Monsoon Memories (16 page)

‘Do your mum and dad know that you know about Shirin?’ Aunt Anita continued, not seeming to mind Reena’s outburst.

Reena shook her head,
no
.

‘You of all people finding it…’ Her aunt wore the same funny half smile Reena had glimpsed on Madhu’s face. What did it mean? Aunt Anita reached across and squeezed her arm. ‘I can’t imagine what you must have thought when you found out, how you must have felt...’ She stopped. ‘Wait a minute; how did you know that that girl in the picture was Shirin?’

‘I asked Madhu.’

‘What did she tell you?’ Aunt Anita’s eyes bored into Reena’s.

‘She told me what Aunt Shirin was like as a child.’ The words ‘Aunt Shirin’ stuck in her throat as she said them out loud. They sounded clumsy, artificial. Aunt Anita was waiting, her face tense. Why? What was it she didn’t want Reena to know? ‘Nothing much else,’ Reena continued. ‘Madhu said it was not her place.’

Aunt Anita visibly relaxed. ‘Darling Madhu.’

‘What is it you are all hiding? Why this conspiracy, this...?’ Reena stopped, frustrated. She wanted to throw something. She wanted to yell so loud her mother stopped whatever she was doing and came to rescue her.

Aunt Anita reached across and, with her finger, tipped Reena’s face so her eyes met hers. ‘I wish I could explain...’

Reena looked away. Why didn’t Aunt Anita explain, then? Why didn’t anyone tell her anything? She bit her tongue to keep from voicing her anger out loud.

Aunt Anita let go of Reena’s face and leaned back in her chair, resting her head on the cushion.

The storm had finally abated. Night had set in, and lights around the pool had come on, bathing everything in an eerie glow. Men were returning home from work. They shouted greetings as they passed each other briefly on the way to their families. Women had started cooking dinner, and aromas of chapattis baking, of spices sizzling in oil floated up to Reena, making her stomach growl. Disjointed snatches of conversation from neighbouring flats reached her ears and she tried to make sense of the chatter, to stop her mind dwelling on her spat with Aunt Anita. Her mother had obviously used the snack as an excuse to give Reena and Aunt Anita some time together. Or maybe she had just wanted some time to herself, a break from having to console Anita.
Oh, Mum, I hope I haven’t made everything worse,
Reena thought.

‘About cutting Shirin out of our lives,’ Aunt Anita’s voice was just audible above the noisy song of the crickets. ‘It was a long time ago. A decision was made. I… I wish…’

‘You two look so grim. What have you been talking about?’ Preeti stood in the doorway, an indulgent smile on her face.

Oh no, Mum—bad timing,
thought Reena. What had Aunt Anita been about to say?

As usual, Preeti did not wait for a reply. ‘Come on in,’ she said, ‘or the mosquitoes will have a field day.’

* * *

Progress so far: This detective confronted Aunt Anita boldly about Aunt Shirin. Aunt Anita didn’t reveal much, on account of her fragile emotional state, except to say that she thought what Aunt Shirin did was
courageous.

Plan D: Work on Aunt Anita.

This time it was Aunt Anita who was waiting for Reena as she got off the school bus. She was perched on the little mound of mud just outside the gates to Reena’s apartment complex, clad in skinny jeans, a figure-hugging T-shirt and high heels. Her legs were crossed, displaying ridiculously slim ankles, and she was reading a book. Whatever she was going through, Aunt Anita always dressed with care. It mattered very much to her how she looked, the image she projected, she had told Reena once, laughing. ‘Silly, really, but that is how I am. I always feel better when I know I look good.’ She was wearing those ridiculous film-star sunglasses again, but today they did not look out of place. It was a scorcher. Even at half past five in the evening, the sun shone down relentlessly, perhaps to make up for the fact that the previous day it had been eclipsed by the storm.

As the bus pulled up, the driver, seeing her aunt, let out a low long whistle. Reena caught the older boys staring, their mouths open, at this vision of loveliness sprouting from a mound of mud.

‘Who is she, Reena?’ they called out as she started down the steps and her aunt closed her book and stood, revealing endlessly long legs. She had had to endure a whole day of teasing from them about her ‘boyfriend’ and now they were being sweet as gulab jamuns.

‘Is she a film actress? A model? Do we know her?’

