Subramaniam accidentally knocked over his glass of mango juice. Tammy picked it up, then stooped to touch the feet of the old man, in that traditional gesture of respect for age. Clare was glad to see his respect, its simple dignity, and yet she felt for Tammy in his frustration. She’d been moved by Subramaniam’s prayer, but the search for peace touched only a part of her: the longing for no desire and to see no endeavour as depressing. Her glass of whisky was almost empty, and she realised she’d drunk too much. A wave of languor came over her, and she wondered about Tammy: his bruised divided spirit increasingly appealed to her, and his passionate convictions stirred her sympathies.
She lay back against the cushions, on the verge of sleep. A succession of memories came to her: the river beneath the castle walls, an ancient bridge with fireflies all around. She and Max had picnicked on the bank of that river one night, with Max playing the guitar and singing. The sparks from the fire had shot and crackled, the flames reflecting on the swirling water. Their shadows leapt among the rocks and flickered on the stonework of the bridge. She remembered the nightingale again, with its hypnotic song that mingled with the sound of the rippling, falling water. She remembered thinking, as Max kissed her, that this was the happiest moment of her life so far.
She fell asleep and dreamt.
The temple was huge, covered with gesticulating gods and heroes. The cripple was standing motionless. Clare recognised him. She looked into his pitiless eyes.
‘I told you to keep away,’ he said, pointing at Venkataraman high above, with his bloody shirt and a terrified, lost expression in his eyes.
The dream kept changing. Clare’s father was lying on his deathbed, reaching out for her hand, seeking reassurance. Then a frightened little girl had fallen down, gasping for air in a panic-stricken crowd. Clare was desperate to hold her close, to keep her safe. The cripple took the child and gently kissed her.
The child was Violet. Then she was gone, and the whale was diving in the sea while Clare and Max were making love in the boat. She longed to be impregnated by him. The next moment Tammy was there beside her in the car, and through the window a long thin knife was striking, and blood began pulsing from his chest.
Clare woke with a start, feeling a recurrence of her fear that the assassins were pursuing them. It surfaced in her mind like an evil she was desperately trying to forget. She also felt a sharp return of her anger at Narayan but hoped she’d not allow it to be overwhelmed with hatred.
CHAPTER TEN
When Clare woke next morning, she was in bed but had no recollection of how she got there. Max was fully dressed. He bent to kiss her.
‘You had a drop too much last night, darling,’ he said. ‘I guess all this is proving a real strain for you.’
‘Well, mine’s not exactly an easy situation, is it?’ she said. ‘With you and Narayan. But it’s weird; you seem to need my support with him somehow.’
‘I suppose I do,’ he answered. She felt he was appealing to her, although she vowed to resist it.
‘You’re being wonderful about it. I guess you must really hate me sometimes. But you’ve no reason to hate him.’
‘Why not? Is he being as wonderful as I am?’
‘Don’t laugh at me,’ he said. ‘Look, it was never his doing. From the start, as I keep saying, he’s loathed deceiving you.’
Clare had no time to answer because Maria burst into the room with her child and a plate of mangoes. Max moved to kiss her – Maria was a rather insistent kisser was – but he looked frustrated by the interruption.
‘I hear there’s an expedition planned to Sandeha,’ Maria said.
‘What’s at Sandeha?’ Clare asked.
‘This temple by the sea,’ Max explained. ‘Tammy’s coming, and he’s brining Subramaniam. Vijaya won’t be able to come, though. What about you, Maria?’
‘I’d love to come if you can all put up with the horrible infant.’
Max laughingly took his leave. Maria began to prepare a mango for Clare to eat. The child, quite nude – seemingly his favourite condition – was picking up various things of Clare’s, and casting to the floor those that displeased him most. Maria cut the mango open and offered one juicy wedge to Clare, taking the other herself.
‘Darling,’ she said, between mouthfuls, ‘I do hope you’re not seriously taking to drink.’ She laughed to emphasise she was joking. ‘Do look at the Putto. Isn’t it deliciously absurd? Come here, you little horror. Come and stuff your angel mouth. At once!’
