by Preethi Nair
I thought back to his gelled hair, his inside-out T-shirt, his strong aftershave, and then Jean Michel coming to the door of the semi.
‘Sometimes things just happen,’ I replied.
By the end of the evening, after a few more glasses of wine, the girls were exchanging numbers with me, promising that they would call and we would meet without Raj.
On the way home, Raj suddenly asked, ‘There are no secrets between us, baby, are there?’
Only about a dozen or so, I thought. ‘What makes you ask me that now?’
‘It’s just that sometimes I get the impression that there is so much about you that I still don’t know about?’
‘Like what?’ I asked nervously.
‘Your friends.’
‘If you want to meet my friends I can arrange it.’
‘It’s not just that; these last two weeks you’ve been distant.’
‘Only because this new exhibition means so much and there’s so much to think about with the wedding. It’s a big step.’
‘It will all be over soon,’ he said, squeezing my hand.
‘I know,’ I replied. ‘I know.’
On Thursday morning I made my way to Broadcasting House. How had I managed to get on to Radio 4? It just wasn’t possible to instigate these things subconsciously, whatever Michael said. The other members of the panel were a Professor of Art from Goldsmiths College and one of Turner’s distant relatives. I sat wondering what on earth I was doing there.
The presenter introduced the other guests first and then turned to me.
‘We also have Nina Savani from the agency Kendal Brown who is currently working with an artist who doesn’t want to be known; a bit of a contradiction in there somewhere?’ she sniffed.
Why did she sniff like that? Didn’t she believe he existed? Was there a problem? Remain calm, Nina, and answer the question like Foruki would want to, I thought.
‘It’s not that my artist doesn’t want to be known, he just doesn’t want to be bigger than his work and this is what is increasingly happening. More and more we are living in an age where it is about celebrity, hype and PR stunts, and the quality of the work is overlooked. I think Turner would be disappointed to what his name is now being associated with.’
His relative was nodding her head.
‘Turner was ahead of his time and he would be rejoicing at the fact that many of these artists are ground-breaking and that they have brought art into a new dimension,’ the professor interjected.
‘I would hardly call a wardrobe ground-breaking,’ I interjected.
The professor then replied immediately, ‘Yes, but then he has added to the debate; one must ask the question “What is art?” Surely it’s about having a seminal idea in history in terms of art culture?’ And then he began giving some spiel about conventionalism and used long words so no one could really follow his argument. All that was going through my mind when he spoke were my father’s words: ‘Gives them the rambles, they likes it.’
Sensing that her boat was heading towards an iceberg, the presenter asked Turner’s relative for her opinion. She quietly said she thought it was important to bring the subject matter back to paintings.
The professor was off again, saying that paintings were prehistoric and taking art backwards and I argued with him about art being about self-expression as opposed to self-absorption. It sounded good and it would have sounded better if it were true and if I was actually there as the artist.
In the closing stages of the debate, the presenter turned to me and asked me about Foruki. ‘Does this mean your artist would be completely averse to being on the short list for the Turner Prize?’
‘Foruki, and this speaks for itself as it is not even his real name, would not want to be bigger than his paintings. I think for him he feels he would have done his job if his pictures are taken for what they are and not who he is.’ The likelihood of Foruki being on the short list was as likely as my wedding being called off but it was good to make it sound as if it was a possibility; it added more kudos.
‘He wants to express himself yet he doesn’t want to be known?’ the professor laughed.
Hold it together, Nina, believe in your argument. ‘Your point being, Professor Landstein?’
He was about to go off again when the presenter hastily stepped in and closed the debate with a few last words from each of her guests. The news bulletin mercifully cut off the professor.
That afternoon the phone did not stop ringing: Foruki was in demand, people wanted to know where they could see his work. Michael called to say that people were ringing up Artusion requesting invitations to Foruki’s opening night. He asked me to drop some more around if I could so Emily could deal with it.
In the evening I went to Artusion and as Christophe greeted me I spotted Jean Michel sitting at one of the tables. A sense of dread and panic filled me: why of all places was he here, and tonight of all nights? He was with a group of people and hadn’t seen me so I decided to make a swift exit.
‘I’ve forgotten something, Christophe,’ I said hastily. At that moment Emanuel Hikatari stopped me suddenly. ‘Leaving already?’ He had sprung from nowhere and had positioned himself so that he was obstructing the door.
‘Yes, I was just saying to Christophe that I’ve forgotten something. Congratulations, by the way, on your launch,’ I said, attempting to leave.
‘Thank you, we couldn’t have expected more.’
Then I heard his voice. ‘Nina, Nina, I thought it was you. How are you?’
My heart was beating incredibly fast. ‘Fine, thank you, Jean,’ I said, taking a deep breath and introducing everyone.
‘Pleased to meet you. Hope you are enjoying your meal, Ms Savani, I must leave you. Michael tells me it’s going well and that there has been lots of press interest. Good to hear.’ Emanuel left us.
Jean looked at me.
‘We’re having an exhibition here for one of my artists.’
