Unmarriageable(16)

Ten years later, Sherry was forty-one, though as far as the rest of the world was concerned she wasn’t a day over thirty-five. Over the years she’d begun dying her skinnier braid and plucking her chin and, when she laughed, which was often, her laugh lines deepened. Yet she still hoped her Prince Charming would come, if only because there was simply no other respectable way for a girl from her class in this country to have sex.

So Sherry reminded Alys as they slipped into the graveyard and headed towards the spot where they’d first met. Sherry cleared leaves off a stone slab and sat down. She lit a cigarette. Alys did too.

‘I would,’ Sherry said, blowing a smoke ring, ‘like to experience sex before dying, and not just with my hand. Rishta Aunty—’

Alys groaned. Rishta aunties were the local matchmakers, a perfect job for professional busybodies. Paradoxically, the key to a rishta aunty’s success was keeping the secrets she learnt about prospective clients to herself. Her job was to get people married off, but she did not guarantee happiness or children and she was very clear about the fact that if marriages were decreed in heaven, divorces seemed to be too, and that even spouses in perfect health could die and she should not be made to give a refund for services rendered.

While rishta aunties were a regular fixture at Sherry’s home, Looclus Lodge Bismillah, Mrs Binat did not entertain them. Not because she cared that it embarrassed her daughters to be forced to parade the mandatory rishta trolleys, prepare cups of chai to display their domestication, or be picked apart by prospective mothers-in-law, but because Dilipabad’s rishta aunties were not up to standard. To Mrs Binat’s disappointment, they did not have the network or connections to go beyond Absurdities and middle-class Abroads, categories that Sherry’s parents – Bobia Looclus, a homemaker, and ‘Haji’ Amjad Looclus, a supervisor in a factory – were in rapture over.

‘Rishta Aunty,’ Sherry continued, ‘told us this prospective groom-to-be is on the lookout for a nubile virgin. Pigeon I am, nubile I’m not, but Rishta Aunty believes this one is my stud of a Prince Charming. He’s sixty-one and, despite managing a grocery store, apparently does not possess too big of a potbelly.’

‘Better to die a pigeon than copulate with a potbelly,’ Alys said solemnly.

‘Clearly,’ Sherry said, ‘you’re enjoying your hand.’

‘That I am.’ Alys laughed.

‘Anyway, this particular potbelly has never been married, because he was looking after two unmarried sisters. The sisters recently married two brothers working in Sharjah, and so now he’s looking for a bride of his own. He’s probably as eager a pigeon to fly the coop as I am. He’s fond of massage and being read to, because his eyesight is weak but he doesn’t like to wear spectacles. Rishta Aunty told him I was strong and I’m a teacher, so I can read very well and earn. Let’s hope that incentive seals the deal.’

‘Can you please meet the man first,’ Alys said, rolling her eyes, ‘before agreeing to marry him?’

‘Not up to me, is it,’ Sherry said. ‘I’ll wheel out the rishta trolley with the expected cake, fruit chaat, and shami kebabs. I’ll make chai for him and the rest of his relatives, who’ll have accompanied him for free food. I’ll confirm that I’ve cooked all the food from scratch, which, in my home’ – Sherry looked archly at Alys – ‘I will have done. Unlike you Burger girls, I can actually cook and don’t just bake for fun.’

‘Be quiet, Chapati,’ Alys said. ‘I don’t even bake for fun.’

‘I’ll sit there after having served chai to the potbelly and pretend to be a shy and opinion-less dummy. And on my wedding night I’ll turn into a sex maniac, and then he’ll divorce me on account of too much enthusiasm, since ardour will imply immorality.’

‘Or,’ Alys said, ‘maybe he’ll appreciate that you can’t get enough of flying the coop.’

Sherry took a long drag. ‘I hope this prospect doesn’t decide to poop in our toilet, like the last one did. Took forever to unclog that mess.’

‘Here’s a mess of a different kind. We received the invite to the NadirFiede circus. I’ve wasted all afternoon listening to what gift will make us look rich enough and what we’re going to wear in order to captivate eligible bachelors. You know how despicable I think this whole husband-hunting business is.’

‘Yes,’ Sherry said, ‘I’m well aware. Chalo, best of luck. Let us hope you and Jena hunt good husbands.’

‘I don’t even want to go,’ Alys said. ‘A bunch of himbos and bimbos showing off to each other about who enjoyed the glitzier holiday this year.’

‘Have you any idea how many people would die to be invited?’ Sherry said. ‘I’d love to just see who in the world is marrying that pain in the bum Fiede Fecker. Do you think Fiede is a pigeon or have she and Nadir Sheh flown the coop?’

‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a good girl ought to keep her mouth shut about whether she’s been keeping her legs shut.’

‘I bet Fiede’s been humping and pumping night and day,’ Sherry said. ‘But at the wedding, like all good pigeons, she’ll pretend her feathers have never fluttered.’

‘Come with us to the NadirFiede mehndi,’ Alys said. ‘Come!’