Dreams of Rivers and Seas

by Tim Parks

  John closed his eyes again and lay quite still.

  ‘Want some water?’ she asked.

  ‘No thanks,’ he said.

  The following morning, no sooner were they through the airport check-in than a delay was announced. Someone had hidden a bomb in a child’s buggy at Heathrow. They waited for three hours while British Airways ran their own security checks. Even with the air conditioning, the heat was unpleasant and they had to give up bottles and liquids of every kind.

  ‘We’ll have to pay Paul back, though,’ she said, when eventually they boarded the plane. ‘He’s been incredibly generous.’

  ‘I don’t like him,’ John said

  Elaine buckled her seat belt. She didn’t pursue the matter. There was something sharp and unyielding in John that hadn’t been there before. But as the flight staff began the safety rigmarole, he laughed and shook his head. ‘You know, though, now that I’ve thought about it, I can’t believe you came out to Delhi to tell me you would marry me. I can’t believe you did that. It was mad. You’re mad.’

  ‘Well, I did it.’

  ‘You appreciate I am penniless.’

  ‘I know.’

  He hesitated. ‘Maybe it was stupid, but I was sure you were seeing that Japanese bloke.’

  ‘Well, I’m not.’

  As the plane took off John looked down from the window and tried to find the river. It was early afternoon and the city was drenched in humidity. It was hard to make anything out. ‘I bought a shawl for you,’ he eventually said, ‘pure pashmina, but it was stolen, along with my mobile. I don’t have much luck with presents, do I?’

  ‘Sounds like me who’s not getting the luck,’ Elaine said.

  The passengers settled down. The screens above them began their graphic representation of the plane’s progress on the long journey to London. Plagued, perhaps blessed, John remembered his father’s angular handwriting, by dreams of rivers and seas. For a moment he imagined Albert James holding Jasmeet’s hand as they descended flight after flight of steps into the ground. A temple upside down, she had said. The well had dried up centuries ago. The girl has gone back to her family, John thought. Then he remembered his mother arm in arm with that dark young figure on the mattress.

  Staring at the screen, at the red line pushing out from Delhi northwards, at the figures giving the wind speed, the outside temperature, the estimated arrival time, John suddenly felt calm. These are things you will think about for all your life, he realised, things that will lie dormant then wake up again from time to time. It was definitely a good thing, he decided, that he had taken possession of Dad’s papers. At least he had got control of those.

  A meal was served. The usual, improbable Indian love film began. A crusty Brahmin family was insisting on caste niceties. Their handsome, rather fatuous son couldn’t care less. He was courting an improbably beautiful supermarket cashier whose father was an alcoholic. It was a potential tragedy that would end in comedy and laughter. John motioned for Elaine to remove her headset.

  ‘I think I’ll write Dad’s biography,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I’ll write a book about him. Not now, but someday.’

  She frowned inquisitively. ‘Well, he was your dad.’

  ‘Might even make some money,’ John added.

  ‘Was the shawl you got like that?’ she asked, indicating something on the screen.

  He looked. The lucky supermarket girl was dancing alone on a mountain terrace, in love, waving an expensive shawl that her Brahmin boy had given her to disguise herself for their clandestine encounters.

  ‘Oh, much prettier,’ he said.

  ‘Describe it, then. Tell me what it was like.’

  John thought. It was actually quite hard to visualise what the shawl had been like, and even harder to remember the state of mind in which he had bought it. He did remember, though, that moment when he had spread it on the bed at the Govind and put Father’s computer on top; there were some things you did as though obeying orders or performing rituals. It was odd.

  ‘If you can’t describe it, how can I believe you ever bought it!’

  ‘Okay. Hang on.’

  John made an effort now to remember the situation in the shop when he had chosen it, the shopkeeper shaking open one dazzling pattern after another before his confused eyes.

  ‘Right, I think I’ve got it. So, let me see: it had a sort of lilac colour, a soft pale kind of lilac, with tiny gold embroideries; that’s why I bought it. The colour. I thought pale lilac would look great with your hair and skin. I saw it and just thought, Elaine.’

  ‘Even though you weren’t answering my messages at the time?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Lilac is a good colour for me,’ she said.

