Your Truth or Mine? Page 6
Natalie had left me with a question: what are you afraid of?
I reversed out of the driveway and swerved onto the street, turning right at the junction. Scenes from the last few days played out in my head throughout the twenty-minute drive home.
Roy and I were in that pseudo sweet spot that you settle into after a really big fight. He hadn’t apologized and I hadn’t forgiven him. We had just sort of decided to ignore it had ever happened. Move on. We were having hot make-up sex – the best kind – without having really made up. We laughed at silly jokes only we could understand. We watched bad TV and ate too many takeaways. We were each in our own bubble. It was just like when we had first met except back then we had circled each other, full of longing, hoping we would collide. Now our conversations circled each other, full of longing, and we were terrified they would collide. He mentioned his dream of hiking glaciers for a year and I pretended not to hear him. I mentioned my dream of starting a family and he pretended not to hear me.
What was that, Natalie? What was I afraid of?
On Saturday, 26 September at 01.30 a.m.,
Emily Barnett
R,
receipt for the car attached. i’ve got some dosh left over as well, how will i return it? tried getting in touch with G, but think he’s in LA atm.
i’m sorry to bring this up again but i can’t get that night out of my head. can we meet? i know you don’t want to and i said i understood but i’m going crazy here. i need to talk to you.
also i’ve been thinking about going it on my own, i’ve attached a short film which i just couldn’t resist showing you. kinda experimental but it resonates with my life right now. do you have any advice about going freelance or know anyone who can commission some shorts? can’t wait to hear your thoughts.
thank you thank you thank you.
Em xxx
On Sunday, 27 September at 09.11 a.m.,
Roy Kapoor
Emily,
It’s good to hear from you.
I do see something of you in that film.
I suppose the best advice I can offer is this – be true to yourself and pursue your passion, wherever that may lead you. Rules can and must be broken. That is what creates authenticity and provokes emotion. I can’t imagine you would have any trouble with that
Of course we can meet. Perhaps we both need some closure . . .
And I’m sorry I was so blunt that night. I didn’t know what to do. However complicated, my marriage does mean a lot to me.
En route to Paris for the day as we speak. It’s wonderfully moody. Reminds me of you.
Roy
ROY
Sunday, 27th September
London/Paris
A meeting left wanting is the promise for another.
For a while now, I had been working on a proposal for a year-long travel project. I loved working as a freelance writer but with grudging passion. Yes, I got to travel the world but it was rarely on my own terms and never quite artistic enough. In striving to be completely different from my parents, I had somehow ended up exactly like them: settling for a career that was lucrative financially but not creatively. The freedom I had craved as a teenager toyed with me, seemingly within my grasp but eluding me all the same.
This project would change all that. I would be able to explore the abstract side of travel, blurring lines between genres, disciplines and mediums, culminating in a multidisciplinary exploration of some of the world’s most extreme landscapes. Part memoir, part fiction, this was an ambitious project and I was nervous and excited in equal measure to see it through. I had sent off the proposal to a handful of editors earlier this year. Sara Morgenstern, a hotshot New York editor, had got back to me, suggesting we meet up during her upcoming Europe trip. She was spending a week in an apartment in Le Marais and had invited me over for weekend brunch. Very chic and very American. Mia and I had resolutely avoided speaking about both the meeting and my project. We had spent the forty-five minutes it took us from our house in Crystal Palace to the station discussing the last episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd’s problems were code for our own. After we had pulled into the drop-off bay, Mia had leaned over and kissed me passionately. Over the past few weeks, sex had been good. Really good.
I re-read the email from Emily while I waited to go through security at St Pancras. I considered my reply. Even though nothing could happen between us, I still owed it to her to meet her one more time and talk about what had happened in a mature manner. There was no point in leaving things unresolved. The clarity would only help us both put it behind us.
I checked the departures board. I wanted to pick up a proper coffee for the train. Even in first class, Eurostar’s coffee was terrible.
The woman in front of me seemed to be struggling with her suitcase. She was holding up the queue.
I tapped her on her shoulder. ‘Do you need a hand?’
‘I . . . umm . . . no . . . yes, actually,’ she mumbled. ‘Yes. Thank you,’ she said, finally letting go of her case and turning to look at me. She was plain, her face void of any make-up, long black hair pulled up in a humble ponytail. The faint bruises along her right cheekbone were the only hint of colour on skin so pale I could see the ghosts of veins criss-crossing her forehead.
‘No problem,’ I said, lifting up the case with one hand. It didn’t budge. I laughed. Both hands. ‘What have you got in here?’
She looked at her feet. A hint of sadness hung about her.
‘Good intentions,’ she turned to say softly before walking through the metal detector.
Sara was everything you would expect a New York editor to be. What she wasn’t, however, was interested in my project. Not as it stood in any case.
After brunch, we walked over to a cafe just off Rue Payenne. We sat at one of the tiny wrought-iron tables that had been lined up along the achingly cool cobbled courtyard.
‘The thing is, Roy, as much as I enjoyed reading your proposal, I don’t know what to do with it,’ she said, pausing to order our coffees. ‘Deux noisettes, s’il vous plaît.’
