Chapter 3
The three months leading up to the reconnaissance trip were extremely packed for Sampath. He had to plan and book everything for the trip as well as deliver on all the other weddings he was working on.
He had made sure he arrived in Sri Lanka a few days before the couple, so that he could get a few things organised.
Now, he was at the arrivals gate at the airport in Colombo.
He felt the familiar fizz of excitement that always appeared when he started planning a wedding.
The feeling was heightened this time because of the size and scope of the project.
Getting this wedding for the company had put him in a much stronger position with Grant, who was already being nicer to him.
On top of all of that, he got to be part of a life experience for one of his favourite novelists.
He privately hoped that he might get his name in the acknowledgements for her next book.
That would be so cool. Imagine being able to say, ‘Oh, Kalpana Jay? I know her quite well, actually.’
He was being silly and daydreaming now. He had to focus. This wasn’t going to be plain sailing. He wasn’t used to how things worked in Sri Lanka. He had a fixer, who would help, but he still had to juggle Western expectation with Eastern execution. He told himself sternly to remain grounded.
Within minutes, he was watching the first-class passengers from the London flight come out, flanked by porters pushing trolleys stacked with bags. Kalpana and Marcus were not among them. He pulled out his phone and checked the flight details. No, it was definitely this flight. Where were they?
He was at the point of trying to call the travel agent when he saw Marcus emerge.
Even crumpled and tired after a long flight, Marcus was still striking.
His height and bearing made him noticeable.
Next to the smaller Sri Lankan locals, he looked even taller.
He was wearing chinos and a light shirt.
Kalpana emerged from behind him. She was wearing a yellow summer dress and had her hair piled up in a messy bun.
She too was dishevelled, but on her it looked charming.
When she spotted Sampath, her face lit up.
It struck him that she was genuinely beautiful. In England, she was petite and elegant, but here, where the light suffused everything, she glowed. He waved. When Kalpana gave a little skip and started walking towards him, he could swear he heard music.
‘Sampath,’ said Marcus, ‘good to see you.’
Sampath gave himself a mental shake. The way Marcus said his name still rankled, but there were only so many times you could ask the client to call you Sam. Kalpana pronounced it properly though, which was nice.
He called the driver, who was waiting with the van, and corralled the porters down to the pickup bay.
He had been there a week already and it had taken him a couple of days to get back into using the hand and head gestures that seemed to grease the wheels of everyday interactions. He had the hang of it now.
The driver, Lal, was younger than him and spoke excellent English.
The company had hired him and the vehicle for the whole month, so Sampath had already spent a few days with him, going around Colombo looking into wedding venues.
He and Lal had got on okay from the start, but after the second night, they’d retired to a bar for drinks after work … they were pretty good friends now.
‘Right, boss, I’ll be there in five minutes. No. Make it ten.’
It took them five minutes to get to the pickup bays. The heat wrapped stickily around them as soon as they stepped out of the air-conditioned airport. Sampath, who had come prepared, handed them a small bottle of water each. He’d had them in a cool bag in his backpack.
‘Oh, thank you,’ Kalpana said.
Marcus nodded his thanks and took a gulp of water from his bottle.
‘Are you hungry? I have a few snacks in the van, but I assumed they’d have fed you well on the plane.’
‘They did,’ said Marcus. ‘We just need to have a shower and collapse for a few hours. After that we’ll be good to go.’
‘I figured you’d feel that way, so our official itinerary doesn’t start until tomorrow. I’ve booked you a table at the restaurant in the hotel for dinner, so all you have to do is relax.’
Sampath looked at Kalpana, who hadn’t said much for a while.
She was looking around, her eyes wide. Everything about her seemed to have suddenly shrunk.
One of her hands was ensconced in Marcus’s.
The other was wrapped around his forearm, as though she was trying to take up as little space as possible.
Marcus was looking around at the chaos and seemed oblivious to his fiancée.
