Читать книгу The Trouble with Rose - Amita Murray - Страница 9

Two minutes after I disappear inside my room, my parents, an auntie and an uncle, and Jharna turn up. Federico lets them in. I can hear them downstairs in the living room. Well, that’s just fine. They can sit and chat with Federico for as long as they like. There’s absolutely no reason I need to leave my room. I will read a book. I pick one up from on top of my dresser and stare at the words. It is one of my books for my MA thesis: Roland Barthes saying something about love, something about how we meet millions of people in our life, but out of these we only truly love one. I snap the book shut. One out of millions! His arithmetic is clearly all wrong, that’s the problem with Barthes. How can anyone find love if faced with such odds? The man is a kook!

I look at the clock on the wall. I spring up off the chair, crouch on the floor and put my ear down to it. The odd thing is that the GIF has been there for a quarter of an hour but no one has bothered to even come up and knock at my door. Well, that suits me perfectly. What I need is exercise, I’m so restless I feel like I’m going to break things. I pace up and down, do some push-ups against the wall, and jog around the room. The buzzer rings. At once, I’m on the floor again, my ear pressed to it. I can’t hear anything for a few minutes. Someone, probably Federico, has walked all the way down to the front door, and then walked up again, slower this time. There are some exclamations, followed by silence. Then there it is. The sure waft of cheesy dough. The wily bastards have ordered pizza! I jump up and look out of my window. In the distance I see the delivery man. He’s from our local and they do really good pizzas. There’s the usual pepperoni and chicken sausage and farmhouse, but they also do goats cheese and caramelized onion, butternut squash and spicy bacon. My tummy moans, long and slowly. All of a sudden, I desperately want pizza. I’ve eaten nothing but Federico’s kale chips and tonic water since yesterday, my stomach turning at the thought of food after what I did to Simon, but now I can smell it. I can smell the pizza. In fact, I’m pretty sure I can hear them chewing. I pace around the room for another five minutes. Argh! I hate them so much!

I give in to the inevitable and walk slowly downstairs where a small army seems to be crammed into my living room.

‘Talk some sense into her, men don’t like it if you take them for granted,’ my Auntie Pinky says as soon as she sees me. She is munching pepperoni pizza.

I leap at a random pizza box and inhale half a slice in two bites. I close my eyes. It’s the tastiest thing I’ve ever eaten. Spicy sausage. I shudder it’s so good.

I turn around to look at the assembled company. ‘Hey Auntie Pinky, Uncle Jat,’ I give them a wave. I munch up the rest of my slice and grab another one.

Of course my Uncle Jatinder – my mother’s brother – and Auntie Pinky are here. They are always here. They are self-appointed custodians of everything. Everything that anyone in the GIF does or wants to do has to go through them. If you’re getting a job, a haircut, a mortgage, a pet, a manicure, a degree, a marriage license, a wax, it has to be discussed with Uncle Jat and Auntie Pinky so that they can tell you the best way to go about it.

Auntie Pinky is short and plump, her hair is uncoloured with two white wings (we call them the East Wing and the West Wing) that make her look like a zebra crossing. Uncle Jat has soft curves, he wears glasses with a gold chain attached and his hands gesture softly when he talks. He wears kohlapuri slippers even in the dead of winter and sneezes soundlessly by squeezing his nose. He doesn’t look it, but he is very good at all things finance. They own a catering business, an empire really, that supplies Indian restaurants with dessert.

‘Let’s not heckle the girl, Pinky,’ he says.

‘Thanks, Uncle Jat.’ I munch on the crust. Even the crust is good. Crunchy and skinny and cheesy, just the way I like it. ‘I ate frogs’ legs on pizza once,’ I say to no one in particular.

My parents, Uncle Jat and Auntie Pinky are all jammed into the one sofa in the room. It isn’t a large living room and the GIF is making it leak at the seams. Federico is sitting on the cane rocking chair. I have nowhere to sit, so I stand leaning against a wall.

Suddenly Auntie Pinky slaps her head with a hand. She gets up, walks to a large shopping bag that is sitting in the corner of the room, brings out an enormous plastic box and starts laying homemade cupcakes onto a tray, since apparently several boxes of pizza are not enough to feed our small GIF army.