  ‘Actually’ – and now he remembered a little more – ‘it was only when I opened it, later, in the hotel where I was staying, that I saw how nice the embroideries were. You know? I’d seen them, but I hadn’t really taken them in. They were tiny snakes round the edges all entwined, with a baby elephant in each corner. Clichéd, I suppose, but very pretty. And the cloth, it sort of ran through your fingers, like water. It really felt like liquid, slithering over your hands. Like liquid you can hold.’

  ‘Give it to me,’ Elaine said suddenly. ‘Come on. I want my present. I need a pretty scarf. Give it to me.’

  ‘I told you, they stole it.’

  ‘Stupid, give it to me.’

  He looked at her. She was almost belligerent, but smiling.

  ‘Okay.’ John hesitated, then said rather severely: ‘Actually, I had meant to wait till we got back, Elaine. I’m not sure this is a good moment for presents. You know, with everything that’s happened.’

  ‘No, I want it now,’ Elaine told him. ‘I want to be spoiled.’

  With apparent reluctance, John leaned forward in his seat and rummaged in the pocket with the in-flight magazines. ‘Wait a moment,’ he said. ‘I can’t remember where I put it.’ He looked puzzled, rummaged. ‘Where is the damn thing? Ah,’ he sighed with relief, ‘here we go.’

  Carefully, he lifted out a soft package and handed it to her. Elaine took it from him, brushing his fingertips as she did so. She caressed the crinkly paper, felt the parcel’s weight, its floppy bulk, smelled it with an enquiring, twitching nose. ‘What lovely purple paper,’ she said. Then she set it on her knees and very delicately started to untie a bow of yellow ribbon. She had trouble with it because the knot was tight. She looked more closely. She frowned. ‘Ah.’ Then she found an end and pulled it through its loop. She looked up and smiled. John watched her slender wrists with their light down of hair, her sly little mouth, the upper lip set in a curl of mild surprise.

  ‘Is it really for me?’

  She removed the ribbon, coiled it round a finger and slipped it in a pocket, as though to use it again for some future package. More urgently now, she unfolded the paper, which made a happy crackling noise; then she stopped and gasped softly with pleasure.

  ‘Oh John. Johnny!’

  She lifted the invisible shawl from its wrapping. It was very beautiful. She held it to her cheek and shut her eyes as her skin met its softness. She sighed and opened it out now, fold by lilac fold, a huge flower blossoming, until her arms were spread wide and draped in beauty.

  ‘Handwoven,’ John murmured, ‘by the girls of Kashmir.’

  She took two diagonal corners, brought them carefully together, and, consulting a mirror that had appeared in the back of the seat in front, eyes narrowing, shrewd lips pouting, began to tie it round her hair and under her pointy, English-girl’s chin. She patted it over the ears and pulled out a wrinkle and smoothed the embroidered ends where she had made the knot.

  ‘And the elephants,’ John asked, ‘the snakes. Do you like them?’

  Elaine pulled up a corner of cloth beside her mouth, squinted downwards, and shivered a little, as if exotic creatures were wriggling in her clothes.

  John laughed.

  Still
smoothing the scarf on her hair, admiring herself in the mirror, moving her face first to this side then to that while the bright eyes stayed locked on their elfish reflection, Elaine suddenly turned to him. In a glow of amusement, her eyes went deep into his. He tried to understand. She raised an eyebrow, cocked her head. Now she frowned. Why did he like that curious lopsidedness she had so much?

  Very quickly, Elaine pulled off the scarf and shook out her hair. She unfolded it again and, lifting the liquid cloth above her head on elegantly raised wrists, beckoned him to join her underneath. It might have been a tent she was holding up, or a net, or the silky sheet of a marriage bed. ‘Kiss me, John,’ she said. ‘Kiss me underwater.’ Her voice was businesslike. Taking a deep breath, John shut his eyes and dived right in.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My warmest thanks to Rana Dasgupta for his swift and patient assistance.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

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  Epub ISBN 9781407014524

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  Published by Vintage 2009

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  Copyright © Tim Parks 2008

  Tim Parks has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Harvill Secker

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  ISBN 9780099513360