Reena ignored them, but Aunt Anita caught some of their questions. She grinned and waved as the bus pulled away, more slowly than usual. The bus driver and the boys beamed like monkeys. Reena noticed that the security guard had turned his chair so he faced Aunt Anita. He was grinning too, something he never did, not for Reena at least. Across the road, a collection of men had gathered, hiking up their lungis, patting their hair in place, ostensibly to buy beedies off the little shop, but really to stare at Aunt Anita. That shop had never seen so many customers at this time of day. Aunt Anita lazily lifted one arm in salute to the ogling men. They laughed with delight and hitched their lungis up even higher.

‘Why didn’t you tell them I was a model?’ Aunt Anita laughed.

‘Didn’t want to,’ Reena mumbled, not in the best of moods after the name-calling she had endured all day, but glad her aunt was happier today. The attention Aunt Anita got from men always lifted her spirits. Personally, Reena thought it would annoy her after a while, having men stare at her all the time. But what did
she
know? She had never experienced it, except by proxy when she was with her aunt.

‘So how was your day?’ Aunt Anita asked Reena, waving at the security guard with two fingers like the film actresses did on TV. The security guard shone and swivelled his chair to follow their progress, as they walked down the steps, past the pool and towards their block of flats.

‘Okay,’ she mumbled. She had ignored everyone, but having to pretend that it didn’t hurt had cost her. Divya had joined in as well and that had hurt most of all. She knew why Divya had done it of course—to be one of the crowd. Suddenly she understood what Aunt Anita had meant when she said that sometimes it was easier to go along with something rather than take a stand. Reena hoped she, Super Sleuth Reena Diaz, was different—more courageous,
not
a coward.

‘Shall we sit here for a bit?’

Aunt Anita indicated the shady spot by the pool where Reena and Murli sat sometimes.

‘Okay.’

Reena dropped her bag and flopped down. She shut her eyes against the sun and focused on the blurry ‘cell figures’ dancing across her closed eyelids. She was going to take a stand for Aunt Shirin, she promised herself.

Super Sleuth Reena Diaz: Not afraid of anything or anyone.

‘You were right, you know. What you said. About Shirin… A wise little thing you are… And brave. Like her.’

Reena opened her eyes and stared at her aunt.
How did she know what I was thinking?
Her aunt was playing with her book, her beautifully polished nails the pale pink of prawn shells against the sand-coloured book edge. Based on her aunt’s reaction the previous day, Reena hadn’t expected her to bring Aunt Shirin up again. She had spent her time at school, especially during Kannada class, thinking up ways to pursue Plan D: How best to ask her aunt about Shirin without antagonising her? And now, Plan D was looking to be a success with precious little effort on her part. Either the art of detection was very easy or she was extremely good at it…

‘I’ve been thinking about it all day. Perhaps it’s time.’ An odd note crept into Aunt Anita’s voice. ‘And you…’ For the first time since she’d mentioned Shirin, her aunt looked right at her, still thinking aloud. ‘You’re old enough to understand; well, not fully perhaps…’

Stop treating me like a child. Of course I’m old enough,
Reena screamed in her head.

‘I really ought to talk to Deepak… Try once more.’ Aunt Anita said.

No
, thought Reena, her father’s face and the blatant lie he’d told her swimming before her eyes:
‘You know I’ve just got the one sister, your Aunt Anita.’
Somehow she knew that if her dad got wind of this, the photograph would be confiscated, the topic banned, and they would all go back to pretending Aunt Shirin had never existed.
Please, Aunt Anita, please don’t.
She didn’t dare say it out loud in case her aunt, perversely, went straight to her dad. In her experience, especially since finding the photograph, adults were not to be trusted. And—hang on a minute; Aunt Anita had said, ‘Try once more.’ Did this mean she had tried before and failed? Was it her dad Aunt Anita was afraid of? How could that be? Her dad adored Aunt Anita. He had been true to his word and had not lectured her about her impending divorce.

Her aunt was still thinking out loud, ‘But will Deepak…? He can be so…’

Yes, it was her dad. Had the rift, Shirin being disowned, been something to do with him?
No, please let it not
.

Aunt Anita glanced at Reena, nodded her head, having reached some sort of decision. ‘At the very least, you deserve to know about Shirin. And I’m aching to talk about her. What was it you wanted to know?’

