Of Marriageable Age (8 page)

And that was the reason Nat had to go to school in Town instead of the village. Nat's father wanted him to get something he called a Good Education; Nat didn't know what that was, but he did know it meant he had to go to the English Medium school in Town, that one day he would have to leave his father and go far away across the seas, and one day he would be a doctor like his father, and help in the clinic. But that was a long, long way away.

He remembered this particular morning so well, the morning the woman with the dead baby had breakfast with them, because just after the woman and the dead baby and the boy left with Anand, just as he was about to get in the rickshaw behind Pandu, another rickshaw drew up, a new yellow rickshaw, and a tall man in very clean black trousers and a shiny white long-sleeved shirt stepped out, and that was his Gopal Uncle, though he didn't know it yet.

When his father saw the man he said, 'Gopal!' and the man laughed heartily and almost ran into his father's open arms, saying, 'Oh friend, my dear friend, I am very happy to see you again!'

Nat stood staring, because he had never seen his father greet or be greeted by anyone this way before. His father, as far as he knew, had no friends, no real friends the way he, Nat, had. The people in the village worshipped his father, which meant they could not be friends with him. And, whereas his father spoke Tamil with the people in the village, he spoke English with Gopal. English was their own very private world which no-one else could enter, not even Anand, although Anand understood some English words. But now this strange man in the sparkling white clothes who had come in a rickshaw, he was allowed to enter this private little English world.

The man his father called Gopal now turned to Nat with very interested, eager eyes, and said, 'And you are Nataraj!' Which greatly surprised Nat, because how did the man know his name, just like that? And then the man stretched out his hand and pinched Nat's cheek, squeezing a slab of skin with his fingers and wiggling it. It hurt Nat so much he decided not to like this man. But he was curious so he hoped his father would keep him home from school today so he could find out more about him, but just as he thought that his father said, 'Nat, what are you waiting for? Off to school, or Teacher will be cross! Gopal Uncle will be here when you get back ... won't you? I see you've brought a valise with you?'

'Yes, yes, I was hoping I could stay ... I brought some garments with me ... and a present for Nataraj .. .' He reached into the rickshaw he'd come in and took out a shiny black suitcase, and as Nataraj settled into Pandu's rickshaw he heard his father say, 'But how on earth did you find me, old chap? I say, I heard you'd .. .'

Nat couldn't hear any more, because Pandu had mounted the cycle and was pedalling off down the dusty road. He kneeled on the seat and rested his arms on the folded-back hood of the rickshaw, and looking back he saw his father leaning down to speak to the first patient, and reaching out to help the old man to his feet. Gopal Uncle stood at the side of the road, the shiny valise in his hand, watching his father help the old man hobble into the clinic, and there was a dark look on Gopal Uncle's face that struck a cold clammy fear into Nat's heart.

CHAPTER FIVE

SAROJ

Georgetown, 1964

W
HEN
S
AROJ TURNED
thirteen Baba threw her the gauntlet that would develop into the battle of her life, the battle
for
her life. It happened at the breakfast table.

'I have found a husband for Sarojini,' he said, as casually as if declaring he would be late in from work tonight as he had an important meeting to attend. Saroj's spoon of Weetabix-and-milk froze in mid-air, the open mouth waiting for the spoon now a jaw-dropped gaping hole of shock.

Baba's long, thin hands complacently stroked marmalade on buttered toast. He cut the toast into little orange-yellow-white squares and lifted them to his lips with an almost feminine delicacy. His fingers moved with a deft spidery lightness; Saroj imagined them spinning a web. Creepy. She shuddered and looked away, waiting for what was to come.

Everyone was waiting, but Baba took his time. Ma looked at Saroj, raising her eyebrows slightly so that the round red tika between them bobbed. Saroj turned her eyes to Ganesh, who in turn was looking at Baba, who, assured of everyone's attention, finally continued. 'After all, she will soon be of marriageable age. I have been making the necessary enquiries.'

By now all eyes were fixed on Baba except Indrani's, who was primly buttering her toast with an expression of studied nonchalance. She, of course, could afford to be blasé. She already had her prospective husband chosen and waiting, and a very good match it was too, everyone said, and only last week her wedding-sari had arrived, all the way from India, halfway round the world, sent by one of Baba's distant Bengali relatives whom none of them had ever met, including Baba.

Baba looked around, gathering his family into the tent of his authority, straightening his back for the next phase of his announcement.

