A Matter of Marriage (9 page)

Until she met Richard, born to everything she had ever wanted but wanting none of it. Their relationship had provided an entree to the very people, the very groups she had craved, first at Oxford, then when living together in London. He had teased her about it: how she hung on every word he spoke about friends and relatives, the efforts she made to meet and greet and eat with those very people whose phone calls he could not be bothered to return, whose social demands he told her he loathed. By the end of that time, she knew everyone, had been everywhere. She had cultivated all of the connections and contacts that he was so blasé about, even had her own inner circle. What efforts she had gone to, been happy to go to, to create a community of belonging: her contribution to their joint future.

After two years together, he had finally taken her home for a weekend, and she had fallen in love at first sight with a crumbling stately home and, especially, its last one hundred years of continuity and family. She had glimpsed a dream of an existence, and then he had told her he wanted none of it, not Bourne Abbey, not marriage, not children.

Audrey, with a swiftness that was commendable until Thea remembered that
The Archers
would be on in half an hour, wheeled in the tea trolley with Thea's favorite demitasse cups and Henry's mother's cake-stand, piled high with slices of halva and miniature baklava triangles. Audrey had used those tacky paper doilies again, as if she'd never been told not to. Clearly the only way Thea was going to stop that was to find Audrey's secret stash and throw it in the bin. But, Audrey being Audrey, she'd probably just put them back on the shopping list and plead ignorance.

And here was Thea's younger self still standing before her, insecurity coming off her like sweat off a racehorse, and so ready for the rejection that was bound to ensue, because it always did. For a moment Thea fancied she could see herself through this girl's eyes: older, frighteningly well-groomed and, most importantly, belonging in the setting of the Abbey. It didn't matter what the girl had to say: Thea knew what was really at stake. She felt all her initial competitive hostility melt away, and grasped the other woman's gloved hand.

“Do come and sit by the fire, Shunduri. Did you take the motorway?”

—

H
ENRY, STANDING WATCHING
the exchange between his wife and the woman in black, had the distinct feeling that he'd missed plenty, but not the shiver of seeming recognition that had passed between them. Bloody Greeks. His fate was sealed. The main hall renovations, largely funded by in-law drachmas and never achievable on the National Trust grant scheme alone, were complete. And now they were coming to claim their piece of the action.

How often had Richard told him that, with money, there were always strings attached? What would it be? Installation of one of Thee's evil aunties or grandmothers upstairs, for life. She'd probably outlive them all, having made a compact with the devil already. Or maybe Thee's brother would arrive next, wanting the takings from open days to fund business expansion into England.

These two, maybe the family's Turkish branch, were just the outriders, the advance scouts for the full-scale invasion to come. Henry felt a little doom-laden frisson run down his spine, and smiled weakly at Kareem.

“So, ah, are you planning to stay long?”

“As long as my princess needs.”

“Oh, ah, that's Shunduri then?” Henry had never, since school, felt more like a fool. Maybe she was Greek royalty. She certainly had Prince Philip's resting expression down pat.

“Yeah.”

Henry squirmed on the inside. It was a horribly awkward situation, but he had to know. He drew Kareem away from the two women, toward Audrey's double doors.

“So, ah, whereabouts are you from, exactly?” He held his breath.

Kareem stared at him, all geniality gone as if it had never been. He extended his right arm, and shook his hand from the wrist in such a way that Henry could hear the knuckles crack. “I'm an East Ender, meself.”

Henry felt a prickle on his neck, and became very aware of the ropes of muscle that rose out of Kareem's shirt collar. All those tabloid stories of drug gangs, ruthless criminals . . . He felt his chin drop and recede, as it always did in a crisis, and he blinked rapidly behind his glasses. “I'm sorry, I d-didn't mean . . . I thought you might be related to my wife . . . She's Greek, you know.”

“
Greek?
” Kareem's eyebrows shot up. “
Ei hala kwai toni aliue!
” He laughed and shook his head, then pulled on an earlobe in which sat a fat diamond or diamanté or something. Thea was always trying to explain the difference to him. “Man, what are you thinkin'? I'm a Desi boy.” He grinned at Henry's blank face. “Bang-la-desh.”