She waved off the garçon with a practised flick of her hand and then went on to list everything that was wrong with my proposal.
‘Your itinerary leaves little room for delays or detours, which, being as experienced as you are, you will know are unavoidable. Realistically, your one-year project could take anything between fifteen and eighteen months, plus post-production, which shoots up the budget by at least forty per cent. Just the logistics, the team, the budget, the sponsors – it’s too complicated to pull off, especially for someone who is still relatively unknown.’
She paused to light a cigarette.
‘You’re a talented man; your piece on Reykjavik in the July Vogue was fabulous. Why not stick to what you do best? A more accessible version of the same idea – go to a couple of these places, but stay in hotels. Go to the extreme landscapes you’ve researched, but with a guide. Interact with people there. Go to the local hotspots. Tell your readers how they can have these experiences too. That’s what great travel journalism is about.’
A drag.
This was a Yale philosophy alumna talking.
‘Send me a revised proposal. It can still be a travel memoir, just lose the fable-istic soul-searching aspect. Do a few top ten lists. That I can work with. That I can sell, and for good money.’
MIA
Sunday, 27th September
Bristol/London
I was getting coffee from a vending machine when my phone rang.
‘Addi! This has to be the longest honeymoon ever. Are you in Bali now?’
‘I know. I’m sorry I haven’t called. We’re in Hanoi right now. Flying to Bali tomorrow. It’s so beautiful here, Mia. You would love it. And the food . . .’
‘Can’t be better than the gourmet doughnut I just picked up at the service station,’ I said, looking at the disgusting mess I had bought. I took a
bite. Ugh. No.
Addi laughed. ‘Service station? Where are you going?’
‘Bristol,’ I said, before I could stop myself. Shit.
‘Oh. How come?’
‘I’m meeting a friend for lunch,’ I lied. ‘And, um, I thought I’d go check out the house while I’m there.’
‘Mia . . .’ She paused. I could hear the worry in her voice. ‘Don’t. Is Roy with you?’
‘No, he’s away.’ I took a sip from the Styrofoam cup. It tasted burnt. I dumped my unfinished coffee and doughnut in the bin and walked back to my car. I’d stop at a proper cafe in Bristol. ‘Relax, Addi. Natalie suggested I go there. She thinks it’ll be good for me.’
‘Really? Well, all right, but leave if it gets too much, okay? We should have done this together,’ she said. There was a loud crackling sound. ‘I think I’m losing signal, Mia. Listen, have you spoken to Mummy? I called her yesterday and she sounded upset. Is everything okay?’
‘Yeah, everything’s fine. She was probably just tired,’ I said.
I could hear James in the background. He sounded far away.
‘Okay, darling. You’re right, I’m just worrying about nothing. I must run now, but call me later, okay?’
‘Sure,’ I said and hung up.
Everything was not okay. But even though we hadn’t spoken, Mum and I had a silent pact. No one says anything to Addi till she’s back. She deserved a break.
I locked the front door behind me and went straight into the kitchen. Over the years, tenants had refurbished more or less the entire house, but this room was exactly as I remembered it. I set my keys down on the breakfast bar in the middle of the room. I blew on the scratched marble surface and swirls of dust rose up and danced under the sharp beam of light coming in from the window, glimmering like specs of gold and silver glitter. Here one moment, gone the next.
Memories swam in the air, filling the empty room with glimpses of my childhood. Addi and me sitting there, legs swinging, as we ate our cereal before school. Dad picking me up and twirling me round and round, till I shrieked with laughter. Mummy plaiting my hair with pink and green ribbons for Holly’s party. Mum and Dad whispering to each other, while Addi and I pretended to do our homework.
I walked around, letting the musty smell settle into my skin. The last tenants hadn’t looked after the house; there were cracks in the walls, mildew, and the fittings in the bathroom had layers of rust on them. I went from room to room, voices from my childhood filling my head, memories from a different life seeping into me, crawling under my skin. I stopped when I got to Daddy’s study at the back of the house. Mummy had closed up this room before we went to India, using it as a storage space for anything that couldn’t be packed into our suitcases. She had said we’d come back for everything in a few months but we never did. The room stayed locked. The estate agent said he opened it every time there was a changeover of tenants to make sure there was no damage. Was there anything left to damage?
Natalie asked me last week if I idolized my parents’ relationship, if I was trying to model my marriage on theirs. I had never looked at it like that but yes, I said, I suppose so. They had been a unit. They had been happy. We had been happy. Until the day before my seventh birthday, that is, when my father’s car somersaulted across an empty motorway, destroying itself and our family. He had died instantly. Cardiac arrest. He didn’t suffer, they’d said. She asked me if I was carrying guilt. If, perhaps, I was punishing myself. No, I lied, vehemently, angrily. Why would I punish myself? I wasn’t carrying any guilt. I just missed him, that’s all. And why did we have to keep circling back to my father anyway? I demanded. My problems had nothing to do with him.
The door rattled when I pushed it open.
