Playing with the Grown-ups Page 7

  There was a huge rainstorm the night before Sam and Violet came back. The city was scorching all day, on the brink, like a bowl about to break. Kitty lay in bed, between the worlds of dream and wake, where everything had melted, and hovered in magic time.

  'Kitty?' Her mother stood at the end of the bed. 'Do you want to come and see the rain? It's incredible. I've never seen anything like it.'

  They were both barefoot, and the street was hot and empty. The rain fell in slanted sheets, and the air was smoky, filled with the smell of earth and pennies.

  They spun around and around, water pouring down their faces, drenching them, an urban baptism.

  'This is our life, can you believe it?' Faster and faster her mother spun, like a dervish. 'We're so lucky, and it's just the beginning, Kitty, it's just the beginning of our new wonderful life. Can you believe it?'

  Sam and Violet returned with Irish accents and freckles.

  'Violet, Violet, we live in a feckin' mansion like Daddy Warbucks!' Sam flung his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles backpack on the marble floor. 'Howareya, Kitty?' he said.

  'Cool house, right?' she said, shy of him.

  Violet said, 'I'm only staying here if Sam and me have the same room.'

  'Well that's a lucky thing, because you do. Have you said hello to your sister?' Her mother swooped down, scooped her up and nuzzled her.

  'No. Hi.' Violet buried her face in her mother's T-shirt.

  'I remember you, from when I was a little girl. But now I'm big, so I don't remember you as well.'

  'Well, I do,' Sam said.

  'That's good,' Kitty said, because she couldn't think of anything else to say.

  'Come on, skinny bones.' Nora passed Kitty a plate of her macaroni cheese. 'Eat up.'

  'No, thank you, I don't want it.' Kitty handed it to Violet.

  'Kitty, will you just eat the macaroni, I made it especially for you.' A vein throbbed in Nora's temple.

  'But I don't want it. I'm not hungry.'

  'What do you want?'

  'Nothing. I'm not hungry.'

  'But it's suppertime.'

  'Just because its suppertime doesn't mean I have to be hungry. My stomach doesn't have a clock that says "Oh suppertime, I must be hungry!" '

  Sam found this hilarious.

  ' "Oh suppertime, I must be hungry! I'mso hungry1 could eat all of you, attack of the supper stomach monster." '

  'Please will you eat some macaroni?' Nora enunciated each word. 'Stop it, Sam!'

  'No,' Kitty said. 'None of you understand me! Why can't you understand?' She threw her chair back from the table and ran upstairs.

  'Kitty?' Violet stood awkwardly at Kitty's side, clutching her fairy wings. 'You can have my fairy wings if you like. Look, they're pink and very expensive, Mum said. I wore them at Halloween.'

  'Are you sure?' Kitty said.

  'Yes, positive.'

  'Thank you. I think that's the loveliest present anyone's ever given me. I'll put them on my dressing table so I see them every morning when I wake up, and every night before I go to sleep.'

  'Aren't you going to wear them?'

  'I will on special occasions. Like Christmas and my birthday.'

  Violet smiled.

  'Can I tell you a secret?' She leaned in towards Kitty and her breath was like strawberry saucers.

  'I don't like macaroni either; I think it's horrible, like feet on mush. And last night, I stuck my finger up Sam's bum and made him smell it.'

  'I don't think you should do that any more,' Kitty said gravely.

  'I know. It made him cry, and so I just gave him my witch's costume from the Halloween before I was a fairy. '

  Violet lay down next to Kitty.

  'Can I tell you something else? I do remember you from before, I just said I didn't. You used to play with us in the bath, and you were really nice.' She flung her arms out and wriggled around like a sugary minnow. She threw her head down on Kitty's chest.

  'Ow, Violet! My bosoms. You have to be careful, they're growing . . .'

  'Like rabbits. Oh, everything in my life is soft,' Violet said happily.

  Kitty's thirteenth birthday arrived charitably to claim her on a Saturday.

  It rained, a damp pervasive rain, and she skulked around the empty house like a ghost glaring out of the windows on to a sodden New York, overcome with self-pity. In the kitchen she found Nora, who informed her that her mother was off doing 'birthday things' and would be back at one.

