A Lovesong for India: Tales from the East and West

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

  The introduction to Ralph was a success. Shoki came back enthusiastic about Ralph’s kindness to him. When Brigitte phoned Ralph to thank him, Ralph said it was one’s duty to help young talent. He sounded guarded; there was a silence, then she said, ‘So what did you think?’

  ‘About the screenplay? It’s interesting. Different.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it.’

  Brigitte had hoped Ralph would have a more explicit opinion. She knew for herself that the work was different, and also difficult. The characters spoke in a poetic prose that was not easy to understand, but it sounded beautiful when Shoki read it to her, and every time he looked up for her appreciation, she had no difficulty giving it. Then he continued, satisfied – though really he did not need approval, he had the same confidence in his work as he did in himself.

  When there was another crisis in his living arrangement, Brigitte solved it by taking a room for him in the hotel. He was concerned about the expense, but when she reassured him that it wasn’t a suite, just a single room, he moved in with his small baggage. He liked it very much. It was on the second floor and overlooked the hotel garden with its cypress trees and silver fountain. It was also decided around this time that it was really not necessary for Shoki to take any more jobs when he could do so many helpful things for Brigitte.

  Frances found the perfect New York apartment for her sister and Brigitte agreed to take it, pay a deposit, sign papers – ‘Oh please, Frankie, whatever.’ Frances was not satisfied; she knew she was being got rid of and asked herself, What’s going on? Unfortunately she had no one with whom to share her doubts. Although she and her husband Marshall were known and seen everywhere as an indivisible couple – large and rich – the communication between them was not intimate. Whenever she tried to confide some deeper concerns to him, he answered her with an indifferent grunt or by rattling his newspaper at her in irritation.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she reproached Brigitte over the telephone. ‘What’s wrong? I thought you wanted to come.’ Then she said, ‘Do you have someone out there? A relationship?’

  ‘Oh absolutely. He’s sitting right here.’ Brigitte smiled across the room at Shoki, who looked up inquiringly and smiled back.

  ‘It’s not a joke. And if you knew how I’ve been running around trying to find the right apartment for you, and at last I have.’

  ‘Bless you,’ Brigitte thanked her, but Frances remained dissatisfied.

  A few days later, after a particularly annoying telephone conversation with Brigitte, Frances decided it would be best if she went herself to Los Angeles. She proposed this idea to Marshall who said at once, ‘Impossible.’ They were about to go out to someone’s anniversary dinner – she had laid out his evening clothes and was putting on her jewellery.

  ‘Only for a few days,’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes? And what about the hospital ball, the library, the God-knows-for-what fundraiser?’ He was looking at himself in the mirror, adjusting his suspenders over his dress shirt. He was a big broad man carrying a load of stomach in front, but it gave him pleasure to dress up and see himself. She, on the other hand, inserted her earrings as though she were undergoing a disagreeable ritual.

  ‘Why?’ he said. As if he didn’t know that her reason for going to Los Angeles could only be her sister. But she wasn’t going to spell anything out for him: if Brigitte was to be mentioned, he would have to do it. ‘You hate flying,’ he said, holding out a sleeve for her to insert the cufflink. ‘You sit there as if the pilot’s one ambition is to crash the plane with you in it. You spoil every trip you take with me before it’s even started . . . I thought you told me she was moving to New York.’

  Frances was now concentrating on tying his black tie, something he had had no cause to learn since she did it so expertly.

  ‘Well, is she or isn’t she?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know. That’s your sister all over – playing mystery, making everyone dance to her tune.’

  But later, inside their chauffeured limousine, where they took up the entire back seat as they sat side by side in their party clothes: ‘Call the office to book your seat; or remind me tomorrow, I’ll tell them.’

  Frances was querulous. The flight had been as horrible as she had expected, she already hated her room and it was all Brigitte’s fault for making her come here. ‘Yes you did – I knew something was up, and who else is there to care except me?’

  ‘Darling,’ Brigitte acknowledged. She looked around the room. ‘But it’s charming, what’s wrong with it?’

