Lucy looked up, puzzled by my request for enhanced proximity, and came to sit beside me in the twin armchairs in the alcove by the window, her body turned slightly away, as if shielding herself from unaccustomed intimacy. ‘What’s this all about?’
‘I just want to have a little chat, you know, before the day.’
‘Day? What day? You’re being awfully mysterious.’
‘I’m so sorry, I’m not very good at this. Your wedding day, of course. Saturday.’
She turned to face me squarely. ‘What about it?’
‘Well, I was wondering, perhaps you might be getting cold feet? You seem on edge. And I just wanted to say it isn’t too late if you want to reconsider. I – Mummy and I – would quite understand . . .’
‘Let me get this straight. Are you asking me if I have cold feet, or advising me to have them? Because if you are . . .’
I knew there was some risk involved, but was determined to pursue the thought. ‘It’s just that people often marry in spite of the fact that they have misgivings. They just get carried along with the flow, and are too timid to say “hold on a minute, I’m not sure I’m ready for this”.’
She stood up from her chair, until she was only a few feet away from where I was sitting, and I was looking up at her angry face.
‘How dare you! First Mummy hassling me about clothes and stupid fucking details, now my father is trying to call the whole thing off! That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what you want!’
‘No, love, not at all. It’s just that – ’
‘You’ve never liked Sam. You never gave him a chance, did you? You never met him halfway, sat down and talked and tried to get to know him?’
That was true enough. From our first acquaintance, when he came to dinner to meet the parents, uncomfortable in a new jacket and tie, I’d spotted him as the sort of earnest working-class Northern boy who would have benefited from a decent education, had his sharp edges and broad vowels polished and regularised.
She was leaning down now, her face close to mine. ‘And you know what is sad? You don’t get it at all. Sam is his own man, and he has wonderful qualities, you just can’t see them.’
‘Tell me what you mean.’
‘It’s hardly worth bothering,’ she said, standing straight and backing away, making a curiously operatic gesture with her hands. ‘You’d find it hard to recognise his virtues.’
‘Oh yes? Tell me about them. I’m genuinely interested.’
‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘And integrity.’
‘I’m glad you feel that way.’
‘I do. I only wish you did too. And I do want to marry him with all my heart. It’s the only thing in this whole ghastly mess that I’m certain about.’
I stood up to comfort her, though reassuring cuddles are well outside my normal repertoire.
She turned away. ‘Let’s leave it,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘perhaps it was ham-fisted of me. But I meant well.’
‘Did you now?’ she said.
This always seems to happen when I try to be fatherly.
Lucy’s stare, as I perched on my plastic, was a rich amalgam of triumph and warning, and I turned away, unforgiven. I stifled myself, clenched my cheeks.
Suzy elbowed my ribs, then clasped my hand firmly in tacit reassurance. The sleeve of her silk blouse, that we’d bought in a market in Rajasthan fourteen months before, made a shocking contrast with the pallor of her wrist, where the veins traced their purple trails in a manner that should have felt ominous. The royal blue of the silk shimmered, startlingly lit by a tribe of crimson parrots, beaks slightly agape, dangerous and moronic, yearning to squawk or to nip.
She’d been uncertain, in that stifling market smelling of turmeric and petrol, cooking curries and cow dung, urine and the waft of human shit. I gagged with humid disgust. She held the blouse in the air to inspect it, then placed it across her chest.
‘Very nice lady! Very nice! Parrot most lucky bird. I give you good price!’
A tiny boy and his smaller sister, dressed in rags, had followed us around the market, importuning, holding onto Suzy’s skirt and attempting to grab hold of my trouser leg. A quick slap put paid to that. The little boy pointed to his slim but by no means distended stomach, and groaned piteously. The little girl looked up – at Suzy – beseechingly. At first glance – I didn’t take a second – the lower half of her face was composed entirely of snot.
‘Hungry, sah!’ He put his hand out, and his tiny sister mimicked the gesture. Suzy patted them on the head kindly, already thinking of a way to slip them a few rupees without causing an urchin storm. She took out a piece of Kleenex, wiped the girl’s nose, and threw the tissue into the dirt with the other detritus. I shuddered. I know nothing of caste systems, but these children were verily untouchable.
‘For pity’s sake,’ I said, ‘just buy the damn thing! How much can it cost? You can always give it to Lucy if it doesn’t suit you. Let’s go!’
‘I give you best price!’
‘Yes! Yes! She’ll have it. How much?’ I offered half the amount.
‘Hungry, sah!’
‘Are you sure?’ Suzy held the garment uncertainly. I had confused her by switching categories. Was it for Lucy? Would it suit her?
Back at the hotel, after a revolting walk of some fifteen minutes, beseeched by beggars of the heat and dust, the children paid off by the front gate, I made straight for our room, convinced that the stench of the market followed me across the marbled foyer, carried subtly on the jasmine-conditioned air. I spent the next ten minutes in the shower, soaping and gelling and scrubbing. I sniffed my hands, and they carried still the odour of dung and spice. I washed them again.
The ritual of changing into freshly laundered clothes was soothing, and with each layer – freshly ironed socks and underwear, a crisp cotton shirt with a touch of starch, and finally the careful donning of my mushroom linen suit – I felt as if I were being reincarnated. I put my filthy clothes in the hamper, ready for the hotel butler to pick up and return – pristine – tomorrow. Draped over the chair were Suzy’s nightgown and bathrobe, and on the floor lay discarded underthings, for she had changed, God knows why, before we went to the market. Getting clean to get dirty.
The unshowered Suzy was standing on the veranda, her rumpled carrier bag with the silk shirt in it on the recliner beside her, looking over the gardens and the water below. The late afternoon air was freshening. I opened a bottle of wine from the fridge, and poured a glass for each of us.
My box of cigars was in the safe in the wardrobe. I opened it ceremoniously, spirits already lifted by the anticipation of my evening treat. The hotel had a humidor in the bar, next to which a stagey turbaned gentleman with silk robes and silkier moustaches stood at attention, whose sole employ was pompously to facilitate the choice of a cigar for anyone willing to fork out the hefty price for importation from Havana to a five-star palace in Rajasthan. That didn’t bother me. Good for them. But the cigars – I was informed before coming – might not withstand the travel, and would deteriorate further languishing in an inadequately moisturised humidor. They would be brittle to the touch, crack and crumble in the mouth, and shed outer leaves in the hand. I saw a florid gentleman, the evening before, expostulating furiously as he peeled the dried outer leaves off the Bolivar Churchill for which he had paid the equivalent of £65.
Forewarned, I’d brought a box of twenty-five Montecristo No. 2s, opened it in London and smoked three cigars – just enough to create room for two peeled halves of a new potato – and resealed it firmly, tapping the nails back into place. The cigars would stay moist for our full three