A Convenient Marriage

by A Convenient Marriage (retail) (epub)

  ‘Come to the party, Chaya, it’ll do you good,’ said Sara.

  ‘It’s better than sitting in your room by yourself on a Saturday night,’ Jay added.

  She looked from one to the other. Both faces radiated concern.

  ‘But I won’t know anyone.’

  ‘You’ll know us,’ said Jay, flashing a huge grin. ‘Who else could you possibly need to know?’

  Chaya smiled. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Great,’ said Sara. ‘Trust me Chaya, you’ll have a great time.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jay, disappearing behind his book again. ‘You’d better, or you’ll have to answer to Sara.’

  Sara threw an eraser at him, grinning.

  * * *

  The party was in a townhouse near Iffley Road. They caught the bus up there and then ran, umbrellas held like shields, down the shiny wet side streets until they got to a house from which music and laughter were escaping into the night. The front yard was a mess of bicycles and assorted junk. Jay hammered on the door while Chaya and Sara tried to squeeze into the relative shelter of the porch. When the door opened they tumbled in.

  Chaya had been to parties in people’s college rooms before, but never to a house party. The place felt slightly damp and a pall of smoke hung around the ceiling. The girl who let them in told them to put their coats in one of the rooms upstairs and then tripped off to get more drink.

  The stairs had been decorated with fairy lights, which twinkled in the haze. They went up, careful not to catch the frayed bits of the carpet and found a door with ‘Cloak room’ written on a piece of A4 pinned to it. Jay gathered up the coats and dumped them on the bed on top of all the others. They slid off and ended up in a heap on the floor.

  There were people everywhere. Chaya followed Sara and Jay into the kitchen, resisting the urge to grab hold of Sara’s arm for comfort. The kitchen table groaned with the weight of wine and vodka. Jay headed straight for the washing up bowl full of punch and started ladling it out into plastic cups. Chaya grabbed a cup and poured herself some orange juice.

  ‘I’ve just poured you some punch,’ said Jay, waving a cup of cloudy red liquid at her.

  ‘I think I’ll stick to juice,’ she said.

  ‘Hey, I’ll have it.’ Someone plucked it out of Jay’s hand and wandered off.

  Chaya followed Sara into the living room. She spotted the radiator and went towards it, hoping the heat would dry her jeans. Jay dragged Sara over to talk to someone. Chaya leaned against the radiator and looked around the room. People were lounging around, most chatting animatedly. Not far from her, a boy and a girl were deep in conversation, oblivious to everyone else in the room, their bodies angled towards each other. She looked away from them.

  If she’d stayed in Sri Lanka, she would never have come to this sort of party. She would have had a carefully controlled social life, where she was always chaperoned. If she’d decided that she didn’t want a social life and wanted to focus entirely on her studies, her family would have happily let her. In fact, they might even have encouraged her to do so while she was studying. The minute she finished, though, they’d rush out and try and find her a husband. The mismatch between their expectation that she should avoid men altogether before graduation but find someone to marry immediately after didn’t seem to occur to them.

  Chaya sighed. She understood Sara’s theory that she needed to go out and mingle with people to become a fully rounded person, but right now it all seemed like so much hard work. All she really wanted to do was to stay at home and study… with the occasional break to daydream about what might have been if she’d felt free to see Noah again.

  ‘Hello.’ A guy in a loud green jumper came up to her. ‘I saw you looked a bit lost, and I thought, “aha, a kindred spirit”. I’m Rich. I live here.’ He stuck a hand out.

  She looked around for a polite means of escape, and saw none.

  ‘So,’ said Rich, taking her lack of reply as an invitation to join her by the radiator. ‘What do you study?’

  * * *

  Inevitably, she was there for ages. At some point Rich started to tell her about his project on scanning electron microscopy. Chaya let her attention wander. Could she see Noah again? Did Sara have a point about having fun? Malini was always telling her to lighten up. Perhaps going on a date would be lightening up? Nothing serious. Just fun.

  As Sara had pointed out, she was already distracted. Maybe spending some time with Noah would make her less distracted…

  Oh. Rich was asking her something.

