"I Want You To"

Chapter 1

I'd picked Collette up in a bar a few streets away. Or rather, she'd picked me up.

I'd just had a meeting with the divorce lawyer and I needed a drink. The lawyer had come recommended. He'd handled a divorce for a colleague who'd been in a similar situation that I now found myself in. Except Ray's wife had left him for her personal trainer.

"Took her for every fucking penny," Ray had said. He slipped a business card over the desk. "This is the guy for you. He'll make sure to look after your interests."

The lawyer appeared to be competent. Not that I was an expert in divorce lawyers. This was my first marriage. And that enterprise was in its final throes. It was my fault. I should have had the courage to say no when my mother proposed it. But an Asian mother can be persuasive, especially when she unleashes the full arsenal of emotional weapons she knows works, even if said child was a 30-year-old man with a beard and a salary.

Shame: "You know, if you had become a doctor, you would have a bigger salary. Finding a bride from a good family will be difficult. But we have found one for you."

Guilt: "Your father wanted you to marry. It was his dying wish. He told me that as he passed away. While you were flying back." A sigh. "He so wanted to see you with his own eyes before he met God. But you weren't there."

Fear: "And if you remain a bachelor? What then? I will be dead soon too. And you won't be young forever. Soon, your eyes will fail. Your hair will fall out. Who will look after you? Or will you just check yourself into a nursing home, to 'not trouble the family', like these uncaring Britishers, who never look after their parents?"

I tried to resist. But my mother was relentless. And so I gave in. An arranged marriage it would be. I agreed to it, but I shouldn't have.

It was a grand affair. Weddings in India always are. We travelled back to the town of my father's birth, a dusty, noisy, ugly place I had only visited twice as a child. I met relatives I had never even heard of. I was appraised, advised, chided, congratulated. And I only met my bride a day before the wedding.

I had seen photos, of course. Ayesha was petite and pretty in a wan, demure sort of way. That day, when we met for the first time in her family home in Ahmedabad, she appeared positively gorgeous in her sari, lips painted red, eyes outlined with kohl. Once her relatives had left the living room ("to give you some quiet time together, eh?"), I tried to make conversation. She said nothing, just nodded or shook her head in response to my questions, her eyes on the floor.

"Ayesha is an unsophisticated girl," my mother said afterwards, passing her usual snap judgement. "But we don't want sophisticated. We want someone who can cook and clean and look after you. And they are from a respectable family. Rich. Good connections. We are marrying above our station, but her parents are in favour. Because of our family name. Ayesha is a fine match." My mother sighed. "Better than we could have hoped for. You should be happy."