Sylvia Garland's Broken Heart (6 page)

The agent laughed nastily and answered, “Yer would feel right at home here, Mrs Garland, coming from Dubai. It’s full of Arabs, this block.” He added gleefully, “Can’t yer tell from the taps?”

His mother laughed heartily for the first time since she had arrived.

Afterwards, while Gid was returning the keys to the porter, Jeremy told her that it was not acceptable nowadays to make that kind of casual racist comment and she should be more careful. But she retorted, “Oh don’t be such a prig, Jeremy. Everyone knows that Arabs like showy bathrooms.” Oh, she was insufferable.

Jeremy had high hopes of the last two flats because they were just around the corner in Belsize Park; it would be so convenient. As a temporary measure, they both seemed perfectly acceptable to him but, in the first one, his mother objected to the repeating mauve pattern on the bathroom tiles, saying it was enough to give you a migraine. The final one, which was decorated a bit frostily throughout in pale blue, she said would be like living in an igloo.

In the car afterwards, she raised the subject of the baby and managed to get on Jeremy’s nerves even more. She raised the subject in such a way that instead of feeling straight away cheered, as he usually did, Jeremy felt furious. She told him patronisingly why none of the flats which they had seen were the least bit suitable for a visiting grandchild. She was surprised he couldn’t see it. While she was about it, she added that their penthouse – on which they had just spent everything they had – was utterly unsuitable for a small child too.

Feeling rancorous and headachey, Jeremy drove his mother back to the hotel. He had intended to take her to lunch in a Japanese restaurant he liked to toast her new apartment. But there was nothing to celebrate and he couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

In the hotel car park, he asked sullenly, “D’you want me to join you for lunch?”

His mother stared bleakly ahead. “I don’t have anyone else to have lunch with.”

Of course Jeremy felt guilty then; he ought to make allowances. He went round to the passenger side and helped his mother out. She did look a sorry sight crossing the hotel forecourt with her jacket buttoned up wrong and her make up smudged. He should be more understanding.

As soon as they sat down in the hotel coffee shop, Jeremy regretted the Japanese restaurant. The coffee shop was awful – full of piped music and off duty aircrew – and his mother would probably have found the Japanese restaurant soothing with its paper lanterns and swooping calligraphy. Although she might have annoyed him there
too with one of her put-downs: “Oh, I can see this is just your sort of place, Jeremy,” something like that.

They both looked morosely at the laminated menu: tuna burger, BLT. His mother ordered a cappuccino and a piece of cake and Jeremy a reproachful small salad and a mineral water. Smita was very keen that he watched what he ate and didn’t put on weight in sympathy with her like some men did.

His mother leant forward and said, “Listen dear, I expect you mean well but you really must understand that I can’t be rushed. I’m sorry if I’m inconveniencing you and Smita. But I need to do this at my own pace.” She sat back and sighed demonstratively.

Jeremy heard the “dear” and relaxed a fraction. “I’m only trying to be helpful,” he said plaintively. “I could be sitting in my office working right now. I
should
be sitting working in fact. But I’ve taken time off to help you get settled. I know this is a bloody awful time for you. But you won’t make it any better by digging your heels in and getting all stubborn and refusing to do the simplest thing.” He glared at his mother and felt himself flush.

Their food came. Jeremy’s salad looked strikingly unhealthy with quantities of bright pink dressing and croutons and his mother’s cake looked like a Japanese plastic display model of a piece of cake.

Jeremy persisted. “Exactly how long are you planning to stay here? It’s not even all that nice.”

His mother said deftly, “
You
chose it.”

Jeremy felt himself flush again. “We chose it because it was nearby – obviously. We imagined you would stay
here two or three nights max and then move into a service apartment – as we’d
discussed
– and take your time to work out your next move.” He puffed in exasperation. “I don’t see why it’s such a big deal suddenly.”