  ‘Sorry?’ she said. ‘I didn’t catch that… it’s the noise in here.’ As she said it, she realised it wasn’t noisy anymore.

  ‘I was going to get another drink. Can I get you a top up?’ His face was all red and shiny, probably from leaning against the radiator for too long. She watched him take an unsteady step. Or maybe he’d just drunk too much.

  ‘Oh yes, orange juice please.’ She gave him her empty cup. He smiled broadly and picked his way out of the room.

  Chaya looked round. While Rich had been talking, a subtle change had come over the room. Everything seemed a little more laconic. One couple had now given up all pretence of conversation and were attached to each other’s faces. Sara and Jay were still there, talking to a girl with a pierced navel. Jay had his arm round Sara, and she was leaning into him, laughing. Chaya tried to get their attention, but they didn’t notice. She suddenly felt very alone.

  She had a few seconds before Rich came back. She really didn’t want to spend any more time with him. She made for the door. When she got into the hall, she glimpsed a green jumper coming out of the kitchen, and ran up the stairs.

  She stopped outside the ‘cloakroom’ and considered hiding in it. But what if it was Rich’s room? If she went back downstairs, she was bound to get trapped again. Ugh. She hadn’t even wanted to come to this stupid party in the first place. She could grab her coat and try to get out before Rich caught up with her.

  That decided, she fished her jacket out of the pile on the floor. It was still wet. She put it over her arm and marched out. As she left the room she heard someone say ‘…coats in the room at the top of the stairs’ and a familiar voice said, ‘Thanks.’

  She rounded the top of the stairs just as Noah started up them. He stopped. An enormous smile spread across his face. ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘Hi.’ All her anger evaporated. Her stomach fluttered. She had never been so happy to see anyone before.

  He looked at the coat, over her arm. ‘Are you leaving already?’

  ‘Yes. I was thinking about it.’ She wasn’t so sure she wanted to now.

  ‘Stay a bit,’ he said. ‘Please?’

  She could stay, just a bit longer. Now that she had someone to talk to… She said, ‘I could.’

  His smile brightened. ‘Tell you what.’ He pushed his wet hair off his forehead. ‘You grab a… er… stair and I’ll get us a drink.’

  She nodded, already torn. Was this the right thing to do? It felt right… but nothing had changed, really. It was still a bad idea.

  Noah started to go back down the stairs, and then turned. ‘Don’t go away.’

  Chaya leaned against the wall and tried to get her thoughts in order. She liked Noah. There was no escaping that. Letting herself spend time with him just meant lining up heartbreak for later. Her parents would never approve. If things got serious, she would have to choose between him and them. Besides, she really did have to focus. She had made so much fuss about her ambition to make a difference in the world. She couldn’t let that be derailed by something as mundane as falling in love.

  She was almost persuaded and had even descended a few steps when Rich reappeared, brandishing an orange juice.

  ‘There you are,’ he said, grinning. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’

  Oh no. ‘I… just needed a bit of air.’ She was glad she was still holding her coat.

  ‘Oh it’s too wet outside,’ said Rich. ‘We could go to my room and I can open a window fo
r you if you like.’ His smile was almost a leer. He came up the stairs. Chaya wished she could disappear into the wall behind her.

  Just then, Noah came back. ‘I got you juice...’ His eyes took in Rich and then Chaya, pasted against the wall, then back to Rich. ‘Oh, hello,’ he said. He was still smiling, but his eyes had a hard glint to them. ‘I’m Noah. I don’t believe we’ve met.’

  The two men stared at each other for a moment. ‘This is a private party. Who do you know that lives here?’ Rich snapped.

  Noah’s glance flicked to Chaya. She mouthed ‘Keith’. He frowned. ‘I’m a friend of a friend, you know how it is.’ He smiled again. ‘Anyway, it was nice to meet you. I haven’t seen Chaya in ages, so, if you’ll excuse us…’

  Chaya smiled apologetically at Rich. He said, ‘Right. Well. Okay,’ and scurried back down the stairs, pausing at the bottom to glare at them.

  Noah said, ‘Are you alright?’

  Chaya nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Do you want to leave?’

