think I’ll just go to bed, I’ll be fine, Ma.’
‘Not eating with us?’ she asked, looking over at the dining-room table and fixing her gaze on it. ‘Rajan Mehta. He’s thirty-one, an accountant. He’s got his own flat in Victoria …’
My heart sank. I turned my back and began walking up the stairs as she shouted, ‘… three bedrooms and two bathrooms.’
I couldn’t put off the inevitable. I had to tell them about Jean Michel, and tell them soon. He was away on a business trip in New York and as soon as he got back we had to sort something out. I picked up the phone to call him and put it down again; he was having back-to-back meetings so it probably wasn’t the best time to call. I flicked through my address book to see who else I could phone. I had friends, of course, but nobody I could open up to. Since Ki’s death I had kept all my other friendships on a superficial basis: nobody knew what was really going on inside my head as I refused to go through that kind of closeness again only for it to be snatched away. I flicked through the pages once more. No, there was no one, no one who had an inkling that anything was wrong. Anyway, where would I start? The fact that I did not allow myself to cry, that I was desperately missing Ki, that I hated going into work, or that I didn’t know whether to marry Jean Michel?
Suddenly, a thought occurred to me.
‘Did you send that Guru for me, Ki? Is that what you meant when you said you’d speak to me? Was he a sign?’
I pulled out the leaflet and read: ‘Guru Anuraj, Psychic Healer, Spiritual Counsellor and Friend.’
I dialled the number. He gave me an appointment to come and see him the very next morning. I had a shower and went to bed.
It was five-thirty in the morning when I drove to the address he had given me. I didn’t want to tell my parents that I was going to see the Guru as it would have sent my mother’s thoughts propelling into all kinds of directions and that was dangerous. So when she spotted me up and about very early in the morning I told her I was driving up to Leeds for a client meeting; the lie, believe me, was for her own protection.
I know it was an odd time but my mum always said that, supposedly, between four and seven in the morning are when prayers are most likely to be receptive – that’s when she annoyed all the neighbours with her howling and chanting.
‘Kavitha, why you can’t you learn to sing like the Cilla Black?’ my dad would ask her.
‘I am singing.’
‘This is not the singing, see, neighbours have written letters doing complaining,’ my dad said, producing letters that contained handwriting which appeared remarkably similar to that of his own.
‘This is all for Nina, so she will find a good man, coming from a good family,’ my mother replied.
‘No, only man who comes will be police.’
But she continued unabated by threats of the council charging her with noise pollution. Because, for her, if it produced the desired result it would all have been worth it.
When I arrived I knocked on the door as instructed. A short man opened it and took me to the dining room where he asked me to take a seat. He said that the Guru was with someone and would see me shortly. I was nervous and excited; seeing the Guru was the first positive step I had taken in a long while. Admittedly, I was also feeling slightly apprehensive, not about being in a stranger’s house but about what the Guru might say, so I focused on the decoration in the dining room and, like Lloyd Grossman, studied the clues and imagined what sort of family lived there. Half an hour later the man came back and led me to another room. I knocked on the door and went in.
Warm jasmine incense and soft music and candles filled the room, and on pieces of colourful silk stood statues of gods in all different sizes. The Guru acknowledged me by nodding his head and asked me to remove my shoes and take a seat opposite him on the floor. I did so nervously.
‘Date of birth?’ the Guru asked swiftly.
‘Fourth of September, 1972.’
He proceeded to draw boxes, do calculations, and then, like a bingo caller, he reeled off some numbers which, he said, were the key events that had marked my life: aged six, an accident with the element of fire which had left deep scarring. I looked at my right arm; it was well covered, how could he have known that? He continued: aged eighteen, a romantic liaison which did not end in marriage. At this point he raised his eyebrow. Aged twenty-five, another. I saw how this could look bad to a holy Guru who believed in traditional values and the sanctity of just one arranged marriage so I avoided eye contact.
‘A Western man?’ he questioned.
I nodded.
He shook his head. ‘It is being serious?’ he asked.
I nodded again.
‘Parents knowing?’
I shook my head.
‘Parents not arranging anything?’
Parents were very busy arranging things. Last week the hot favourite was a twenty-nine-year-old investment banker, this week it was thirty-one-year-old, five degrees accountant Raj, the letters behind his name rolling off the page.
The Guru stopped at age twenty-six, with the death of my best friend.
‘It will all change,’ he promised. I fought back the tears and then he touched the palms of my hands and they began to tingle, a warm glow that made his words feel safe.
‘Stagnant life now, unable to move forward, unable to take decision. See this,’ he said, nodding at my palms, ‘this is now flow but too much negativity in body for flow. Let it go. Let it all go.’ And that’s how the whole coconut-over-bridge routine came about.
It sounds bizarre now but he performed a ceremony that morning, asking permission from the gods to be able to treat me. The coconut he used in the ceremony was meant to represent me and he stained it with saffron. He did the same with my forehead so that the coconut and I were united. The river was supposed to represent new life. After mumbling a prayer, the Guru asked me to return after I’d thrown my coconut self off the bridge. I could have chosen anywhere where there was water, even the canal near where we lived, but I didn’t want the coconut to sink to the bottom and find a rusty bicycle, a portent of doom if ever there was one, so I chose London Bridge.
‘There will be a big change in you, Nina,’ he said as I left, coconut in hand. ‘Come and see me later this evening.’
After I hurled the coconut off the bridge I felt immensely relieved. I wiped the stain off my forehead and went to work, ready to caress Boo Williams’ ego. I got to work only to be told that Boo was too upset to get out of bed and would be in the following day instead. Still, I was unperturbed.
Richard, one of my colleagues, commented on how well I was looking.
‘I’m getting engaged,’ I replied.
When the coconut had left my hands all my decisions seemed so clear. I wanted to phone Jean Michel right away to tell him that I was going to marry him. I started to dial his mobile number but decided to wait for him to come back from his trip the next day and tell him in person. Everything that day at work was effortless. I knew I wouldn’t have to be there for long: once Jean and I were married I could think about other options. And my mum and dad? What would I do with them? If I looked at things optimistically, Jean could charm my mother – he could charm anyone, he was incredibly charismatic – and my mum, in turn, could work on my dad. Together we could make him come around.
Jean called me later that afternoon and I had to stop myself from blurting it all out.
‘I can’t wait to see you, ma cherie.’
‘Me too. When you’re back it’s all going to change. I love you, Jean.’
All I had to do was wait one more day and all the pretence could stop.
The Guru had given me the energy to make all obstacles appear