A Scandalous Secret (16 page)

Yes … and it was in the middle of that heady carefree time – getting on for winter – that I met Alastair …

Alastair Henderson was a tutor in the department but one we generally had little to do with. Simon used the term ‘foxy academic' to describe him once, you know, the kind of academic that gets sought after by the media for being both eloquent and good-looking. The students referred to him as ‘Hottie Henders' and joked sometimes that we saw more of him on TV than in college. The BBC was using him as an anchor for a poetry series that summer and so he had a good
excuse to never be around. But, one winter afternoon, when I'd gone for a one-on-one tutorial with Mr Waddell, who should be awaiting me in Waddie's study but the great Alastair Henderson himself? I was startled when he opened the door – not just because he wasn't the grey-haired and avuncular old tutor I normally saw on a Tuesday afternoon, but because he had a glass of whisky in one hand and looked more ready for casual social interaction than a tutorial.

‘Kurt's had to go up to London this morning so I'm afraid it's me you've got,' he said in that kind of uninterested, drawly manner that girls tend to find so sexy. ‘I'm Alastair Henderson. You can call me anything you like, Alastair, Al, or that strange moniker I'm told the students have so kindly bestowed on me; can't tell why.' He turned to me and asked, his blue gaze suddenly piercing, ‘And who, may I ask, are you?'

‘I'm Neha,' I said, adding – although I wasn't sure why – ‘I'm an overseas student. From India.'

‘Ah, Neha from India,' he said, as though I was the very person he had been waiting to meet all these years. He was smiling but his eyes were inscrutable and it felt as though he was poking fun at me, rather than being genuinely friendly. ‘Well, Neha-from-India,' he continued, ‘I'm here to answer any questions you may have on incest in the Greek myths or religion and the metaphysical poets or,' he waved an arm in the air, ‘just life and love, if you like. Oh, and I may use this opportunity to fill in the gaps of my knowledge on the Indian poets whenever we meet, if that's acceptable. Do you read Tagore? Or is it the Balzacs of Bollywood that you follow?'

I was completely tongue-tied by him. Everything about Alastair was aimed at doing that to a girl: the taciturn good looks, the intense gaze, the drawling questions, half-amused
and half-serious. He was everything sweet, uncomplicated that Simon wasn't and, by the end of that afternoon, I was madly and deeply in love.

Of course, I'd had crushes before – film stars and pop singers. But this was different. It was an ache that grabbed me somewhere deep inside my stomach, leaving me shaky and weak and unable to concentrate on anything else. For days after that first tutorial, I went over every word we'd spoken, thinking of the many things I should have said to impress Alastair with my wit and erudition. I took to attending all future tutorials with my heart in my mouth, always hoping desperately that it would be him opening the door again. But it never was.

Sightings of him around the college were also rare. Once I ran all the way across the quad when I thought I'd spotted him, hoping to pretend to have bumped into him, but by the time I got to the other side, he'd disappeared.

And then that evening in December. It was the 2nd. I remember the date so well. College hadn't closed for Christmas yet. My parents were insisting I go and stay with Mahinder Tau-ji and his family in Leicester for the hols but I had an assignment to hand in first. After class that day, I found a note in my pigeonhole
. ‘7pm in the library,'
it said, and it was signed simply
‘Alastair'.

I had two hours to go before seven and I got myself in a real state about it, unable to eat anything or hear a word of what Clare and Nicki were chattering about over dinner in the refectory. For some reason I can't explain, I didn't tell them about my note from Alastair and so, after dinner, when there was talk about going down to the Oxford Union bar, I excused myself with talk of a deadline on my assignment.

‘Need any help?' Simon asked. ‘I'm happy to skip going
if you need a reader/writer/transcriber/coffee-maker/general dogsbody?' He was looking at me so hopefully, I felt mean and devious when I shook my head and made some excuse to get rid of him along with the others.

I was frantic when Clare delayed their departure by disappearing to the toilet, and I watched the hands of the clock in the junior common room inch painfully towards seven o'clock. But finally they had all gone and, after the sound of their laughter had faded down the stairs, I hastily dabbed on some lip gloss, brushed my hair and took the route through the back quad to the library. It was freezing cold, of course, and both the Great Hall and the chapel were pitch dark. Only parts of the garden were illuminated intermittently by the light from students' rooms. I nearly twisted my ankle as I ran up the steep stairs to get to the library quicker, managing to get there a few minutes before seven, to find a scattering of students at work but no Alastair. I hung around, pretending to be reading, but keeping an eye on the main entrance all the while. For a moment, I thought the note might have been some kind of hoax, a prank played by one of my classmates. But eventually – it must have been around a quarter past seven – Alastair strolled in, hands in his pockets and ducking his head under the door out of habit like a lot of tall men do. He seemed in no hurry to keep our appointment but glanced around, looking for me I hoped. I raised my hand to wave at him and hastily shoved the book I'd been pretending to read back on the shelf.