  When she looked sulky at this, Nora said, 'Lord, for goodness sake, the fuss you lot make about your birthdays. In my family it was just a normal day.'

  Her mother's surprises sometimes backfired. The year before, in child time a decade, on Sam and Violet's fifth birthday, she took them to Disney World. Marina's best friend, Katie, flew out from England with her four-year-old daughter Lily. They wrapped Lily up in a box festooned with ribbons and presented it to Sam. Her mother's sense of excitement mounted.

  Sam had marched around the box like a little general, prodding at it with relish. As Lily burst out, 'the present' in a Cinderella costume, Sam looked at first bewildered, and then seriously cheated.

  'Oh hi,' he said, and departed to play with his Lego in the walk-in wardrobe.

  'But, darling, it's Lily,' Marina said sadly.

  'I haven't seen her since I was a baby and she's wearing a Cinderella costume,' he answered as he shut the door.

  Her mother arrived home at three.

  'Fine birthday this is,' Kitty muttered as she jangled in, bracelets and curls and a cloud of scent.

  'Oh don't be cross. Violet, Sam and I have bought you a surprise.'

  "Lo, Kitty,' said Sam in his deep teddy-bear voice.

  'Kitty, we got you a present,' Violet said. 'But we liked it so much, I got one too.'

  'Actually, Violet, we are sharing it,' Sam said.

  Marina led her to the sitting room and covered Kitty's eyes with her hands.

  'Tada!' she said.

  A fat white Persian cat sat on a pink cushion. The cat and Kitty looked at each other with distaste. She didn't quite trust cats, she realised. Dogs were much more straightforward.

  'Mine is called Bruce,' Violet told her.

  'Brutus,' corrected Sam.

  'Bruce,' Violet said, dancing around him.

  They flew off downstairs to the nursery like flames.

  'What will you call her?' her mother asked.

  Kitty felt dumb and uninspired.

  'Splendour?'

  'That's a marvellous name. Happy birthday, Magpie, are you in a better mood?'

  'Mmm.'

  'Fitzgerald sent you something. Here.'

  She held out a tiny, beguiling blue Tiffany box. There was a card: 'To the birthday girl'. It was a gold heart. Precise, simple and perfect. She hung it from Kitty's neck. Kitty stroked Splendour uneasily and sat, the birthday gloom dissipating.

  'Is Violet really calling her cat Bruce?' she asked.

  'We've already got a Barry in the family, why not a Bruce?' Her mother grinned and Kitty laughed.

  'I do love it when you laugh,' her mother said.

  That night they had supper at the smartest restaurant on Madison Avenue. Kitty wore lip gloss and a dot of Chanel No. 5 behind her ears. She drank a glass of champagne, which made her feel hot and a bit deaf. Everyone who walked by the table said hello and happy birthday and that she looked like her mother, which made her feel like she was in one of the Aerosmith videos she watched on MTV. Kitty wished she had dangly earrings and a red Camaro.

  She had stopped wearing her glasses when she landed in New York and nobody had seemed to notice or mind. Not even Nora, since her return. She had worn them since she was six. Life looked delicately blurred, a dream forgotten.

  Tonight her mother was in a question-asking mood, and bathed in the wattage of her curiosity, Kitty chatted away like a mongoose, falling in love with her all over again.

  When they got home Kitty climbed the eighty-nine steps to her bedroom
and lay on her bed, fuzzy from champagne, warm and light. Her mother lay next to her and stroked her forehead.

  'I'm glad you liked my surprise,' she whispered.

  It was the first week of September, but it was still summer hot, endless heat that kissed their bones with content. The garden at 78th Street was wild and unkempt. In its dusty grass amongst plump bushes of hydrangeas, her mother and she lay, on stripy wooden deckchairs.

  'I should really be painting,' her mother said drowsily, wearing a pair of polka-dot bikini bottoms, her breasts small and high. 'If not painting, at least sketching or something . . .'

  Kitty shut her eyes.

  'Mummy, tell me about when you met Andy Warhol.' It was her second favourite story. 'You must be bored of it by now. . . No? All right. I met Andy Warhol in the summer of 1975 at a party. I was wearing an Ozzie Clarke dress and I was dancing.'

