A Matter of Marriage (35 page)

“What, what? Baby betrothed?” He felt a little unsteady and sat down again.

“She had better be, very soon. What will become of us all? No father, no brother . . .”

“To, er, Kareem?”

“Of course to Kareem! We have no other boy. It has to be Kareem, and very soon too it must be. Baby is almost twenty-four now. She has been seen with him, more than once. She has to marry: him, or someone else, soon. Or they will think, the community will think, that she is a modern girl with no morals.”

How could this have happened? Dr. Choudhury pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his brow. “What do you know about him? Who are his family?”

“The Guris. The Guris are his family. He has a good job, a nice car. He loves Shunduri, I am sure of it.”

He clasped his hands, rested them on the table and stared vacantly at the ruined kitchen curtains. She was like her sister, then. They had both been such happy, pretty little girls. He wanted to ask when all this had happened, but had a sinking suspicion that Mrs. Begum would tell him that it had all been discussed and agreed to by him on some previous day.

“When will . . .”

“Soon, soon. The Guris will visit us soon.” She spoke quickly, fingering the talisman pinned to her blouse. “Kareem will bring them, maybe next week.”

It was all too much. “Cup-of-tea,” he said faintly.

He knew that in saying this and nothing else, he had waved the white flag of surrender. He had been ambushed by a force that, while not of course actually superior in strength and intelligence, had all the advantages of better information and a willingness to use sneaky timing. He did, it was true, feel a slight discomfort at having temporarily forgotten about his daughters in his excitement for Haj, but that would pass. Surely he had enough to deal with. Other members of this family had to pull their weight as well.

In no time at all, Mrs. Begum put half a cup of steaming, milky, sugared tea in front of him, pulled out a chair and sat down to his right.

“We can give a good dowry, I think,” she said, her voice soothing as honey now.

He said nothing, mainly because this was something else that he hadn't thought about. Mrs. Begum reached over to the paan tray, placed a green betel leaf across her palm, sprinkled it with betel and only the tiniest amount of lime powder, and added a generous scattering of sugar balls, just the way he liked it.

“Shunduri will be happy.” She added more sugar balls, folded it into a tight little parcel and passed it to him.

He fiddled with it, then put it down. “Would we be even considering Kareem for Baby, if not for her sister's behavior? I think not.”

Mrs. Begum put her hand on her husband's wrist, startling him. She was behaving like a
gora
wife now. “I want Baby to have the wedding she always dreamt of. The wedding we could not have.”

She looked at him significantly, keeping her hand on his wrist, and then he understood, with a sick feeling in his stomach. It would be best for Shunduri to marry as soon as possible, before a
funchait
was needed, or worse.

“There is no time,” he said. “There are two weeks, two-and-a-half weeks only, until Haj.”

“We can do betrothal and registry office before you go, agree dowry and the gold and saris. Shunduri will stay here and Kareem can telephone her every night, send her flowers, until you are back. Then we will have the
nikkah
and reception and
rukhsati
after you get back. Mrs. Guri will know how to manage it. She will know all the best places, maybe even get a discount.” She paused and, in a moment of seeming absentmindedness, squeezed his wrist. “This will be a very difficult time for Shunduri, for our Baby. She will need her mother, and with her father and brother gone, she will need, even more, her sister.”

Dr. Choudhury shook his head. “She is not welcome . . .” His voice faded as he realized that he was in a corner indeed. Rohimun could not stay in the Abbey much longer anyway, and she would be needed at home. Back home once again, and her painting was so beautiful, like a golden thread linking him to his mother.

He picked up his tea. “I will be in my study, wife. I wash my hands of these machinations. I do not approve.”

He stood and left her in the kitchen, walked down the hallway to his
sanctum sanctorum
with a feeling of great flatness and entanglement, and locked his study door behind him with pettish exactitude. So much for his Haj. Mrs. Begum would have her way, they all would, but he was not going to stand there like a puppet and endorse this railroading of his position. He was the head of this family.