The room was packed. I walked around the polythene-clad furniture to the far corner where Addi’s and my matching pink bikes stood next to an island of neatly stacked and labelled boxes – Kitchen, Crockery, Books, Cassettes, Linen, Rekha, Mia, Addi, David.
David! I moved the boxes that were on top of it and pulled out Daddy’s box. Did we still have some of his things left? It was taped up. I ran back to the kitchen with the box and yanked the tape open with my keys. Files, paperwork for his car, insurance, old notebooks, calendars. Nothing personal but this was his stuff! I decided to take it back with me, along with my own box, so I could take my time looking through it all. I carried the boxes to the car and placed them carefully on the back seat.
As I drove back towards London, my thoughts returned to the large pink box sitting in the corner of the room, still undamaged, the printed text on it just a little faded after twenty-two years. I hadn’t told Natalie that the police had found a gift-wrapped package on the back seat – the doll’s house Dad had promised to get me for my seventh birthday. Wasn’t it strange that my miniature house had stayed intact through it all, ignorant in its bubble-wrapped cocoon of the damage it had caused while my real house crumbled from the inside out?
Roy was already waiting at the pick-up point when I pulled up.
‘Hey,’ he said, climbing in and flinging his bag in the back.
‘Hey, sorry, the M4 was blocked. Overturned lorry,’ I said.
He grimaced. Roy hated driving even more than I did.
‘I didn’t get time to pick up food. Do you want to order in?’ I asked, trying to steer us out of the bay and onto the main road.
He hadn’t noticed the boxes on the back seat. Or he had and he’d chosen to ignore them.
‘It’s fine, I ate on the train.’
‘How was Paris?’
‘Disappointing. She isn’t interested.’
An SUV was holding up the lane in front of us. Roy drummed the dashboard impatiently. I played with the radio till I found a song I liked.
‘I’m sorry, sweetie. Did she say why?’
‘It’ll take too long, it’s not commercial enough. She suggested I turn it into a top ten list.’
‘Hmm, maybe she’s right? You’re too busy for this right now anyway.’
The SUV jerked forward and we moved out of the bay and into the steady flow of black cabs.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Just that you have enough going on without having to worry about this too. With all the commissions, your new video segments and all the travelling I have to do, we hardly see each other anyway. I miss you. You can go back to this project in a couple of years, can’t you?’
‘No, I can’t. I need to do this now while these regions are still unexplored,’ he said.
A grey mist had started pressing down, blurring the view. I flicked on the wipers. Don’t make assumptions, Mia; be more forgiving, Natalie had said. I tried.
‘Okay, sweetie, I’m sure someone else will be interested. Have you spok—’
‘We could fund it ourselves,’ he said. He turned the music down and carried on, mistaking my stunned silence for encouragement. ‘Think about it. We could dip into our savings, remortgage the house, I go away for a year. You can visit me once every couple of weeks, whenever I’m at a hotel. We’ll get to see some of the best landscapes in the world.’ He paused and smiled. ‘And once it’s done, no more long projects. We’ll settle down and start planning a family.’
I couldn’t believe it. Had he just tried to trade his year off for a baby? I tightened my grip on the steering wheel.
‘No.’
‘Sorry?’
‘No,’ I repeated, a little louder this time. ‘We said we would help pay for Dad’s house with the money. This project can wait till you find funding.’
‘You can’t impose things on me, Mia. And we didn’t say we would pay for the house. You did.’
There was resentment in his voice. I didn’t get it. Couldn’t he see how important this was? I couldn’t let my family be blown apart again. We had to get through this together.
‘Don’t you want me to protect my family?’
‘It’s a house, Mia.’
‘It’s my home. It’s all I have left of�
�’
‘And a dead investment. Listen to your mother, there’s a reason she wants to sell it. We can’t help, even if we wanted to. She’s made up her mind.’
‘She’ll change it.’
‘It’s amazing how selfish you can be.’
Let it go, Mia. Don’t push him. Don’t risk your marriage over this.
But that one word, spoken so carelessly, undid me. I couldn’t stop.
‘Seriously? You knew I went to Bristol today and you haven’t even bothered to ask me if I’m okay. Now you’re telling me that my childhood, my family, isn’t important enough and that all our money should go into a project that basically no one wants and that will keep you away for God knows how long, and you’re calling me selfish?’
The silence that followed seemed to buzz. We drove quietly for the rest of the trip home. Neither of us knew how to back down from an argument. I was worried that this time I had gone too far.
Roy unbuckled his seat belt as soon as I pulled up outside the house.
‘Roy, please,’ I pleaded. ‘I’m just trying to hold everything together here.’ I looked at him, searching his face for the man I loved, the man who used to love me. ‘I’m trying to hold us together.’
‘By forcing me to stay?’
On Sunday, 27 September at 11.15 a.m.,
Emily Barnett
thank you for taking the time to give me proper advice. everyone else just tries to convince me one way or another. i know where my passion may lead me and that scares me.
i’m sorry for contacting you again. i really am. i’m not as strong as i thought i was but i promise i’m trying.
when can we meet?
xxx
On Sunday, 27 September at 10.55 p.m.,
Roy Kapoor