71

Leah and Amitabh waited outside the station at Ascot for his father to collect them. Malina had invited them over for lunch, just the two of them. Amitabh had been in a strange mood all weekend and Leah knew that something was afoot, as Malina usually invited them over only for family dos with brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts in attendance.

A gigantic Mercedes SUV swooped to a halt in front of them and Hari got out. He greeted his son with a firm hug and Leah with kisses on either cheek. Leah sat in the back as they headed through the countryside towards their well-ordered cul de sac of executive new-build houses. Hari and Amitabh sat in the front discussing Chelsea’s performance in the Champion’s League.

Malina was her usual delighted, charming self and met them at the door with squeezes and strokes and kisses. She brought them beer and asked Leah a million questions about her health and her family and her life. She stood over the hob in their immaculate kitchen, stirring big pans of fragrant-smelling curries and basmati rice.

They had lunch round the dining table, surrounded by framed photographs of Amitabh and his sisters and his brother, in their graduation gowns, clutching rolls of paper, looking gauche and proud. Above the fireplace was a family portrait, Hari, Malina and their four children, posed together in a studio in bland early 1990s clothes with too-long hair. On the mantelpiece was a brass carriage clock, an invitation to a gala dinner at the Royal Ascot Golf Club and an ornate statue of Ganesha.

Leah helped herself to another serving of spinach and lentils, and tore off a strip of roti. Amitabh was sweating slightly, rivulets running down his temples, which he mopped up at intervals with a linen napkin.

‘Are you OK?’ Leah asked, nudging him gently.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I’m fine. Just a bit, you know …’

‘What – too spicy for you?’ teased his father.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing. I’m just feeling a bit … it’s nothing.’

Amitabh didn’t speak again for the duration of the meal, just grunted in response to questions and shovelled food into his mouth. He was fidgety and distracted, as if he were planning to do a runner.

‘What on earth is the matter with you?’ Malina finally snapped as she cleared away pudding bowls. ‘Are you ill or something?’

‘No, I’m not ill. I’m … I’ve got to do something.’

‘You need to go to the toilet?’

‘No, I don’t need to go to the toilet, Mum. I need to … God, I need to do this.’

He launched himself from his chair and suddenly he was on his knees, on the floor, at Leah’s feet. He grabbed her hands with his sweaty ones and he gazed into her eyes. ‘Leah,’ he said, ‘two weeks ago Mum and Dad offered me a bride. A girl. I saw her picture; she was really pretty. And I spoke to her on the phone. She’s really nice. A trainee barrister, twenty-six years old. And … and I thought about it. I really did. I wanted to want it. I wanted to do the right thing. But all I could think about was us, about how happy we are and how much I love you and how much I want to be with you. And then it hit me, like a bullet, in the head. I can’t live without you. I tried it and it was horrible. And I want you to know how serious I am about you, about us. So …’

He put his hand into the back pocket of his trousers and pulled out a small velvet-covered box. With clumsy, sweaty fingers he snapped it open and presented it to her. ‘Leah, I love you. I’ve always loved you. Will you marry me, please, and be my wife?’

Leah stared at the ring, then at Amitabh. His brown eyes were moist with emotion. The ring was lovely – a plain silver band with a round-cut diamond in it. She watched as he pulled the ring out of its crevice and started guiding it towards the third finger of her left hand. Then she looked up and saw Hari and Malina and pulled her hand away. ‘But,’ she said, ‘but what about your parents?’

Amitabh looked at them. ‘I’m really sorry, Mum, Dad,’ he said. ‘I know you wanted different things for me, but I’m nearly thirty-one and I’m too old to compromise, too old to do what I’m told. And that girl, she was great. You chose well for me and I appreciate that, but she’s not … she’s not my Leah.’

Leah caught her breath and stared at Hari and Malina. Hari was nodding, inscrutably; Malina was crying. Nobody said anything for a moment. Leah could hear her blood pulsing through her temples.

‘Well,’ said Amitabh, taking hold of Leah’s hands again, ‘will you? Will you marry me?’

Leah closed her eyes, tightly. When she opened them again, Amitabh was still staring at her. ‘I don’t know,’ she sighed eventually. ‘I really don’t know.’

‘But – I thought this was what you wanted.’

‘It was,’ she said. ‘It is. It’s just. It’s a bit sudden, that’s all. A bit unexpected. I need time to think. I need …’

‘Give the girl time to think,’ said Malina, stroking her son’s shoulder.

‘Yes,’ agreed Hari. ‘This is a big question you have just asked her. Let her breathe.’

‘Yes,’ said Malina, ‘let her breathe.’

Leah smiled wanly and hooped her arms round Amitabh’s downcast shoulders. She pressed her face into his thick hair and breathed in his smell, her favourite smell in the world. ‘I’ll go home,’ she whispered. ‘You stay here.’

His head nodded faintly underneath her lips. She kissed his crown, then his cheeks, and then Hari drove her back to the station.

‘If you were to be our daughter-in-law, you know that we would accept that, don’t you?’

‘Really?’ said Leah, watching the wipers arc backwards and forwards across the rain-dimpled windscreen.

‘It is not what we would ask, not what we would hope, but the bigger hope for us is our children’s happiness. Always.’

‘Amitabh thought you’d cut him off. That you’d ostracize him.’

Hari shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It is always good to allow your children to believe that the punishments for their sins will be greater than they are, but my son’s sin would have to be great indeed for me to remove him from my life. My son is my joy and my sunshine and my past and my future. My son is everything to me, everything.’

Leah smiled tightly and dug her fingernails gently into the palm of her hand.

‘But, Leah, just because my son was prepared to make such a sacrifice for you, that does not mean that you must accept his proposal. He would not want you to marry him out of a sense of guilt or duty. And neither would we. Think long on it. Think hard. Follow your heart, Leah. Follow your heart.’