T
ODAY WAS GOING
to be different, Richard would make sure of it. He left his brother and Thea discussing the dreaded packing up of the mess that was Henry's study, settled himself on the garden seat just near the Lodge's garage, and opened his paper to wait for the first tiffin delivery, and any other movements in the Park. Rohimun's father came into view at nine, much sooner than Richard expected, stiff-armed and staggering slightly on the downhill stretches. He seemed to be in a bit of a hurry, and Richard hoped that Dr. Choudhury's impatience would return him home again as quickly.

It was only ten minutes before Dr. Choudhury reappeared, looked at his watch with a self-important air and began to beat his way back through the ankle-high undergrowth, stopping intermittently to whisk and pat at his trousers and shoes.

Right. Richard went to his car, pulled out a half-full duffel bag and began walking to the Abbey, oddly self-conscious as it swung, and pushing away the unpleasant thought that from a distance he could be mistaken for that old fusspot Dr. Choudhury.

I've brought a few things. A couple of extra jars for your brushes. And I came across this in the attic: an old SLR of mine, hasn't been used in years. I thought it might be useful for the figure in profile. If it works.
No need to mention he'd had the SLR cleaned and serviced in Cirencester the day before, along with picking up some extra rolls of film, after some time spent debating what he could get away with giving her that would look sufficiently casual to be accepted without offence. He would put the first roll of film in while he was there, spend his time checking it to give him something to do, and maybe if he seemed preoccupied, Rohimun would relax sufficiently to go back to her painting and perhaps they could begin to talk.

—

T
HAT
S
UNDAY MORNING,
Kareem picked his princess up, on time and everything. She was dressed in full ninja-chick gear just like Shilpi, but given recent events, he wasn't saying nothing, and was tender in his silence as he did up her seatbelt. Then he had to divert back to Brick Lane, having just received an urgent call from Suj the bouncer saying that he had to speak to him, couldn't put it in a text, man. Kareem parked up as discreetly as he could, and Shunduri, still not saying a word, just lay back on the headrest, her head tilted away and her hand shading her face from nosy aunties.

Suj sent his family out to the kitchen and, after they'd had a smoke together, told Kareem that the police had been around at Jerusalem last night looking for him, talking about an assault on a patron. Jesus Christ. After a moment Kareem laughed and patted Suj's knee. “I never touched him, man. But perhaps I won't be around for a bit, till things settle down. I got some business up north anyway. It's all good, I got it in hand, yeah.”

Suj nodded and accepted Kareem's small, foil-wrapped thank-you, but didn't see him to the front door. Kareem, feeling a different man and as subdued as his
lalmunni
, shut it behind him and hurried back to his princess. He'd only slapped the dirty dog to teach him a lesson. What justice was this when all he'd done was defend the virtue of one of his Muslim sisters. Jesus, just when things were going so well, with Shunduri, with the car, and those new contacts for the phone business that were so promising.

When he got in, Shunduri jumped, and he realized that she'd been sleeping. He picked up her hand and kissed it, knowing that her smooth, perfumed skin would calm him. She needed looking after, in her condition. Kareem steered the car through the familiar tangle of Brick Lane streets—with men in lungis spitting in the gutters, women in saris and cardigans, little girls in frilly dresses and boys in homeboy jeans and long shirts—and tried to think of what to do, where he could go and how he could stop or at least get out of the way of this thing that seemed to be bearing down on him.

He did a quick stop at his council flat to pick up supplies: the gifts he'd organized yesterday, and a few other things in view of Suj's news, and then they were on the motorway, and Shunduri had still not spoken to him. He glanced at her. She was awake, looking thoughtful.

“Eh, Princess, you alright dere? Want a drink or a snack?”

She sighed. “Yaah. Nah.”

“Listen, Princess, your dad,” he said tentatively. “Does he know any judges? Or lawyers maybe?”

“What are you talkin' about?”