  '. . . to a Donna Summer song.'

  'To a Donna Summer song. "Love To Love You Baby", I think, and he said in that silly, whispery little voice, "You are the most exquisite girl I've ever seen." '

  Violet wandered into the garden in a sundress with cherries on it; on her feet she wore pink jelly sandals. She was brown and rosy.

  'Hi. You've got much bigger bosoms than Mum, Kitty. What are you talking about?' she added suspiciously.

  'A painter called Andy Warhol. Shush, Violet. So he said, "I'm going to sketch you." And he did. And on the bottom of the drawing he wrote "To Marina, the most beautiful girl in the world".'

  Kitty covered her face with her hands.

  'And what did you do with the sketch?' she asked, knowing the answer.

  'I threw it away,' her mother said with a smile,' because I was so sure.'

  'So sure of what?'

  'I don't know. Just sure. I thought he was just another man that thought I was beautiful. Silly really.'

  Swami-ji asked to meet them, all of them, including Nora. Her mother got a letter from his private secretary, a letter embossed with gold Sanskrit writing. Swami-ji's ashram was in Pennsylvania, and they were going to drive up for the weekend.

  'But where will we sleep?' Kitty asked her.

  'In a dormitory. Life there is very simple.'

  In Kitty's experience dormitories were not fun places.

  'It will be lovely, I promise,' her mother said. 'Now Nora, we need to get the little ones smart clothes for Satsang.'

  'They have smart clothes, Marina.' Nora looked at her sharply. 'I'm not sure that your man's place is a good place for the children . . . what will they do there?'

  'They will receive the Swami-ji's Shakti,' her mother said. 'There's lots of other children there they can play with too. It will be wonderful.'

  'Well, I'm not going.' Nora said. 'It's against my religion.' She got up out of her chair and gave Marina a mutinous look. 'Hare Krishna rubbish,' she said quietly.

  'What do you mean against your religion, Nora . . . you're an atheist! Swami-ji embraces many religions; you are not excluded by faith. He's like Jesus, he loves everyone.'

  'Jesus? For goodness sake.' Nora stalked out of the room, her tiny figure erect like a sword.

  'You shouldn't have said that,' Kitty said. 'She hates talking about religion.'

  Her mother raised her eyes in appeal.

  'Honestly, she's so narrow-minded,' she said peevishly. 'We'll all be happier without her and her judgement anyway. Her loss.'

  Privately Kitty thought that this probably was not the case.

  The limousine cruised, shark-like, through small towns where the houses looked like they had been transplanted from England. They made Kitty feel homesick.

  In the car her mother was agitated and bossy. It was searing-hot outside, and the air conditioning came blasting out in icy spikes. They all wore white, and Sam and Violet, roused at 6 a.m., sat in silent starched protest, like grumpy cherubs. To Kitty's surprise her mother had actually let her wear make-up. 'Swami-ji likes everyone to look their best. It makes him happy.'

  She felt nervous, like she was about to sit an exam that she hadn't revised for. The towns that they passed began to get smaller and more run-down and Kitty wondered whether the ashram had picked up and moved in the night like a circus. She looked at her mother questioningly.

  'We'll be there soon,' Marina said.

  They turned into a town with one main street in which all of the windows were boarded up but one, where a huddle of men sat on the pavement, looking up with momentary interest as the car slid by. Kitty smiled at them from the open window, a smile to show them that they weren't rich people cruising by in a limo; they were on a benevolent spiritual quest. The men sneered, and she shrank back into her seat. She noticed an ominous sign that read 'Penn Gun Club' with an arrow.

  Sam and Violet saw it too, and they immediately perked UP.

  'Is this a town of cowboys?' Sam said, his brown eyes wide.

  'Sort of.' Her mother smiled weakly. She mouthed to Kitty, 'The town's people aren't very TOLERANT of US.'

  The men on the street were not looking at the limo with admiration; they wanted to carjack it and kill. She wondered if they would kill her quickly or torture her a bit first. Perhaps they were rapists too.

  'Can we lock the door?' she said.

  'Don't be silly, Kitty. We're nearly there.'

  They drove in silence for a few miles.

  'Look!' her mother said, pointing. 'There it is!'

