I sit down on the edge of the bed. ‘Do you know what the collective noun for rooks is?’ Arvind asks.
‘What?’ I say.
‘The collective noun for rooks. It has been annoying me. All day.’
‘No idea, sorry,’ I say. ‘A rookery?’
‘No.’ He glares at me in annoyance. ‘I would ask your grandmother. She would know.’
‘She would,’ I say. I glance at him. ‘It is sad,’ my grandfather says. His hands work away at the sheet. He stares up at the ceiling. ‘So, how is the atmosphere downstairs? I must admit I was not sorry to have to retire. I was finding it rather exhausting.’
‘Most people have gone,’ I say. ‘But there’s still a hard-core group left.’
‘Your grandmother was a very popular woman,’ Arvind says. ‘She had a lot of admirers. The house used to be full of them. Long time ago.’
I say, trying to keep my voice light, ‘Well, you may find a couple of them sleeping on the sofas tomorrow morning.’
He smiles. ‘Then it will be just like the old days, except they are all greyer and not that much wiser. Are you staying tonight?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I have to get back. I have a meeting with the bank. They want their money back.’
‘Oh? Why is that?’
‘Well, I’m going out of business.’
I don’t know why I tell Arvind this. Perhaps because he is not easily spooked and I know he won’t start wringing his hands or sighing.
‘I am sorry to hear that.’ He nods, as if acknowledging the situation. ‘Again. Why?’
‘I’ve been stupid, basically,’ I say. ‘Listened to people when I should have just done my own thing.’
‘But perhaps it will give you back some freedom.’
‘Freedom?’
‘The ties that bind can often strangle you,’ Arvind says, as if we were chatting about the weather. ‘It is true, in my long experience. How is Oli?’
‘Well—’ It is my turn to start smoothing the duvet down with my fingers. ‘That’s another thing, too. I’ve left him. Or he’s left me. I think it’s over.’
Arvind’s eyes widen a little, and he nods again. ‘That is more bad news.’
I put one hand under my chin. ‘Sorry. I’m not doing very well at the moment.’ My throat hurts from trying not to cry. ‘I’m sort of glad Granny doesn’t know. She was . . . well – she wouldn’t have screwed everything up like this.’
Arvind says slowly, ‘Your grandmother wasn’t perfect, you know. Everyone thought she was, but she wasn’t. She found things . . . hard. Like her daughter has. Like you.’ He gazes at the curtains, as if looking through them, out to sea, to the horizon beyond. ‘You’re all more alike than you think, you know. “The sins of the fathers shall be revisited upon the children.”’
I can’t really see what he’s talking about: Mum looks like Granny, but apart from that two more different people you couldn’t imagine. Granny, hard-working, charming, interested and interesting, beautiful and talented, and my mother – well, she’s some of those things I suppose, but she’s never really found her own niche, her own place, the way her brother has. Granny was sure of her place in the world. Wasn’t she?
A thick, velvety silence covers the room. I can hear faint noises from downstairs. A door slams, some murmured voices, the sound of crockery clattering against something. I wonder what time it is now. I don’t want to leave, but I know I will have to, and soon. Arvind is watching me, as if I am a curious specimen.
He opens his mouth to speak, slowly. ‘You look just like her,’ he says. ‘Did you know that?’
‘Like Granny?’
‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘No. Like Cecily. You look just like Cecily.’
‘That’s funny – Louisa just said that,’ I say. ‘Really?’ A memory from long ago begins to stir within me.
‘Oh, yes.’ Arvind scratches the side of his chin with two thin fingers. ‘I thought you understood. That’s why.’
‘That’s why what?’
‘That’s why your grandmother, she sometimes found it hard to be with you. She was so proud of you. Said you had her blood running in your veins. She loved your work, loved it. But she found it very hard, at times. Because, you see, you are like twins.’
‘I – I didn’t know that,’ I say, tears springing into my eyes. ‘It’s not your fault.’ He wiggles his toes under the duvet, watching them dispassionately. I watch them too. ‘But you did look very like her. Perhaps her skin was darker, so was her hair, but the face – the face is the same . . .’ He gives a deep, shuddering sigh, almost too big for someone so tiny, and his voice cracks. ‘Cecily. Cecily Kapoor. We don’t talk about you, do we? We never do.’