“Look, just chill, Princess. It's all good. I've got some shi—some stuff happening in London I need to sort out, that's all.” There was a blare of horns from a lorry he'd drifted in front of. Fuckin' hell, since when did he drive like some yardie just off the plane? He had to cool it, find a place to think this all through before he was touching her parents' feet in the family home. Or being scraped off the road. He stole a look at Shunduri to see that her eyes were shut again, and he resolved to keep his mouth that way too, till he'd sorted out this mess. Jesus Christ, keep your eyes on the road.

—

O
NCE
K
AREEM HAD
installed his princess in state in the Swindon Railway Cafe, bags all around her, he drove sedately back onto the high street, his hands damp on the wheel, watching the station's tiled roof recede in his rear-view mirror and counting the minutes until he would be on the A road again.

He felt under the front of his seat, his fingers brushing over the fine margins of his personal supply, taped into place this morning. He would pull off on some laneway, have a smoke, do a line, have a think. Could they lift fingerprints off skin, or suit material? He could lie low at some local pub for a few weeks, then make some calls and see what was happening before he made any more decisions. Perhaps Suj had been exaggerating.

The GPS beeped:
Change of route, recalculating
, and Kareem swore, realizing that he'd just missed the turnoff to Lydiard village. Still, he was prepared. He reached over to the left and opened the glovebox to do a visual on the maroon and gold of his EU passport, the blue of his Bangladeshi one, and the fat bundles of cash that he'd collected from the flat.

If things didn't work out with Baby's family, or if things got too hot here, he'd go to Pakistan maybe: those Mirpuris owed him some big favors, and they didn't give a shit about Interpol. And there were always business opportunities there, at the supply end of things. Six months away, up to a year would do it for sure. Next to the cash was a red velvet box holding the ring: two carats of brilliant-cut diamond set in soft Asian gold, that a supplier had had a mate drive down to him last night as a favor. A little surprise for his princess, providing all went well.
Turn left in two hundred meters for the A3102.

—

L
ATE ON
S
UNDAY
morning, Mrs. Begum stirred the dishwater with her hands, lifted them out, pressed them together and parted them gently. An iridescent film appeared between her palms and she blew on it and watched it tremble, then jump into a bubble, before floating up and away to the kitchen curtains, where it landed on the picture of Mustique.

She drew in her breath. An omen. Little Shunduri, her Baby, arriving on the London train soon now, would be married in the proper way, to a Bangla boy and with all the trappings that Mrs. Begum had dreamt of, ever since her youngest was born. She had always known that Shunduri had not been born so beautiful for nothing.

The oven alarm shrilled out, and Mrs. Begum jumped.

“Tariq! Tariq! It is time to get your sister!”

She ran to the hall, drying her hands, back and front, against the fabric on her hips. In the sitting room, Dr. Choudhury was already out of his chair and smoothing his hair in the mantel mirror. Tariq was there as well and moving toward the brass dish holding the keys, but Mrs. Begum was too quick and snatched them up. Dr. Choudhury, with genial authority, pulled the keys out of Mrs. Begum's hands and tossed them to his son.

“What are you doing?” he said to his wife. “Driving now?”

She gave him a speaking look, then snatched them back off her son and flew to put them in the front door, giving the two men barely enough time to squeeze past her and outside before she locked it. Number-one fools, both of them.

By the time they were all in the car and heading down the lane, she had planned the special meal to welcome Baby home: butter chicken, dahl of course, aloo ghobi and mango rice. Who cared if it was nursery food: those were still Baby's favorites. Ah, how long would it be, how many minutes, until she could hold her youngest child in her arms again?

From the back seat she watched Tariq driving, noting all the differences: the confidence with which he drove, so unlike Dr. Choudhury who sat so close he could rest his chin on the steering wheel, and who also had a tendency, on long drives, to drift across the road unless she said “Eh! Eh!” to return him to proper wakingness. Tariq could drive them both from now on: take Dr. Choudhury to his Leicester-shopping, take her to Cirencester and Swindon. He would be free for these things, seeing as he was going to be an unmarried man until roosters laid eggs.

