Kate’s own phone beeped with a message from her sister: Lunch next Friday when you are back in Boston? Just us. Jess working, Em at kinder. Let’s go fancy.
She quickly typed in a response: Sure! Ditch kinder and bring Emma. Can’t wait. xx
Bella was right. Kate considered her cousin’s button and the linked sketches and replayed the words she’d been turning over in her head ever since their dinner the night before: The most precious things in life can’t be bought or replaced.
She missed seeing Molly, Jessica and Emma every week. When Jonathan had first moved out, she’d spent several days a week curled up on their sofa with Emma, watching The Wiggles episodes, both of them gazing wide-eyed at the people dancing in coloured skivvies, and clapping along to ‘Fruit Salad’, ‘Yummy Yummy’ and ‘Big Red Car’. Jessica cooked comfort food—spaghetti and meatballs, coq au vin and lasagne—while Molly managed Kate’s divorce settlement and helped her organise her receipts into colour-coded piles before curling up beside her on the sofa and resting her head on Kate’s shoulder, just as she had when they were children. ‘Your curls are going up my nose again,’ she’d complain as the handsome Red Wiggle shook his index fingers in the air and gyrated his hips.
The four minarets of the Charminar rose from an ocean of cars and taxis, almost an apparition in the heat and haze. The traffic had all but stalled, so Marcus paid the driver, grabbed his camera bag and said, ‘Let’s go,’ as he opened his door and stepped out into the maelstrom.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Kate said, standing stock-still as she admired the peaked arches and Islamic patterns dancing around the corners of the mosque.
Marcus grabbed her hand and pulled her close as they weaved through honking rickshaws and scooters to dart down a lane.
‘We need to go straight to the bazaar,’ yelled Kate above the noise. ‘I can’t wait to see the traders—’
‘Before we do anything else, we need to eat.’
‘Where?’ Kate eyed a man bundling samosa into brown paper bags at a roadside stall.
‘Laad Bazaar.’ Marcus pointed to where the crowds were funnelling into narrow alleys.
But Kate was too hungry to wait. ‘Hold on,’ she said, and she approached the man and bought a samosa for each of them, fumbling the unfamiliar coins as she paid.
‘Keema samosa,’ said Marcus as he tore his in half, releasing spice-scented steam. ‘Hyderabad food is different to the rest of India. The whole city is a mix of Arab and Turkish cultures.’
Kate devoured her samosa, licking the drips of garlicky lamb mince and yoghurt from her fingers. ‘These are incredible. Maybe I should get more?’
‘Trust me, you’ll want to leave room …’
Marcus led her into a maze of alleys, past stalls selling spools of bright cotton, endless rows of golden bangles studded with gemstones, earthenware pots and bags of spices in every hue. Soon they came to a central alley, where the aromas of spices, roasting meats and piquant curry sauces blotted out the diesel and smog.
They reached a tiny hole in the wall and Marcus stopped. An old woman in a pink sari with gold bangles tinkling up her arm seated them on wooden crates at an outdoor table covered with a checked cloth. They asked for a beer each and Kate pressed the bottle to her cheek to cool herself.
‘You order, please,’ she said. ‘I eat everything.’
‘Great.’ Marcus grinned. There were beads of sweat at his brow, and his linen shirt was already damp and creased, but he looked so at ease sitting there in a crowded alley among the shrieking hawkers and crush of shoppers.
‘How many times have you been here?’ Kate asked.
‘Four times. Once as a backpacker at eighteen, then three times for work.’
‘Work?’ Kate thought of the glossy fashion spreads and jewellery catalogues he was booked for years in advance, then his cover for the National Geographic she’d spotted at Heathrow.
‘Don’t look so surprised. You think I just do fashion and jewellery? I enjoy the fashion—it’s edgy and the people are fun. But it’s the people, not the fashion, that I find fascinating …’
‘I didn’t mean …’ Her ears started to burn.
‘I know.’ He waved his hand and smiled. ‘I like to explore, to try to capture what makes this world tick. Do you know how many war photographers do weddings?’
‘Really?’
‘True! Light and shade, Kate. You can’t just focus on the dark stuff; it’ll tear you apart.’ Marcus paused, his jaw tensed, and Kate caught a glimpse again of the shadows that had crept across his face in the museum. He opened his mouth, about to say something else, when a parade of green plastic plates arrived piled with food.
‘Heaven!’
Marcus talked her through the dishes. ‘Start with the buttermilk vada.’ He pointed. ‘The fritters are made with fennel and spices, and the sauce is buttermilk with curry leaves, finished with a scoop of yoghurt and some coriander leaves on top.’
Kate obediently scooped some onto her plate and began to eat.
‘I’ve never tasted Indian food like this,’ she said.
‘These days people come to Hyderabad for the food, just like people in past centuries came for the diamonds and gemstones.’
‘You’re not taking any pictures?’
Marcus shrugged. ‘Not of my food. Not my thing. I like to just … eat, you know? Enjoy the moment, savour the company.’
Kate lifted a serviette to her lips to hide the blush she felt creeping onto her cheeks. What was wrong with her? Maybe the heat and jetlag were catching up with her.
Next up was a lentil dahl made zestier with tamarind; kebabs marinated in chilli and coriander (so tender they melted in her mouth); and a creamy malai korma with potato and paneer dumplings. Kate’s favourite, though, was the dum biryani—basmati rice cooked with turmeric and other spices, then piled high with marinated meats, served with green chillies mixed in a peanut masala.
As she tore a piece of roti and dipped it in the leftover masala sauce, Kate studied the curves of the Charminar just visible at the end of the alley. Beside them was a stall dripping with strands of pearls. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine a similar scene centuries ago as diamond dealers and silk merchants loaded up oxen and braved narrow tracks on mountain passes as they travelled the silk route between here and Persia. She pulled out her notebook and recorded her impressions before tucking it away again to eat.
When they’d finished eating, the old woman cleared their plates and poured them cups of chai, which was accompanied by crescent-shaped biscuits that tasted of coconut and saffron.
As Kate bit into her second biscuit, she said, ‘There’re millions of stalls here. How’d you know to come to this one?’
‘My guide introduced me last time. Aarav. You’ll meet him this afternoon when he takes us to meet a couple of gem dealers.’
Marcus smiled at the old woman and raised his hands together in thanks. ‘That was incredible.’
It struck Kate how easy-going Marcus was with women. When she’d first met him she’d expected him to be what Sophie would call ‘a bit of a lad’, but he’d always been a polite and attentive colleague. They’d worked well together in London, as always. He’d solicited opinions from Saanvi and Gayle and peppered them with questions about each piece as he shot. It wasn’t so much that he was charming—for he certainly was—but that he was genuinely interested in the curators’ expertise. Kate was ashamed to think that she’d dismissed his rugged good looks and charm as part of a standard playboy fashion photographer package.