A Scandalous Secret (27 page)

Neha sat by herself in the breakfast room, her mobile phone still in her hand and Sonya's voice ringing goodbye in her ears. Her exact words had been ‘Well, I guess it's goodbye from me, then'.

Would she ever hear from her again, Neha wondered, suddenly feeling as bereft as that nineteen-year-old back in Oxford who had given her baby away. Now, having found and lost Sonya again in the space of five days, and with Sharat's departure weighing down on her, Neha started to weep, great big silent tears coursing down her face as she gazed unseeingly out at her blooming garden. She was even heedless of Ram Singh who came in to clear her plate and coffee mug, turning her face away only when he peered at her in concern.

Unused to seeing his memsahib in anything but total control, the old cook disappeared into the kitchen and stayed out of the way for the rest of the morning. Gradually, the house fell silent, the only sound being the ticking of the antique clock on the stairs and the distant rumble of traffic from Prithviraj Road. After a long while, Neha finally got up to go in search of her reading glasses. They were by her bedside table, where she had left them last night. In her bedroom, only one
side of the bed was rumpled, the creased linen giving away the sleepless night she'd spent. It felt like weeks since she had last slept well, her body curled around Sharat's under their quilt. Neha glanced at Sharat's unused pillow, feeling sick to note the missing indent left by his head after he had woken up in the morning. It had been an old joke between them about how deeply and dreamlessly he always slept, unlike her who tossed in a semi-troubled state all night.

Where was he? He hadn't called once since leaving the house over five days ago and Neha didn't have the heart to call him either. The thought of being rebuffed by her normally gentle and loving husband was just too unbearable.

Instead she scrolled down the list of names and stopped at Jasmeet's. Neha knew she had to speak to someone if she was not to go mad. It was too much, this careful control she had exerted over her life all these years, these mental shutters that had kept everyone at bay. When Jasmeet answered, Neha spoke just one line.

‘Jasmeet, I need to talk to you – will you come over please?'

Jasmeet's response was typically generous. ‘No problem. I have to come to Khan Market to pick up some chicken sausages this afternoon. So I'll be at yours at about four o'clock. Is that okay?'

When Jasmeet walked up the front stairs two hours later, Neha got up from the wicker chair on her veranda, where she had been waiting, to give her a hug.

Her friend held her at arm's length to examine her face. ‘Look at you,
yaar
,' she said in consternation, ‘you look like you haven't slept all night.'

‘I haven't,' Neha confessed, trying to smile.

‘God,
why
? What's wrong? I know you wouldn't call me out here unless it's important.'

‘Sit,' Neha said, ‘I'll get you some tea first. It's a long, long story, Jasmeet, and I think you need to be sitting down.'

Jasmeet settled herself, looking worried. Then her expression went through a whole gamut of emotions – shock, astonishment, anger, sorrow – as Neha recounted the story, going all the way back to her departure for Oxford, an event that Jasmeet remembered well, being part of the contingent of friends and cousins that had flocked to the airport to see Neha off. By the time Neha had finished telling her everything, twilight was falling over the garden and the birds were coming in to roost on the big neem trees near the house. Jasmeet had heard her out quietly, asking only the occasional question, and Neha felt no sense of being judged from the expression on her friend's face. She ended her account by telling Jasmeet about Sonya's short call from the airport this morning.

‘Did you get the feeling she wanted to stay in touch with you?' Jasmeet asked.

‘I don't see why she would want to. She has loving parents back in England and is about to start what is sure to be a very busy college life.'

‘And Sharat? How upset do you think he really is with this?'

‘Hard to say, Jasmeet … you know as well as I do that nothing normally upsets him. And, unlike Kul, he never, ever sulks. In fact, this is probably the first time I've known him to go completely incommunicado on me …'

Jasmeet heaved a huge sigh but remained in silent contemplation, looking out into the darkening garden as,
in typical pragmatic fashion, she tried to think of a sensible and practical solution to offer her friend. But there appeared to be none and, finally, Neha broke the silence. ‘Shall we go indoors?' she asked. ‘We don't want to be chewed alive by the mosquitoes.'

The two women got up and, as they went into the drawing room, Jasmeet gently touched Neha's forearm. ‘It was brave of you to tell me everything, Neha,' she said, adding, ‘I won't break your trust, I promise.'

Neha shook her head sadly as she turned on a few lights. ‘I'm sorry I didn't say anything to you earlier, Jasmeet. All these years. I should have known you well enough to trust you. It would have given me so much relief to be able to talk to someone.'

Jasmeet seated herself on a sofa before saying, ‘You know, we keep secrets, fearing the day they may come out. But, in fact, the worse thing is when they never come out at all and people die with those secrets having burnt great big holes in their lives.'