He is nodding, and then he mutters something to himself. ‘What did you say?’ I ask. ‘No, it doesn’t matter. Here. Wait.’
Suddenly, like an old crab, he shuffles over and pulls open the top drawer of his bedside table. He is surprisingly agile.
‘It’s right.’ He leans forward and takes something out. ‘What’s right?’
Arvind moves back to his side of the bed again. I move forward, to plump up his pillow, but he shakes his head impatiently. His face is alive, his dark eyes dancing. ‘Have this. It was your grandmother’s. She wanted you to have it. I think you should take it now.’
Like a magician, he opens his fist with a flourish. I peer down. It is the ring Granny always wore, twisted diamond and pale gold flowers on a thin band, Arvind’s family ring, the one his father sent over for his son’s new bride all those years ago. I know it so well, but it is still startling to see it here, on my grandfather’s palm and not on Granny’s finger.
‘That’s Granny’s,’ I say, stupidly. ‘It’s yours now,’ he tells me. ‘Arvind, I can’t have this, Mum should, or Sameena, or Louisa—’
‘Frances wanted you to have it, she told me quite clearly.’ Arvind’s voice is devoid of emotion, and he’s staring out at the thick brocade curtains. ‘You’re a jeweller, she was very pleased with your work. She knew you loved this. We planned everything, we discussed everything. You are to have it.’
I don’t know what to say. ‘That’s very sweet,’ I begin, falteringly. Sweet – such an insipid word for this, for him. ‘But I’d rather not take it from you.’
‘You are to have it, Natasha,’ Arvind says again. ‘She gave it to Cecily. Now it is for you. This is what she wanted.’ He puts it on my hand, his thin brown fingers clutching my large clumsy ones, and we stare at each other in silence. Arvind has never been the kind of grandfather who whittled toy soldiers out of wood, or mended your tricycle, or let you try the sausage on the barbecue. He is frequently obtuse and it is hard to understand what he means.
But while I don’t know what his final aim is, in this moment, looking at him, I know each of us understands the other. I put the ring on, sliding it onto the third finger of my right hand, like a wedding. My granny had strong, large hands, so do I. It fits perfectly. The flowers glint gently in the low light.
‘Thank you,’ I say softly. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Would you be very kind and please open the curtains,’ he says, after a moment. ‘I would like to see the sea. The moon is also out tonight. I don’t like to be shut in like this. They must understand this, in the new place. I want to see the moon. It will remind me of home.’
I get up and draw the heavy fabric back. The moon is out and it shines, like the midnight sun, low and heavy on the black waters, golden light rippling towards the horizon. It is calmer now, but as a dirty cloud scuds across the surface of the moon I shiver. Something is coming. A storm, perhaps.
I open the window, breathing in the scent of the sea, fresh, dangerous, alive. The gold of Granny’s ring is warm against my fingers. I stare into the water, into nothing.
‘It’s a mild night,’ I say after a silence. ‘There’s something brewing,’ he says simply. ‘I can smell it in the air. That’s what happens when you’re old. Peculiar, but useful.’
I smile at him, and go back towards the bed. I notice the drawer of his bedside table is still open, and I lean over to push it shut. But as I do, I see something staring up at me. A face.
‘What’s this?’ I say. ‘Can I see?’
I don’t know why I say this, it’s none of my business. But the idea that Louisa is going to go through this room, that everything is ending here at the house, emboldens me, I think.
‘Take it out,’ Arvind glances at it. ‘Yes, take it out, you’ll see.’ I lift it out. It is a small study in oils, no bigger than an A4 piece of paper, on a sandy-coloured canvas. No frame. It is of a teenage girl’s head and shoulders, half-turning towards the viewer, a quizzical expression on her face. Her black hair is tangled; her cheeks are flushed. Her skin is darker than mine. She is wearing a white Aertex shirt, and the ring that is on my finger is around a chain on her slender neck. ‘Cecily, Frowning’, is written in pencil at the bottom.
‘Is that her?’ I am holding it up gingerly. I gaze at it. ‘Is that Cecily?’
‘Yes,’ Arvind says. ‘She was beautiful. Your mother wasn’t. She hated her.’
