a hard, smacking motion, and leaned back to laugh at something someone else had said.

Rohimun took a small sip of her drink, then another. Nothing was real here. She could see, more clearly than the blurred faces around her or the ashtrays and dirty glasses collecting on the table, the V&A invitation waiting in the flat, like a drugged-out guest from the night before, or a bill that they had no money to pay.

When they returned home, the thing was still not mentioned, but lay between them as they fucked joylessly, looking past each other. Afterward, she lay awake with her eyes closed. Perhaps it was just a phase they were in now, after the early, heady, can't-keep-their-hands-off-each-other times, the will-do-anything-for-you times, when she'd been so grateful to defer to Simon all the vexed decisions, from how to deal with her agent and what invitations to accept, to what to wear to
gora
functions with their infinite gradations of dress, and when to arrive and leave. It had been so easy to let him steer her from group to group, to hang out with his friends who never asked her why she wasn't painting anymore.

She had never thought, when she'd met him, that she could have been lonelier than she was then, when Tariq, her big brother, two years older and her best friend, had dropped out of her life, all their lives, with no word of warning. From her very first day of primary school, through to those scary early weeks at the RCA, living away from her parents, he had always been there for her, sticking up for her, then supporting her choice of a fine arts degree, the two of them standing firm against Mum's marriage plans and Dad's criticisms.

For Tariq to have gone fundo like that, then disappear altogether, soon after her graduation and the first euphoria of positive reviews and acquiring her own agent and a list of commissions that seemed to be a mile long, had felt like the worst of betrayals. Perhaps he'd thought she no longer needed him. Or perhaps his favorite sister just wasn't that important anymore.

The last time she'd heard Tariq's voice was in a phone message that she'd discovered late the night before her first solo exhibition. She had not recognized his voice at first, the high-pitched, too-loud tone in which he spoke, almost gabbling the words, as if he was on a time limit.

“
Salaamalaikum
, Rohimun, I bid you farewell. I have joined the legion of the soldiers of God, the mujahideen, for the holy jihad. It is the duty of every Muslim and, Rohimun, listen, you must listen, your painting is idolatry and must be put away, you have to cover, live a pious life, and you must tell Mum and Dad, tell them . . .” A wave of static engulfed the line, then cleared. “I have to go. Tell them I've gone away to study. Overseas. Africa.” There was a rapid despairing gasp, as if he had run out of air, and the connection severed abruptly.

When she had tried to call him back, all she could get was a mechanical voice telling her that the number was not available. She'd sat in bed and listened to his words again and again, with that terminating gasp, until she found herself breathing with it, gulping for air as it clicked off.

The next day, when she should have been checking the hanging of her pictures, she'd wandered around in a daze. It was with only an hour to go before her first solo exhibition that she'd managed to dress and get out of the flat. How could he do this to her now. Now that she was having doubts, having second thoughts about these paintings of hers that were so popular, so well reviewed and so quickly sold.

She'd turned up late for her own show, shamed by the staring of strangers and resentful at her agent's hissed queries and the expectation that she stand next to her paintings for photos, like a mannequin or a statue. Who was she without her brother to lean on, to tell her that her paintings were good, better, best; to deflect the needy and resist the pushy; and to laugh at this rent-a-crowd who talked to each other with their backs to the artwork and kissed each other without touching.

She felt like she was drowning. Tariq, one of those crazy fundos who went to fight in foreign wars. Pressure, responsibility, loneliness and no one to help her.

Then a man, dark-haired and with Tariq's slender build, breezed into the gallery, half hidden by the crowd, and for an instant she'd thought it'd never happened, here he was. But he came closer, and it wasn't Tariq at all. He was
gora
, not Asian, as pale as a night-worker and walking with a cocky air, as if the crowd was there to see him, looking like a musician or an artist in his tight black jeans and t-shirt, pointy-toed black boots and porkpie hat. He caught her staring at him and held her gaze, kept walking until he was at her side then stood as if he belonged there and called her Princess Jasmine, making her laugh at the Disney reference. He beckoned a waiter over with a salver of glasses holding very yellow champagne, lifted one off and pressed it on her.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

She didn't say, I'm the artist, these are my paintings—didn't want to say that. She wanted nothing to do with those daubs on the walls with their spreading pox of little red stickers. She was sure he could tell they were rubbish, like all the people there, who were either just being polite or were too stupid to know.