Jasmeet's voice was suddenly bitter and so Neha looked at her in bewilderment. ‘What do you mean by that?' she asked.

Jasmeet was silent for a few seconds before she spoke. ‘Sometimes I have wondered if everyone has secrets. I have one too, that I think even you may be shocked by.' She paused and then carried on, trying to keep her face impassive. ‘How do I say this … you see, I found out two years ago that Kul … yes, my husband whom you all like so much … had been having an affair with someone for over six years …'

‘What?!'

Jasmeet nodded. ‘When I found out and threatened to leave with the girls, he got very worried, begging me not
to go; and I finally agreed on the condition that he break off all ties with this woman.'

‘Oh, Jasmeet! And has he?'

Jasmeet looked sad. ‘I think he has, Neha. At least he says he has – but will I ever know for sure, I wonder? After all, if he managed to hide it from me for six years, then anything is possible.'

‘And you kept it secret for the sake of the girls?'

‘For their sake and because of the shame … Delhi's not such a big place, it sometimes seems. And I wanted to be able to go around doing my business with my head held high …'

‘Poor Jasmeet. Always so jolly, so upbeat …' Neha trailed off, thinking of the anniversary lunch she had attended just last week where Jasmeet had, as always, been the life and soul of the party. She wasn't the only one who had put up careful facades, clearly.

Jasmeet turned to Neha at this point, leaning forward on the sofa to place a hand on her knee. ‘One thing I did find out, though, Neha – if it brings you any consolation – when I first found out and told my mother and a couple of my
maasis
about what Kul had done, I found to my surprise that all of them – yes, every single one of them – had had some sort of similar experience. All those marriages that I thought were perfect when I was growing up, they had all suffered some trauma or the other at some point. Not necessarily affairs but problems of some sort. And
all
of them kept it secret. My mother told me, for one, that my father had spent the first few years of their marriage out drinking himself blind every night until he abruptly gave up – and I grew up thinking he had always been a teetotaller! My mother's older sister had suffered domestic violence, another auntie told me that her husband
had gone off for years to America where he had lived with a second family, but she had quietly taken him back when that came to an end. And no one ever found out. I don't know why we women do this to ourselves … but look at me talking about myself when you are going through this terrible thing right now. We need to think of a solution for your problem. First of all, we have to find out where Sharat is and get him back.'

‘Dear Jasmeet, always so pragmatic,' Neha said. ‘Don't worry, there's actually huge comfort in just sharing. Anyway, I don't think there's a solution to my problem right away. I know what
I
want but I have to wait to see what Sharat wants to do. And what Sonya decides to do. I am completely out of control – not a feeling I'm used to, as you know!' She tried to laugh but her voice caught in her throat.

‘Are you prepared for Sharat to say he can't forgive you?' Jasmeet asked suddenly.

Neha contemplated the question before replying. ‘I would be devastated but, in the end, I think I'd cope. Like you say, the shame would be terrible. Perhaps I'm too proud a person and Delhi society …' Neha paused and shuddered ‘… like vultures, waiting for you to fall so they can pick over your bones. But I would not carry on here. I'd go somewhere quiet and shut myself away, I think. Like Parmarth Ashram at Haridwar. I was there recently. But life in Delhi, without Sharat? Never.'

Jasmeet looked alarmed at Neha's dark tone and cut in, using her best no-nonsense voice. ‘C'mon, Delhi is not as bad as that, Neha. There are good people and not-so-good people everywhere. You will find your friends if things go wrong. The rest you will have to learn to ignore. No, I'm certainly not letting you run away. Parmarth Ashram, my foot!'

A day after leaving Delhi, Sonya looked at the scene surrounding her with immense pleasure. Marari Beach, a few miles north of Cochin, was a terrific find, wild and unspoilt with its rolling grey sea and soft stretches of beige sand toasting in the sunshine. Warm breezes were blowing across the water and rustling the leaves on the palm trees behind her. A kiosk selling beer and tender coconut water was doing brisk business nearby and she watched a small girl pay for a pineapple lolly while her mother stood by watching. It wasn't a lolly like the ones Sonya had grown up buying from the ice-cream van, but a piece of fruit cut into a pretty serrated shape and stuck onto the end of a wooden stick. Sonya smiled as the little girl walked past, sucking on her pineapple stick with delight. She returned to surveying the sea and sank her toes into the sand, enjoying its texture, soft and dry like talcum powder. Then she threw her head back and heaved another huge sigh of pleasure. Delhi seemed so far away …

The resort into which Estella's Uncle Gianni had booked them provided basic accommodation, but its proximity to the beach more than made up for it. Sonya couldn't have asked for a more perfect antidote to both Delhi and Agra and the crazy events of the past week. And not a
tout around for miles! She smiled as Estella ran up behind her and wasted no time at all in stripping off a voluminous tee-shirt to reveal her generous curves in the tiniest of bright yellow bikinis.

