Of Marriageable Age (16 page)

W
HEN
S
AROJ WENT
to see Balwant Uncle's boys, she went for a walk along the beach dreaming her dreams of freedom. Trixie was there, galloping her piebald horse along the water's edge, slightly raised in the saddle, leaning slightly forward, the picture of freedom. Saroj stared after her in envy. Trixie by now was no longer a stranger; how could a girl be a stranger who seemed nearer to your soul's true being than you yourself ? But Saroj knew that this intimacy was false, because it was one-sided. Except for a vague, occasional grin, Trixie seemed unaware of Saroj's very existence. Trixie would never notice her, despite their physical proximity. She'd have to prove herself. Somehow.

Saroj's imagination had worked overtime. She had laid awake at night devising schemes, making up stories in which Trixie and the others would stand gaping, open-mouthed and goggle-eyed, while she, Saroj, the dare-devil heroine, rushed into burning houses to rescue screaming children, or joined a circus and swung on the trapeze, flying through the air with the greatest of ease…

But the morning would come, bringing Ma and her hairbrush, Baba with his squares of toast, her uniform, neatly laid across the high-backed chair next to the tower door. The spell over, the silver coach turned back into a pumpkin, the heroine a long-skirted schoolgirl nobody noticed, least of all Trixie. She was Baba's prisoner. Chained and gagged, a vestal virgin to be sacrificed on the altar of marriage. On her wedding day Baba would place the chain in the Ghosh boy's hands, and that would be her life. Forever more. She lacked the courage to rebel. She lacked the courage even to address a word to Trixie. Two weeks into the new term she was still no nearer to friendship than the foot-and-a-half between their desks.

'Auntie! Come and help me!' Sahadeva jolted Saroj out of her reverie. The two of them were a team; they had made the glorious blue-and-yellow kite that had to win the best kite prize at the kite competition next Easter.

'It's not fair!' Shiv Sahai complained. 'You get to practise with her and Pratap never comes to practise!'

'Your fault! Your fault! Your fault!' Sahadeva laughed, because they had tossed a coin to choose a teammate and Shiv Sahai had won the toss and chosen their big brother Pratap, who might be good at making kites but didn't make the time to practise. Shiv Sahai had to make do with their fat old nanny Meenakshi, who waddled back and forth at his command. Sahadeva had Saroj, who was always eager for the temporary escape that kite-flying granted.

'You stay here and hold it good, Auntie,' said Sahadeva. 'I'm just going to run off with the kite. Hold it good, okay?'

The kite soared up and Sahadeva ran back, took the spool from Saroj, and ran off, dancing sideways to watch the kite's ascent.

'Look how high! Look how high! Shiv Sahai, look! Mine's much higher than yours!'

In excitement he ran backwards along the beach, releasing more twine as he ran. The kite soared and sailed, its bright yellow crepe-paper ears flapping gaily against the cobalt blue of the sky, its long tail of scrap-cotton bows tied to a cord — which Sahadeva had made all by himself, without any help whatsoever — curling gracefully back and forth.

All of a sudden the kite took a dive downwards, like a hawk plunging for the attack, right into the path of Trixie's horse cantering back towards them.

'Look out!' Saroj yelled. But she was too far away, and it was too late.

The kite hit the sand directly before Trixie's horse's nose. The horse shied, reared, tottered, and plunged off in a wild gallop. Trixie lay on the ground. Saroj was at her side in a trice.

'Are you all right?'

'I'm fine,' Trixie said gruffly, and tried to stand up, but the moment she touched the ground with her right foot her knee gave way and she collapsed.

'Ouch!'

'You're hurt! You've sprained your ankle, or broken it.'

'Well, yes, maybe... where's Vitane?'

'The horse? He went that way, he's all right, but if you can't walk…'

'Look, I'll be all right. I have to catch Vitane. Ouch…' Trixie tried to walk again and collapsed again.

'Look, I'd better go and get help!'

'But Vitane — you've got to get Vitane first, I'm going to be fine, once he's here you can help me onto his back, then I can ride again. Look, there he is, over there, can you...'

Saroj looked down the beach and there indeed was Vitane, standing still with his head lowered, as guilty as the cat who stole the milk.

'Look, I'll go and bring your horse, you sit down here on the sand, I'll be right back.'