  In the hazy shimmer of heat, placed improbably on a cornfield, was what looked like an ice-cream castle, with turrets and fountains, surrounded by a large razor-wire fence.

  Swami-ji sat on a throne at the end of a very long room. People stood in a line to bow at his feet. Kitty had to take her shoes off. She wished she had painted toes like her mother. Her feet looked like they belonged to a defenceless piglet. A sitar wailed, alone in the echoing white. There must have been 500 people in the great domed room. Around her to the left and to the right, people sat cross-legged, swaying blissfully to the soft music. Incense curled around her like an embrace.

  'Don't speak to Swami-ji unless he speaks to you first,' her mother warned.

  'I won't,' Kitty said, giving her what was meant to be a chastising look.

  'Good girl,' her mother said.

  As they got further in the line, her heart beat faster and faster, until she could feel it in her mouth, pounding.

  The throne was before her. She had an urge to laugh. Her mother got on her knees and bowed, her head touching the cool marble floor. Kitty followed what she did. She peered up at Swami-ji and saw his feet poking out of his long saffron robe. They were small, and his toenails were curved and wizened, but pink like the shells she collected on the beach when she was little.

  They used to call them elephant's toenails.

  Suddenly his foot shot out and tapped her lightly on the shoulder. Kitty sat bolt upright in surprise, and stared into his eyes, which were like blackcurrants, kind and tender. She felt when he looked at her that he knew everything there was to know about her. Every bad thought she'd ever had, who she fancied, what colour knickers she was wearing. Why it was that misty English mornings made her ache, and how she wanted to have dinner with Mr Fitzgerald every Saturday night religiously. She felt sorry for being angry with Swami-ji.

  He spoke to her with his eyes; they said, 'I've known you for a thousand years. You are infinite. You are precious, you are my child.'

  She didn't know why, but she could feel tears bubbling up inside her. She felt very old and tired, like she had come home after being at sea for years. The world made sense. She held her breath, and her head back so the tears couldn't fall. Her mother stood up, gathering Sam and Violet, each in an arm. She stood too. She bowed her head to her hands.

  'So serious!' Swami-ji pointed at Kitty, giggling like a little boy. His lips curved down when he smiled, his smile was so wide. 'So serious, Lakshmi, your eldest child!'

  A strangled noise came out of Kitty's throat that was half sob half laugh. Tears coursed down he
r face and the hysteria that had threatened to engulf her poured forth. She quaked with laughter. The more she laughed, the more Swami-ji laughed. He shook and bellowed and hooted. He jiggled like jelly.

  Sam and Violet began laughing.

  'You're funny!' Sam said.

  'So are you!' Swami-ji called back. 'But you, serious one, you are the funniest.'

  'Thank you,' she said shyly, because he said it fondly.

  He reached out and patted her hand with a hand that was strong and dry like the branch of a tree. He passed her something that glittered and shone.

  'Wear this and think of your Swami-ji, little one. Imagine it as my hand touching yours.'

  'Thank you,' she whispered, rubbing her eyes.

  Afterwards, her mother was very pleased.

  'Oh Kitty, what a blessing! I can't believe it. Let me look.'

  It was a gold bangle coloured with semi-precious stones, and it was beautiful.

  'Swami-ji sees how special you are; that's why he gave that to you.' Her mother seemed very proud. She started asking Kitty lots of questions. How did you feel, what were you thinking, why were you crying?

  Kitty tried to answer but she didn't have the words to explain. She wanted to be alone.

  'Do they have biscuits at this place, Mum?' asked Violet.

  'Yes, they do.'

  'Good. Do you think next time I'll get a present? Because it wasn't really fair that Kitty did and me and Sam didn't.'

  'I'm sure, my darling, that you guys will get a present soon.' Marina winked at Kitty.

  'All right, I think I like it here then.'

  Violet skipped down the thickly carpeted hallway, her white dress billowing behind her.

  They were assigned to do chores, which were meant to help you concentrate on your spiritual growth. Violet and Sam did a class for children about the lineage of the Hindu gods. They drew pictures in splashes of scarlet with peacock greens and velvet blues of Lakshmi the goddess of abundance and Hanuman the mischievous monkey god.