“Do you know Cassie’s theory that handwriting is dying out?”
“The world is one amazement after another to Cassie,” said Pippa with airy treachery. “You know she was homeschooled until the age of twelve, right?”
That night, Cassie told Ash, “You’ve never asked me for suggestions about books to read.”
“Darling Cassie,” said Ash. He had recently begun to address her that way, she noticed, not just saying “Darling,” which might have suggested affection, but “Darling Cassie,” as if soothing a cantankerous child. She also noticed that the reflection from the bedside lamp hung in the window in a disturbing sort of way. It occurred to her that she had ended up drinking quite a lot of champagne. “Darling Cassie,” Ash went on, “did you hear me trying to talk to your friend about the elections? She said she couldn’t bring herself to vote for the Greens because the guy handing out their How to Vote cards looked like her father. Every conversation led back to her. A narcissist, like all artists.”
When Cassie called Pippa to find out what she thought of Ash, Pippa said, “If I found him in my bed I wouldn’t sleep in the bath.” It was a formula taken over from a young Frenchwoman who had taught at the girls’ school for a year, and still carried a corrosive charge of teenage contempt. Cassie could remember lying on her bedroom floor with Pippa’s head in her lap while they agreed that they didn’t have the same taste in men. By this they meant that Pippa was in thrall to the surly, pretty countenances of Duran Duran, while Cassie had discovered the Cure.
Cassie told Pippa, “You made quite an impression on Ash. He calls you an artist.” Early on in their relations, Cassie had hit on the strategy of dousing the envy that flickered up in her around Pippa with a stream of compliments. Even when the compliments were more or less fabrications, it worked. There remained the stark fact that Pippa was an artist and Cassie was a student. “Student” brought to mind something squidgy and malformed like a snail without a shell. Cassie took her phone into her bedroom and studied herself in the mirror as she asked Pippa’s advice about Christmas. Was long, straight hair timeless and classic or just boring? She was still undecided that evening when Pippa e-mailed her. Cassie never opened an e-mail from her friend without believing that it would contain magical remedies. This dated from their first year of high school when Pippa had mysteriously known the answer to everything: which bands it was safe to like, whether a French braid was tragic or cute. She had advised Cassie not to believe all the awful things she heard on the news. Then she told her different awful things.
“Yesterday I went over my first draft,” wrote Pippa. “Today I shredded the printout and deleted the files from my hard drive. I’ll have to start again from scratch but I feel like someone’s scraped me out with a spoon. I wish I could be a successful writer, because then I wouldn’t have to want to be a successful writer.” The PS said: “Matt always says he loves my writing but what does he know about books? You are so lucky to have an intellectual you can discuss your work with. Your parents will love Ash.”
Cassie thought about the boyfriends her parents had loved: the high school basketball star, the drummer, the student vet, the Chilean, the IT guy. Her parents hadn’t met the pastry chef (married) or the architect (married, coke addict), but no doubt they would have loved them, too. There remained the question of whether Ash would love her parents. At some point on Christmas Day, Cassie’s father would bring up the subject of her “Nazi grandmother.” He would play his Doobie Brothers CD after lunch. Cassie’s mother would pluck absentmindedly at the hair in her armpit. She would brew ostentatious quantities of red clover tea, and if that didn’t get Ash’s attention, she would talk about her night sweats at the breakfast table. A willow-hooped dreamcatcher would sway on its hook in defiance of Cassie’s lecture on cultural appropriation. And it was quite possible that the topic of ley lines would arise. What was certain was that before the day ended, her parents would sing harmonies on “Desperado.” Worst of all, they would hear Ash’s crystalline English vowels but see only his eyes; they would make up a story about the blameless, wounded children of unfortunate nations and stick him in it. Having concocted a victim, they would set out to rescue him; they had attempted it with the Chilean, sending him brochures about migrant services and tins of rocky, health-giving biscuits long after he and Cassie had split up. Cassie saw that she had been crazy to consider exposing these ridiculous, cherished innocents to Ash’s excellent manners. He would explain them to her afterward. He would say, “Darling Cassie, your parents exemplify a generation. They set out to make love and they ended up making money.” Then she realized that Ash didn’t know about the killing made from the sale of the rainbow valley to a health resort. The sentence passed on her parents was her own. Love had survived her judgment and it would survive his. Her natural buoyancy reasserted itself. She would cook a perfect dhal for Ash—she had practiced on friends and grown confident—and he would agree to spend Christmas with her parents.
Meanwhile, there were to be no secrets between them, so the next time she saw Ash, Cassie told him about the embarrassing fortune that would one day be hers. “Of course, I would have preferred Mum and Dad not to sell. But they believed they were doing the right thing by me. They don’t care about money for themselves.” Ash received this in silence. He had never met anyone who didn’t care about money—even the most unworldly found it useful for paying the rent. On the other hand, there was nothing to say that the parents were not as naïve as the daughter. Ash had seen Cassie’s face when champagne fizzed in her glass or the first frangipani flowers appeared: it denied the existence of evil, the possibility of despair. Ash was conscious of a secret wish, so shameful he could hardly examine it even in private: that something would happen to wipe that expression from Cassie’s face for all time.
Cassie told the Ashfield Tamil, “I’m planning a special meal.” It was Friday morning. The Spice Mart should have opened at ten but was still shut when Cassie got off the train at half-past. She wandered up to Liverpool Road and went into a restaurant where she drank green tea. The restaurant had a smell Cassie remembered and disliked from a stopover in Hong Kong: it made her think of noodles cooked in dirty water. Stiff red ducks were strung across the window. She left after fifteen endless minutes, thinking, If he’s not there now, I’m going to the Indians.
The Ashfield Tamil switched on a light that was dimmer than the glowing day. He told Cassie that his journey to work involved a bus and two changes of train. The second train had stopped for forty-two minutes between stations—a rumor ran through the carriage of a body on the track. “What to do?” he concluded. He asked Cassie how long she had been waiting. Before she could answer, a couple laden with shopping came in, the woman in a blue sari. A conversation began in what Cassie supposed was Tamil: a language as rounded and floaty as bubbles. The Ashfield Tamil tapped his chrome-plated watch. Cassie had a vision of him behind a desk, reprimanding a clerk who had spent too long at lunch. The clerk looked down and shuffled his sandals. The postmaster’s mouth was a thin, violet line that said, “Forty-two minutes.” His aura stood out clearly: its lemony hue announced that he was struggling to maintain control of the situation. The couple left without buying anything, and the Ashfield Tamil told Cassie, “They couldn’t wait. They went to the Indians.”
“They came here to tell you that?”
“They come every week,” he said, as if that explained anything.
Cassie was after fresh green chilies, pandan leaves, and raw cashew nuts. She also wanted palm sugar and cardamom pods. She trailed after the shopkeeper as he located these items for her, one by one. When he reached up to a shelf for the sugar, his sleeve slipped down, exposing the white tufts on his wrist. Cassie was still annoyed about the delay, and the sight increased her irritation—that narrow, womanish wrist looked like a bid for sympathy. The Indians’ prices were cheaper, she reminded herself.
The Ashfield Tamil stooped and retrieved a small packet that seemed to have slipped between shelves. “Muthu samba rice,” he said.
“I’ve still got heaps of basmati, thanks.”
“This is Sri Lankan rice. Very special.”
She inspected the white grains.