‘I came prepared,’ Auntie Pinky says, holding up the tray, ‘with Rilla not having a tray.’ She turns to look at me. ‘What do you do when you have guests anyway, Rilla, please tell me?’

‘I don’t,’ I say.

‘Well, you have Simon. I expect he comes around all the time,’ Auntie Pinky says. ‘What?’ she says, turning around and looking at everyone – even though no one has said anything. ‘I’m a liberal. They were nearly married. You think I don’t know that he comes around all the time? Anyway, you should own a tray, Rilla. A man likes to know he’s appreciated.’

‘And I need a tray for that?’ I goggle at her.

‘How do you bring him a cup of tea?’ Auntie Pinky says, raising her eyebrows. She forgets the cupcakes for a second to fixate on this fresh disaster. ‘Seriously?’

‘He brings me – used to bring me – a beer out of the fridge,’ I respond.

‘Oye, what are we living in? An episode of Friends?’ Auntie Pinky says.

‘Anyway,’ Uncle Jat says, opening his eyes wide and looking at us significantly, ‘let us not make a mountain out of a tray.’ He chuckles at his own joke. ‘Look, Rilla, we will take care of everything.’ He wipes his fingers on a tissue. ‘We’ll get the criminal record dropped first, then we’ll talk to Simon. People make mistakes all the time. I spoke to his father on the phone this morning …’

‘You did what?’ I shriek. I unpeel from the wall like someone whipping off a plaster – in one quick definite motion.

Uncle Jat is unperturbed. ‘We are in a precarious position, after what you did. But I called him and I said let us not cry over spilt milk. I said, in my humble opinion, the girl is afraid of – you know – the hanky-panky business. Indian girls are shy like that.’

I groan. ‘I want to die.’ I slump against the wall again and close my eyes.

‘I said maybe we can settle the matter over a drink.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘He was most amenable. Very reasonable man. He said he wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing me like that. And of course the wedding would be back on, there was no negotiation necessary. White people know how to be rational, I have always said that.’

‘It is all right, Rilla. We have your back,’ Auntie Pinky says. ‘I will make chicken tikka masala if necessary. And we will serve the finest scotch. Nothing is too good for you.’ She smooths her sari. ‘And also the situation is desperate.’

My mother’s family were well-off when she was growing up, but Uncle Jat has taken ‘well-off’ to a new level. His dessert empire keeps going from strength to strength, providing desserts not only for Indian weddings and parties, but increasingly for big events like Wimbledon and Royal Ascot. Instead of distancing him from the rest of the family, this wealth has made him feel like he owns everyone. No, that is a mean thing to think. It’s more that he feels he has to take care of everyone, make sure that they are living their life correctly. He is of the mind that there is no problem that can’t be solved if you have money to throw at it. Uncle Jat and Auntie Pinky like to tell you where you are going wrong, and then be the ones to fix it.

My mother Renu is crammed into a corner of the sofa, perched in about two inches of space. She is accusing me with her eyes. As far as she is concerned, if things have gone wrong in my life, it is no one’s fault but my own. She is wearing a plain navy sari today, probably to express that this is a sad, sombre day. An African Bee-Eater brooch holds her sari in place, given to her by one of her Ugandan students. She teaches Life in the UK classes, telling her students that people in this country eat with a knife and fork, that they don’t squat on toilet seats, that mince pies have no meat in them, and that Henry VIII beheaded his wives because divorce was not allowed back then. She tells them that the first fish and chip shop was opened in 1860 by a Jewish immigrant.

Her chin is trembling and she’s doing her hand-flapping thing. ‘If you only thought of other people for once. What will happen now, what will become of you? What will Simon’s family think of us?’

I incline my head to look at her. ‘That hand-flapping makes you look like a geisha.’

She stops abruptly. Dad gives me a really, why? kind of look. He is back in his customary check shirt today, tucked neatly into his jeans, his brown belt tied a little too tight. His hair has been ruthlessly combed so that no stray strands can spring up. He is looking apprehensively at Mum. For someone who has written a book on Indian street theatre called Nautanki and Other North Indian Curiosities, who loves melodrama on the stage and on the page, he shies away from all forms of it in real life. My father, the great pacifier, the one who steps in as soon as he smells a storm brewing. The one who will do anything to keep at bay a painful truth.