“Ohh, so . . .”

“So I'm no Mirpuri Paki either.”

“It d-doesn't matter.” Henry always stuttered when he was nervous. “I'm just glad you're not Greek.”

Kareem gave him a look that Henry remembered from school. A fifth-form, what-am-I-going-to-do-with-the-new-boy look. Kareem's fingers circled Henry's upper arm, and he was back in the Becksley Grammar School first-floor toilets, hands gripping him, his forced, skidding walk to the end cubicle and the brief sight of a toilet bowl before the backs of his knees were kicked in and his head was forced down and into the bowl, cracking his chin on the porcelain edge. The agonizing fight for breath amidst the emptying cistern, then shouts, running feet and the bang of the cubicle door before being left alone with ruined glasses and pissed pants.

“Hey, man, you alright?” Kareem was standing close, closer than before, and staring at him. Wanting to know if he was okay. Like an ideal big brother, always there when you need him.

He touched his glasses for reassurance. “Sorry, miles away.”

Kareem spoke again, and his tone was almost kindly. “Come and see my new car, man. I only picked it up last week.” He turned toward the two women. “You're not goin' anywhere else, are you, Princess? You're stayin' here?”

“Yaah. What do you think?” Shunduri spoke without looking at him.

Kareem, seeming satisfied, reached out again to Henry, this time putting his arm around his shoulders, and started to guide him out into the main hall.

Henry complied: how could he not? In fact, one part of him was surprised at how safe he felt in this stranger's presence. He ventured further. “So, ah, what's Mirpuri?”

“They're the poor Pakis, man. Not the rich ones from Islamabad and Karachi. The dirty peasants from Mirpuri province that come over here and clean your toilets and run the railways and set up restaurants and try to cook as well as us Bengali boys. Crap food. Tastes like shit. And do they love their bread, man. Always bread. Like you
goras
, you Christians, with your potatoes. I can't take it. It's no meal without rice, yeah.”

As they walked outside, Kareem glanced back at the Abbey and spoke more quietly. “Does this place have dungeons?”

“Sort of, I suppose. Quite big ones, actually.”

“Jesus.”

“Well, cellars, really.”

The car, beaded with raindrops, loomed over them, its windows impenetrable even from this close.

“Now this is my pride an' joy, yeah? The latest Rover SUV. Tata just bought them out, you know. It's not even in the showrooms yet. See that paint job? I had it T-cut last night, ready for me this morning. And now GPS problems. Man, I didn't expect that. Too many trees, or hills, or somefin', messing with the signal. But check out those aerials.”

Henry looked in vain. Not an aerial to be seen.

Kareem steered him to the rear of the car, where he pointed to an LED cylinder just visible inside the back window. “They're embedded in the LED. One for family, one for my Princess, you know? And two for business. For clients. Got to be in touch all the time, otherwise, that's the thin end of the wedge. They'd be callin' someone else before you know it. No loyalty these days, man. Just the quick or the dead, you know?”

“So . . . but that would mean, you'd need . . .” His voice failed him.

“Yeah, four mobs.” Kareem squeezed his shoulder again. “Never leave home without 'em, yeah.”

“Where do you put them all? The, ah, mobiles?”

Kareem grinned and pulled up a trouser leg to show a strangely underdeveloped calf that narrowed to an ankle smaller than Henry's wrist. His sock bulged. “That's for family.” Then he carefully unbuttoned his skin-tight suit jacket to show his shirtfront, which was crossed by a diagonal of shiny black fabric. “That's for my new clients, and my old ones.”

Henry goggled. “Th-that's, some kind of holster?”

“Yeah, they're big now. It started with the Sikh boys, the religious ones, wanting to carry their daggers, but still look good in a suit, yeah? Started to get 'em custom-made, then the Pakis found out how good they were for mobs. If you're a businessman, you need more than one, yeah?”

It had never occurred to him. His telephone sat on the hall table, where it had always been. “I don't know whether I want to know where the fourth . . .”

“Relax, man! My trouser pocket.” Kareem laughed, glanced at his watch, a heavy silver Omega that Henry instantly coveted, threw a careless arm over Henry's shoulder, and started to move back toward the house.

