“I have to be the principal trustee,” Valerie insists.
“Why?” Padmini asks.
“Because I am the only living parent.”
“If that is what you are trying to do, then you better get the children on your side, especially Salif, who is no fool.”
Now, with the telephone dead in Valerie’s hands after Salif has rebuffed her, Padmini says, “This is not working out, darling, so give it up.” And as if in accordance with Valerie’s sense that the hotel room has started spinning, a glass precariously balanced on the edge of the nightstand falls to the floor, spilling the dregs of last night’s liquor and shattering on contact with the hard wooden floor.
But Valerie is as dead to the world outside her head as she is alive to the obsession that has taken hold within it, the idea that she believes will allow her to play a part in her children’s lives, giving her a chance to make up for her earlier failings. Padmini says nothing, because she knows from experience that when Valerie is in the grip of an idée fixe there is no convincing her of anything she doesn’t wish to hear and that Valerie, being Valerie, will not give up the hope of achieving her ambitions until either success dances attendance upon her or she stares into the ugly face of defeat.
Padmini comes from a traditional background of the Southeast Asian variety — never mind that she was born in Uganda and raised in Britain. She was brought up in a monogamous household — never mind if her parents’ arranged marriage was a happy one or not. The fact is that the idea of unknotting the marriage ties linking her and her husband together was not only shocking but also unthinkable to either of her parents.
Valerie’s background, Padmini knows, is different. The lifestyle in which she was raised is of the European — that is to say, British — variety. Add to this her father’s career as an actor, his drunkenness, his infidelities, and his predatory sexual behavior, imposing himself on his young daughter. Valerie is unlike most women Padmini has known. She is a woman apart, a woman who sets her own tradition, different from everyone else’s, while claiming to be continuing that tradition into which she was born. Valerie had left Aar and her children to be with Padmini and before that had done the same to a number of other lovers, abandoning each as she started a liaison with another. So Padmini knew from the beginning not to be surprised if Valerie erred in her ways, whether with a man or a woman.
And yet Valerie and Padmini have always seen their rapport as special. Not for them the rows over betrayal that have caused several of the couples they know to go their separate ways. Or so it was until a few years ago in Cape Town.
They were visiting during Gay Pride Week, staying with like-minded friends in Simon’s Town. Padmini was so much in love with life in Cape Town that she suggested to Valerie that they consider relocating there. Valerie seemed to be falling in love with Cape Town too. She’d discovered a gym in Claremont that she liked, and she started going every day, returning later and later with an air of something different about her. When Padmini asked what was going on, Valerie had no explanations to offer. She said only, “We aren’t married, are we?”
Padmini went off her rocker. Such was her anger that she threw her mobile phone at Valerie. When she missed and hit the wall, shattering the phone, her fury reached epic heights. The fight escalated, with unforgivable words exchanged until finally Valerie shrieked, “You know what I like about her? Her cunt doesn’t stink.” She meant to inflict pain, and she did. Then words were not enough, and Padmini tore into Valerie, the two of them struggling like bitches in heat.
When their hosts returned from work, they found themselves staring at broken chairs, tables with no legs, splintered mirrors, and doors without handles. They couldn’t make out what had happened, since neither Padmini nor Valerie would tell them. Maybe their hosts worked it out on their own or maybe they didn’t, but they stopped asking.
For Padmini and Valerie, what happened during that week in Cape Town remains the elephant in the room, and neither will admit to seeing it. From that day on, they’ve avoided any kind of conflict that might lead them back to such a precipice. Sometimes, when it threatens, one or the other of them will say, “Cape Town,” and the reminder is enough to check their rage. But the rift that happened there has never fully mended, and it has left Padmini with the suspicion that Africa itself may not be good for them.
Already they have approached acrimony on this visit over who is to blame for the fact that Dahaba came upon them on the night they were Bella’s guests in what is still, technically speaking, Aar’s house. Was it Padmini’s fault for not staying in the sofa bed or was it Valerie’s for inviting Padmini into her bigger, more comfortable bed?
Padmini, for her part, has been trying to support Valerie however she can, even though she does not wholly agree with the way Valerie is going about things. After all, Valerie stood steadfastly by her side through all the difficulties in Uganda, which stemmed from an ancient dispute involving her family. And she is sensitive to the difference between her mission there, which was purely financial, and how much is at stake for Valerie emotionally with her children.
Still, the ups and downs are hard to weather. Valerie’s conversations with Dahaba and Salif have sent her into a dramatic oscillation between frantic busyness approaching mania and almost total inertia, accompanied by a significant increase in alcohol intake. Meanwhile, their plans for the future — whether to return to their restaurant business in Pondicherry or relocate to Nairobi if Valerie finds a footing in the lives of her children — hang in the balance. Each time they make love after one of their quarrels, they talk and talk before they fall asleep, and Padmini reassures Valerie that she is innocent of blame, and as Padmini drifts off, she hopes that the morrow will bring peace back to their lives. But nothing of the sort has happened — and Valerie is all the more obsessively driven in her pursuit.
Now Valerie is gathering some of her things, as if readying to go out: wallet, room key, and body lotion.
“Where are you going, love?” Padmini asks.
“I am not going anywhere.”
But despite what she says, Valerie continues to pack her handbag, putting into it combs, a hairdryer, a change of underwear, a pair of pants, and a couple of shirts.
“Why are you fretful?”
“Because I am getting ready.”
“Cape Town” threatens.
Valerie is on the edge. And no wonder. She has slept and eaten little and drunk a lot as she schemes about how to lay her hands on the treasures that appear close, within reach — if only! There is nothing that would delight Valerie more than to forge some closeness with her children, and after that, oversee a trust in their name. And if Padmini is unhappy because Valerie closes a deal in which the children become her own again and the problems with the trust are hammered out the way she likes, then it is just too bad, she thinks. Padmini can go where she pleases. As a matter of fact, Valerie believes that since Padmini has never been a mother, there are certain maternal instincts that evade her comprehension. The same is true of Gunilla. And if only Bella were not here to spoil things and deny Valerie’s ambitions — ambitions that are for the good of the children, she is sure. She says to Padmini, “Blame it on Bella and Gunilla, dear.”
Padmini has been intent on averting disaster, but at this she cannot help but say, “I wonder who Adam would blame if there were no Eve?”