His mother laid down her cake fork and clasped her hands. She looked away from Jeremy at some distant vista. “I don’t think I want to live in North London,” she said.

Jeremy was outraged. “Where
do
you want to live?” he demanded and, without waiting for an answer, he exclaimed, “Yesterday you wanted to get back on a plane without even leaving the airport. Today you tell me you don’t want to live near your own son and daughter-in-law. How am I supposed to take
that
? In a few months time you’ll have a grandchild here too, your first grandchild –”

“About the grandchild,” his mother interrupted, suddenly veering off on a tangent as she always did, “there’s something I need to ask about him.”

“Or
her
,” Jeremy said reproachfully.

His mother gave a knowing smile. “Of course you’re right dear, so long as he’s healthy, that’s all that matters.” She paused. “There’s something that’s bothering me though.”

Jeremy was alarmed. “A health issue?”

“No,” his mother said hastily. “No, not a health issue.” She hesitated.

Jeremy asked, “So what is it then? So long as this isn’t just a ploy to change the subject.”

“It isn’t,” his mother answered huffily. “Rest assured. Afterwards we can go straight back to discussing how
many nights you think I ought to stay at the hotel and where you think I ought to live.”

They glared at each other.

“Well?” Jeremy asked.

His mother picked a glace cherry from her synthetic-looking cake and rolled it dubiously around her plate with a fork. “I hope,” she began hesitantly, “I hope that Smita will let me be involved with the baby.”

“You what?” Jeremy asked.

“I hope,” his mother repeated uncertainly, “that Smita will let me have a role in my grandchild’s life, you know what I mean, that she won’t keep me at arm’s length.”

Jeremy was outraged. Furiously, he replied, “I don’t understand you. What has Smita ever done to make you say such a thing?”

“I’m not really
saying
it,” his mother ploughed on. “I’m asking it. You know perfectly well Smita doesn’t have a very high opinion of me. I’ve never been a high flier like she is, more of a plodder. I’m worried she won’t think I’m up to scratch. I need to know. Will I be involved in the baby’s life or won’t I?”

Jeremy didn’t care anymore if he sounded exasperated. “Of course you will be. You’ll be the baby’s grandmother.”

“Ah, but the baby will have two grandmothers, remember,” his mother said. “And it’s perfectly natural for a woman to turn to her own mother first. I realise that. So I’m asking: do you think Smita will allow
me
to do things with the baby too?”

With a sinking heart, Jeremy understood that a whole
new avenue of trouble was opening up ahead of him. “What sort of thing,” he asked cautiously, “did you have in mind?”

His mother volunteered eagerly, “Babysitting. Taking him for walks and outings. Maybe having him to stay when you two want a weekend away. After all, I’ll be much closer here in London than Naisha up in Leicester.”

Uneasily, Jeremy said, “You know, it’s awfully early days yet.”

“Of course it is,” his mother agreed. “Of course. But I need to know. If I’m expected to make plans.”

She went back to rolling the toxic-looking cherry around her plate.

Jeremy sighed. He checked his watch. “Listen,” he said impatiently, “I really have to run. I don’t know why you have to go looking for trouble before it’s even happened. I’m sure – if you don’t scare Smi by coming on too strong way too soon – she’ll be perfectly OK about all this kind of thing.”

He stood up. “Please, whatever you do, just don’t say anything to her about this whole issue yet. She’s feeling very fragile at the moment.”

His mother grinned. “Pregnant women can be terribly touchy.”

Jeremy ignored the remark. Before he left, he said, “You’ll have to tell me on the phone tonight where it is you actually plan to live. I’m curious.”

As he drove out of the hotel, his phone rang and it was Smita complaining that he had forgotten to telephone her father to wish him a happy birthday, as he had promised.
Jeremy had never understood why, in Smita’s family, a phone call was always expected as well as a card. For a moment, he had the disagreeable sensation that he was surrounded by demanding women. But it only lasted for a second or two and afterwards of course he was ashamed of it.