'I have selected the Ghosh boy.'

Even Indrani, now, raised her eyes. Baba waited.

'The Ghosh family,' he prompted when no-one commented, no-one gasped, no-one clapped, no-one fainted. 'Ghosh of Ghosh Brothers Dry Goods on Regent Street. Mrs Ghosh is married to Narain's second cousin and they have a boy of the correct age.'

Mr Narain, a proven half-Brahmin, was Baba's law partner — Narain and Roy of Robb Street, Georgetown's second most prestigious law firm, which meant that any relative of Narain had to be suitable for Baba's children, and vice-versa. Narain himself had only daughters, a fact they all knew well because Baba lamented it so many times. Two Narain sons for the two Roy daughters would have been perfect. As it was, Narain's youngest girl was planned for Ganesh and they'd all grown up with this knowledge, but only Saroj knew that this particular marriage was possible only over somebody's dead body: Narain's daughter. Ganesh planned to murder that Narain girl and Saroj still wasn't absolutely sure he wasn't joking. She, of course, worshipped Ganesh. Every word he said was scripture, and at twelve — thirteen — all things seemed possible.

'Mr Ghosh is of pure Brahmin family. Second generation Calcutta,' Baba proclaimed triumphantly. Still the family did not break out in cheers.

'The Ghosh family? Where do they live?' Ma frowned and looked enquiringly at Baba, and while their parents exchanged words Ganesh leaned over and whispered in Saroj's ear, 'Oh, Ghosh!' and rolled his eyes.

She spluttered and almost choked on her tea. But Ma and Baba hadn't noticed so she whispered back behind a cupped hand, 'Will you help me murder him?'

'By slow strangulation.'

'Where will we hide the body?'

'Bodies. We'll make it a double murder . . . the Ghosh boy and the Narain girl.'

'We'll pickle their eyes and . . .'

'What was that, Sarojini?' Saroj jumped guiltily and met Baba's eyes, piercing and threatening — blood-curdling, she thought to herself, and shivered.
I'd rather kill
you,
Baba, and that's no joke.

'Nothing, Baba.' She demurely turned her eyes down to her Weetabix, cut off a corner and spooned it into her mouth, trying to ignore Ganesh, who was pinching her thigh. He leaned forward for the teapot, conveniently upsetting Indrani's milk all over her frock. Indrani's yelp of annoyance and the accompanying hullaballoo covered his surreptitious whisper, delivered in a tone full of deep portent: 'I shall be making the necessary investigations.' He rolled his eyes again.

A
BOUT A MILLION PEOPLE
came to the birthday party that afternoon. They were all extended-family Roys and came not for the birthday girl's sake but for Ma's samosas, which were legendary, and for gossip. By that time news about the Ghosh boy was out on the grapevine. Every time some auntie grabbed Saroj to plaster her cheek with birthday kisses and press a gift into her hand squealing, 'So how's the birthday girl?' she knew by the gleam in her eyes that auntie was just bursting with the news, and dying to move on to exchange notes with the next auntie.
Do you know him? His mother? My husband's brother’s second cousin twice removed is married to his father's niece
. . . and so on. They'd been through that before with Indrani. They wouldn't mention him to
her,
of course, it wouldn't be proper, but she could see the fluster in those excited knots of aunties and divine the topic from the tell-tale rustle of polyester saris as they huddled together.

She could have vomited. It wouldn't have been so bad if they'd brought decent presents, books and records or things like that, but she could tell with one touch, with one glance even, what was inside their daintily wrapped-and-tied bestowals which grew in a gaudy pile on a corner table: Twenty-five per cent panties. Twenty-five per cent handkerchief boxes. Twenty-five per cent purses. Twenty-five per cent hairbrush/manicure sets. The usual. The aunties liked to give practical, useful things. After all, what could a growing girl like Saroj want besides panties, hankies, purses or hairbrush/manicure sets?

She was still in the middle of Premavati Auntie's fat embrace, her nose nudging the prickly rose brooch holding Auntie's sari in place on her perfumed shoulder, taking in the intoxicating scent of
Evening in Paris,
when, over that shoulder, she saw Ganesh signalling and it looked urgent. She had to keep smiling and nodding at Premavati Auntie a good three minutes more while she gushed out some story about the film she'd seen with her daughter at the Hollywood and how they'd have loved to have Saroj there and how much she would have liked it. Fat chance. Everyone knew Baba didn't allow his daughters to go to the cinema, not even to Indian films.