Henry laughed as well, with a weird surge of confidence. Nothing could touch him now. He felt like the newest, weediest boy at school who suddenly finds himself best friends with the rugby captain. A rugby captain from Mars. He and Kareem were about the same age, both apparently born and bred in England, yet they may as well have come from different planets.

“Look, I'll show you something. The, ah, rose garden. It's just been excavated, you know. It's just around here, by that hedge.”

“It's not too far, den? I don't want to leave Princess on her own . . .”

“No, no, not far at all. See, there. When it was dug out, look, they found these channels in a cross-shape, and this in the middle. We think it's the remains of a well.”

Kareem stopped on the gravel and looked dubiously at the muddy garden beds.

“You can see more if you—”

“Nah, nah, I can see it all from here, man. That's a fountain in the middle, innit?”

“Well, I suppose it could have been,” Henry replied doubtfully. “But that wouldn't be very medieval, and I don't . . .”

“It's a Paradise garden,” said Kareem, warming to this theme. “I've seen 'em on BBC2, like out the front of the Taj Mahal. And in Spain. They always have a fountain in the middle. And four quarters for the four corners of Paradise.”

“Oh, right. That would be the Muslim Paradise then. I don't think . . .” He spotted one of the dogs, Colin's black Labrador, bounding toward them.

“Jesus Christ,” said Kareem, stepping rapidly backward, his hands over his crotch.

Henry slapped the dog's sides and fondled its ears. “Hey, Devil. Where's Colin then? He must have let you off. Hey, boy.” The dog moaned ecstatically, then glanced back, its ears pricked, before loping off toward the river. Colin must have whistled for him.

Kareem was nowhere to be seen. Henry gave a token shake to his muddied cords, then wandered around to the Abbey's front.

“Oh, there you are, Kareem. Thought I'd lost you.”

Kareem must have moved very fast because he was already up the steps to the portico'd front entrance, and reaching for the door handle.

“So, ah, you've seen enough then?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Their footsteps echoed in the main hall, the smell of fresh wood and new paint easily detectable here, and Henry wondered for a magical moment if this was how the first abbot must have felt as he walked into his brand-new abbey with his cohort: fellow travellers from the Holy Land, perhaps.

Kareem was still walking away from him, and Henry wondered if he'd done something wrong. “Did . . . ah, did the dog worry you? You don't like dogs?”

Kareem turned to face him and grinned, shrugging his shoulders. He almost looked embarrassed. “I'm from Tower Hamlets Estate, innit?”

“I don't . . .”

“National Front's very active round there, man. They used to set their dogs on us kids. The Asian an' black kids on the estate.” Kareem gave a mock shudder. “German Shepherds, man, barkin' like crazy two inches from your face when you're pissing your pants on the monkey bars, with nowhere to go.” He shook his head. “Dogs ain't my thing, man.”

“Good Lord,” said Henry, horrified. “Children? Why didn't someone call the police?”

“Ha ha, right.” Kareem slapped Henry's back and squeezed his shoulder again. “You crack me up. I like you, man, I really like you.”

As they walked through the hall, the Henri Regnault portrait came into view, and Kareem froze. “Jesus Christ,” he said, and his arm dropped from Henry's shoulder.

Not surprising, really: the more than life-size African executioner, standing over a headless body and wiping his scimitar on his robes, took a lot of visitors aback.

Feeling oddly bereft without the warm weight of Kareem's arm, Henry hastened to explain. “It's pretty gory, isn't it? It's called
Execution without Trial
or sometimes just
The Executioner
. It was bought by an ancestor of mine: the Reverend Bourne. Used to give me nightmares as a child. Mind you, I still prefer it to these others.” He gestured at the hated Victoriana decorating the walls of the hall. “Must say, not my favorites.”

“Why have 'em, then?”

“They've been purchased by the Kiriakis Trust. I've got no say there. Old Theo Kiriakis's taste. That's Thee's grandfather.”

“Yeah. You can't mess wiv elders.” Kareem eyed the various paintings of kittens, puppies and family scenes, his expression neutral. “Are they valuable?”