Of Marriageable Age

by Sharon Maas

  'Stop, stop! It's too much.'

  Nat leaned forward and buried his forehead in his hands. Overwhelmed by the gush of information, he could not think, he could not follow the words. Gopal Uncle slurped his tea, bit into his sandwich and chewed vigorously, waiting for Nat to recover.

  Nat's eyes were shrouded in pain; yet beyond that pain was a shrewdness, a clarity and a determination which Gopal in his romantic zeal missed.

  'Oh, your dear parents! How beloved they both were to me! What a tragic story! Your mother was an Englishwoman, so beautiful, like Elizabeth Taylor. She would have become the greatest living actress had she lived, that is for certain, for she was beautiful beyond compare and so gifted! How she adored your father, my younger brother Natesan! What a passionate and doomed love was theirs, crossed by the wrath of relatives! They loved each other at first sight but neither her parents nor his would allow their union, and so they eloped to marry, and you are the first-born and only child of that love. They braved the scorn of their relatives and the disapproval of society to live their love — but they were doomed by Destiny which cruelly stepped in to claim their short lives. And as neither set of relatives would accept the half-caste child born of that union, you were given up for adoption! I would willingly have claimed you had I been in a position to do so, for I alone of my whole family stood at the side of my brother and supported him, for what does caste or class have to do with true love? But my circumstances at the time were unfortunate and so…'

  Gopal, not noticing the keenness of Nat's unmoving gaze, carried on in this strain for some five minutes, pausing only for breath before plunging on with new revelations. Nat had a feeling of unreality, of being transported onto the set of an Indian film.

  'How did my parents die?' Nat's interruption came as a whiplash through the middle of Gopal's story.

  'What? Pardon? Oh, they died in the most tragic of circumstances. They were killed by Muslim marauders during the Partition disturbances! What a terrible slaughter! Luckily…'

  'What did you say was my father's name?'

  'I told you, didn't I? Didn't I just mention that? His name was Natesan.'

  'And my mother's name?'

  'Your mother's name was Fiona.'

  Nat was silent, then. This was it. The revelation. The story of his past, the story his father had always denied him. And it was to come from the lips of this… this garrulous clown of a man. A deep sense of anti-climax overcame Nat. A sense of not-wanting-to-know. But he had to know. It was an imperative.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Tell me the truth. And for heaven’s sake, stop lying to me!’

  Gopal gave a little yelp and jerked his hand forward, upsetting his tea. The cup fell to the floor and broke, the tea sloshed all over the table, onto Gopal's lap and down to the floor. Nat rose to his feet and strode over to the counter. He returned with a waiter who cast curious glances at Gopal moaning and swaying in his chair, his face in his hands. The waiter mopped up the floor, changed the tablecloth and left them again. Gopal moaned louder and swayed forward, staring at Nat with eyes widened in alarm.

  'You know the truth! David told you after all!'

  Before Nat's eyes Gopal's façade of garrulous self-confidence began to crumble and disintegrate. Nat pushed his chair back, and himself back into the chair, to increase the distance between them. He had to bluff it out; he’d caught Gopal in a lie and now he might just get the truth.

  ‘Dad certainly didn’t tell me that my father’s name was Natesan and my mother’s name was Fiona,’ he said. That, at least, was the truth. Would Gopal take the bait?

  Gopal stopped moaning, stopped swaying. He kept his face lowered, bent into hands that shielded his shame from Nat. He was silent. It was a heavy, brooding silence, a silence which overturned a world. The silence of capitulation. Gopal looked up. The hands moved away from his face, reached out towards Nat, and his arms spread out wide as if to encircle him. His mouth quivered with emotion, and tears gleamed in his eyes.

  ‘You are right! I have been lying to you. Your father was not Natesan. Natesan is my brother. Your father is… I am your father, Nat! And your name is not Nat; it is Paul!’

  ‘You are my father?’ asked Paul.