‘Corblimey, I was starting to think I'd never get the chance to get into my cozzie!' Estella said, bending down to loosen the Velcro on her beach sandals before kicking them off.

‘Too right,' Sonya agreed. ‘Well, we knew there'd be no beaches but it was bit of a shame that neither Delhi nor Agra had a swimming pool within hitting distance. Would have been too much to expect at the prices we'd paid, I guess.'

‘Not that we'd have had the time in either place anyway,' Estella reminded.

Aware that Estella was about to jog down to the water's edge, which would put paid to all conversation for the rest of the morning, Sonya said, ‘Hey, Stel, before you go – I feel I should apologize for the pretty shitty holiday so far. And say a big thank you for putting up with all my shenanigans in Delhi.'

Estella squinted in the sun. ‘Hmmm … I could ask for money by way of recompense from you. But general trouperish behaviour is part of the service when you're best friends, I guess.'

Sonya pretended to kick Estella's backside with her bare foot, unsure of whether the reference to money was a deliberate and cheeky reminder of Keshav. That would be so typical! But Estella was already running down to the sea and Sonya watched her capering in, the water splashing around her ample bum before she gracefully dived in, head first. Sonya, who had always been much less of a water baby, pulled a beach towel out of her rucksack and
spread it out on the sand. She also pulled out the hefty book she had found in the resort's library, along with a writing pad, before sinking down on the towel.

Mention of Keshav's name still made her start, although Estella seemed oblivious to this, chattering on about him at the drop of a hat. Sonya had not been able to fully assess her own feelings yet. She continued to be both ashamed at her naivety and vaguely hopeful that Keshav's behaviour had not been deliberately deceitful from start to finish. Surely – especially – the tenderness with which he had kissed her? It could not all have been made up.

Fortunately, the peace of this Kerala beach was causing all the tumultuous events that had taken place in Delhi to recede in Sonya's mind to a place that was far away and increasingly imbued with an air of unreality. She picked up the writing pad and looked out at the sea. This was the perfect place to write her postcards and letters. She had sent a postcard to Mum and Dad from Delhi airport, even though it had proven more difficult than she had imagined to choose the right one. The minuscule airport shop had millions of pictures of Delhi but they were all either of the Qutb Minar, or the Red Fort or Connaught Place, all of which reminded her rather starkly of the two sightseeing jaunts with Keshav. She could imagine Mum sticking it up on the fridge door forever-more and of her having to look at it and be reminded of Keshav every time she opened the fridge to get something out! Finally, Sonya had chosen a postcard that showed a handsome Mughal structure surrounded by stately bottle palms, and scrawled a couple of innocuous lines on the back.

Sonya lay back on the beach towel and covered her face with her book in order to blank out the sun. She wondered
whether she would ever be totally honest to her parents about the sequence of events that had taken place in Delhi; especially the more troubling bits about Keshav. It would only serve to distress them unduly. Certainly, that whole experience had helped her identify with Neha's predicament when she, as a teenager, had kept a pretty big secret from her parents too. Sonya still felt relief flood through her at the thought that she had somehow managed to stop short of actually having sex with Keshav and was now not stuck with an impossible decision as Neha once was. It was so easily done and poor Neha, escaping her sheltered Delhi life in far-off Oxford, must have been so easily led at that young age …

Sonya sat up and looked far out to the horizon where she could see the sails of what were probably fishing vessels. Was it true, then, about mothers and daughters and things that got passed down without warning or intention? How curious that when Neha had talked about Simon, the boy she should have fallen in love with, it was Tim's face that Sonya had seen in her head.

She looked down at the blank writing pad on her lap. She really ought to crack on with her letter to Tim, so she could post it as soon as she arrived in England. He would have already left for Durham by the time she arrived in Orpington and she did want to wish him luck in his new life. She had behaved abominably with him on that last meeting and now she felt deeply ashamed at having imagined she was somehow entitled to all that anger. Sonya had learnt a lot in these past few days, not least that no one had the right to blame anyone else for the circumstances of their own life.

She looked at the waves breaking gently nearby, foam mingling with sand and churning it up into a soft golden
sludge. It was impossible to think that the Boxing Day Tsunami had landed with such force on these peaceful shores just six years ago, wreaking indescribable havoc. The concierge back at the resort had told them that Marari Beach had been particularly badly hit. But he had added cheerfully that everything that could have been restored was now back to normal. ‘See now, completely peaceful,' he had said. ‘No one will even know that such a thing ever happened here.'

However, Sonya knew – with her newfound wisdom – that this was never the case. When such dramatic events overtook places and people, some things were surely indubitably transformed forever.