—

I
T WAS A
pretty drive, through a landscape that still looked over-colored and miniature to his desert eyes, but Tariq had to concentrate on the road. What with Mum behind him and Dad next to him, he was surrounded by their desire for haste. He normally enjoyed driving them, especially Mum: her unexpected asides, her interest in all the sights and events of the journey, even her irrepressible urge to fiddle with the radio and any other knob or button within her reach.

But today their urgency weighed on him, and he had to keep watching the speedometer to make sure he stayed within limits. At least Baby was coming without that wide-boy boyfriend: it would make it easier for them to catch up a bit more. He always felt a twinge of guilt at how he and Rohimun never had much time for her when they were growing up.

Shunduri was alright in small doses, but she just seemed to have an uncanny bloody instinct for asking the wrong question at the wrong time, landing everyone in it, and then behaving as if she had no idea what she'd done. She'd been such a tale-teller when she was little. If Mum put the pressure on her to marry, nothing was more certain than that she would ask why Tariq wasn't, and bring up the whole thing again. She could make big trouble for Munni too, and god knows what they were going to do there, with the Bournes looking ready to start moving back in soon.

Ahead, the tarmac was covered in lumps and clods of earth thrown up from a dirt laneway that ran into it, and he slowed the car and automatically turned his head to look down the lane through the break in the hedgerows. He caught a glimpse of a large dark car and a man in a suit leaning against it, cupping his hands around a cigarette.

And then they were past. It was only a moment, but the image of the polished, gleaming car, the black suit and white shirt vivid against the soft greens of leaves and grasses, stayed with him through the rest of the drive.

Soon they were in the station car park and he was searching for a space. When they got to the railway cafe, it was crowded with disgruntled travellers, milling and chaotic, and the announcements of train cancellations and delays were almost continuous.

Leaves on the line
, the PA system kept saying.
British Rail apologizes. Leaves on the line
.

Tariq found chairs for Mum and Dad, but they wouldn't sit so, parents in tow, he forged through the crowd, looking over people's heads for his tall sister. She was nowhere to be seen. He started to edge his way back, and it was then that he saw a covered woman sitting at one of the cafe tables. Although the place was packed, with at least four people to a table, each pretending in their
gora
way that they were there on their own, she had a table to herself. The woman picked up a coffee cup, showing long, fiery red nails, and he realized: that was Shunduri. What had happened to her? Was this some kind of payback for his fundamentalist years?

He moved toward her, acutely aware of Mum behind him, oblivious as yet and holding on to the flap of his jacket, Dad following, both of whom would spot her any minute.

“Baby? Jesus Christ, is that you? What's all this for?”

Shunduri stood up with a certain dignity. She looked even taller in the full-length black robes, and her eyes were heavily, even theatrically, made up. Seeing that, he felt a measure of relief: it was all just another pose, then. Or maybe also taking the piss out of him as a former Islamist. But Baby wasn't a great one for irony: the simplest explanation was the most likely. She was just trying it out for the reaction, the attention. He had a vision of what it must have been like on the train, with everyone trying not to sit too near her, trying to guess which of her bags was the bomb
.

Shunduri dipped down to touch Dad's feet and, appearing to be struck dumb himself, he let her for once. Mum gave a short wail that seemed to be pitched halfway between surprise and anger, then darted forward to embrace her daughter and was almost swallowed up in the black robes. Tariq, disgusted, turned away and started to pick up her bags. She'd brought enough with her for someone who was going to be wearing the same thing every day.

Baby's bags filled the boot, and one had to be wedged into the middle of the back seat between her and Mum. Even Dad was doing his bit, with Baby's beauty case on his lap and the seat so far forward that his knees hit the dashboard. Shunduri was laughing and talking as they set off, saying how comfy and snug it was. He could see Mum smile and nod in the rear-view, considerably more squashed on her side by the suitcase, which seemed to have inched toward her.

Listening to his sister as he drove, he could not help feeling that Shunduri's natural self-importance, evident ever since the growth spurt she'd had in her teens, had been increased by London life into assurance.