Preethi Nair - The Colour of Love

When I arrived she was taking down her paintings and wrapping them in brown paper.

‘So have you been painting long, Nina?’

‘No. I’m just experimenting. I’m not an artist or anything. I used to paint when I was younger and then I had to stop.’

‘Why?’

‘Family stuff,’ I replied. ‘But I’m taking time off just to find out what it is I’m supposed to be doing.’ I didn’t know why I was divulging such information but she had something about her that made you want to tell her things.

I desperately wanted to ask her about her mother. ‘How long have you been here?’ I asked instead.

‘Eight months. I went to art school in Sydney, did a few exhibitions over there and have been going to college here, but it’s hard to break into the circuit, unless you know someone or you get spotted. I do love London but sometimes it can be a really cold and lonely place.’

‘I know what you mean.’

‘You got family here?’ Gina asked.

I nodded.

‘See, that makes all the difference,’ she said. ‘You’ve always got them to fall back on if things don’t work out.’

‘Not if you have a family like mine,’ I said. ‘What about you?’

‘My dad is back home with my little sister. I want to surprise them for Christmas.’

‘Do you believe in signs?’ I suddenly blurted.

Instead of giving me the strange look of incomprehension I expected, she answered, ‘Why do you think I said the quote aloud?’

There was an instant understanding that passed between us at that moment, and we didn’t even have to say what it was.

‘How did she die?’ I asked.

‘Skin cancer,’ Gina replied.

‘I’m sorry. My best friend died of cancer too.’

‘It’s the pits, isn’t it? I promised my mum that I’d come to England. What did you promise?’

‘That I’d paint again and everything I did I would do passionately.’

‘This would be the work of my mum, you know.’

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Getting you and me together. It’s got her name all over it. Maybe your friend and my mum have got together up there and said, “These two, they need to meet.” What’s your friend’s name?’

‘Ki.’

She looked up at her skylight. ‘Ki… Mum … Thank you.’

And when she did that it was the first time that I thought I wasn’t losing my mind. There was someone else in the world as crazy as I was.

Gina told me she had been teaching English in Japan before her mother had fallen ill. She wasn’t told how bad it was so didn’t hurry home until the final stages, and then when she got home she couldn’t bring herself to leave Australia again. It had taken a huge leap of faith to come to England, and she said with leaps of faith came the call to adventure. I wouldn’t know about that – the biggest leap of faith before my foray into painting was going out with Jean Michel and look where that had landed me.

She said she wasn’t giving up on England, just needed a rest from the rain and from trying so hard to make things work. I understood this: if I had had an Australia to go to, I would have gone there too.

The delivery men came with my paints and canvases later that day and as Gina helped me unpack we talked about death, not in a morbid way but in a way that both of us understood. I didn’t want to leave the warmth of her studio. I wanted to tell her more, tell her about the Guru and what had happened, but it was getting late and she still had lots to do.

‘Nearly done,’ she said, unwrapping the last canvas.

‘Thank you, thank you so much.’

‘I’ve hardly done anything. If you need to use any of my stuff, like brushes or whatever else you need, just go through those boxes.’

And though I hardly knew Gina it felt as if she had always been my friend. I wanted to hug her and tell her that it would all be all right, and that she would come back to London and find that it wasn’t such a lonely place. As I was thinking this she wrapped her arms around me and told me that she was sure I would find what I wanted through my paintings. She was as generous as Ki was and I desperately wanted to believe that our meeting had been orchestrated by the two people we loved.

On the way back home, I thought of the money spent on renting the studio and buying canvases and paint, of how one thing had led to another. Then I thought about managing the deceit. Perhaps it was better to say nothing, to stop adding new clients and blatantly lying.

As I walked in the door, my dad put down his paper and pointed to a box.

‘Nina, why your work send you this big box?’

Oh God, it was my things, work had sent me all my things. Don’t panic, breathe deeply, remain silent, say nothing, do not lie.

He looked at me, waiting for a response. ‘Why they doing this?’

‘Didn’t I tell you, Dad, we’re moving offices.’

‘No problem in the company?’ he asked, putting down his glass.

‘No, no problem. Actually, we’ve got more clients, we’re expanding so we need to move to bigger premises.’ That would account for the change in telephone numbers and the technical difficulties we were experiencing.

‘Doesn’t make sense to me.’

‘What, Dad?’

‘Why they’re not sending box to the new office? Why they’re sending it here?’

‘Feng shui.’ I said the first thing that came into my head.

He looked at me, puzzled.

‘Because they want us to have a clear-out of our files and our personal belongings so we don’t bring old things into the new office. It’s feng shui.’

‘He’s the office manager?’

‘No, feng shui is an idea about clearing space and bringing new energies in. When you get rid of something old, something new comes in its place.’

‘I always know this,’ my mother shouted out from the kitchen. ‘I’m telling you, since we tidy television sets and put them all in attic there is change, maybe energy will bring Nina’s marriage. To bring them down, it’s unlucky. Bhagavan will tell you.’ See, even she was prone to a bit of truth bending; nowhere in the Gita did it say ‘Thou shalt keep broken television sets in the attic’ or ‘Broken television sets left in attic will lead to daughter’s marriage.’

Dad mumbled that they wouldn’t stay in the attic long, just for enough time to stop the taxman snooping around, and then he muttered, ‘I have to fix the television sets and drive the bus for a living, but Fongi Shu, he tells the peoples any rubbish and he makes the money. He’s not Indian, no?’

‘No, it’s Chinese, I think.’

‘The Chinese peoples, they are the clever, very clever.’

My resolve not to tell lies was obviously not working, and seeing as I’d just told one, another one wasn’t going to be so bad.

‘It’s been a really busy day at work. That new client is very demanding and I might have to be a bit more hands-on.’

As I heard myself saying the words I knew he wouldn’t understand, but these were the only words he latched on to. He put his newspaper down again and looked at me, probably imagining me hugging my clients and them doing ninety-degree rotations away from me too.

‘What I mean by hands-on, Dad, is helping the client a bit more: so, say if he is organising an exhibition in Mayfair, I might go and help him in his studio.’

I knew it made no sense but my dad only chose to hear words that he liked, hence Mayfair.

‘Good, good,’ he mumbled.

My mother was listening from the kitchen. ‘Ma, I was just saying to Dad that one of my clients is going to want me to help with an important exhibition he has so I might have to help him a bit in his studio.’

I knew it was volunteering far too much information but I had to get her bloodhound nose off the trail.