by Fern Britton
Now it all came clear to him. Yes, that was it. She had a new family and could do with some money. The old family, him and Ella, could go to hell. She done it before so it would be so easy for her to do it again.
His gut was seething. He could murder a pint. At the top of Mandalay road was his local, the Kings Head. The doors opened and a young woman in a leather biker jacket stepped out with her arms around a young man. They brought with them the waft of beer on the breeze, a waft he allowed to surf him to the bar.
‘He’s not answering his phone,’ said Ella, banging hers down on the table. ‘What a pig-headed, rude man he can be. Can you believe how awful he was today?’
Kit, rather more on Henry’s side than Ella’s, was noncommittal. ‘I think he was just being honest. It was how he feels and he told her.’
Ella was horrified. ‘Our mother was there, in front of us after all these years, and instead of making her feel welcome, he was horrible. No wonder she felt she had to leave. I’m impressed she didn’t give him a piece of her mind.’
They were in the lounge of Marguerite Cottage, sitting on opposing chairs rather than their usual position on the sofa together.
‘I’m just saying that I could see his point of view.’ He watched as Ella’s face grew darker and quickly added, ‘Just as I see yours.’
‘Do you?’ she asked angrily.
‘Darling, of course I do. You know I do. But I’m a bloke; maybe I’m not so good at expressing it.’
She pulled one corner of her mouth up sullenly while defensively reaching for a cushion and holding it against her chest. ‘Huh.’
‘What does huh mean?’
‘Just huh.’
He changed tack. ‘Hungry?’
‘No.’
‘G and T?’
‘No.’
‘Okay.’ He thought of something to say that wouldn’t be too contentious. ‘Coronation Street is on in a minute. That always cheers you up.’
Ella burst into tears and left the room.
Henry was on the outside of two pints and feeling just a little bit better, when a hand caressed his shoulder. ‘Hi, Henry.’ Soft, heavily lipsticked lips kissed his cheek. He looked over his shoulder to see who it was and his spirits rose.
‘Oh, hi, Ashley.’ Glossy brunette hair, thick eyelashes, and great fun. When he had first come to London, he had rented a room in a flat she shared with two other girls. For Henry, Ashley was the one that had got away. Maybe tonight was his lucky night.
‘Long time no see,’ she said and smiled.
‘Yeah. Sorry. Work. Stuff. You know how it is.’ His eyes scanned her braless breasts, suspended inside a tiny, strappy crop top. ‘Want a drink?’
‘Sure. A Cosmo, please.’
Henry caught the eye of the barman and shouted Ashley’s order plus another pint for himself. ‘So,’ he said, adopting his best pulling voice, ‘what’s new?’
She flicked her hair. ‘I’m modelling, now.’
He tried to make himself more comfortable on his bar-stool ‘Yeah? Given up the old temping lark, eh?’
The barman delivered their drinks. ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers.’ They raised their glasses and drank.
‘What sort of modelling?’ asked Henry, casually.
‘You wouldn’t be interested?’
‘Wouldn’t I?’
‘It’s rather … adult.’
He felt his pulse quicken. ‘I think I could handle that.’
Her very white teeth bit her bottom lip charmingly. ‘Well, it’s for …’
‘Tell me.’
‘Underwear.’
‘Oh yes?’
She laughed, then sexily revealed. ‘Thermal underwear.’
He blinked twice as what she said sank in. She was laughing. ‘Long johns and vests.’
He started to giggle and the more she laughed, the more he laughed, until he was wiping tears away. ‘Ashley,’ he managed, ‘You have no idea how much I needed to laugh tonight. Another Cosmo?’
Ella, in bed, lay on her side as far from Kit as she could manage. She felt more lonely than she had felt since Granny had died.
Her mother was back, the woman who had deserted her before she could even remember, had come back. Ella couldn’t believe it was just for the money. No, she had come out of love – or, if not love, at least curiosity, just as Ella was curious about her. And Henry, her stupid brother, had behaved like an absolute child.
