Beautiful Beast (Gypsy Heroes)

In less than five minutes, the cab calls up that he is waiting downstairs.

‘I really enjoyed my time here,’ I say.

‘Hold on. We’ll all come down with you.’

So, all of us pile into the lift and go down. As Shane shuts the door of the taxi, I see a silver Bentley drive into the forecourt. I turn back to watch it, and I see a tall man with very similar coloring to Shane, and a beautiful woman with a slightly Oriental feel to her features get out of the car. The woman is holding a baby in her arms and Liliana is jumping up and down with excitement. As soon as Shane lets go of her little hand, she races to her father and throws herself at him. He catches her, lifts her high into the air, and whirls around while she squeals with delight.

Then the taxi turns into the road and I can no longer see them.

Nine

SNOW

It is nearly 7.00 p.m. and the light that fills my apartment is livid and deep, half storm-purple and half the fiery orange eyes of a hawk. I’ve been wandering aimlessly within these walls

ever since I returned from Shane’s house. Hearing myself breathe. Jumping at the sound of the water in the pipes.

Feeling something. Dread and excitement.

A hot, damp wind pushes in through the window and I stop and gaze at my surroundings as if seeing it all for the first time. Everything is still and silent and bland. There are no cherished paintings, family photographs, or lovingly collected little objects of beauty. The walls are magnolia, the furniture is plain and brown, and it is all as clinically clean as an ICU unit in a hospital.

Which is strange considering that this place has been my salvation, my solace, and my sanctuary. My hiding place from the world outside. The world that is always waiting to hurt me. I listen to the silence, and it feels heavy and oppressive.

I turn my thoughts to little Liliana, the shit-stirrer.

‘Margarite Hum Loo,’ I whisper, and just saying her made-up name aloud in the stillness makes me chuckle.

I try to imagine her in her own home with her parents. It is clear that they adore her. The image that comes to my mind seems warm, bright, full of laughter, and infused with the smell of Liliana and her mother baking a new batch of cookies.

I think of Shane. Of course, he will not be at home now. He will probably be in Eden. I try to picture him walking around, talking, laughing, and I feel sad that I am not part of his life. I realize I miss his mischievous sense of humor, his handsome face, his wolfish grin, and his warm, sparkling eyes.

But I stop myself short. I cannot be part of his life. No matter what it looked like this afternoon, he is a playboy through and through. I saw that a mile off. No one that good-looking can be trusted. This is just a flirtation for him. Soon he will be gone. Looking for greener pastures.

My thoughts inevitably return to my mother. She would be so disapproving if she ever met Shane. Not that she ever will, of course. She always wanted her children to marry into money.

‘What can you do with good looks?’ she used to say. ‘You can’t eat them. They won’t pay the bills. All they are is endless trouble. Finding phone numbers in their pockets, going through their credit card bills, and worrying every time they’re a little late home.’

So my sister, Catherine, married into money.

When she was twenty-three she met Kishore, a nondescript guy with curly hair. He was thirty and from a ‘good’ and powerful Indian family. They fell in love over a plate of marsala tosai, she signed a six-page harshly worded pre-nup contract, and they got married in one of the biggest society weddings in Calcutta. Political figures and Bollywood celebrities attended the glittering occasion.

Now she has given him three kids, he cheats on her all the time, sometimes even openly, but she won’t leave. She won’t give up the mansion, the servants, the swimming pool, the invitations to all the best parties, and the overseas shopping trips.

My brother, on the other hand, has told my mother in no uncertain terms that he will marry only for love. It is the only time that we agree on an important issue.

My brother and I don’t get on. From the time we were children, he didn’t want me around. I never understood why he resented me so much. He had everything. He was the favorite of both my parents and got absolutely everything he ever wanted.

Even when Papa lost all his money and all that was left was the house, which fortunately he had transferred into my mother’s name, and the money he had stashed away in her account, I was immediately pulled out of Calcutta International school. It was decided however, that there was enough money to pay Josh’s school fees and eventually to send him to America to finish the last part of his education.

Our very large house was sold. Some of the proceeds went toward Josh’s education fund, and some was put toward buying a smaller house. When Josh flew away, I was left in the house with my parents, the cook, the gardener, and a cleaning lady who came in daily. All my fine school friends had dropped away one by one. They were either too busy, or had left the country to finish their education. Papa locked himself into a room and let the TV blare. Without my brother and with the loss of her grand lifestyle, my mother became a very unhappy woman.

For a long time after our slide into disgrace, staff from my father’s offices and factory used to come to the front gate pleading for their unpaid wages. Once, I asked my mother why we didn’t just pay them at least something.

‘Elizabeth,’ she said tight-lipped. ‘If you had your way, you’d have us all begging in the streets with them, wouldn’t you?’

As time passed, Papa’s unpaid staff grew more and more desperate. They started shaking the gates and shouting insults. My mother used to stand at the window behind the curtain, and look down at them as the gardener chased them away by hitting their fingers with a broomstick and scolding them.

In fear of their anger, my mother arbitrarily decided she did not want me to finish my education, even at the local school. I was very upset, but I didn’t want to go against her, since things were already so fraught at home. So I sat in my swing and read. Tons of books. I read the classics. I read translated works. I read Indian poets. But my life seemed meaningless. I felt like a prisoner. Trapped and without a future. I wanted to live.