By Selma Carvalho
The following is an extract from the short novel Notes on a Marriage published by Speaking Tiger, available in leading bookstores in India or on Amazon.
The Friday they leave for a weekend in Belgium, Anju discovers Freddo is cheating on her. She doesn’t share her knowledge with him. What she should have said was, ‘Freddo, I’m tired of this shit. This time, I’m leaving.’
Her heart feels like it is going to stop breathing all on its own, distinct from the rest of her. The pain is so intense, she realises it is possible for the rest of her body to survive the carnage, while her heart, expelled from her being like a refugee, would simply die.
They leave for the weekend, anyway. Their Belgian friends, Lina and Daniel Visser, live in a remote village, in a large, modern house with irregular shaped walls which rise to a high ceiling, and all around, sunlight flickers into its odd spaces. Anju is afraid of the house, its composition of orderliness and routines, entirely immune to revolt and anarchy. She begins to yearn a little for the shambolic nature of her own house, its muddy footprints, its mouldy books, its cabbage smells and vinegary fumes, its disorder a revolution which never comes to fruition.
The Vissers—like them, soft-bellied and childless—are always happy, all laughter, warm hugs, pats on the back, that sort of thing. Anju takes their happiness—even though they are not to be blamed for it—to be an affront to her own pain, her own wretched misery. In the morning of that Saturday, the Vissers and she walk to the bakery, through a maze of paths which eventually open onto the main road. The bakery is small and smells of freshly-baked breads and woodland berries. The woman, blonde-haired, wearing thin-rimmed glasses, speaks in Dutch as she hands out the change, and asks Anju something about India. Anju says, I’m going back to Britain because I’m British. The woman nods kindly and packs another bread for her. Rural Belgium is not unkind, it is just not used to strangers. Anju has forgotten her skin elocutes concepts which she’s discarded a long time ago.
‘We have a local bakery and chocolatier in every village,’ Daniel says to her.
Daniel, he is a strong man with twinkly eyes and he flirts generously wherever he goes, without paying much attention to it. He had previously lived in London, and Anju sees now how he might think of that city as bleak and not entirely European. London has a grimy look to it, a precariousness dwelling in its alleys, its belfries, its thick frosts, its Georgian face flattened against the sky. She shuts her eyes, longing for the comfort of London although she’s only been away for a day, but crossing the channel feels as if she’s entered another world, and her splintered heart is beginning to hurt again. She is afraid any moment fresh droplets of blood will bleed onto the white bread and custardy tarts, and all of Belgium but especially the Vissers will know the truth about her.
When they get back, Daniel busies himself with breakfast, breaking eggs, sizzling sausages, and tending to coffee.
‘What type of cheese would you like?’ Daniel asks, turning to Anju.
She shrugs.
‘Jam and butter?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Waffles?’
‘Stereotype much?’
Daniel suppresses a snigger.
‘Coffee?’
‘Tea, please. With sugar, lots of it. No milk.’
‘And Freddo, bacon or sausage or both?’
‘Freddo turned vegan and Conservative in the same month,’ Anju volunteers, from where she is sitting at the dining table.
Lina laughs, throwing back her head. ‘Is that even possible? I thought veganism was an act of liberalism.’
Lina is helping Daniel; she has her blonde hair pulled high in a ponytail, but a few wisps have escaped and framed her face, making her look child-like and vulnerable. She looks adoringly at Daniel.
‘Of course, it’s possible. Both require a certain discipline, don’t they? The ability to deny yourself personal freedom. Not that Freddo believes in denying himself personal freedom, just curtailing other people’s.’
‘How do you survive all this, Anju?’ Lina laughs.
‘I honestly don’t know,’ Anju says, in that good-natured way which implies she does know, a response expected of married people because anything other than an unconditional love would mean a rebuke, an ugliness middle-class sensibility couldn’t cope with.
A colourless light has slipped into the room, and all seems right—every act purposeful—within this world. They sit down to breakfast and speak of Lisbon and Paris, and the Gauguin exhibition at the National Gallery. They plan to visit Antwerp in the evening when the pit fires will be lit outside the Flemish cafes, and they will huddle—all four of them—against the cold arctic wind, warm with deep friendship, drinking Belgian coffee, discussing perhaps the impropriety of attending a Zwarte Piet parade, is it blackface or just tradition? Freddo appears to be in good cheer. He excuses himself briefly to take a call. Anju smiles weakly and continues eating. She wants to show gratitude for the Vissers’ hospitality, but she feels lost and lonely in their large house and yearns to get back home.
Later, Freddo and she walk through the woodlands which skirt the Visser house. Heavy trees emerge, sloping gently into the sky, ancient root and winter rot all around them, the air has a faint smell of wet wood, and the lake when they finally come upon it, is a deep blue of perfect clarity reflecting the clouds gathered around it reverentially.
Freddo looks at her adoringly.
‘It’s peaceful here, isn’t it?’ he says.
She nods.
She walks to the lake and stands on its bank. Eugenia’s face wobbles on the water. She thinks briefly about throwing herself in the river, into its narrowing mouth, if only as a way of drawing attention to herself, to see if Freddo cares enough to rescue her. She often sets little tests like that—asking him to do inconsequential things around the house or relating a minor medical ailment. She never really needs his help or his empathy, the test is only to uncover the extent of his indifference. Once you’ve shared a life with someone for this long, an intuitive understanding of the other blunts. It recedes somewhere deep inside and is only ever split open again by disruption.
Cover image is by Christopher Dutour and downloaded from Unsplash.com
Selma Carvalho is a British-Asian writer based in London. She is the author of three non-fiction books, and the novel, Sisterhood of Swans published by Speaking Tiger, 2021. Notes on a Marriage is published by Speaking Tiger, 2024, and available at leading bookstores in India and on Amazon.