‘Are you okay?’ Sampath asked her.
She startled. ‘Yes. I’m fine.’
‘Is it … It’s not your first time in Sri Lanka, is it?’
Kalpana shook her head. ‘I came a couple of times when I was a child, but I don’t remember much of it.’ She looked up at him with big, frightened eyes. ‘When was the last time you were here?’
He opened the van door for her, so that she could climb in. ‘I came on holiday a couple of years ago.’
Marcus climbed in as well and sat next to Kalpana. ‘I’ve been before,’ he said. ‘Stayed in a friend’s villa – a former planter’s bungalow. I forget where. That was a long time ago, when I was still a student. We did India and Tibet too.’
‘Backpacking?’ Sampath pulled the sliding door shut and jumped into the passenger seat at the front.
The van was blissfully air conditioned and, after the noise and bustle of the pickup point, relatively quiet.
‘Gap year,’ Marcus said. ‘Had a tremendous time. Obviously, things are different this time.’
Lal got in, did up his seat belt. Sampath said to his clients, ‘This is Lal. He will be your driver for the whole of your stay.’
Lal turned in his seat and gave them a friendly wave.
Kalpana said, ‘Hi.’
‘Does he speak English?’ said Marcus. He looked at Lal. ‘Do you speak English?’
Lal grinned. ‘I do. It’s nice to meet you.’
Sampath saw Kalpana’s expression flicker at the way Marcus was speaking to Lal.
Yes, he was being boorish, but he’d only just got here.
Hopefully, he would be a bit less posh Brit once he’d had some time to acclimatise.
Kalpana had nothing to feel embarrassed about.
When her eyes briefly connected with his, Sampath gave her a small reassuring smile. She looked away.
***
The hotel room had a sea view. Kalpana stepped outside, her hair still damp from the shower, and let the breeze whisper across her skin.
The ocean gleamed and sparkled in the late afternoon sunlight.
When she looked down, she could see the tops of coconut trees, vivid green grass and paths that led down to the white sand.
When she’d left the airport, she had felt bombarded by sensations. The heat, the colours, the smells, the noise. She hadn’t even realised that she was clinging to Marcus until Sampath looked at her with concern etched into his features and asked her if it was her first time in the country.
It may as well have been. All of the flashes of life she’d seen outside as they drove from the airport to the city – frangipani trees, Buddha statues, Virgin Mary shrines, roadside stalls, cows randomly wandering around – felt vaguely familiar and completely alien at the same time.
She couldn’t tell if she was remembering them from coming here as a child or merely from hearing about it or seeing it on television.
Either way, it was almost hard to believe it was real.
In the months running up to this, she had been tense.
Worse than that, she hadn’t been able to write.
She had another book due in a few months.
Normally, she’d be most of the way through her first draft by now, but at the moment, she had nothing.
She had always felt that writer’s block was something that happened to people who could afford to relax with their writing.
She couldn’t. She had to produce to a regular schedule, or she didn’t make enough money to live on.
This time … this book … seemed to be proving her wrong.
Writer’s block was a real thing. She had told her agent, who had suggested that maybe Kalpana needed a break.
A holiday to let her loosen up and let the creative juices flow again.
All this life and colour outside the window was certainly different to her everyday life. Maybe this was exactly what she needed.
She was here to plan her wedding. This slightly breathless feeling, like there was something squeezing her chest, that had to be excitement, not stress.
She was with Marcus, and the wedding planner had promised to handle all the logistics.
All she had to do was enjoy the experience.
There was nothing at all to worry about.
‘Hey, gorgeous.’ Marcus came up behind her and slid his arms around her.
She leaned back against him. ‘This is nice.’
‘Spectacular, isn’t it?’ He rested his chin on the top of her head. ‘Sri Lanka was a great idea. It’ll be such a stunning backdrop to our wedding.’
She nodded, but didn’t say anything.
‘It’s very romantic,’ Marcus continued.