he was made. Many years before, she had read, and recognized as true, the words of W. B. Yeats: 'A pity beyond all telling is hid at the heart of love.' She had smiled over the poem, and stroked the page, because she had known both that she loved Colin, and that compassion formed a huge part of her love.
Sometimes, though, her patience wore thin. Sometimes she wanted a little concern and reassurance too. Colin had erupted into a predictable panic when she had told him that she had received a firm diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, but once she had convinced him that she was not in imminent danger of dying, she had been taken aback by how quickly he dropped the subject, how completely he reimmersed himself in his election plans.
(That morning, at breakfast, she had tested her blood sugar with the glucometer for the first time, then taken out the prefilled needle and inserted it into her own belly. It had hurt much more than when deft Parminder did it.
Fats had seized his cereal bowl and swung round in his chair away from her, sloshing milk over the table, the sleeve of his school shirt and onto the kitchen floor. Colin had let out an inchoate shout of annoyance as Fats spat his mouthful of cornflakes back into his bowl, and demanded of his mother, 'Have you got to do that at the bloody table?'
'Don't be so damn rude and disgusting!' shouted Colin. 'Sit up properly! Wipe up that mess! How dare you speak to your mother like that? Apologize!'
Tessa withdrew the needle too fast; she had made herself bleed.
'I'm sorry that you shooting up at breakfast makes me want to puke, Tess,' said Fats from under the table, where he was wiping the floor with a bit of kitchen roll.
'Your mother isn't "shooting up", she's got a medical condition!' shouted Colin. 'And don't call her "Tess"!'
'I know you don't like needles, Stu,' said Tessa, but her eyes were stinging; she had hurt herself, and felt shaken and angry with both of them, feelings that were still with her this evening.)
Tessa wondered why Parminder did not appreciate Vikram's concern. Colin never noticed when she was stressed. Perhaps, Tessa thought angrily, there's something in this arranged marriage business ... my mother certainly wouldn't have chosen Colin for me ...
Parminder was shoving bowls of cut fruit across the table for pudding. Tessa wondered a little resentfully what she would have offered a guest who was not diabetic, and comforted herself with the thought of a bar of chocolate lying at home in the fridge.
Parminder, who had talked five times as much as anybody else all through supper, had started ranting about her daughter, Sukhvinder. She had already told Tessa on the telephone about the girl's betrayal; she went through it all again at the table.
'Waitressing with Howard Mollison. I don't, I really don't know what she's thinking. But Vikram - '
'They don't think, Minda,' Colin proclaimed, breaking his long silence. 'That's teenagers. They don't care. They're all the same.'
'Colin, what rubbish,' snapped Tessa. 'They aren't all the same at all. We'd be delighted if Stu went and got himself a Saturday job - not that there's the remotest chance of that.'
' - but Vikram doesn't mind,' Parminder pressed on, ignoring the interruption. 'He can't see anything wrong with it, can you?'
Vikram answered easily: 'It's work experience. She probably won't make university; there's no shame in it. It's not for everyone. I can see Jolly married early, quite happy.'
'Waitressing ...'
'Well, they can't all be academic, can they?'
'No, she certainly isn't academic,' said Parminder, who was almost quivering with anger and tension. 'Her marks are absolutely atrocious - no aspiration, no ambition - waitressing - "let's face it, I'm not going to get into uni" - no, you certainly won't, with that attitude - with Howard Mollison ... oh, he must have absolutely loved it - my daughter going cap in hand for a job. What was she thinking - what was she thinking?'
'You wouldn't like it if Stu took a job with someone like Mollison,' Colin told Tessa.
'I wouldn't care,' said Tessa. 'I'd be thrilled he was showing any kind of work ethic. As far as I can tell, all he seems to care about is computer games and - '
But Colin did not know that Stuart smoked; she broke off, and Colin said, 'Actually, this would be exactly the kind of thing Stuart would do. Insinuate himself with