  And Gopal closed his arms around Nat and wept as he spoke:

  'Oh, my son, my son!. You are my beloved, long-lost son. I have spent years yearning for this moment when you would finally know me, when the truth would stand before us and at last I would hear you speak most precious word in all the world: father!'

  50

  Chapter Fifty

  Saroj

  London, 1970

  Angie knocked twice, opened Saroj's door and stuck in her head.

  'Some fellow at the door for you, Saroj. I've let him in.'

  Passing her in the narrow upstairs hall Saroj snapped, 'Why didn't you say I was out?'

  'You don't expect me to lie for you, do you?' replied Angie with a suave smile.

  Saroj stomped downstairs. It was probably a suitor, braver than the others, one daring to be turned away at her door. This had happened quite a few times in the six months since she'd been at university.

  In the almost three years since she'd been in England she had, much to her own chagrin, blossomed into a stunning young woman. The attention her looks attracted was unwelcome to her. She hated being stared at; the undisguised male admiration she involuntarily awakened disgusted her. She tried to play down her looks. She never wore make-up, and indeed she did not need it. Her skin had the colour and the gloss of deep pure honey; long almond eyes framed by sweeping black lashes, and wide, full lips below a small, straight nose completed a face of perfect symmetry.

  Her hair had never grown back to its former length, but the years of Ma's care and nourishment had given it a fullness and a sheen, a natural healthy glow that would turn the knees of shampoo advertisers to jelly. Worn loose, it swung and bounced around her shoulders in a thick curtain of satin.

  While she could not hide these features, she could disguise them by an expression of almost permanent disgruntlement. Those perfect lips never smiled, and eyes which by nature should have been soft and moistly eloquent snapped with hostility. Her hair she wore pulled back in a simple, severe pony-tail. She wore old jeans under oversized men's shirts. Thus armed, Saroj approached the world, admitting only a select few into the intimate circle of those who really knew her: Trixie and Ganesh at the core, Colleen, James and a few others forming satellites around them. At the rest of the world, more especially at the male half, she snapped and snarled, keeping it at bay.

  Yet there were always a few intrepid young men prepared to brave that withering wrath by simply turning up at her door, smiling politely with a bouquet of flowers held out to her as a protective shield. This chap would be one of those. She opened the door, prepared to send him away.

  She saw at once that he was different. For a start, he was old, definitely not a student. And an Indian. Thickset and scruffy, with a striped polyester shirt crudely stuffed into a too-tight waistband hanging out over his bottom. He carried a cloth-wrapped, flat packet clasped to his chest. He had greasy combed-back hair and wide bushy sideburns, and a wiry curled moustache above a far too familiar, mincing smile. Clamping the packet under his arm, he stroked his moustache once with forefinger and thumb as if to press it into place before joining his hands in a Namaste and bowing his head slightly, the mincing smile never leaving his lips.

  When Saroj did not return his Namaste, but simply stood there staring three steps up the staircase, the stranger opened his arms wide and said,

  'Sarojini, my dear girl! I am your Gopal Uncle!'

  The words made her start. She had all but forgotten Gopal in the eighteen months since his last letter. In the past year no more letters had come. She had assumed that he had given the battle up for lost. But here he was, standing in her hall in the flesh, nervously shifting from foot to foot.

  From her vantage point on the stairs Saroj looked down on him and saw that r
age, now, would be futile. She had never seen such a sorry heap of humanity. Judging from his letters she had expected another version of her father, a pompous ass, an arrogant dictator of a patriarch convinced of a power he did not possess. Saroj was well matched for such an opponent.

  But this overgrown chipmunk of a fellow — she couldn't fight him. She couldn't crush him underfoot. She couldn't give him a whipping with her tongue and send him packing. All she could do was what she did.

  'You'd better come in. We can talk in the sitting room,' she said, clattered down the remaining stairs and held the door open for him.

  'Thank you, thank you, very kind,' said the man, and the look in his eyes seemed to say he really was deeply grateful; she really was excessively kind. Saroj felt absolutely out of her depth.