  ‘It’s cheap and gaudy, like a film set. And the light is giving me a headache.’

  ‘I’ll draw the curtain’ – but Brigitte regretted having to exclude the sun, the bright view.

  ‘Marshall thinks you have a lover, that’s why you’re sticking on here.’

  ‘Did Marshall say that?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s what he’s thinking.’

  ‘I have a friend,’ Brigitte said.

  ‘A man?’

  ‘God, Frances. What are you thinking?’

  ‘Who knows, nowadays.’ Frances was sad, thinking of her own children, about whose lives she could only speculate. ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Young. Very young, Frankie.’

  Her sister was the only person left in the world to call her Frankie, and Frances’s mood softened. She said, ‘I suppose it happens, especially in this place. You’d be far better off in New York.’

  ‘There are no young men there?’

  ‘I’m there. We’d be together again, after so many years . . . We don’t have to be lonely.’

  With her cool lips, Brigitte kissed her sister’s cheek. ‘You must be dropping. I’ll let you rest.’

  Frances agreed meekly. She really was tired – certainly too tired to call Marshall and tell him she had arrived safely. Anyway, he would only say that, if she hadn’t, he would have heard about it soon enough.

  But it was he who called her. He even asked about her flight; he also asked about her return booking, and would she and Brigitte be arriving together? She told him she was worried about the New York apartment for which she was negotiating – it was very desirable and others might preempt it – and in reply he did what she had hoped, asked for details, so she knew that he would be following them up and far more efficiently than she could. There was no reason after that not to hang up, but at the last moment he said, ‘What’s she tell you?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About being a crazy woman and getting herself in a mess back there.’

  Brigitte was woken up by a phone call from Ralph, asking her if she knew where Shoki was. He was trying not to sound agitated. ‘He’s not in his room so I thought he’d be with you.’

  ‘No, but he’ll be here for breakfast.’

  ‘Breakfast! Do you know what the time is? . . . Anyway, he was supposed to be here; I’d set up a breakfast meeting for him. Remember? I’m his agent.’

  Brigitte said, ‘Of course.’ But it was true – she really had forgotten about this connection between Shoki and Ralph. Maybe she had even forgotten that Shoki was here for any other purpose than to be with her. She asked, ‘Do you and he often have breakfast meetings?’

  ‘Well. Most days. I’m trying to help him, Brigitte.’ She could hear Ralph trying to choke down his anxiety. He said, ‘Have you any idea where he spends the night? You think he’s in his room, don’t you, but have you ever checked?’ His voice rose. ‘Don’t you ever wonder?’ he asked, angry with her now.

  Actually, she did wonder sometimes – not as Ralph evidently did, with anguish, but with curiosity, even pleasure. She knew it was not possible for Shoki to restrict himself to people he liked but who, by virtue of their age, were barred from one whole potent side of his nature. For that he did need – she freely admitted it – those as young as himself, and as gay (possibly in both senses). But to Ralph she only said, ‘What’s happening with his screenplay?’

  �
�It still needs work.’ He swept aside the irrelevant subject. ‘The fact is, he needs someone to take charge, be a bit strict with him.’

  ‘You mean to make him work?’

  ‘Yes yes, that too. Now listen, Brigitte, we need to talk—’

  ‘Oh,’ she said quickly, ‘there’s someone at the door. That may be he.’

  But it was Frances. Brigitte went back to the phone. ‘No, it’s my sister. She’s here from New York.’

  ‘Do you realise he was not in his room, not at midnight, not early this morning?’

  ‘My sister and I are going out now. This minute. We have a dental appointment.’

  When Brigitte was off the phone, Frances said, ‘I don’t know why you have to tell people lies all the time.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Frankie.’ But she reflected for a while. ‘It’s mostly to save their feelings.’

  Frances was silent; she drew in her lips. ‘Don’t ever think you have to save mine.’

