equipment; a spare book; a rape alarm; a copy of her most impressive English essay, in case Mr Viney is interested. ‘Be a good girl,’ she imagines her grandmother saying. The carriage door squeaks: Viney. Viney. Alexander Viney. I, thinks Marina, am not a good girl. I am ready for love. Ready for sex. Dear God, let it start.
The Hungarian Bazaar is like being consumed by loving cannibals. Wherever she turns, old women ask her, ‘So, no more children?’ and shake their heads pityingly, or squeeze her upper arm or pat her bottom; ‘Hodge vodge?’ they ask, hogy vagy , ‘How are you?’ and she smiles and nods as if these are merely rhetorical questions. People keep giving her paper plates of veal, and she has to remember to thank them in Hungarian, ‘Kusenem saipen,’ köszönöm szépen . Her pocket feels transparent, she may be sick. She has to tell Rozsi about Peter’s letter but here, in public, is not the right time. I’ll do it tonight – that would be kinder, thinks Laura, looking up to see Alistair and Mitzi Sudgeon pushing through the swinging doors.
She reaches behind herself for support and finds her hand closing on a bag of paprika, squashy as a tiny corpse. Her brain is still struggling with the idea of Peter Farkas but her eyes follow the man she sort of loves. Or, rather, they follow his wife. Like a rabbit fascinated by a circling hawk, Laura gazes upon her nemesis.
Mitzi Sudgeon is pale, like something found in a cleft in a Carpathian mountainside. Her hair is dyed red; she wears lipstick but otherwise she looks fragile, naturally thin: a woman too busy doing good deeds to eat. She smokes stylishly. She has virtuous breasts. Not pretty, exactly, but beautiful, powerfully attractive both to elderly maternal Hungarians and to men, of every age. She looks like a tiny diplomat at an enemy’s wedding.
Alistair, with the methodical humourlessness she tries to find touching, has confided about their marriage: the union brokered by his first employers, kindly Dr and Dr Országh-Nagy, Mitzi’s guardians (or were they kindly?), the dietary control and screaming rages, the many faults she finds with him. However, Laura’s rival has not only beautiful eyes and a waist but also the blessing of the holy Catholic church, which Alistair, despite not being himself a Catholic, finds unbreakable. Not that Laura wants to marry him. She just wants to be married.
Never mind, she thinks, eyeing them from behind the leather goods like a chicken with a fox. She will buy something for Marina, even though she can’t afford to. She swallows hard but there is dust in her throat, or ash, or sorrow, and she cannot be rid of it.
Almost an hour passes. Laura takes a sip of hot coffee and somehow misses her mouth, dabs her breast with a napkin and spreads the stain, spills icing sugar from a little walnut pastry on to the brown patch and, hideously soiled and besprinkled, is turning to go to the toilets when she crashes full length into Mitzi Sudgeon, who is bearing teacups on a silver tray. Everything falls to the floor including, after a hesitation, Mitzi.
‘ Jesus Maria! ’
‘Oh God, I’m so sorry,’ says Laura. ‘Let me—’
The hall stills. Down on the parquet, Mitzi feels her ankle gingerly. Alistair, her medically trained lawful husband, kneels in slow motion. His eyes are on Laura’s; they seem to press against her with anger, or ardour, or a plea for understanding. Despite their stolen time together, she does not know him well enough to be sure.
‘It is . . . it is,’ says Mitzi, as if she is trying to be reassuring but has no words. Her accent is improbable even by Hungarian standards. ‘I move, I hope.’
‘God, I’m so sorry,’ says Laura again. ‘I’m so stupid. I—’
‘No, not stupid,’ says Mitzi. ‘But you are so much bigger than me. And . . . oh!’
Alistair, kneeling, his neat hands on her skin, has found a sore place on her ballet dancer’s blue-veined instep. Laura looks
The Hungarian Bazaar is like being consumed by loving cannibals. Wherever she turns, old women ask her, ‘So, no more children?’ and shake their heads pityingly, or squeeze her upper arm or pat her bottom; ‘Hodge vodge?’ they ask, hogy vagy , ‘How are you?’ and she smiles and nods as if these are merely rhetorical questions. People keep giving her paper plates of veal, and she has to remember to thank them in Hungarian, ‘Kusenem saipen,’ köszönöm szépen . Her pocket feels transparent, she may be sick. She has to tell Rozsi about Peter’s letter but here, in public, is not the right time. I’ll do it tonight – that would be kinder, thinks Laura, looking up to see Alistair and Mitzi Sudgeon pushing through the swinging doors.
She reaches behind herself for support and finds her hand closing on a bag of paprika, squashy as a tiny corpse. Her brain is still struggling with the idea of Peter Farkas but her eyes follow the man she sort of loves. Or, rather, they follow his wife. Like a rabbit fascinated by a circling hawk, Laura gazes upon her nemesis.
Mitzi Sudgeon is pale, like something found in a cleft in a Carpathian mountainside. Her hair is dyed red; she wears lipstick but otherwise she looks fragile, naturally thin: a woman too busy doing good deeds to eat. She smokes stylishly. She has virtuous breasts. Not pretty, exactly, but beautiful, powerfully attractive both to elderly maternal Hungarians and to men, of every age. She looks like a tiny diplomat at an enemy’s wedding.
Alistair, with the methodical humourlessness she tries to find touching, has confided about their marriage: the union brokered by his first employers, kindly Dr and Dr Országh-Nagy, Mitzi’s guardians (or were they kindly?), the dietary control and screaming rages, the many faults she finds with him. However, Laura’s rival has not only beautiful eyes and a waist but also the blessing of the holy Catholic church, which Alistair, despite not being himself a Catholic, finds unbreakable. Not that Laura wants to marry him. She just wants to be married.
Never mind, she thinks, eyeing them from behind the leather goods like a chicken with a fox. She will buy something for Marina, even though she can’t afford to. She swallows hard but there is dust in her throat, or ash, or sorrow, and she cannot be rid of it.
Almost an hour passes. Laura takes a sip of hot coffee and somehow misses her mouth, dabs her breast with a napkin and spreads the stain, spills icing sugar from a little walnut pastry on to the brown patch and, hideously soiled and besprinkled, is turning to go to the toilets when she crashes full length into Mitzi Sudgeon, who is bearing teacups on a silver tray. Everything falls to the floor including, after a hesitation, Mitzi.
‘ Jesus Maria! ’
‘Oh God, I’m so sorry,’ says Laura. ‘Let me—’
The hall stills. Down on the parquet, Mitzi feels her ankle gingerly. Alistair, her medically trained lawful husband, kneels in slow motion. His eyes are on Laura’s; they seem to press against her with anger, or ardour, or a plea for understanding. Despite their stolen time together, she does not know him well enough to be sure.
‘It is . . . it is,’ says Mitzi, as if she is trying to be reassuring but has no words. Her accent is improbable even by Hungarian standards. ‘I move, I hope.’
‘God, I’m so sorry,’ says Laura again. ‘I’m so stupid. I—’
‘No, not stupid,’ says Mitzi. ‘But you are so much bigger than me. And . . . oh!’
Alistair, kneeling, his neat hands on her skin, has found a sore place on her ballet dancer’s blue-veined instep. Laura looks
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