The infant lumbered towards his mother, gurgling in anticipation. Maria, perhaps not in the mood for his ravenous suckling, offered the infant a dripping piece of mango in lieu of her soft breast. She inserted the fruit decisively into his mouth. He spat out bits of thready pulp with an air of scornful disappointment.
Maria peeled another mango, and Clare decided to ask her about the night before.
‘What did happen last night… after I fell into my drunken stupor?’
‘Not a drunken stupor,’ said Maria smilingly. ‘More of a modest slumber. Anyhow, there was another argument between Tammy and Narayan, and Vijaya got a bit upset. She adores them both and hates it when they quarrel. You know, Tammy will never marry her in my view. I dread to think how Narayan will react when Tammy summons up whatever he needs to say so openly. Narayan’s in a funny state these days.’
‘Oh really? How?’
‘Colleagues say he’s become very unsettled. He worships Max, obviously. Perhaps it’s the lack of a loving father in his own life. Of course, there are only a few years between them, but perhaps he needs the friendly guidance of an older man. I think he relishes the culture shock as well. I mean, for someone so traditional in his own country to enjoy the brash modernism of Los Angeles – Western civilisation taken to its ultimate extreme. It’s odd, to say the least.’
‘I suppose it is,’ agreed Clare, feeling quite uncomfortable.
‘Tammy wants to Westernise his India, yet he’s always running down the exploitative, greedy West. Narayan likes his India traditional but finds himself seduced by its total opposite. Well, I do go in for the attraction of opposites myself, hence my fatal falling for The Animal.’
For the next two minutes, Maria regaled Clare with an elaborate account of Antonio’s appalling deceitfulness, as well as his avid sexual prowess, both apparently inexhaustible. Before she could tell her any more, they interrupted by someone knocking at the door. It was Vijaya.
‘Vijayalakshmi,’ said Maria, smiling. ‘We oughtn’t to shorten it. It’s the loveliest name I’ve ever heard.’
‘Oh but it takes so long to say,’ Vijaya replied. ‘Vijayalakshmi Patabiraman. By the time people have got to the end, they’ve almost forgotten the beginning. No, I won’t have a mango, Maria. I’m not dressed for one.’
‘Dressed for one?’ Maria echoed. ‘So what’s the best dress for eating mangos in?’
‘One’s birthday suit,’ replied Vijaya.
‘Really?’ Maria’s fingers dripped with juice, as did the blotchy face of the infant, who seemed disappointed by the mango stone Maria had given him. It was all slithery and hardly very suckable, and he had already thrown it on the floor, with yet another expression of displeasure.
‘I often eat mangoes in the bath,’ said Vijaya. ‘They’re so juicy, it’s best to be clothed in a readily washable birthday suit. So very fashionable!’
‘My trouble is, I’m a terrible glutton,’ said Maria. ‘And my birthday suit is hardly the latest fashion.’ She roared with laughter, then suddenly stopped. ‘Oh my God, that dread child! Do stop it, quick, Vijayalakshmi! I’d better take it into the garden where its destructive instincts might do less damage.’
The child, tired of being so wilfully ignored, had seized one of Vijaya’s figurines and was about to hurl it to the floor in indignant protest. Maria didn’t wait for Vijaya to react and quickly rose to her feet, seizing the child herself. After prising the object from his tenacious grip, she rushed him downstairs, the littl
e boy howling at the intolerable frustrations he was being made to suffer.
Vijaya stayed on to talk to Clare, who had come to really like her style of humour. She felt solicitous towards her, even protective, which she thought was probably the effect of guilt about Tammy.
‘Why aren’t you coming to Sandeha?’ Clare asked her.
‘I can’t. My ferocious aunts would disapprove. You see, Clare, I’m not as free and emancipated as I like to make out. I wouldn’t be able to bathe in a bathing costume, exposing my legs, or lie on the beach sunning them black as ink. So what would I be doing while you’re all gadding about the place?’
‘There’s the sea temple for you to look at,’ Clare protested. ‘Anyhow, Narayan will be with you as a chaperon.’