Sylvia watched her son leave and reflected, for the umpteenth time, how very foolish he was. It was only when he was out of sight that she realised how very foolish she was too. She was starting out on the wrong foot entirely. She had only been back in England for twenty-four hours and already she and Jeremy were rubbing each other up the wrong way. Her only son. Why did it have to be like this? And the baby, her only grandson; why was she already getting into an argument about him before he was even born?

She leapt up from the table, in as much as someone of her age and build could leap, and charged out of the restaurant after Jeremy. Behind her, she was dimly aware of someone calling and a commotion but she carried on. She reached the revolving front door of the hotel in time to see Jeremy’s car turning out of the forecourt into the street. Too late. Dispiritedly, she turned away to be confronted by two waitresses from the coffee shop, one holding out her bill and the other her handbag.

She retreated to her room; sleep, what other consolation was there? As she lay in bed, curiously untired the moment her head touched the pillow, she reflected for
the umpteenth time on Jeremy and Smita’s marriage and what a very ill-conceived pairing it was.

Jeremy had first brought Smita out to meet them about five years ago. They were still living in Riyadh then, Riyadh the dusty, Riyadh the drab, Riyadh the insufferable. They had known he was seeing a girl for some time but he had never told them anything about her. Silly boy; did he imagine they would be shocked that she was Indian? When they had lived all those years in Delhi and absolutely loved it? In any case, as soon as he announced that he was bringing a girl and that her name was Smita, of course the penny dropped. Sylvia and Roger were absolutely thrilled; firstly, because it laid to rest certain unspoken concerns which they had long had about Jeremy and, secondly, because they imagined that having a young Indian woman in the house would be such fun. Quite what they had imagined, she really couldn’t say now – doe eyes and ankle bracelets? – but it certainly hadn’t been Smita.

Of course what they didn’t know then was that Smita Mehta had been born and brought up in Leicester and was, as far as she was concerned, not really Indian at all. Her parents, who had arrived in Britain when they were young children, might still be Indian, especially her father, Prem. But she was utterly one hundred per cent British Asian, a new generation which had never previously existed, cutting swathes. She had never even been to India and she had no wish to go there either.

She listened with an expression of polite amusement as Sylvia and Roger reminisced about their years in Delhi. They had moved there from Hong Kong in the early
Seventies when Sylvia was expecting Jeremy and they had ended up staying for nearly ten years. It was true they had loved it although Sylvia was conscious as she described it to Smita – the lovely big house in Lodhi Colony, the amusing servants, the drinks on the veranda in the sudden Indian dusk – that it did all sound awfully days of the Raj. So she was keen to stress that it was the
place
they had loved; the myriad sights and sounds and smells of India which first startled and then captivated you, the flowers, the birds and chipmunks in the garden, the markets and, oh, everywhere, the colours, the glorious colours.

Smita listened politely but eventually she said, rather primly Sylvia thought, that it sounded nothing like the country which her parents described. Well, that felt like a slap on the wrist.

Sylvia protested to Roger afterwards, “Of
course
there’s poverty and ghastliness in India, we all know that, but there’s no point pretending you can’t have a perfectly marvellous life there too. Where in India did her parents come from anyway?”

Roger had replied “Gujarat” and Sylvia had been surprised by a pang of jealousy because, obviously, Roger had been having private personal conversations with Smita on his own.

Sylvia had to admit, guiltily, that there was something a little disagreeable about having an attractive young woman around the house. Ever since her marriage, Sylvia had been the woman of the house. Smita was very attractive. She would lie beside the pool in her scrap of a bikini, slim and flawless, and Sylvia would come out for a
dip in her capacious floral one-piece and she felt like a whale, sploshing up and down the pool.

Everyone thought Smita was wonderful, partly because she was so very pretty and partly because it made their ex-pat friends in Riyadh feel good that here was an Indian person with whom they could actually make friends.