My mum has no such hang-ups. ‘Why did you do it? Why, Rilla, why? After everything we do for you, this is how you repay us. It is like a slap in the face.’

‘Yes,’ I start, ‘yes, it is definitely all about you—’

Dad gives me a warning shake of the head. I roll my eyes, and slide down to the floor. Dad pats my mother’s arm.

‘The thing is, it doesn’t matter why she did it.’ Uncle Jat folds his hands together. ‘Let sleeping waters lie, I say. What we want to think about is how to fix it.’

‘We can invite them to dinner.’ Auntie Pinky has her plotting face on. ‘Rilla can cook for them, say sorry to them—’

‘I can offer Simon’s father shares in my company,’ Uncle Jat says.

‘All she needs to do is call Simon.’ My father looks from person to person, nodding his head. ‘He is a sensible boy, it can all be sorted out. If she calls Simon—’

‘If she says it is all her fault, that she is a stupid girl who has no more sense than a newborn sparrow, he will listen.’ Auntie Pinky slowly nods her head.

‘I am here, you know,’ I say mildly.

‘And while we’re at it,’ she looks sternly at me, ‘I’d like to know why you didn’t wear the earrings, bangles and two necklaces I gave you for the wedding. Not one bit of gold – what kind of bride wears bronze hoops? They will think we are paupers. With no respect.’

I close my eyes for a second. The GIF seems to be here to make me feel bad. Well, most of the party is here for that reason. I look over at where my cousin Jharna is sitting. She is definitely only here to be on social media. And when I say here, I don’t mean in my flat, but on this earth. She is eighteen years old. She only ever looks at me with one eye. The other is reading her tweets, darting left and right, gobbling up news bites, 140-character morsels that tell her important items of news, like which one of her favourite celeb-crushes is just chillin’ in their PJs y’all and which is taking their hipster poodle out for a doggie manicure. Still, I can’t forget her text message warning me that the GIF was on its way, cavalry and all, and that I could run if I wanted to; I didn’t even know she cared. She is now stabbing at her phone, sitting on the floor with her knees tucked up under her chin. The position startles me. It reminds me of me, and then it reminds me suddenly and forcefully of my sister Rose. It catches me unawares, and a sharp pain hits me in the chest. Don’t you see, I want to say to everyone, my life has gone completely wrong, doesn’t anyone see? I look around for help, but no one is looking at me. They’re all tucking in to the cupcakes. I slump back against the wall.

‘Can’t you get your ass out of that phone?’ Auntie Pinky complains to her daughter after a while. She stands up, tugs at Jharna’s crop top for a second in a vain effort to make it longer, then starts tidying the flat. She picks up old tissue off the floor, wine glasses from a few days ago from behind the sofa. She tidies cushions (after she gives them a wary sniff), gets the dustpan and brush from the kitchen and starts clearing away wood dust. She drags the model village carefully under the rustic coffee table in the corner. Federico and I look sideways at each other but neither of us tries to stop her. It’s the first clean the living room has had in weeks. He makes a face, I shrug. Does this mean he has forgiven me for what I said to him earlier about his relationships?

‘How will you get a job, beta, if you’re always on your phone?’ Uncle Jat says to Jharna.

‘You didn’t have such a problem with it last week,’ Jharna responds.

‘I was looking for an old school friend from Delhi,’ Auntie Pinky expands, panting a little with the strain of bending and straightening, bending and straightening. ‘Jharna tracked her down. The girl can find a needle in a haystack as long as the haystack is on the WWW.’

‘Whatevs Muvs,’ Jharna says.

Since her vocabulary is better than most people I know, I’m guessing she’s doing the teen lingo just to annoy her parents. She goes back to her phone, works furiously with her thumbs, and blows an enormous bubblegum bubble that nearly smothers her nose ring. She is wearing a crop top that says ‘Everybody Should Be a Feminist’, a pair of loose boyfriend jeans and a military-print hairband knotted in her hair.

‘How can you live like this?’ Auntie Pinky complains. ‘If you take these posters off the wall, Federico, I could give it a proper spring clean. Look at the cobwebs.’

Federico looks like he wants to go and stand in front of his precious posters. Greenpeace, Janis Joplin, yin-and-yang, an X-Files ‘I Want to Believe’, an embossed Om. But he also doesn’t want Auntie Pinky to stop cleaning. I throw a cushion at him.