‘In the view of my aunts, Narayan as a chaperon wouldn’t be much use. He’s too chic and cool, and too Americanised. They’d imagine him tanking me up on cocktails and persuading me to wear tiny little bikinis. They’d think me full of chutzpah, slinking about covered from head to foot in suntan oil.’
‘But surely you can come?’ Clare persisted. ‘Tammy is your fiancé, after all.’
‘That, in the opinion of my aunts, would make the whole thing infinitely worse. They’d think we were endlessly jumping into bed together. My spotless reputation would be ripped to shreds. Besides, I don’t think Tammy even wants me to come. Yesterday I vaguely hinted I might, and he wasn’t at all encouraging.’
‘Surely he’d be happy about your being with us?’ Clare asked, with a sinking feeling.
‘No,’ Vijaya replied, shaking her head sadly. ‘Tammy’s funny that way. He agrees with me about the emancipation of Indian women, and yet I’m still supposed to be sublimely virginal and pure, even with him. Oh yes, despite his lip service to sacred feminism, there’s a chauvinist male pig inside him still. Men want women to be virgins when they marry because of male egotism and pride.’
‘And yet they’re secretly – or sometimes not so secretly – proud of their own pre-marital and extra-marital conquests,’ said Clare. ‘Unlike us, they don’t think badly of each other when they hear of them. Appalling double standards! We’re not all that emancipated in the West. There’s still a long way to go.’
‘So what’s a thinking modern Indian woman to do?’ asked Vijaya. ‘Tammy expects you all to be going to see the sea temple and me to be kowtowing to the harpies who are even more male supremacist than he is, paradoxical as that may seem, in view of how they try to boss their male relations.’
‘Maybe you didn’t insist enough with Tammy?’
‘Insist enough? If he doesn’t want me there, I’m not going to beg. Anyway, one thing I don’t crave is getting sunburnt. The way you Europeans lie sizzling in the sun, it’s a wonder you don’t get burnt to a frazzle.’
‘Some do,’ said Clare.
‘Why do you do it? It sounds so uncomfortable. Western ways seem so peculiar at times, it’s no wonder Tammy and Narayan have come back slightly bonkers.’
Vijaya smiled, and Clare felt a growing affection for her, but she also felt encouraged. Tammy not being keen to have Vijaya with him was sad and predictable, given what Clare knew, but she decided Vijaya wasn’t nearly as vulnerable as she’d feared. Tammy might well never marry her, but, with her humour and lively common sense, Vijaya was resilient enough to survive the upset.
Some time later, Clare went out to wander around the garden. A boy was vigorously watering the plants and grinning at her with a certain impishness. She came to the banana patch, and was looking at their dangling fruit when she heard Tammy call her name. She turned to see him walking across the lawn towards her. She could tell something was agitating him.
‘I got a text message from Shahpur this morning,’ he said. ‘Kalyani is agonising about whether to run off with him. She’s pleaded with her father again, who’s repeated that he’ll disown her if she doesn’t give him up. I hate patriarchal despotism and the appalling subordination of our women.’
He then went on to talk of the coming expedition to Sandeha.
‘There’s a modest hotel there, so I gather. The sea temple is apparently the main thing to see, but there are also some rock carvings, ancient enough to please you.’
‘Tell me, how much has Max said about Narayan?’ he asked hesitantly.
Clare was taken aback by his directness.
‘Quite a lot. Why?’
‘I wonder why you never guessed about them.’
‘Well, I suppose I developed a blind spot. I didn’t want to know.’
‘Not that I’d have guessed myself that Narayan could be gay, however gay he is, which in my view may not be very much. I think he’s been sort of flattered into it.’
‘If it isn’t in you in the first place,’ Clare said, somewhat irritated, ‘no amount of flattery will put it there.’
‘So being gay himself, why did Max marry you? Wasn’t that pretty irresponsible?’
‘He was in love with me… and he still is. There are lots of gay men who fall in love with women, but Max is bisexual. It’s far more common than people want to think.’
‘Well, I don’t know much about it. It’s put a bit of strain on my relationship with Narayan. We’ve had a couple of arguments recently that went further than expected, partly to do with Vijaya, but then he told me today… he asked me this morning…’ His voice faltered.
