Chapter 20 #2
‘The street, yes. The actual venue … I said I wasn’t sure.’
‘You saw it set up for a different type of event entirely …’
This was beside the point, but it occurred to Kalpana that this was the sort of thing that happened all the time.
Marcus decided on something without consulting her and then tried to make her believe she’d agreed with him in the first place.
It hadn’t bothered her before, because it wasn’t important to her, but now, suddenly, it was.
‘But it’s inside a huge hangar. I would much rather have a wedding where we can spill out into the sunshine and walk along the beach.
Something both formal and informal at the same time. ’
Displeasure was plain in his frown. ‘Kalpana, we agreed we wanted something different from the norm. Something special and noteworthy. Something that people could really talk about.’
‘We didn’t decide that. You decided that.’
‘And you didn’t object. If you want to have input into these things, you should speak up.’
Her heart was thundering now. She folded her arms over her chest, hoping to keep it contained. She couldn’t back down. ‘I’m speaking up now.’
‘Noted,’ said Marcus, his voice infuriatingly calm. ‘Noted. I must say, I’m surprised at Sampath’s choices in the last few days. That quiet villa, which … for photos, lovely, but he suggested it as a potential honeymoon spot. It wasn’t in the brief. We were quite clear about what we wanted.’
‘What you wanted,’ said Kalpana.
‘You didn’t have an opinion.’
‘Only because I didn’t know what options were available. Now I do. I liked the villa, actually. And I like the seaside venue.’
‘Well, I like the one in the city.’ Marcus’s voice had risen now. ‘And it’s my wedding.’
‘It’s my wedding too.’
The words came out too fast, too emphatic, too loud. They stared into the gap between them.
She’d gone too far, hadn’t she? Why was she even arguing with him? She didn’t want to marry him. This whole conversation was a waste of time. Kalpana sighed. She sat on the side of the bed and looked over her shoulder at him.
‘You haven’t even read any of my books,’ she said. She was aware that she sounded sulky, but … dammit, if she couldn’t sulk now, when could she?
‘What are you talking about? Of course I have,’ he said.
‘Which ones?’ She repositioned herself so that she could see his face.
His eyes darted around for a moment, then he said, ‘What’s got into you today?’
‘Which books?’ she said.
Marcus sighed. ‘The … er … Sweetest Thing. Obviously. We talked about it at the villa, remember.’
‘Which is about …?’
He rattled off the details – all of which were available from the blurb. He looked pleased with himself.
‘Oh yes?’ she said. ‘What did you think about the setting?’
‘The setting? It was very cute and quaint. Like these things are.’
She stared at him. ‘Where is it set, Marcus?’
He clearly had no idea. ‘Scotland?’ he said. ‘I can’t remember the details.’
Kalpana shook her head. ‘Just admit it. You haven’t read it. Or any of the others, have you? Or do you want to keep digging this hole until it gets even deeper?’
He recoiled. ‘Kalpana, what is this? Okay, fine. You got me. I haven’t had time to read your books. But I’ve got them on my Tbr, honestly. I’ll be reading them when I finish the pile of review copies that I’ve been sent.’
She knew he hadn’t added them to his ‘to read’ shelf on Goodreads, which he was assiduous about doing. Nor were they in evidence in the flat, where his ‘To Be Read’ pile was established in stacks of books.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Is this about me going off without you yesterday? I’m sorry about that, babe, but it was beyond my control.’
‘You could have taken me with you.’
‘Why? You’d have only been bored. These were literary commentators and TV presenters.’
‘Why would I have been bored, Marcus? I’m a writer too. Or do you not consider what I write to be proper writing.’
‘Kalpana, what has got into you?’
This was going nowhere. She shook her head.
Unexpected tears prickled against her eyes.
She hated that anger made her cry. All she wanted right now was to back off and let things get back to the way they had been, but if she did that she’d return to this place and this argument again and again.
Because the way things were between them wasn’t what she wanted.
She looked at Marcus – handsome, charming, famous TV guy Marcus.
He was still all of that, but now she also saw the deception, the self-centredness, the arrogance.
She did not want to marry that. The urge to shout left her. There was no easy way to do this.
‘Marcus,’ she said. ‘Why do you want to marry me?’
The fight drained out of Marcus too. He came round and sat next to her. ‘What’s this all about, Kalpana?’
‘I want to know,’ she said. ‘Why?’
‘What a silly question.’ He took her hand.
All she could think was that she felt absolutely nothing when he touched her. Before, she’d been flattered. He had chosen her and that made her feel special. She raised her eyebrows at him and removed her hand.
He rolled his eyes. ‘Okay, if we have to do this,’ he said.
‘I want to marry you because you’re a successful novelist – you understand what this insane industry is like.
You look … incredible, you’re like a wonderful, exotic gemstone that only I can touch.
I love everything about being with you. I can’t wait for you to be my wife. ’
He was talking about her as though she were a possession.
An aesthetic. Nothing he’d said was about who she was.
That figured. Her brain provided her with an image of Sampath, telling her she had changed a dying woman’s life.
She pushed the idea away. She had to deal with Marcus right now.
She would deal with the mess of feelings she was having about Sampath later.
Tears made her vision swim. ‘I don’t think we should get married,’ she said, quietly.
Marcus shook his head. ‘Come on, Kalpana, you’re overreacting to such a small thing.’ He reached for her hand again.
She moved back, away from him. There was nothing she hated more than an argument and ordinarily she would have given in, just to keep the peace.
That was probably something else that he liked about her.
She was compliant. That’s what he was marrying: a picturesque, compliant wife that made him look good.
What Kalpana actually wanted was irrelevant.
She could want whatever she liked, so long as it didn’t interfere with Marcus getting his way.
‘I don’t think I am. I think … I think you like the idea of me. The pretty, arty, exotic wife who doesn’t argue with you. And to be fair, I’ve given you no reason to think that wasn’t what you were getting. But I don’t think you want me. You don’t even see me.’
‘What are you talking about? Of course I see you. I saw you from across the room when we first met. I chose you. There are so many women who would like to be with me, but I chose you.’
‘Because I’m good for your image. The progressive intellectual writer who stoops to marry the genre writer, and a writer of colour at that. Am I right?’
Marcus threw his hands up in the air. ‘I give up,’ he said. ‘You want to break up? Is that it? Now?’ He gestured wildly at their surroundings. ‘Here?’ He stood up and paced around a bit. ‘You know what. I blame that wedding planner.’
‘Sampath? What does he have to do with any of this?’ Apart from everything.
He had made her question her relationship with Marcus and see it for the one-sided arrangement it was.
He had made her wonder what real attraction would feel like.
What it would be like to be in a relationship where your partner genuinely saw you and defended you in public.
‘You were quite happy with everything until he came along and started asking questions and talking about joy.’
‘He said a wedding should be about celebrating a union and should be something that gave us both joy. That’s hardly a radical idea, is it?’
Marcus pressed his lips together into a tight line. ‘I can’t talk to you when you’re like this,’ he said. ‘I’m going to go and have a walk. We will discuss this when I come back.’
He marched out, slamming the door behind him. Kalpana stared at the space where he’d been standing. He had just ignored what she wanted. Again.