'He's a pony,' Trixie said, 'and he doesn't like strangers so you have to be very careful, approach him slowly from in front, and…'

Saroj didn't bother to listen to Trixie's instructions, and she didn't need them. The horse, pony, whatever, was glad to be rescued. She just walked up to him and he came to meet her. She patted him on the neck, and he nuzzled her hand. She whispered into his ear and stroked his glossy black-and-white coat, and she had to wipe a grin from her face as, leading the docile Vitane, she approached Trixie, sitting helplessly on the sand, so Trixie wouldn't think she was laughing at her.

By this time Meenakshi and the boys were with her, Meenakshi fussing over the twisted ankle, the boys fussing over the kite, which was ruined. Sahadeva was crying.

'It's all right, Sahadeva, we'll make a new one,' Saroj said in passing, and to Trixie, 'He was quite easy to catch!' trying not to brag.

'Thanks, now if you could just give me a leg-up I can ride him back to the Pony Club,' Trixie said, grouchily. She was trying to get rid of her, Saroj knew.

But Meenakshi, thank God for grown-ups, said, 'Girl, you hurt bad, you should go and see a doctor!'

'Who's this?' said Trixie, nodding towards Meenaskshi. 'It's Meenakshi, the boys' nanny, and she's right.'

'But I've got to take care of Vitane!'

'Don't worry about him,' Saroj said, and patted him again. It felt good, crouching there at Trixie's side with the reins slung over her arm, casually, as if he were her, Saroj's, horse, and not Trixie's. 'The Pony Club isn't all that far; I'll walk him over. Look, he likes me. We've got to get you to a doctor though, maybe you've broken something!'

Trixie looked sulky. She tried to stand up again but it was no good; she yelled in pain.

'I'll telephone your mother. What's her number?'

'She's not at home.'

'Your father then. Is he at work?'

'My father's in London,' Trixie said quickly, 'so I wouldn't bother calling him, and I've no idea where my mother is right now. Just… just call a taxi and get me to the hospital, I'll be all right, really, and if you could walk Vitane to the Pony Club…'

'Shouldn't I come to hospital with you?'

'No, I'll be fine, really.'

They looked around for a telephone booth but of course there wasn't one; there never was when you needed one, and then Meenakshi pointed out that just across the road was the police headquarters, and she waddled off to seek help. And before long Meenakshi was back with two strapping policemen who lugged Trixie up as if she were a sack of potatoes and carried her off the beach to the street, where a police jeep was already waiting.

Saroj stood waiting till the jeep was out of sight. And when it was gone she sent Meenakshi off home with the little boys and the broken kite, and then she stood on the Sea Wall, which was just the right height to get her leg over Vitane's back. Then she kicked his sides like she thought you were supposed to, and clicked her tongue and said
giddy-up,
and she was off ! Riding! With her skirt all hoisted up around her knees... her very first taste of freedom. A tiny step, perhaps, one Trixie would think nothing of, nothing like plunging into a raging inferno to save somebody's life.

But for Saroj, it was a single tiny step. And she had taken it alone, with no-one's help, only Providence.

L
ATER THAT EVENING
, while Ma was still at the Purushottama Temple and Baba was still at the Maha Sabha, the telephone rang. It was Trixie.

'I just wanted to say sorry I was so bitchy and thank you for looking after Vitane.'

'Oh, no, that's fine, really, and how are you? How's your foot? Is it broken?'

'No, just sprained.'

After that it was as easy as anything. Trixie was all alone at home, lying, as she explained, on the sitting room couch with her bandaged foot up, reading Teen magazine, bored to tears and ready for a chat. Naturally gregarious, she didn't need much prodding to release the avalanche of conversation waiting inside her. It didn't even seem to matter that Saroj happened to be one of those Indian drips. It was as if they were already best friends.

Within the first five minutes she had promised to give Saroj riding lessons, to lend her Beatles records, and on hearing that she had no record-player, to make cassettes of her records which she would give her the next day at school, and on hearing that she didn't even have a cassette recorder promised to lend her her own.

'But better still, just come over here. We can listen together then. What about after school tomorrow? Oh, hell, no, I've got this gammy foot and can't ride a bicycle. Guess what, I've got crutches! Mum'll have to pick me up in the car. But as soon as it's better you'll come home with me, okay?'

'Well, er, okay, but…'

'But what?'