I knew I must have sounded breathless as I ran up to him. ‘I thought you weren't coming,' I said, trying not to sound complaining.

There was no apology from him at all. Instead, he gave me one of those enigmatic looks of his and beckoned before turning. I wondered where we were going as he loped along
in his customary long strides past the bookshelves and I trotted along behind him, trying to keep up. We left the library through another door and made our way down some stairs before disappearing through the labyrinthine corridors of the back quad. Alastair pulled out a brass key tied onto a greying piece of ribbon from his pocket as we approached a scuffed wooden door. I wondered for one crazy moment if this was the famed room I'd heard of where old Bibles were stored, imagining Alastair might be keen to show me some of Wadham's history, but I was ushered into a kind of anteroom, something like a private study, also book-lined but with a couple of armchairs around a small round table that was heaped with dusty leather hardbacks. Along one wall was a sideboard with a decanter of whisky and some glasses and nearby was a leather couch with some faded tapestry cushions thrown on. There was a musty air to the place, mixed in with the smell of spirits and pipe smoke. Very alpha male. Very Alastair Henderson.

Of course, despite my naivety, I wasn't such a fool and I did wonder if this was where Alastair brought pretty female students to seduce them but, curiously, I wasn't anxious at the thought at all. There was something exciting about the uncertainty and mystery surrounding our unexpected meeting and – if I'm to be honest – I wouldn't have minded in the slightest if Alastair had attempted to flirt or even seduce me. But he couldn't have been more proper, decorous almost, and the summons turned out to be for no more than a tutorial, a lecture of sorts on Gerard Manley Hopkins. I'd written a paper recently on the subject and assumed that Alastair was either impressed enough by it to spare this extra time, or perhaps spurred on by disgust and disappointment into giving me this unexpected tutorial. However, he made no mention of my essay at all and I didn't dare ask.

We sat on the armchairs at first but, as the books on the table between us were piled high, Alastair suggested we move to the couch where he draped himself so languidly, his knee was virtually touching mine. But, despite my being all keyed up in anticipation of something significant about to happen, Alastair remained his rather remote self, hardly deviating from the topic of Hopkins and regarding me with a cool and slightly amused gaze above steepled fingers whenever I spoke.

I returned to my room an hour later, feeling a strange emptiness I could not understand. I'd never been in love before and decided that that could be the only explanation for the strange ennui and disappointment I felt after leaving Alastair in that room. All through my schooldays, boys had never really figured; the ones I knew in Delhi were all pretty stupid anyway. My focus had been only on getting to Oxford, but now that that had been achieved a horrible feeling of discontent assailed me. I sat alone in my room for a while, contemplating going in search of the others down at the Union. Of course, that's what I should have done. But the thought of their inane chatter was suddenly revolting and so I did the unthinkable. I took the back stairs again and returned to the library, running all the way down the path and across the frozen garden. The library never shut but, typically, there was hardly anyone around – most of the students had either gone out or were back in their rooms and only a couple of people were busy around the photocopier. I stole past and walked hurriedly to the little room where Alastair had taken our tutorial. My heart was thumping so hard, I was sure it was audible all around the silent corridors. I knocked, softly at first and, when there was no reply, more insistently, feeling sure by now that Alastair would have left for the night. But the door opened abruptly and there he was. He had taken his tweed jacket
off and was in rolled-up shirtsleeves and trousers, holding an open book under one arm, the obligatory glass of whisky in the other. His drowsy expression vanished when he saw me and was replaced by a look of genuine surprise.

‘Is something wrong?' he asked. ‘Leave your scarf behind?'

I did not reply but stepped in and leaned against the door to close it behind me. Realization dawned as Alastair spotted the expression on my face and he took a step back.