And then Premavati Auntie pulled away and took a little flat, soft, pink-wrapped gift out of her voluminous plastic handbag and crushed it into Saroj's hand saying, 'Here you are, dearie, I do hope it fits!' She planted a wet birthday kiss on a reluctantly offered cheek, pinched the other cheek and shook it, and waddled off to chat with Rukmini Auntie.

As Saroj turned to follow Ganesh into the kitchen a little hand grabbed hers. ‘Saroj Auntie, you promised to help with my kite — Shiv Sahai's is all finished and you promised!' piped a squeaky voice at her side. She smiled as she met Sahadeva's eyes. Sahadeva, her little cousin, Shiv Sahai's twin, Balwant Uncle 's little boy. Balwant Uncle and his wife were modern, teachers, he of history, she (retired) of biology, and they gave her worthwhile birthday presents. Last year a microscope, this year a chemistry set. They said she had a mathematical mind, which should be cultivated; and they were people who took her seriously. They lived in Kingston, near the sea, and she visited them once or twice a week, with the excuse of helping the boys with their schoolwork, and because Baba had selected Cousin Soona as Saroj's playmate. But she also went there to escape to the seashore, to get a glimpse of the ocean, to run for miles along the Sea Wall, to wade, barefoot and curly-toed, into the foaming sheet of warm brown water when the tide rolled gently in and licked the beach.

The ocean was freedom. Standing at its edge and gazing far out into the horizon, eastwards, she felt a deep, yearning ache that rose out of some unknown kernel within her, that reached out, far far out, to that distant horizon, to the unseen shores that lay beyond, and further, to the endlessness of the sky, to the endlessness of time.

'Yes, I know, Sahadeva. Look, I can't stop now but I'll phone you in a day or two, okay?'

'You promise, Auntie?'

'I promise.' She patted him on his tousled little black head, smiled again, and showed him her crossed fingers. 'Cross my heart and hope to die. And we'll make the best kite that ever was. Okay?'

'Okay Auntie, and we'll win next Easter, I just know it!' Sahadeva scampered off.

Ganesh had disappeared into the kitchen. She found him emptying a plate of samosas into his school bag.

‘You crazy, or what?'

'I took out my books first. Come, let's go up to the tower, I'm going to lose my mind if I stay here a moment longer and I've got some news for you.'

'Okay, wait a minute.' She went to the fridge, opened it, took out two Jus-ee drinks, orange and lime crush, and stuffed the bottles down the front of her dress. Ganesh grinned.

'You think you're hiding anything? Two grapefruits would be better. More authentic.'

'Shut up.' She took the drinks out again because Ganesh was right. He held out his school bag and she laid the bottles on top of the samosas.

'The bag's going to be all greasy and full of crumbs afterwards, you know.'

'Oh, I'll give it a shake. Okay, let's go. Don't stop for anyone.'

Ganesh and Saroj pushed their way across the crowded drawing room, through the milling, munching relatives, smiling into this face and that, murmuring
excuse me, excuse me please,
till they reached the square stairwell which led down to the front door and up into the tower.

The Roy mansion rested solidly on tall, heavy columns to protect the living quarters from flooding during the rainy season. But whereas most houses had an open staircase leading up to the front door, theirs had a dog-leg staircase housed in a tower shaft. The tower jutted forward at the front left corner of the house and extended above the roof into the little windowed eyrie, girded by a narrow widow's walk. House and tower were built entirely of wood; horizontally planked, pristine white, generously windowed. Rows of twelve-paned sash windows, enclosed by sloping, top-hung Demerara shutters, regulated light and shadow, heat and coolness, within the house. In the mornings and late afternoons the shutters stood open to let the cool Atlantic breeze sweep joyously through light-flooded rooms. Under the scorching midday sun Ma closed the shutters and hushed the house into sleep, to dream in a cool, moist half-light behind jalousied walls, withholding its secrets from the brash, brazen outside world.

But the tower room was all windows, without shade. Open the glass panes and the wind sailed through, a cleaning, vigorous wind that swept away care and uprooted disquiet. Up here you felt tall, free, strong. Up here, nothing could touch you. It was a refuge from the heat of the day, a sanctuary from the pain of living. An escape from the fate of being born a Roy.