  After a moment of surprise, ‘Of course not!’ Brigitte said. ‘Why should I think that? Why should anyone?’ But in her heart she thought, yours most of all. A rush of love and pity filled her, and she kissed her sister.

  There was a very brief knock – for courtesy, not permission – and then Shoki came in. It was exactly the time he appeared every day. Wherever he might have been all night and this morning, now he was fresh, rested, smiling and terribly pleased to meet Brigitte’s sister. As for Frances, whatever prejudice she might have had was entirely swept away: it was as if she herself was swept clean of all negative thinking. If she had come to assess the situation, she would have to start all over again with entirely different premises.

  How to explain anything to Marshall? He had never in all their life together been so attentive with phone calls; and never had she been so negligent in return. It was the first time she had actually enjoyed Los Angeles. Before, on her visits to Brigitte, she had disliked being here, and so had Marshall, though he had insisted on coming with her. Everyone they met – the actors, agents, producers, publicists – appeared to them to be social flotsam. The town itself was flotsam, its houses ready to be razed as quickly as they had been put up, or collapsing into the earth quaking beneath them. But now that she was having fun with Brigitte and Shoki, all that was changed for Frances.

  Shoki had accepted Frances completely. He loved the idea of family, and a sister was something almost sacred to him. With the intimacy that came so naturally to him, he at once adopted Frances and became the only other person besides Brigitte to call her Frankie. ‘Doesn’t Frankie look marvellous?’ he would say about some new outfit. Between them, he and Brigitte had decided to change Frances’s style; and although Brigitte herself loved brilliant orange and purples, for Frances they chose discreet and lighter colours, with a hint of California playfulness. Accompanying them to a boutique, Shoki sat outside the dressing rooms chatting up the sales girls; and when Frances emerged, he said, very thrilled, ‘It suits you.’ Then the years dropped away from Frances.

  She confided to Brigitte that, with Shoki, it was like being with another sister – though at the same time he was so manly, in the best way. Unlike other men, he was not hard and insensitive but the opposite. ‘He must have grown up with a lot of sisters,’ she guessed, ‘that’s how he knows about women, what we have to put up with.’

  Brigitte agreed, but she too was guessing. Although Shoki had a high regard for the notion of family, he hardly ever mentioned his own. When he did, it was with a wistful, almost sad air. They speculated with each other – perhaps he was too homesick, perhaps the subject was too sacred for him. But Ralph said it was because he was too damn secretive.

  Ralph – for Frances he had become as disturbing an element as was Marshall with his constant phone calls. Ralph often turned up in one of the restaurants where they had booked a table for three. ‘May I?’ Ralph said, having already drawn out a chair for himself. He knew a lot of people there and sometimes he took Shoki away to introduce him to a useful contact. This was very irritating to Frances – ‘Shoki is with us,’ she complained. But Ralph was dissatisfied too, as if it wasn’t enough for him to be professionally useful to Shoki. Shoki was always as nice to him as he was to the two sisters and seemed anxious that all of them should be comfortable and happy with one another. But Ralph rarely was. He talked too much, telling some insider anecdote, that made him laugh or sneer. He became brittle, malicious, assuming a role that perhaps belonged to his profession but was not in his nature. Sooner or later, and sometimes before he had even finished laughing at his anecdote, he became gloomy and was silent. When Shoki tried to cheer him up, Ralph brushed this good-natured attempt aside. Instead he said something that the two sisters could not and Shoki perhaps would not hear. Then all three avoided looking at Ralph, the way a squeamish person avoids looking at someone in pain.

  Marshall asked questions over the telephone. ‘So what’s he like – the little friend? The lover?’

  ‘There’s nothing like that.’

  ‘Come on.’

  There was always some threat in his attitude to her that prevented Frances from holding out when he wanted something. ‘He’s only a boy, Marshall.’

  ‘A substitute son? I knew she’d pick one up sooner or later . . . What about you?’

  ‘I have a son,’ Frances said with dignity. Marshall hadn’t spoken to their son for two years and gritted his teeth when he had to write out cheques for him and his dependants from various relationships.