‘I had to see you again,' I said swiftly. ‘I had to talk to you properly, you know, and not about the Metaphysicals or the Romantics …'

He tried to make light of my intentions and adopted a jokey patronising tone. ‘Now, now, young woman. Neha-from-India. I'm not sure I know what you mean but …'

I stopped him by reaching out and placing my arms around his neck. For one terrible moment I thought that he was going to shove me away, turn me around and marshal me out of his room. Again, I now know that's what should have happened. It would've been much the better thing for him to have rebuffed me then, however much it would have hurt my ego. But, instead, as I tightened my hold and pressed my lips on his as I'd seen in movies, I felt him physically melt. His body, stiff and unyielding one minute, was suddenly pliant and then semi-aggressive as he leaned his frame against mine, squashing me against the door. Before I knew it, he had fished out the key from his pocket again and locked the door behind me …

We made love. I was a novice but my passion overrode my lack of experience, I thought. Alastair seemed surprised at my being a virgin and was gentle enough but, after it was all over, he got off the couch and pulled his clothes on without saying another word. The expression on his face was suddenly sort of angry and irritated.

I watched him walk across the room, my heart sinking, wondering if I'd failed to satisfy him and wondering whether I should entice him back to the couch to start all over again. But I saw him pick my clothes off the floor and, from where he stood, he flung them over my body. ‘Okay, get dressed Neha-from-India,' he drawled. ‘Go home and forget all about this. I think we'd both agree it's been a dreadful mistake.'

I sat up and tried pleading with him, telling him I loved him. But Alastair had reverted to being his old remote self. ‘Look, this should never have happened,' he said finally. ‘I have a girlfriend in London whom I plan to marry in the summer. I simply lost my head when you came in and accosted me like that. You're a beautiful woman and …'

‘You're making it up about a girlfriend, aren't you? Just to get rid of me now, I know …'

He looked exasperated. ‘Of course I'm not making it up …'

‘Who is she? How come no one's ever mentioned a girlfriend? The students here know everything. I think you're making it up but, even if she exists, you could leave her for me. I'll show you what true love is. Alastair, please, I love you. I think about you all the time …'

He threw his head backwards at this, closing his eyes. ‘Of course you don't love me, you silly girl. It's nothing more than the overheated imagination of an aspiring poet … Love, for Chrissake! Well, whatever love means, you'll soon go on to have that with some young plonker who's probably currently in second year.'

I tried pleading again but, at this point, his tone changed and I felt he was starting to get seriously angry. ‘Look, I'll get the sack if this comes out. You wouldn't want that, would you? Why don't I ensure I never take tutorials for you again
and, for your part, I'd appreciate it if you promise to keep away from me around the college. And never tell a soul. Okay? That's a good girl. Now, get up, get your clothes on and scoot out of here. Run along now, chop chop.
'

Neha's voice hung in the air as she finally looked across the room at Arif. He sat unmoving on the chair, his expression sympathetic. Finally he spoke. ‘You're not going to say that it was Alastair Henderson who called while we were trekking, are you?'

Neha shook her head. ‘No, it wasn't him. There's more to the story, Arif. I just didn't know how much to burden you with.'

‘I've already said, you can tell me anything. I may look old and crusty but I'm quite unshockable,' he laughed. ‘And, so far, what you've recounted is a pretty universal story … happens to girls all over the world.'

Neha got up to turn on the bedside table lamps to dispel the gloom. She sat down again and looked at the darkened windows, seeing her own reflection looking back. She started to talk again, her voice low. ‘You're right; up to this point, it's probably a fairly unremarkable story. There must be many girls who nurse their first crushes on someone older than themselves, someone unreachable. But I wonder how many go on to throw themselves relentlessly at the object of their affections and behave so very stupidly …'

‘Well, despite the way you narrate the story, Neha, it
certainly sounds as though your Mr Henderson wasn't an entirely innocent party.'

‘You're very sweet to sympathize with me but I really did throw myself at him,' Neha protested gently.

‘Come, Neha. All that stuff about him playing the uninterested professorial type and keeping you guessing with his erratic behaviour. Imagine inviting you to his lair and then holding an innocent tutorial instead – he was building up the anticipation, can't you see? Deliberately manipulating you into doing exactly what he wanted. There are hundreds of men like that, Neha. Men too clever to be accused of actively seducing a young woman but, all the while, getting girls exactly where they want them to be. I bet, if you'd asked around, you'd have found his tactics had succeeded with many others girls around the college too. It's about power, for some men. Power and the thrill of deceit – two elements that cause men who have everything to forget that they have everything. It's strange, and not so strange perhaps, that when people possess all they could possibly want, they simply want more. As for Alastair Henderson, young women must have been very easy to come by, given his position. Did you ever ask what his reputation in college was with the female students?'

Neha shook her head. ‘No, I couldn't. It wouldn't have taken much for people to realize why I was asking. At the end of that evening, I promised Alastair I wouldn't come near him again but I thought my heart was quite broken.'