  She shook her head and sank down on the stairs. There was no leaving him now. Her knight in soggy denim.

  ‘Great.’ He sat down beside her. The stairwell was narrow and his thigh touched hers. The skin on her leg tingled.

  ‘Here.’ He handed her the drink. ‘Cheers.’

  They tapped plastic cups together and Chaya laughed.

  ‘Good party huh?’ he said, taking a sip of his drink.

  ‘I guess,’ she said. ‘I don’t really know anyone here.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘So how come you’re here then?’

  He didn’t say anything, but looked faintly guilty. Suspicion started to rise. Sara. She must have got in touch with him. ‘Noah?’

  ‘I heard on the grapevine…’ He wasn’t a very good liar.

  ‘Sara told you, didn’t she? No wonder she was so insistent that I come. She’s too much.’ She started to stand up.

  Noah caught her arm. ‘Chaya, please. I had to see you. I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s driving me nuts. I persuaded Sara to get you here. She didn’t want to do it, so don’t blame her.’ He released her arm, but she sat back down again, held by his expression. ‘Just explain it to me,’ he said. ‘Please.’ His hair slid down over his eyes.

  Without thinking, she reached over and pushed it out of the way.

  * * *

  It was difficult to have a meaningful conversation sitting on the stairs. They had to shuffle apart or stand up whenever anyone needed to go upstairs or down. Yet Chaya found the transient quality of the situation comforting. It was as though she were safe from the real world in stairway limbo. Noah seemed to sense this and didn’t suggest they move.

  ‘Have you got a boyfriend back home or something?’ he asked, looking very worried.

  ‘God, no! It’s nothing like that.’

  ‘Then what is it? Do you not like me in that way?’

  She stared at him. Wasn’t it obvious that she did like him very much? Sara had seen it straight away.

  ‘I mean,’ he continued, looking away, ‘if that’s it, then just say and I’ll stop bothering you.’

  She put a hand on his arm. ‘No, no. The reason I can’t see you is because…’ She sighed. ‘It’s a cultural thing. I can’t ever take you home to my family. We’d have to split up at some point and I … why start something, when you know it has to end?’

  He looked at her, not understanding. She sighed again and took her hand back.

  She tried to explain to him about her family and how the way she was brought up meant she couldn’t be with him.

  He listened, head to one side. ‘What about what you want? Doesn’t that come into it?’

  ‘It does come into it,’ she said. ‘Only, what I want has to fit within certain parameters. If you think about it, if I lived in Sri Lanka, most of the boys I met would be suitable.’ She remembered the fuss over Malini’s short-lived first relationship with Sumith the Unsuitable Boy and added, ‘probably.’

  ‘But I’m not,’ he said. ‘Because I’m…’ He sought for a better word and gave up. ‘White?’

  ‘No.’ It wasn’t as simple as that. ‘You could be the same colour as me, you could be from India, and it would be the same. You’re not Sri Lankan. You’re different to us. You have a different culture.’ She felt a sense of déjà vu; she had given this same explanation to Sara countless times.

  Someone wanted to go upstairs, so they had to shuffle apart to make room for them. When they moved back together Noah said, ‘What do you want? You’re not your family, you don’t think like that.’

  ‘No, but all that is part of who I am. If I let go of that, I wouldn’t be me.’

  He thought about that for a minute. ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ he said eventually. He took her hand. ‘What do you, Chaya, who’s sitting on the stairs, want?’

  She could see the fairy lights twinkling on-off, on-off, reflected in his eyes. She could also see the darker shadow of herself among them. She knew what she wanted, but also knew it wasn’t going to end well. So how could she answer his question?

  She chose not to. ‘What is this? Some sort of charm offensive?’

  He dropped his gaze to their hands, nestled together on his knee, then back up. He grinned. ‘Is it working?’

  How could she help but laugh? She didn’t remove her hand from his. Noah gave it a squeeze. They both took that to be her answer.

  Noah leaned forward and kissed her. It was the gentlest brush of lips, but she felt it in all of her body. He hesitated, lips millimetres from hers and this time it was she who closed the gap.