  In a thoroughly bad mood now, Marshall told her: ‘Just get yourself back here. I don’t want you hanging around there. In that atmosphere.’

  Atmosphere! Frances thought to herself. What about the home, the heavy empty costly apartment he wanted her to come back to and live in with him? And as if guessing the new desire arising in her heart, that same day Shoki suggested: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if you stayed with us?’ He turned to Brigitte: ‘Wouldn’t it?’

  Brigitte said, ‘Frankie’s husband really needs her. They’ve been married for – how many years is it, Frankie?’

  ‘Thirty-two,’ Frances said, and Shoki made a gallant joke: ‘I don’t believe it. You’re not a day over thirty-two yourself.’

  ‘My son is thirty. And Gilberte, my daughter, is twenty-eight. They’re both married. And divorced.’

  Brigitte said, ‘He twice, and now he’s in Hong Kong with another girlfriend. And Gilberte? We don’t know about Gilberte. The last time we heard she was in Buenos Aires, and that was almost six months ago. So at least she doesn’t need money – unlike her brother who needs lots. He even comes to me for it.’

  ‘I wish he wouldn’t,’ Frances said, speaking as freely before Shoki as when she and her sister were alone.

  Brigitte laughed. ‘He knows I’m loaded.’

  ‘This is the family today,’ Shoki commented. But although they waited, he still did not speak about his own family. Instead he said, ‘That is why everyone is making their own arrangements.’

  As though aware of this subversive conversation, Marshall arrived the next day. He had taken an early flight and went straight to his wife’s suite in the hotel. Brigitte and Shoki had started on their room-service orders – neither of them could ever wait for meals; that day it was not Frances who joined them but Marshall. ‘What a surprise,’ Brigitte said, calmly continuing to eat her croissant. But Shoki leaped to his feet, in deference to an older man. He appeared flustered, not emotionally but socially, like a hostess with an extra guest. ‘Should we send for more coffee?’ He lifted the lid to peer in. ‘Frankie needs at least three cups.’

  Marshall’s eyebrows went right up. ‘Frankie?’ Then they went down again. ‘Frances has a headache.’

  ‘Then there’s enough.’ Shoki was already pouring for Marshall. ‘But Brigitte has finished the entire bread basket. So greedy.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Brigitte said. ‘Marshall has to watch his weight.’

  Marshall was certainly a weighty man. This was neve
r so obvious at home in New York, or in his office, or at his club lunches with other weighty men. But here in Brigitte’s hotel suite, where the furniture was gilded and frail and the flowers seemed to float without support of vases in a cloud of petals, Marshall in his thick business suit imposed a heavy burden.

  He didn’t consider Shoki worth addressing, so it was Brigitte he asked: ‘Is he an actor?’

  Of course Brigitte knew that to identify anyone as a possible actor was, in Marshall’s view and intention, to insult him. Shoki, however, answered as though he had been paid a compliment, and it was regretfully that he admitted he wasn’t – although, he added, he had done some acting in college. ‘What college?’ Marshall said, asking an idle question to which no adequate answer was expected. Anyway, Shoki apparently didn’t hear, he went straight on – ‘Just smaller roles in student productions, but the experience was very helpful to me as a writer.’

  ‘You’re a writer?’ Marshall spoke like one picking up an unattractive insect between pincers.

  Shoki began to bubble over with enthusiasm. He spoke of his screenplay, which his agent was placing for him – at the moment it was with Fox, who were showing interest. Of course it was a difficult subject, he confided to Marshall, partly symbolic and partly historical. The history reflected contemporary events so it was very topical, though one did have to know something of India’s past as well as of her not always perfect present. Marshall consulted his watch and shifted his big thighs where he sat. He tried to catch Brigitte’s eye, the way he always did, had done through all their past together, to communicate the fact that he desired her and wished to be alone with her. Shoki appeared completely oblivious of this tension – he carried on expounding his story as though Marshall’s sole intention in travelling to Los Angeles was to listen to it.