Anger infused her grief and brewed a painful stew of emotions. Why were men such idiots? How could Kit sympathise with Henry? How was her mum feeling right now after Henry’s appalling outburst?
Ella imagined how disappointed Sennen must have been in them both today. No affection. No kindness. No attempt at reconciliation. God, how awful Sennen must be feeling now. Well, she, Ella, was going to meet her mother and make amends. In the morning she’d phone the solicitors and fix another meeting. Just her and her mum. Sod Henry.
Henry was very, very drunk by chucking out time.
Ashley was surprisingly sober and realised she was responsible for getting him home. ‘Come on, time for us to get out of here,’ she said grabbing an arm and put it across her shoulder. ‘Good job I do kettle bells in the gym. Knew it would come in handy.’
‘I love you, Ashley,’ Henry slobbered. ‘How come you and I have never got it on, eh?’
‘You know why. Our house rule, remember? Never sleep with a flatmate.’
‘But I’m not your flatmate now, am I?’
‘That’s true, but,’ she sighed, ‘my fiancé really wouldn’t like it.’
‘What’s he got that I haven’t?’
She laughed. ‘You always were a trier. Come on, let’s get you home.’
She managed to get him to his front door and find his keys in his trouser pocket. ‘Here you are. Home sweet home.’ She got him over the threshold and propped him against a radiator while she closed the door. He slid to the floor. She stepped over him and went to find the kitchen and coffee.
Henry crawled on all fours along the narrow hallway towards the lounge.
‘Are you all right in there?’ Ashley called, spooning sugar into a mug. ‘Caffeine, mega dose, on its way.’
She found him on the sofa trying to turn the television on. ‘This bloody clicker doesn’t work. Bloody batteries I ’spect.’
Ashley took it and had a good look. ‘Batteries are fine. It’s just that this is a calculator. Now settle back and drink this.’
‘Are you mothering me?’ he slurred plaintively.
‘No.’
‘I need mothering, though. You see, my mum left me when I was little. I saw her today and I was very mean to her. My sister is cross with me.’
Ashley forced a mouthful of coffee between his lips. ‘Drink.’
He took a mouthful then pushed the mug away. ‘I’d like a whisky.’
‘You’re not having one.’ She gave him the mug. ‘Hold this and drink.’
‘Okay.’ He used his free hand to brush his fringe out of his eyes. ‘I think I have to apologise.’
‘No, you don’t. We all get a bit pissed sometimes.’
‘Not to you, no, to my mum. I was a horrid …’ He began to sniff. ‘I think that’s why she left me. Maybe it was my fault. Something I did? And now I’ve been awful again and she’ll go away again and my sister will never speak to me.’ He broke down into wretched sobs. ‘I missed her so much. Granny and Poppa tried their best but I felt their sadness. Why did she leave us all so miserable?’
Ashley sighed and put her arms around him. ‘Come on, then. Let it all out. I’m here.’
When he’d cried himself to sleep on the sofa, Ashley removed herself gently so as not to disturb him and went in search of a blanket. Once she was sure he was settled and safe, she wrote him a note telling him not to waste any more precious time and to apologise to his sister and mother and go back to see them as soon as possible.
Then she let herself out of the house and disappeared into
the night.
21
Sennen was lying in her room at White Water, channel hopping. So many channels. So much rubbish. Eventually she settled on a biopic of Audrey Hepburn but her mind refused to concentrate and she turned it off. What was she even doing here? Why come back and disrupt the lives of the two people she had abandoned? She had denied their existence, had never been there for them, when they scraped a knee or needed her. She’d been running. Scared. She knew her parents had turned their back on her as she had turned her back on them. She was an outcast who had had to reinvent herself, her heart under lock and key, lying deep in an impenetrable carapace of loss and self-hatred.
But then, Kafir had found her. Loved her and believed all she had told him, the made-up stories of her childhood and loving parents. At the beginning of their relationship she couldn’t tell him about Henry and Ella. And later, when she knew he loved her and she lived within their safe and secure marriage, and she had wanted to tell him the truth, it was too late. She tricked herself into believing the past was in the past. Dead, buried and unable to rise up and bite her. Kafir would never find out.