‘What, Tammy? Go on.’
‘He asked when would I be marrying her.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I put him off with a vague reply. He went on to do the whole big, protective brother act, though. He said he wanted me to make a definite arrangement. I asked him why the sudden hurry.’
‘What did he say to that?’
‘He said he had to make a crucial decision about his own life, one that depended upon when I’d marry her.’
‘What decision?’ Clare asked, her voice sharp. When she got no reply, she repeated the question.
‘What decision?’
‘He said it might involve him going abroad again.’
‘With whom?’ she asked at once. She felt breathless. ‘With Max?’
‘Yes,’ said Tammy. ‘He said he’s in love with him. He thinks he wants to live with him.’
‘How can you be so brutal?’ Clare said, appalled and furious. ‘You’ve made this up.’
‘No!’
‘You’re trying to destroy my love for Max, so I’ll turn to you instead.’
Tammy opened his mouth to protest his innocence, but Clare, feeling a rush of blood to her face, raised her hand as if to strike him. But then she turned and ran into the banana patch. Tammy pursued her.
‘Leave me alone!’ she shouted at him. She tripped over something and fell. Feeling Tammy’s hand at her elbow, she turned her burning face to him.
‘How could you bloody tell me a thing like that?’
An enormous sense of humiliation seized her.
‘I love you,’ Tammy said quietly. ‘I love you very much.’
Clare tried to calm herself and her outrage ebbed slightly. Tammy put his arm around her and she didn’t push him away. For a few minutes he just held her. Then he kissed her hand.
‘I love you,’ he repeated.
She looked at him, surprised. The simple words seemed to come at her from a strange distance, and yet they moved her with their earnestness. She thought about how she hadn’t wanted this and hadn’t sought it. She was immensely hurt by Max: what could Tammy’s feelings possibly mean to her? What was she beginning to feel about him? A mild increase of sympathy? A sense of consolation? Vaguely she wondered if her feelings might grow further and if she conceivably could want them to. She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, the sunlight flashed on the banana leaves, and the grove was a dappled maze of light and shadow.
‘I do love you,’ Tammy said once more.
Clare felt something inside herself give. It seemed to her that some of her anguish and confusion could yield to the p
lain but difficult words Tammy spoke. He touched her face with his nervous, and rather beautiful, hands. He put his lips to hers, and she accepted the gentle kiss. She wrapped her arms around his neck. They kissed very softly for just a few moments. It felt strange to be kissing a man other than Max. She felt awkward and uncertain and pulled away from him.
As she looked over Tammy’s shoulder she saw a face peering through the banana leaves.
It was Vijaya, Clare realised with horror.
‘Someone was looking at us just now,’ she whispered’. ‘I think it was Vijaya.’
He too was horrified.
‘Oh God, it can’t have been. You must’ve imagined it.’
‘It might have been a trick of the light. My eyes were dazzled,’ she said, hoping to reassure him.
It might have been an illusion, she thought, the dreamed-up effect of her sense of guilt.
‘It could’ve been the garden boy,’ she suggested. ‘His face is young and smooth as well. His curiosity was probably aroused by seeing us enter the banana patch.’
But then she thought it could have been that other face, also smooth and young and innocent looking. She tried to dismiss the supposition. At times that face haunted her. She recalled the look of urgent determination the first time she’d seen the boy, the look of panic on his face as Tammy had gripped him around the waist. But it was absurd to think the boy assassin had come to this garden. It was far more likely to have been Vijaya. Her mind went from one probability to another in her distress.
‘I’ll leave by the side gate that leads out onto the lane,’ said Tammy. ‘You go out onto the lawn as if you’ve been merely resting in the shade.’
She agreed. As she emerged she saw the garden boy watering a flowerbed, and he again grinned impishly at her. Did that mean anything particular or was it just the cheeky spirit of so many Indian boys? But surely he was darker than Vijaya, and his hair was short. Had not the face she’d glimpsed so briefly been framed with long and glossy hair?
The Assassins Page 12