‘Oye, why are you hitting the poor boy?’ Auntie Pinky demands.

‘Spider,’ I mumble.

‘Where?’ Auntie Pinky shrieks.

‘It’s—’ I clear my throat, ‘disappeared under the sofa.’

Auntie Pinky marches over to the sofa, stares for a second, then goes into a crouching position, armed with a patent leather pump. But she doesn’t stop there. She keeps sliding until she is lying flat on the floor and peering under the sofa, holding her phone in the gap between the sofa and floor for light.

‘Hold your horses,’ Auntie Pinky says. ‘I see it, I see it!’

Federico and I are staring at her. I glance at him. On a normal day, he would be enjoying this pantomime, and also basking in the sight of someone actually cleaning our flat for once. But he is avoiding my eyes. Has he forgiven me?

‘Anyway, why did you dump him?’ Jharna says.

It takes me a few seconds to realize that she is talking to me. I wince. I didn’t dump Simon, that is an ugly word. Dump. Definition: a) Drop heavily or suddenly, b) Knock down in a prize fight, c) Another word for tip – an area for dropping your rubbish, and d) Slang for doing a shit. Clearly none of these apply here.

‘Dump? Is that what Hannah Montana would say?’ I say wickedly.

‘What are you, twelve?’ She gives me a look of disgust before going back to whatever she is doing – probably unfriending me on Facebook.

‘Why did you do it?’ my father asks.

I blow air out of my mouth like a kettle on the boil. ‘We shouldn’t have got engaged in the first place. It was a mistake.’

‘And it took you till the wedding day to figure this out?’ my mother says.

‘I thought I could go through with it. Okay?’ I spread my hands out to emphasize that this should be obvious to everyone. I take a deep breath. ‘I thought – I thought if I could just get through it, it would be okay afterwards—’

‘Look, Rilla,’ my father says, carefully wiping his hands on the toilet paper thoughtfully provided by Federico, ‘let’s think rationally about this.’

‘I’m done thinking rationally.’

‘When do you ever think rationally?’ my mother says.

‘Why are you all here?’ I snap.

The doorbell rings. Federico runs down the stairs and brings up my Auntie Menaka. No way. No way. I groan.

‘Oye hoye,’ she says, ‘look at these young people, so cool, so cute.’ She gives me and Jharna a wave. She is wearing a strapless long kurta today, black, embroidered in red, with aqua blue trousers. Her hair has obviously been done this morning, and her make-up is flawless. She stands next to Federico. Now she is running her fingers through his hair. Auntie Menaka knows that Federico is gay but she is the most non-judgemental person I know. She will flirt with anyone. Well, any man at any rate. ‘What’s up? How’s studies?’

Federico shrugs. ‘Boring.’

‘Oh, so sad,’ she says, and puts his head on her large breasts and strokes his hair with her fingers. ‘So, what are we going to do about Simon?’ she says to the room at large. ‘Such a lovely boy. Have you seen those dreamy eyes?’

‘We were just talking to her about that,’ Auntie Pinky says. ‘Trying to talk some sense into the girl. You know what happens to spinsters? Even ones with careers?’

Auntie Pinky doesn’t have time to elaborate because Federico helpfully chips in. ‘Career, what career? She’s been thrown out of her MA programme.’

I choke on my pizza crust. The man has not forgiven me at all! There are tears in my eyes. I’m still choking but no one is even thumping me on my back.

When I stop there is complete silence in the room. There is a moment when everything is suspended. Nothing moves. But then the nagara-drum is boiling, Mum’s tears are flowing and the air is crackling. Not only have I broken up with my fiancé but I am also being thrown out of my MA. No one in the history of the Kumar family has ever failed in their studies before. The word failure does not occur in the Kumar family dictionary. The Kumars and the Kapoors, my mum’s family, complete things. We conquer, we cruise through our studies, we appear at the other end complacent in our excellence.

‘They did what?!’ Uncle Jat sits forward on the sofa. ‘It’s atrocious. Do they know who we are? I will talk to your supervisor. What is his phone number? Just a name will do.’

Auntie Pinky is patting my mother with one hand, holding the dustpan with the other. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she is saying. ‘It’s all right. There is no saying why these things happen to us. But it will pass. It will pass. God, oh God, why are you doing this to us!’