And that was the second terrible mistake of her life.
She rubbed her hands over her eyes and tried to remember why she had thought running away, leaving Henry and Ella to her parents, had been in any way a good idea. Who had she been all those years ago? What had she imagined her future would be? She groaned into the empty air of her parents’ old room. This time she had nowhere to run to.
She picked her phone up for the umpteenth time to see if Kafir had messaged her. He hadn’t.
She argued with herself. If she sent him another text, would she seem desperate? If she didn’t, would she seem uncaring? Should she send a message telling him how selfish he was and that he couldn’t stop her from seeing the children? She would take him to court. They would divorce. He could visit for two weeks in the summer holidays.
Would he fight her? Yes, he would. He was a proud man with high morals and innate kindness and he hated injustice.
Had she lost another family? She was sure that Henry would never want to see her again. Ella might, but she couldn’t be certain of that, either. She bashed the pillows behind her head into submission and picked up the phone again. She’d throw herself on Kafir’s mercy. She had already gambled one family for another and possibly lost both. She had nothing left but her dignity.
The text she sent was an honest account of her day and how awful it had been. She asked after Aali and Sabu and told Kafir she loved him. She finished with her wish for him to speak with her – and added that she needed him more than even she had known.
Kafir. Even his name made her happy.
When she had arrived in India, all those years ago, she was no longer the girl who had left Cornwall. The ballet had toured Kerala, Goa and Delhi before its final end in Agra, Rajasthan. She wasn’t sorry. Five years of touring was enough for anybody and she wanted to unpack her suitcase and call somewhere home. On the last night, cast and crew made their quiet farewells and took flights back to wherever they called home. They would never be together in the same group, sharing the same adventures, dancing the same dances again.
Sennen was envious that they had somewhere to return to. Partners, parents, families. She had no one. She wasn’t welcome back in Cornwall any more. She told herself that this was what she wanted, that she was lucky to have her freedom, to be liberated from the bother of other people. So she stayed in Agra and looked for lodgings.
This was the city of the Taj Mahal. The mausoleum built of ivory white marble; the world’s greatest monument a man has ever built to his dead wife.
Sennen had to see it. She went in the early morning – the best time to visit, according to the friendly concierge at her cheap hotel. And he was right. The day was still cool and the queues of air-conditioned coaches, spilling out tourists from around the globe, had not yet arrived.
Outside the famous walled grounds, trinket vendors and small children called out to her, holding Taj Mahal snowdomes, pens, postcards, mugs and all manner of delightful tourist tat. She couldn’t resist a snowdome and paid too much for it but the small girl with a pink frilly dress and crutches pulled her heart strings.
Putting the treasure into her cotton shoulder bag, she walked to the great archway for her first glimpse of the shrine. Shimmering in the early light, a bright blue sky behind it and a grassed garden with many still water channels in front of it, stood the Taj Mahal.
This was what the love of one man could do for one woman. She walked forward into the garden and saw a group of Canadian tourists gathered round a white marble bench, one of many set symmetrically around the garden. She stopped and eavesdropped, listening to what the Indian guide was saying.
‘The late Princess of Wales sat right here on this very bench. You remember the photo?’ he asked them. They nodded, wryly.
‘Diana, the girl who married a future king but one who did not love her as Shah Jahan, the Moghul Emperor, loved his favourite wife, whom he called Mumtaz Mahal, which means Jewel of the Palace. Taj is the Indian word for Crown and that is why this building is called Taj Mahal. You understand?’ His audience nodded. ‘And now you would like pictures taken on Diana’s bench, yes?’
Sennen moved away, not wanting to witness the scramble for mawkish photos. She was glad that she was single, with no chance of having her heart broken again.
The teenage girl she had been was gone. Replaced by this quiet woman who asked little of anybody.