‘Oh, you poor thing. You were how old? Nineteen?'

‘Eighteen.'

Arif shook his head. ‘And I can imagine how hard it would have been for you, as a young foreign student, to take it up with the authorities too.'

‘It wasn't just that, Arif. I genuinely thought I loved Alastair. And that was why … when I found I was pregnant … I kept it secret at first. I actually thought I'd got lucky to be pregnant with his child …'

‘Pregnant?! Good grief!' Arif's expression was suddenly astounded.

Neha put her hands over her face and started to weep quietly. After a few seconds, Arif got up to sit next to her on the sofa. He put his arm around her shoulder. ‘You poor, poor thing,' he said softly, ‘What a lot to deal with at eighteen.'

‘I was such an idiot,' Neha said, her voice muffled through her fingers. ‘There were so many things I could have done to help myself. But I thought that, if I carried the pregnancy through, I could bring Alastair around. Make him love me, y'know. So I didn't even tell anyone at first, worried that someone would make me get rid of it. I wanted the chance it gave me of persuading Alastair that we could have a relationship.'

‘That's such a classic error, Neha. And so many girls do exactly that. Don't be hard on yourself,' Arif comforted. Then he asked cautiously, ‘So did you have the baby?'

Neha nodded, wiping the tears off her face with the palms of her hands. ‘I did, Arif. And I can hardly believe it myself now. No one in college found out for a long time because, being tall, my pregnancy was quite well concealed. I told Alastair about it when I was three months gone and begged and pleaded with him once more to take some interest in me. And in our baby. But he didn't want to know. In fact, by the time we returned after the Easter break, he'd vanished from campus without leaving a forwarding address. Someone said he'd gone to an American university on sabbatical … another rumour was that he was shooting
a new BBC series in Tuscany. No one knew where he was; the college office was quite tight-lipped. Perhaps they were used to silly young female students trying to get hold of his address or phone number. I had to confide in someone, I needed help, and so, I finally told Clare and Nicki.

 

‘Please don't think badly of me …'

‘Of you? Don't be daft! It's him, Henders, I feel infuriated with. He should be hung, drawn and quartered, taking advantage of you like that!'

‘He didn't really …'

‘For Chrissake, Neha, don't be defending him. He's an opportunistic bastard and clearly knew what he was doing.'

‘But what do we do now, Nick?' Clare said, ‘Neha needs to discuss this with someone urgently.'

‘Do you want to report him to the Dean?'

‘No!' My response was vehement. Perhaps I still held a candle for him, who knows. But I didn't want trouble of any sort.

‘Neha could be right, Nicki. Things will get very messy if Henderson is named. Especially if he denies it. There could be all sorts of repercussions, an enquiry and stuff. Certainly there'll be no keeping it quiet after that.'

‘I don't want that. Please.'

‘Poor Neha. Well, if you go somewhere like the student surgery, they'll never insist on knowing who the father is if you don't want to tell.'

‘The college counsellor, I think, as a first port of call. She seems really nice. I had to go see her about my stolen bike, remember? Something tells me she'll be no-nonsense and helpful.'

 

‘We kept it to ourselves at first, and the college counsellor was, as Nicki said, just lovely. Not asking too many
questions and not judgemental at all. Eventually I told Simon too. Only because it was difficult to keep it quiet from him because he was around so much … I've never seen so much hurt on a person's face. For one crazy moment, I thought he might do something dramatic – like hunt down Alastair – but he didn't. In fact, after a couple of days, he suddenly went all cool on me and began avoiding me himself, which was surprisingly hurtful. Nicki said it was just that he was too distressed to cope but I think he actually thought the less of me after that and so started avoiding me. I missed him and his friendship, oddly much more than I missed seeing Alastair. But my situation was now getting urgent as the GP said it was too late for an abortion. I had to go through with it and have the baby. And so, when it was very definite that Alastair was never coming back and there were three months left before I was due, I decided to give the child up for adoption.'

‘Oh my word,' Arif breathed.

Neha looked directly at him, a pleading expression on her face. ‘Please don't think badly of me. I can hardly forgive myself now. But, at the time, with Alastair refusing to have anything to do with it, and the thought of how anguished my parents would be if they found out, I thought I had no choice.'

‘Of course, I won't judge you. I understand completely. It must have been so terribly confusing and so traumatic,' Arif said. ‘Forgive me, but how did you cope with what was left of the pregnancy once you'd made that decision?'