‘But you’ve left Whitter and Lawson. I tried calling you there.’
‘I’ve set up on my own now, working for a Japanese artist,’ I answered almost too quickly. Would that have sounded odd to him? Wasn’t I the person who procrastinated over every decision and had to weigh up the pros and cons.
‘That’s fantastic, you’re looking really well. It’s so good to see you, Nina,’ he said clasping the sides of my shoulders.
It felt very uncomfortable.
‘You’re looking well too,’ I replied, thinking he seemed to have lost half his body weight and needed to be fed. I almost felt sorry for him and had to tell myself that he had betrayed me; he had betrayed me when I needed him the most.
‘Are you still getting married, Nina?’
‘Yes, in a month’s time,’ I said coldly.
‘That’s quick.’
‘Better to say yes quickly before you find them with someone else.’ And as soon as I’d said that I regretted it because it showed him that he still affected me and what I wanted was for him to return to his table and leave me alone.
‘No more than I deserve. As long as it’s not a rebound thing, you know, you can’t have known him that long. All of …’
‘… A week,’ I replied. ‘It is possible to meet someone and feel you’ve known them a lifetime.’ And this was true – perhaps not in relation to Raj, but it was true.
‘Are you in love?’
How dare he ask me if I was in love.
‘Yes,’ I replied defiantly. ‘Anyway, I have to go. It was nice seeing you again. Take care of yourself.’
‘You too, maybe we can …’
I walked away before he could finish his sentence, trying to hold my poise as I went up to the gallery in an attempt to show that he had not affected me.
There were a few people studying the bonsai tree. The porcelain appeared so fragile hanging off the branches, as if should a huge gust of wind come unexpectedly from nowhere it would send the whole thing crashing to the floor. Perhaps it wouldn’t be the
wind but a careless waiter blown into the direction of the tree. Maybe in life you have to factor in the unexpected so there is no room for disappointment. That was what my parents did; they always had a sense of mistrust about the good things that happened because they knew that the wind wasn’t far behind, and that was probably why they sought stability in the things that they knew; that was why their marriage worked.
The priest was right, romantic notions of love were fleeting. How was it possible to feel so strongly for someone and then have another person come into your life and feel the same in only a matter of months? Love was fickle, just as life was. Love led to disappointment. Raj was stable, he would always be stable and it would last because with him there was no room for disappointment; no room to get hurt.
I sat in a corner of the room watching the way the light fell and the patterns the cutlery hanging from the tree made on the floor. They were intricate patterns like the web of deceit I was weaving and I think I knew then that the biggest lie was the one I was telling myself – but then one lie led to another and everything had become so embroiled that it was just impossible to see clearly. I clung to the fact that Raj came into my life when I most needed him and there had been a sign that he was the right one.
Michael came and pulled up a chair opposite me.
I handed him the invitations.
‘What’s wrong?’
What could I say? That I was getting married in a month but was feeling angry that he hadn’t called me earlier; that I was jealous at seeing all those women hanging around him at the launch; that I had seen Jean Michel downstairs and he had provoked feelings in me but they weren’t as strong as the ones Michael did; that I was unable to do anything with these emotions except pretend that they weren’t there.
‘I don’t think I can do this any more.’
‘There have been many times when I have felt like that but you have to hold your nerve and you’ll get through it. You’ve come this far, don’t let it go, Nina. I know it will be a success.’
‘You don’t understand, people are going to get hurt, I can feel it, and it will be all my fault; it’s just such a mess, a big mess.’
‘Who’s going to get hurt? There’s only me and if it goes wrong I can handle it. I only take on what I know I can handle.’ It was time to tell him about Raj. I glanced over at the tree, trying to find the right words.
‘They all went for it,’ he said, indicating the tree.
‘I never thought I’d hear myself say this but it’s not bad. All those patterns the light is reflecting on the floor.’
‘It still can’t beat a good painting. Have you thought any more if you are going to get a Japanese man to stand in for your artist? Because if you need anyone, I know someone completely trustworthy.’
‘No, it’s better if Foruki isn’t present.’
‘It adds to the enigma?’
‘No, no more lies,’ I sighed, and just as I was about to tell him about Raj he asked me if I’d eaten.
‘No, but –’
‘Let me go down and get one of the waiters to bring us up something.’
‘I’ve got something I want to tell you,’ I said as Michael came back.
‘Me too,’ he replied.
I thought it was something about the PR or to do with my paintings so I let him go first, thinking that it was better to get the superficial things out of the way.
He was struggling with his words; I’d never seen him struggle with them. ‘I was thinking that if you …’ he reached out for my hand and touched my fingers. My heart nearly jumped out and I felt as though I was going to be sick.
‘… It’s just that I’m going back to the States after your exhibition but I can stay if you –’
And before I could stop him and explain, he was interrupted.
‘Just came to say goodbye, Nina.’
It was Jean Michel. I quickly took back my hand and had to introduce them both.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Jean Michel said. ‘I just wanted to wish you the very best for …’ he stared at me.
