Читать книгу The Trouble with Rose - Amita Murray - Страница 7

Hold up two illustrations and spot the differences between them.

So I told you a story, the story of my wedding day. As I told you, it was almost the story of my wedding day. Actually, in all important details, it was the story.

But if you hold up the two pictures, one real, one almost-real, you’ll spot ten differences. Let’s go through the list.

One. I told you that the back room in which I was waiting, the one with the yoga mats and chairs, the back room of the main building of Bloomington House, an estate in Cambridgeshire, was white-washed. In actual fact, I think it was eggshell blue.

Two. I said that the name of the estate was Bloomington House, but in fact it is Bloomington Manor.

Three. Auntie PK, the feminist, was not wearing unrelieved beige. Thinking back, I can see in my mind’s eye that she had actually taken the trouble to wear an oxblood scarf. Auntie PK was either trying to make an effort – a bit of colour for a wedding – or making a statement.

‘You are Indian,’ I can imagine her saying, ‘yet getting married in a silver dress. Shouldn’t you be wearing red? What are you, white?’

Or, who knows, she could have been wearing it under threat from whichever auntie had knitted it for her.

Four. My mother’s hanky was not tucked into her sleeve today. She had pinned it to the green train or pallu of her sari for the occasion. She had made an effort, even if she had been certain the wedding would come to nothing, she would tell me later.

Five. There wasn’t a slump in my shoulders when I was facing Simon and my family. If I look carefully at the actual picture, the real one, not the almost-real one, my shoulders are riding up. It’s my defensive look, the one my mother is always quick to point out. ‘It isn’t attractive, Rilla, and no one will want to marry you.’

Six. I told you that Auntie Dharma said that Mercury was in my fifth house. But for all I know about this, she could have said that the Savannah Bird Girl was making sweet love to a humpback whale in the garden. I have no idea what she said, but it was definitely something about a planet in our solar system messing up whichever one of my houses deals with marriage.

Seven. When Simon’s father said we should get a lawyer and Simon reminded him that he is a lawyer, Simon’s father stage-whispered, ‘I’m not going to be dragged into one of your messes. If you had any sense, you wouldn’t be either.’ Simon’s father doesn’t hate me. But for him, someone who has been arrested doesn’t belong in the Langton family; they besmirch the family name. Well no, I don’t think he cares about the family name. It’s more that carelessness – the kind that gets you arrested, the kind that shows a disregard for morality or at least decorum – makes him feel physically ill. It’s the way mortgage brokers feel about people with poor Experian scores. That is how Simon’s father feels about my record. Simon shouldn’t have told him that I had been arrested in the past, you say? Well, he didn’t. I did. The first time I met him, which was two months ago. Which was four months after I met Simon. Your eyebrows are rising now. A bit hasty to be calling the banns, you say? Well, you could just be right, and we will come back to this, I promise.

Eight. Simon is too nice to remind me that my MA committee has warned that if I don’t make any progress in my thesis, then I am out. Out, out, out. Forever. He is too nice, and also I haven’t told him about that yet. I would have gotten round to it, but I hadn’t yet. So he couldn’t have reminded me even if he had wanted to.

Nine. You’ve probably already noticed this one, it’s quite glaring. I’m sure you spotted it right away. I’m the small brown nut. My sister Rose is the princess, tall, beautiful, fair, her skin bathing in permanent blossoms. So, in that little sketch we re-enacted on the park bench, of course Rose is Princess Multan, who weighs as much as a flower, whose every word pours out of her like birdsong, whose beauty is shielded by groves so dense that no one but the most daring prince could get through. Beautiful and kind, soulful and lyrical, that’s my sister. I am Rup Singh, her suitor, a walnut, hoping that my skill in making garlands will help her overlook the fact that I am ugly and that I am a girl. In the play we enacted as children, Rose was the princess, I was the suitor. I changed this around in that scene on the park bench.

Ten. Rose of course wasn’t at the wedding at all or on the park bench. The last time I saw her was seventeen years ago. Still, that doesn’t mean that she isn’t the one person in the world who knows me best. And that she wouldn’t have said and done exactly those things if she had been there.