There had been no boyfriend after Ali. She withdrew from relationships and told herself she was entirely happy being self-contained and free of complication. It wasn’t that she didn’t attract male attention: she was a very striking young woman. Her mane of glorious Titian curls fell around her shoulders, framing her pale-skinned, lightly freckled, face; her eyes were wide and lively, her long legs carried her tall, willowy frame with elegance. To herself, however, she was almost invisible. An invisible woman with too much height, too much hair.
Agra was a busy city, colourful and noisy. She enjoyed finding herself a room in a large house full of ‘waifs and strays’ as she thought of them, herself included.
She joined early morning yoga class and became friendly with the women there. They took her to the markets and introduced her to the exotic produce on sale and taught her how to cook with them.
Sometimes she held small dinner parties, trying out her new skills, and was gratified when her dahl was approved of. She lived simply and inexpensively, expecting nothing. If this was to be her life until the end, she was content. She lived like that, taking in mending and alterations, while residents came and went, some more pleasant than others, growing truly close to none of them. Then Tanvi arrived one afternoon, a childless widow who took the room across the hall from Sennen’s, on the second floor of the house. Sennen liked her and their friendship grew. Soon they took it in turns to invite each other over to their rooms to take chai each Wednesday at four o’clock.
On one particular Wednesday it was Sennen’s turn to invite Tanvi for tea, and when Tanvi knocked, Sennen was finishing off a pair of curtains that she had made from a bolt of glorious saffron-coloured cotton from the market.
‘Come in,’ called Sennen, snipping the last thread from the final drape. Tanvi appeared with her usual offering of sweetmeats. Today it was gulab jamum, an Indian version of sticky doughnuts.
She put them down on the small tea table and admired the curtains. ‘So colourful.’ She clapped and went to feel the fabric between her fingers. ‘And good quality. Who are they for?’
‘Me. I need something to cheer the room up,’ smiled Sennen. ‘I just need to press them and then I’ll put them up.’
Tanvi looked at the high curtain rail surrounding the French windows leading onto Sennen’s balcony. The existing curtains drooped exhaustedly.
‘You have a ladder?’ asked Tanvi.
‘I’m tall, I’m sure I can reach standing on a chair.’
‘And risk hurting yourself? No, no, you need a man to do this.’
Sennen smiled ruefully. ‘And where would I find one?’
‘My nephew. He is tall, and,’ she gave Sennen a sly look, ‘handsome and single.’
Sennen shook her head. ‘Not him again! If I didn’t know you better I’d think you were matchmaking.’
‘I am,’ laughed Tanvi.
‘I’m sure your nephew is marvellous, but I am happy as I am. You know that. I’ll make the chai.’
She walked to a corner of her room where a small kitchen, basic but perfectly practical, was set up. She lit the gas and put the kettle on the hob.
Tanvi was still sizing up the height of the curtain rail over windows. ‘I cannot allow you to hang your glorious curtains without assistance.’
Sennen took the boiling kettle and poured it into her dented, chased-silver teapot. ‘You make the rules for me, do you?’
Tanvi tutted. ‘I care for you. I was joking about you liking my nephew, but I could come and get him to hang them – you give him chai and that’s that. Nothing more.’
Sennen brought the tea tray to the table. ‘Well,’ she admitted reluctantly, ‘it would be helpful. I tried to get the old ones down last night but I couldn’t reach far enough. Does your nephew have a ladder?’
‘If he doesn’t, he can borrow one.’
Sennen weighed up the inconvenience of having a stranger in her room, versus the difficulty of doing the job. ‘Okay. You can ask him. But I’ll pay him for his trouble.’
‘He’ll come tomorrow afternoon.’
‘You haven’t asked him yet.’
‘He will come. What time? I’ll make sure he won’t be late.’
It was arranged for five thirty the following evening and Sennen spent the following morning tidying her bedsitting room. No man had been here since she had arrived and her bed looked too intimate. She disguised it with a scarlet piece of beaded cotton, found in the general store across the road, and put two large, green, silk bolsters at either end. She hoped it looked more like a sofa.
She baked a few samosas in case the nephew might expect some food and then she waited.