‘Please don’t say it,’ I willed, expecting to hear the word ‘wedding'.
‘… for the exhibition,’ he continued. ‘I’m sure it will be very successful.’
And then he left.
Jean Michel had thrown me. What I felt when Michael touched my hand made me want to get up and run. The level of intensity could lead nowhere but disaster.
‘I’m sorry, I have to go,’ I replied, collecting my things together.
Once I got home I called Raj. He didn’t pick up the phone so I left a message. ‘Raj, shall we just do something spontaneous and get married tomorrow, just go to the register office and get married? Why not? Let’s do it.’
And then I went to sleep.
The phone rang early next morning.
‘Nina, what is this about the register office? I know you can’t wait, I can’t wait either, but Mummy will go mad.’
‘I was tired and it was all getting to me. You know when you just want everything to be over so you can just get on with things. Not have to think any more.’
‘That’s why Mummy has taken care of it, so you don’t have to think; and baby, it’s not long to go now.’
‘I know, I know, I’ll get through it.’
I went into the restaurant that morning with every intention of explaining to Michael but he was uncharacteristically aloof and wholly professional, wanting to discuss where the pictures would go and the labels that needed to be made up. Not once did he bring up what had happened the night before and when I tried he said he understood the situation perfectly and asked me to leave it. And maybe it was just better to leave it.
After going back to the studio I painted more blacks, greens and reds; a whirlwind of deceit that had to stop. And seeing the other canvases, the titles suddenly just came to me; I named them in the colour that was most predominant. The paintings would begin with black and end in indigo. The print of the hand would be called Beyond Indigo, colours that I knew existed but I was unable to capture. What lay beyond indigo I didn’t know, but all I had to do was get through the opening night and the rest would work itself out.
On Sunday Raj’s mother had invited me over for lunch so I could meet her friends before the wedding. The drive was like a BMW showroom with the personalised number-plates giving me an indication as to who would be present.
‘Hi baby,’ Raj said opening the door. He kissed me.
‘Raj, it’s not that I don’t like you calling me baby but I love the way Nina sounds when you say it.’ If I nicely corrected the little things that niggled me, the other things would be fine.
‘But everyone calls you Nina and you are my baby.’
‘But nobody says Nina the way you do.’
His mother screeched out my name. ‘See,’ I smiled.
Her eyes gave me the once-over and she tried not to appear too disappointed in my choice of clothes and then blew two air kisses because she didn’t want her lip-gloss or her foundation to smudge. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to have her at Foruki’s exhibition; she would fit in well.
‘Come in, come in, everyone is waiting for you. I’ve asked all the men to leave, Daddy has taken them to his golf club. Raj, you can go now too.’
He obeyed her instructions. If Raj wasn’t around her too much then perhaps that would make him change too. He said goodbye to me as she hauled me into her sitting room where a group of ladies who looked like they had been cloned were sitting, waiting in anticipation.
Raj’s mother went round the room introducing them but they were all pretty much identical: dripping in diamonds, sporting matching handbags and Gucci sandals with pedicured feet, a far cry from my mum’s friends who sank to the bottom of the Land of Leather sofas in their ample salwars, sandals and woolly socks, and their centre-parted hair and large red dots. One set compared the price of a Gucci handbag, the others haggled over the cost of a marrow. It was mind-boggling how the honchos had managed to arrange a uni
on between the two families and how Raj’s mother had accepted my parents without deporting them from her home for entry under false pretences.
‘Nina’s a lawyer and works with lots of famous people. In fact we’re going to an exhibition next week that she’s organising for a famous Japanese Emperor.’
‘What’s his name?’ one of them squealed.
‘Foruki.’
‘Yar, Foruki, I think my son deals with his investments.’
The conversation revolved around shopping, celebrities and beauty tips. They wanted superficial so I gave them superficial and even pretended to heed the advice of a pencilled-brow woman who suggested threading my eyebrows further back so that it would accentuate my eyes.
I almost had some depth of conversation with one of them who had her own personal Guru who was advising her on all matters spiritual. The Guru had also made her do that coconut-over-the-bridge routine.
‘Is his name Guru Anuraj?’
‘No, no, his Holiness is Guru Rama. You must come home one evening to meet him. He only deals with very special people.’
‘Do you pay him?’
‘Only donations to the temple funds.’
I told her to be careful but she took offence, saying that the problem with westernised career girls was they thought they knew it all, and then I was whisked away by Raj’s mother asking me to describe my wedding outfit.
After lunch Raj’s mother insisted on waiting for Raj so he could drop me home but I needed to walk and to think.
Would I be like these women in twenty years’ time? Starting off with no intention of being anything like them and then finding myself looking back as one of them? There was no backing out now so it wasn’t even worth thinking about. The biggest of my worries were not my parents not speaking to me but what Raj’s mother would do to them if I called it off; at best they would be humiliated and never be allowed to step foot in the community. I went to my studio to paint; in painting there were always answers.
I hung up my sari in the suit holder and changed into my other clothes then began mixing colours. There was a knock on the door.