If what she was thinking was right, if it implicated her dad in some way, should she find Aunt Shirin? Or forget she existed like the rest of them and ‘go with the flow’ as Aunt Anita had said. Divya calling her a freak, teasing her about her boyfriend.
No, I am not like that. I refuse to be a coward.

Aunt Anita cleared her throat and Reena realised she was waiting. ‘Everything. How she was, what she liked, her hobbies. I want to get to know her. She is my aunt too.’
Detectives cannot afford to shy away from the truth, no matter how much it hurts.

Aunt Anita closed her eyes. ‘I kept her letters, you know...’

‘She wrote to you?’ Reena sat up, her voice shrill.

Aunt Anita nodded. ‘Not after... You know... Before, when I was away, doing my pre-university course.’

‘Oh...’ Reena digested this information. There were letters, written by Shirin herself! What else would she find? And would her aunt let her...

‘I read them when I miss her desperately, when I ache to see her, talk to her.’

Reena nodded, not wanting to open her mouth lest the question that was on the tip of her tongue popped out involuntarily.

‘I have them with me now. You can borrow them if you like. Get a feel for the person Shirin was...’

At last, a breakthrough! Despite her worries about her dad being involved, Reena found herself behaving the way men did around Aunt Anita—grinning like an idiot, unable to stop.

Progress so far: There are letters—actual letters that Aunt Shirin wrote! Aunt Anita has promised to lend them to this detective to read. Plan D galloping ahead at full speed.

This detective thinks, based on something Aunt Anita said, that the person Aunt Anita is afraid of, who is perhaps stopping her from contacting Aunt Shirin, is her brother Deepak, this detective’s dad. This detective hopes that this is not the case as, despite everything, she does adore her dad. He has his faults, like his lecturing about status and family name, but he is the one who sneaks her chocolate when she is up late studying for exams and who still even now lets her sit on his lap sometimes and rests his chin on her shoulder where it tickles.

This case is too close for comfort and this detective is tempted to stop, but she is going to continue, as would all good detectives.
Do not let emotions get in the way of truth
.

Next Steps: Find clues in the letters as to the cause of rift.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Rickety Old Rickshaw

‘A
nita! Anu...’ Shirin called, before she could stop herself. She was in Wembley, shopping for saris.

The woman turned and Shirin’s heart sank. Of course it wasn’t Anita. What was she thinking? Perhaps it was seeing her picture on the computer—that gorgeous smile, that heart-stopping face: The Face of India. How she would have teased her! How they would have laughed!
Ooh, Anu, Face of India now, are you?
And:
You married Uttam, became a model, both of which Ma was opposed to. Did she let you? Has she changed that much? Did she not launch into her usual, ‘No daughter of mine will swan around half naked in front of strangers. No daughter of mine will marry a Hindu...?’ Perhaps she did try to stop you, but you did it anyway. Good for you.
And:
Anu, why did you change your name to Sinha? I remember that time Michu Aunty got married, became Michu Machado, how you swore never to do that, to give up your identity so easily, take on someone else’s. You were adamant. And you always kept promises, even ones made to yourself. So what happened? What changed?
And:
Anu, why have you stayed away? I thought you, of all people, would understand…

‘I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else...’ she mumbled, not quite meeting the woman’s eyes.

‘That’s okay. Happens all the time.’

‘Does it?’ Shirin looked up, surprised.

‘No,’ laughed the woman.

It does to me
, Shirin wanted to say. Every so often, she saw someone who looked achingly familiar, and before rational thought set in, her heart leaped, making her hope for one brief moment that it was a member of her family come to find her, to bestow forgiveness, to take her home...

Once, she had seen a woman standing at a crowded bus stop in her rear-view mirror and something about her—perhaps it was the way she stood, stooping slightly, or the way wispy curls escaped her bun—convinced Shirin it was Madhu. It had been during the early years in the UK, when hope still flared. She ended up giving the woman—a Sri Lankan who could speak very little English but was determined to communicate, pleased that Shirin appeared to have recognised her—a lift to her destination, a one-bedroom flat in a block of council houses in Kenton. ‘You meet me Sri Lanka,’ she insisted. Shirin didn’t have the heart to tell her she had never been to Sri Lanka. ‘Come have tea,’ the woman said when Shirin dropped her off outside her block of flats. Shirin squeezed her hand and left, amid reassurances that she would visit another time.