I think this is a joke, as Mum is one of the most beautiful people I know. I look again. This girl – she’s so fresh, so eager, there’s something so urgent about the way she is turning towards me, as if saying, Come. Come with me! Let’s go down to the beach, while the sun is still high, and the water is warm, and the reeds are rustling in the bushes.
‘Where did – where was it?’
‘It was in the studio,’ Arvind says. ‘I took it out of the studio, the day after she died.’
‘You went in there?’
Arvind puts his fingers together. ‘Of course I did.’ He looks straight through me. ‘I never did before. She never went back in there, either. The day after she died, yes. I told myself I had to. She asked me to. To get what was in there. But it wasn’t all there any more.’
‘Get what was in there?’ I don’t understand.
I look at my grandfather, and his eyes are full of tears. He lies back on the pillows, and closes his eyes.
‘I am very tired,’ he says. ‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ I say. But I don’t want to put her back in the drawer, out of sight again, hidden away.
‘I’m glad you’ve seen her,’ he says. ‘Now you can see. You are so alike.’
This is patently not true, this beautiful scrap of a girl is not like me. I am older than she ever was, I am tired, jaded, dull. I stand up to put the painting back. As I do, something which had been stuck to the back of the canvas – it is unframed – falls to the ground, and I bend and pick it up.
It is a sheaf of lined paper, tied with green string knotted through a hole on the top left corner, and folded in half. About ten pages, no more. I unfold it. Written in a looping script are the words:
The Diary of Cecily Kapoor, aged fifteen. July, 1963.
I hold it in my hand and stare. There’s a stamp at the top bearing the legend ‘St Katherine’s School’. Underneath in blue fountain pen someone, probably a teacher, has written ‘Cecily Kapoor Class 4B’. It’s such a prosaic-looking thing, smelling faintly of damp, of churches and old books. And yet the handwriting looks fresh, as though it was scrawled yesterday.
‘What is this?’ I ask, stupidly.
Arvind opens his eyes. He looks at me, and at the pages I am holding.
‘I knew she’d kept it,’ he says. He does not register surprise or shock. ‘There’s more. She filled a whole exercise book, that summer.’
I glance into the drawer again. ‘Where is it, then?’ Arvind puckers his gummy mouth together. ‘I don’t know. Don’t know what happened to the rest of it. That’s partly why I went into the studio. I wanted to find it, I wanted to keep it.’
‘Why?’ I say. ‘Why, what’s in it? Where’s the rest of it?’ Suddenly we hear footsteps at the bottom of the stairs, a familiar thundering sound.
‘Arvind?’ a voice demands. ‘Is Natasha in with you? Natasha? I just wonder, isn’t the cab going to be here soon?’
‘Take it,’ he says, lowering his voice and pushing the diary into my hands. The footsteps are getting closer. ‘And look after it, guard it carefully. It’ll all be in there.’
‘What do you mean?’ I say. ‘Your grandmother, she must have kept it for a reason,’ he says, his soft voice urgent. He drops his voice. ‘This family is poisoned.’ He stares at me. ‘They won’t tell you, but they are. Read it. Find the rest of it. But don’t tell anyone, don’t let anyone else see it.’
The door opens, and Louisa is in the room, her loud voice shattering the quiet.
‘I was calling you,’ she says, accusatory. ‘Didn’t you hear?’
‘No,’ I say, lying. ‘I was worried you’d be late for your train—’ She looks at the open bedside table, at the painting at the top, the girl’s smiling face gleaming out. ‘Oh, Arvind,’ she says briskly, closing her eyes. ‘No, that’s all wrong.’ And she shuts the drawer firmly.
I slip the sheet of paper into one of the huge pockets of my black skirt and clench my fingers so she can’t see the ring. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m just coming.’ I bend over and kiss my grandfather. ‘Bye,’ I say, kissing his soft, papery cheek. ‘Take care. I’ll see you in a few weeks.’
‘Perhaps,’ he says. ‘And congratulations. I hope that you can enjoy your freedom.’
‘Freedom?’ Louisa makes a tutting sound, and she starts smoothing the duvet out again, tidying the bedside table. ‘It’s not something to congratulate her on, Arvind. She’s left her husband.’
I smile. ‘Freedom,’ he says, ‘comes in many guises.’