  'I have brought you a gift from India,' said Gopal Uncle, and handed her the packet. Unfolding the cloth, Saroj saw that it was a little bag on which was written, in English and in an unknown script, Taj Mahal Silk Emporium, Mount Road, Madras.

  'Please, take it out,' said Gopal. 'I purchased this gift especially for you. It is an artificial silk sari, best quality, very stylish but not flashy. Indian ladies are liking this style very much these days.'

  The shiny material in bubble-gum pink was neatly folded, and Saroj, unpleasant memories of unfolded saris and the trouble they brought at the back of her mind, left it that way. She thanked her uncle and laid the sari on the glass table.

  She gestured to him to settle into James's armchair next to the television set, and hurried off to the kitchen for tea and buns. She needed to collect her thoughts.

  She returned with a tray, which she set on the little glass table next to the armchair and, still hedging for time, poured him a cup of tea. In her absence Gopal had stood up to move around the room, and now stood with his back to her inspecting Colleen's collection of china cats on the mantelpiece.

  'These ornaments are certainly very costly,' he began, holding one up and waving it at her.

  'Yes, yes,' said Saroj, took the cat from him and set it firmly back in its place.

  Intimidated by her gruffness, Gopal returned to the armchair and let himself sink into its protective lap. His hand reached out to fiddle with the knob on the television set but at the last moment he took control of himself and drew it back.

  'I came to speak to you about your Mother's Last Letter,' he began. He emphasised the words, making them sound like Last Will and Testament. His voice was at once timid and brave. As if he himself, of his own volition, would never dare to bring up the subject again, but this Last Letter fired him with new courage.

  'I know,' said Saroj, and tried to keep her voice soft and calm which, she had figured out, would be the best way to deal with a chipmunk. Soft, calm, but decisive. She sank down into the sofa opposite Gopal's chair and curled one long jeans-clad leg up under the other. Seeing this, Gopal immediately raised his two legs and crossed them into a half-lotus; the armchair offered ample room. He reached for a bun and bit into it, holding his left hand cupped beneath his chin to catch the crumbs. They nevertheless fell by the wayside and onto his shirt-front and, inevitably, the fauteuil.

  'Gopal Uncle, I'm sorry to disappoint you but I have no intention of marrying whoever it is you have in mind. I came to London with definite goals: to finish school with good results, and to get a degree. And that's what I'm doing right now. I got my A Levels last year, the best results in my class, and it was hard work, and I won't throw them away for marriage. Right now I'm studying to become a doctor and I'll need all my energy and all my time for that. It will take years. I have no thought of marriage.'

  'Oh, really? Very unusual for a lady. But all the same you must consider this marriage because it was your mother's wish. It is not safe for an unmarried female to live in a mixed society. And I am begging you now to hear this story before fixing your mind on an unmarried condition of life.'

  'What story?'

  'The story of my son, this boy your mother and I would like you to marry and why it is imperative that you fulfil her last dying request.'

  'Listen, Gopal Uncle, I told you, I'm not interested. But if I do listen, do you promise to leave, and not to pester me again with this story, and not to try marrying me off?'

  'Oh yes, I promise this in the certainty that once you hear the story you will be rushing to fulfil your mother's desire. Listen: your dear mother had a friend, a very dear friend. An English girl. The two of them were like this.' He held up two entwined fingers. 'They swore upon death to always help the other in need. This girl fell in love with an Indian boy — me! It was a very great love but had to be kept hidden because of the hostility of both our parents. Only your mother knew of the secret. Finally I was going to be forcibly married to an Indian girl of my parents' choosing, and the English girl was to be shipped to England. So in the throes of that very passionate love we eloped. But it seemed our love was crossed by Destiny because no children were born to us for several years. After many years a baby boy was born. Soon after that my beloved wife was unfortunately killed in a Partition incident. As I was struggling to make a living I could not keep my son Nataraj myself and so gave him to relatives to care for.