  Kissing Noah was the most intense thing she had ever experienced. Sensations flooded through her, warming her up from inside and making her heart gallop. When he brought his hand up to gently cup her cheek, it felt as though there was electricity in his touch. She could have gone on kissing him for ever.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chaya – Colombo, 2005

  The party was in full swing when Chaya arrived. The great and the good of Colombo society were there in all their finery. Ladies in colourful saris flitted about like butterflies, bangles jangling. Men stood around, stubbornly wearing jackets in spite of the heat that followed them in from outside. The hall was large and the air conditioning stole away the smells of perfume and sweat.

  Chaya followed Malini in, trying to make herself inconspicuous behind the rest of the family. Malini was radiant in a pink and gold sari. The two children were neat and tidy in their best clothes. Malini had little Kapila firmly by the hand, whilst Nayana, very grown up at ten years old, was walking demurely next to Chaya.

  Amma too was wearing a sari and her finest jewellery. She and Malini had done their best to persuade Chaya into her sari again, but Chaya had refused, reasoning that she was going to a party and should be able to wear what she liked. The man her aunt had lined up would realise she didn’t always dress like that. So, Chaya wore a burgundy trouser suit that she knew flattered her.

  As soon as Malini entered the hall, she was surrounded by a swarm of people. Chaya reached for her niece and nephew’s hands and led them to a table with empty seats.

  Chaya dumped her handbag on the chair next to her niece. ‘Okay, you’re in charge of saving seats for everyone,’ said Chaya. ‘Now then, what would you like to drink?’

  ‘Coca Cola!’ said Kapila.

  ‘Can I have iced coffee?’ said Nayana.

  ‘No.’

  Nayana sighed. ‘It’s not fair.’

  Chaya smiled. ‘Life seldom is, little one. Apart from iced coffee, what would you like?’

  ‘Orange juice,’ Nayana said, her lower lip starting to pout.

  ‘Okay. Now you two be good. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.’

  ‘Can I go play with the balloons?’ said Kapila, spying a group of kids earnestly chasing a balloon.

  ‘When I’ve come back, you can. For now, you need to behave,’ said Chaya. She looked up in ti
me to see Ajith and Thatha coming over. Ajith caught her eye and indicated that he’d take over.

  ‘I’m just getting them drinks,’ said Chaya as she passed him.

  ‘Nayana’s not allowed ice coffee,’ said Ajith, automatically.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I don’t know what it is with kids and iced coffee. It makes them so hyper,’ Ajith muttered.

  ‘Think about it,’ said Chaya, flashing a grin at him.

  She was coming back, a glass in each hand, when an aunt, Suri Nanda, accosted her.

  ‘Chaya duwa!’ She looked her up and down. ‘What are you wearing?’

  ‘Hello Nanda.’ She did a faint genuflection, careful not to spill the drinks she was holding. ‘Sorry, I’m just taking these for the kids.’

  Her aunt sucked her teeth and shook her head. ‘How am I supposed to introduce you to a husband when you’re dressed like a man? What will people say!’

  ‘I’m hoping they’ll say, “what a nice outfit Chaya’s wearing. She looks lovely”,’ said Chaya, smiling sweetly.

  Her aunt looked scandalised.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nanda. It’s a long story, all right. I have to get these drinks to the kids.’ Chaya lifted up the glasses she was carrying to emphasise the point. ‘Then I’ll come right back to meet this man you’ve got lined up, okay?’

  Suri Nanda looked round the room. ‘I don’t think he’s here yet.’

  ‘Okay, come find me when he is then.’ Chaya beamed encouragingly at her aunt and manoeuvred past her.

  Malini, Amma and Thatha were all seated by the time Chaya got back.

  ‘You can sit next to me, Chaya Punchi,’ said Nayana, patting the chair.

  ‘Thanks.’ Chaya slid into the seat. No sooner had she sat down when a voice rang out.

  ‘Is that Chaya?’

  Chaya got back to her feet and turned to greet one of Amma’s Women’s Institute friends. ‘Hello Aunty,’ she said, pulling a smile onto her face. She and Malini had known this lady for years. She was one of the many women who were not related to them that they called ‘Aunty’.