'Well…' Saroj didn't know how to explain it. How to tell her that she wasn't allowed to go anywhere. Not to visit, except to relatives. Not shopping, not to the swimming pool, not to the cinema. Nowhere. That she couldn't ride a bicycle. That she was her father's prisoner, his captive, his possession. The porcelain doll he kept swaddled in cotton wool.

But then the real Saroj, the Saroj she longed to be, slammed her fist right through the porcelain facecrust of that doll.

'Yes! Yes, I'll come, but listen, I haven't got a bicycle so can I come home with you tomorrow, in the car? When your mum picks you up?'

They settled that matter there and then, and Saroj replaced the receiver with a feeling of jubilant, singing joy surging up within her. She danced away from the telephone with a wide grin splitting her face, and twirled slap-bang into Ganesh just coming home from cricket, and they both lay sprawled on the floor. Saroj laughed, and Ganesh, who never needed an excuse to do so, laughed too. She scrambled to her feet and pulled at Ganesh's sleeve.

'Ganesh, come quick, up in the tower. I've got news, you won't believe it!'

T
RIXIE OPENED
the back door of her mother's white Vauxhall and Saroj slipped in, feeling suddenly terribly shy. Suddenly scared. But then she was sliding back into the seat behind Trixie's mum and Trixie was in the passenger seat and they were driving off to a place where Baba could not find her.

'Mum, this is Saroj; Saroj, this is Mum,' Trixie said quickly. Trixie's mum was half-turned towards Saroj. She had a perfectly round two-inch Afro and her profile showed sharp features, a full mouth and high cheekbones. Her skin was an unblemished mahogany brown, and on the crest of the cheekbone nearest Saroj was a black split-pea of a mole, which together with the rest of that profile looked strangely, vaguely familiar.

Saroj slid forward in the seat to take her proffered hand and said, 'Pleased to meet you, Mrs Macintosh.'

Trixie's mum smiled and shook her head and Trixie let out one of her cascades of laughter.

'No, no, no, don't ever call her that or she'll bite your head off. She's not a Mrs and she's not a Macintosh. She's Lucy Quentin!'

And then Lucy Quentin smiled again and nodded this time, and Saroj almost died of shame and awe.
Lucy Quentin!

Lucy Quentin was famous, so famous her face was in the papers all the time, Lucy Quentin this and Lucy Quentin that, Minister of Health, head of this commission and that advisory board, president of this association and chairwoman of that corporation. Lucy Quentin, quote, unquote, shake hands and curtsey.

And Saroj was Lucy Quentin's greatest fan. First thing she did whenever she got hold of the
Chronicle
was scan page one for any news of her. Had she given a speech? A press conference? Had words with the Minister of Education? Lucy Quentin was always crossing swords with men of consequence. She had a hundred axes to grind — but her sharpest, heaviest axe was the one raised on Baba's talon grip on his daughter's life. Lucy Quentin wanted to raise the minimum marriageable age for girls and abolish arranged marriages. She had plans to institute a commission where girls being forced into marriage by their parents could find legal assistance, or, after such a marriage had taken place, have it annulled. She envisioned a home these girls could flee to, secure from their fist-waving fathers. She wanted laws against the unlimited power of fathers!

She outraged the entire adult Indian community with these unspeakable demands; but their daughters — and surely Saroj wasn't the only one — devoured her words in the privacy of their homes, made secret scrapbooks of
Chronicle
clippings, rooted for her in their hearts, cheered her on in their thoughts, and prayed for her success every time their parents called them to the family shrine for
puja
. And smiled demurely to themselves when their fathers ranted about Lucy Quentin's latest heresies.

It was none of her business, the Indian fathers said; first, she was an African and had no understanding of Indian ways. Second, she was Minister of Health and marriage wasn't her department. It jolly well was, Lucy Quentin replied. Forced marriage was bad for a fourteen-year-old's mental health.

And here was Saroj, now, sitting behind the great Lucy Quentin, on the way to her home to spend the afternoon with her daughter who, Saroj determined, was about to become her very best friend. In that moment she knew there really was a God.

L
ATER ON
, when Lucy Quentin had dropped them off at their Bel Air Park home and driven off again to some important meeting, Trixie told Saroj her story. Trixie's mum's name was Quentin, not Macintosh, she told Saroj, because when she divorced Trixie's father she took back her maiden name and called herself Miss.