  'Your mother at the time was married in a far-off country. She and I were always close, especially after I married her best friend. We have kept up a correspondence over the years. She has informed me of the birth of all her children and of their welfare, and she confided in me her sorrow at the fact that you refuse to be married.

  'In her very last letter before her death she told me how much joy it would give her, to see our two families joined in marriage through you and Nataraj. Knowing this, Sarojini, knowing that it was her last deep desire on earth, how can you fail to comply? Are you not moved to tears?'

  Saroj was silent. She had no words. She was thinking. Finally Saroj stood up, and finally she spoke.

  'Very well, Gopal Uncle. You've had your say. And now please leave, like you promised.'

  51

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Nat

  London, 1970

  'I wish with all my heart that you would address me as Father!'

  'I'm sorry, I'm truly sorry, but I just can't. You see, this is all so new to me. All my life I've called another man Father, and to me he is my father, and always will be.'

  'But I am your very flesh and blood!' Tears gathered at the corner of Gopal's eyes and Nat turned away. All through the last hour Gopal had plastered him with a cloying, clinging glue he called love. If at first Nat had wished to return the favour, to love his father even as he himself was loved, to feel some vestige of a son's warmth for a long-absent father, now he only longed for a moment to himself. Yet there was still so much to know. He needed answers only Gopal could give.

  They had moved on from the café to Nat's flat. Once they were there Gopal had prowled around the walls, inspecting Nat's radio, his record player, his records, his books, asking the cost of everything and exclaiming over the answer.

  Gopal, Nat had already found out, had been only a month in London, and was due to return to India in two days. He had successfully completed his business, which was to persuade a lovely Indian actress that she would be just perfect for the leading role in his latest film, and to lure her away from a modelling career and living-in-sin with an English pop singer. As it turned out, her love affair had grown stale, and the modelling career had come to nothing.

  'She is prepared to play the role for an exorbitant sum of money,' said Gopal. 'Beautiful women are so flighty! And now I have to speak with my bosses over there.'

  He spoke the word 'bosses' with pique. His bosses were scoundrels, he declared, who refused to recognise his talent. Just because the one film he had directed was a flop he had not been given a second chance, and still they had him constantly at their beck and call, running around the place for them, promising great things but never fulfilling them. They pleaded language difficulties: Gopal's native tongue was Tamil, and though his English was
excellent his Hindi and Marathi left much to be desired. There was a distinct prejudice against film directors with a Tamil native tongue.

  'It is the actors who love me!' he declared. 'They respond to me as puppets to a puppeteer! They do whatever I bid them! Look at this girl in London! Only because of my influence she is returning! I know her so well!' He winked suggestively at Nat. 'She knows of my talent as a director. But what am I? Screenwriter and jack-of-all-trades. One day I will just walk out and what will they be left with? Nobody. There is no other talent in Bombay! I shall go back to novel-writing and then they will beg me to direct their films!'

  'Where are you staying in London?' asked Nat, if only to change the subject.

  'With the Rajkumars,' said Gopal, 'relatives of a friend. They live in Wallington which is so far away from you, my beloved son! It will make visiting you extremely difficult! And I have only the two days left, it would be most convenient if I —' he paused, as if giving Nat the chance to invite him.

  'But I've only the one bed!' Nat protested weakly.

  'No matter, no matter, I can sleep on floor, we Indians can sleep everywhere and in all circumstances, we are very hardy people! And look at your nice thick carpet! If you just give me one bed-sheet I can sleep most comfortably, please do not worry about me, I do not need that nice soft mattress…'

  'No, in that case I'll sleep on the floor, you can take the bed.'

  That little matter settled, they began a conversation that lasted well into the night. There was much Nat wanted to know, and Gopal was only too ready to talk, though, Nat suspected, information was well embellished. Gopal perched himself on a straight-backed chair, drew up his legs and crossed them. This, he proclaimed, was the best method of sitting.