Neha shook her head, hugging a cushion to her stomach. ‘Very badly. I was a wreck all through the summer. Nicki took me to her mum's house for the holidays. Her mum was a residential social worker for people with disabilities
in Stowmarket – a quiet little place in rural Suffolk where nobody knew me. But, as the pregnancy progressed, I decided I couldn't go back to uni after having the baby …'

 

‘Neha, my dear, you're not the first girl to fall pregnant like this. Why, there was a girl back in Nicki's school who got pregnant when she was fifteen and she was helped by Social Services to keep the baby. She returned to school too.'

‘Keep the baby? I couldn't, Mrs Perkins. How would I continue with the course?'

‘Perhaps someone could come out from India to help? Your mother?'

‘My mother? … My mother would kill me if she found out about this!'

‘Oh dear, Neha … an abortion's completely out of the question now, as you know. It's a huge decision to make when you're in this state but would you consider giving up the baby for adoption? You don't have to answer that question now, my dear, just think about it as one of the possibilities ahead of you. You're not alone, don't forget, not when you've got us …'

‘I want to go home, Mrs Perkins,' I said, breaking down. She gathered me in her arms. ‘I'm so grateful to all of you,' I sobbed, ‘but I want to be back where I was, back home and with my parents. I don't want this baby. I won't know how to deal with it. I just want to go home …'

 

‘… That was how it happened. More than anything else, I wanted to be far away from everything to do with Alastair, from that one stupid act of mine that had overturned my life. I needed to start afresh to hold on to my sanity, to remind me of who I was. So I spent the summer holidays at Nikki's house in Stowmarket, which felt like a sanctuary
after Oxford. My parents thought that I was pursuing a research assistantship in Scotland, which is how I escaped having to see Mahinder Tau-ji and his family throughout that time. And then, in September – the baby was due just before term started – I returned to Oxford to deliver it. As had been agreed, the baby was taken off me soon after her birth and, four days later, I was on a flight back to India.' Neha's voice was so quiet at this point that Arif could barely hear her.

There was a long silence before Arif spoke. ‘Did you eventually tell your parents?' he asked in a tentative voice.

Neha shook her head. ‘Never. No one in India ever found out. Not my parents, not even my best friend. I was too scared. And too ashamed. And, after the initial few letters to Nicki and Clare, I stopped writing to them as well. It was just too painful to carry on pretending this thing hadn't happened.'

‘I can understand that,' Arif said. ‘They were still living the life you'd lost.'

Neha nodded and looked down. ‘So, having left my terrible secret back in England there was no one in my world who knew what I had done,' she said in a wan voice.

‘What did you do? Did you continue your education after you got back?' Arif asked.

‘Eventually,' Neha said. ‘For a while I was a total disaster, weeping and breaking down at the slightest excuse. My parents thought it was because I had been unable to deal with Oxford. I gave them a story about having been bullied. Whether they believed it or not, they had no choice and had to accept that I wasn't going back. They could not have forced me to return, given the state I was in … At first my father was enraged. He wanted to write to Wadham, to the UK government, to everyone. But I persuaded him
to let it go. I needed to move on, I told him, and I asked to be enrolled at Delhi University.'

‘And that was what you did …'

Neha nodded. ‘I finally completed my degree at Lady Shri Ram College in New Delhi, followed by a master's.' She paused before speaking again. ‘Towards the end of my final year, a marriage proposal came from a family who were distantly related to us. I was twenty-three when I married Sharat, the most wonderful husband one could ask for …' At this point, Neha trailed off, her voice wobbling again.

‘I don't suppose you could ever tell him about the baby …' It was more a statement than a question.

Neha looked at Arif, her eyes dark and glistening. ‘If Sharat ever found out, it would kill him,' she said quietly. ‘You see, we never had children of our own, despite being desperately keen at first …'

Arif was lost for words. After a pause, he said, ‘Jeez. What horrible irony, Neha. I'm so sorry …'

Neha started to cry again and Arif got up to fetch a box of tissues from the toilet. Handing them to Neha, he sat down again. ‘Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me everything. It can't have been easy.' He waited a few minutes for Neha to compose herself before speaking again. ‘I can certainly understand the trauma you've been through but I gather your life settled into relative peace after that. Has something happened since? Who called while we were on the trek?'

There was a long silence before Neha could bring herself to speak again. ‘I've had a letter, Arif. From my daughter … well, the baby I gave birth to. She's now eighteen and she wants to meet me. I don't know what for but I can tell she's angry. I don't blame her for that – I
would have been too in those circumstances – but she's here in India and has already been to my house in Delhi. I gathered that from my husband, who didn't realize who she was … I'm very, very frightened, Arif.'