“I'm Rohimun.”

“Simon. Drink up, love,” he said, with the casual authority of an expert in these matters, and she had drunk then, automatically obedient to his confidence, his sureness of touch, the waiter's deference to his Eton accent. She drank the whole glass down, as if she was a patient in casualty told to take her medicine, or a bride swallowing her sherbet drink, and the yeasty bitterness made the wound of Tariq's condemnation and abandonment throb more softly, for a while.

Simon watched her empty her glass, laughed in the face of her agent's disapproving stare, then spoke softly, close to her ear. “Let's go, love. Let's get out of here. Fuck them, you've had enough of this function.”

“I can't.”

“Love, you can do anything you want: it's your show. Come with me. They've had enough of you, those vultures.”

And he gave her a wide, can-do-anything grin that was surely sympathetic, and she had felt suddenly released from a great burden, flying upward like a diver who had slipped a weight belt and was rising irresistibly to the surface of things. Why should she stay when she hated it so much, felt so uncomfortable?

Afterward, Rohimun had never given a thought to going back. Not even on that first Monday morning when she lay in Simon's bed and watched him put on his suit and transform into a city stockbroker. Not when, a mere two weeks later, Simon, high as a kite, left her at a party while he was chasing some deal and forgot to come back. What was there to go back to anyway? A lonely merry-go-round of more second-rate paintings and more rubbish commissions, or going home to Mum and Dad and letting them marry her off to some Desi optometrist or accountant. She'd made her bed.

If Tariq had been there, the old Tariq, perhaps at least she'd have been able to see the differences between him and Simon. Whatever they were. But then, what was worse: the humorless judgemental fundo prick that Tariq had become, or the revelation of Simon as a snob and a
casra charsi
, a dirty addict? Or indeed, herself: a painter who couldn't paint, a fat whiny girlfriend, a
casra sudary
, dirty slut.

—

W
HEN
R
OHIMUN WOKE
late the next day, Simon was still in bed. She should have known that he would take the day off, to keep an eye on her on the day of the exhibition. For the rest of Friday morning, she lay on the very edge of the bed with her eyes closed, feeling the grittiness of unwashed sheets and the thick itch of dirty hair. While she pretended to sleep, tried to ignore Simon's hungover body weighing down the mattress behind her, she thought about the invitation and what it meant. But then he rolled into her back, and she held on to the side of the bed and feigned lumpish unconsciousness as he fumbled with her halfheartedly, trying to jam his half-soft cock between her legs from behind. He soon gave up, giving her one last mean shove before getting up and going into the kitchen.

The sucking kiss of the fridge door and the rattle of ice against glass announced that he was not coming back to bed. She thought of who would be at the V&A tonight, and what she could wear that would not cause trouble, and why she was suddenly so willing to court it at all. The creak of sofa springs from the sitting room was drowned out almost immediately by the staccato cheeriness of television ads, then the thoughtful, reasoned voices of two men.

There go the seagulls . . .

The crowd certainly enjoyed that. And who knows what surprises this player might be bringing to the field today . . .

Those seagulls are settling again
.

Yes, raw talent here, up against a fair bit of aggression . . . could put the selectors off though
.

Rohimun opened her eyes, then squinted, trying not to see the room just yet, instead focusing on a point midway to the window, on the sifting beams of sunlight, in which floated thousands of particles of dust. Wasn't it meant to be skin?

And there go the seagulls, rising and wheeling to the east . . .

Thousands and millions of parts of herself and Simon mixed together and drifting aimlessly. White lead mixed roughly with titanium and barium yellow would give that hazy gleam, with a dry roller rolled softly over the wet paint to break it up, make it both more and less solid.

I don't know about that first ball. Shades of Murali, if you know what I mean. But the umpire's ignoring it for now
.

How had they come to this? Food going off in the fridge and clothes piling up unwashed because, even though the days seemed endless, there never seemed to be enough time or energy to sort things out.