My hands are shaking as I leave the room. I walk to the end of the corridor, to the staircase, past my room, which was also Mum and Cecily’s room, down the end, to the alcove that leads to the door of Granny’s studio. I stare at it, walk towards it, push it open, quickly, as if I expect someone to bite me.
It’s all glass, splattered here and there with seagull crap. A step at the end. The faintest smell of something, I don’t know what, tobacco and fabric and turps, still lingers in the air. The moon shines in through one of the great glass windows. The world outside is silver, green and grey, only the sea on view. I have never seen the garden from this viewpoint before, never stood in this part of the house. It is extremely strange. There is a thin layer of dust on the concrete floor, but not as much as I’d have thought. A bay with a window seat, two canvases stacked against the wall and wooden boxes of paints stacked next to it, neatly put away, and right in the centre of the room a solo easel, facing me, with a stool. A stained, rigid rag is on the floor. That’s it. It’s as if she cleared every other trace of herself away, the day she shut the studio up.
I look round the room slowly, breathing in. I can’t feel Granny here at all, though the rest of the house is almost alive with her. This room is a shell.
Shutting the door quietly, trying not to shiver, I go downstairs, feeling the paper curve around my thigh in its pocket. There they are, gathered in the sitting room, the few who are left: my mother on the sofa next to Archie, the two of them sunk in conversation; the Bowler Hat, hands in his blazer, staring round the room as if he wishes he weren’t there and next to him his brother Guy, also silent, so different from him, but looking similarly uncomfortable. On cue, Louisa appears behind me, pushing her fringe out of her face.
‘All OK?’ she says, and I notice how tired she looks and feel a pang of guilt. Poor Louisa.
I should just say, Look what Arvind’s given me. Cecily’s diary. Look at this.
But I don’t, though I should. It stays there, in my pocket, as I look round the room and wonder what Arvind meant.
Chapter Ten
Jay stands in the doorway of the house as Mike waits outside in his large people carrier, engine purring, and Octavia hugs her parents goodbye. ‘I wish you weren’t going,’ he says. ‘Call me tomorrow and let me know how the meeting goes. And everything. Maybe meet up over the weekend? Get some lamb chops?’<
br />
‘Sure,’ I say. I can’t see further than the next five minutes at the moment; the weekend seems like an age away, there’s so much to get through before then. ‘Lamb chops would be great, though.’
We are both obsessed, perhaps because of the birthplace of our grandfather, with the Lahore Kebab House, off the Commercial Road. Neither of our parents will eat there – it’s not posh enough for them. But we took Arvind once, when he was in London to receive an honorary degree, and he loved it. It’s huge and opulent, full of lounging young men with gelled hair in leather jackets scoffing food, eyes glued to the huge TV screens showing the cricket. Jay often knows them. ‘Jamal!’ he calls, as we sit down. ‘Ali . . . ! My brother!’ And they all do those young-men hand clasps, hugging firmly, patting the back. They look me up and down. ‘My cousin, Natasha,’ Jay says and they nod respectfully, slumping back down into the chair to eat the food. Oh . . . the food . . . Tender, succulent, chargrilled lamb chops . . . Peshwari naan like you wouldn’t believe, crispy, garlicky, yet fluffy . . . Butter chicken . . . I can’t even talk about the butter chicken. Jay jokes that I moved to Brick Lane so I could be near the Lahore. One week, Oli and I ate there three times. It didn’t even seem weird.
As I stand outside Summercove, the wet Cornish air gusting into my face, the Lahore seems a long way away. ‘It would be great,’ Jay says. ‘I might have to go away for work but sometime soon, yeah? You’re not . . . busy?’
‘No,’ I say. Of course I’m not busy. I don’t do anything much these days. I go to the studio and stare at a wall, then go back home and stare at a TV.
Octavia moves towards me and we stop talking. ‘Are you ready?’ she asks briskly.
‘Yep,’ I say. ‘Bye, Jay.’ I hug him again. ‘Good luck, Nat,’ he says. ‘It’s all going to be OK.’
With Jay I feel calm. I feel that if he says it then it really must be true. It will be OK. This cloak of despair which I seem to wear all the time, it will lift off and disappear. Oli and I will work this out, and come through this stronger. The bank will extend my loan and I will have a means to live. Someone will give me a break.
Love Always Page 8