Secrets & Saris (13 page)

‘All the important people told?’ Shefali asked.

‘There’s only Reema left,’ Neil said. ‘I need to let her know, but it can wait. I’ll e-mail her tomorrow.’

It was on the tip of Shefali’s tongue to ask
why
Reema needed to be told when Neil answered her unspoken question.

‘It’s part of our custody agreement for Nina,’ he said. ‘We need to inform each other if we shift cities, or remarry, or change jobs. But I’d have told her in any case. She’s been part of my life for so long, even though she’s not particularly involved with Nina.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Shefali said, but she felt a strange emotion—not jealousy, exactly, but a feeling that she’d missed out on so much of Neil’s life, when he’d been younger and less careworn. All those years had gone to Reema, and they’d been wasted on her.

Feeling quite fiercely possessive about Neil, she went across the room, and planted a kiss firmly on his lips.

‘Hey, Nina and Bela might come in at any moment,’ Neil said, gently disentangling himself from her arms.

Shefali shrugged and stepped back a few inches. Gently, she loosened a button on Neil’s shirt and put her hand under the crisp cotton, sliding it over his smooth brown skin till her hand was directly over his heart. She could actually feel his heartbeat quicken, and she gave him a triumphant little smile as he groaned under his breath and pulled her into his arms.

TEN

The engagement party
came and went in a flurry of activity. Neil’s parents and sister came down to Jabalpur for it, and so did Shefali’s parents. Shefali’s mother was the only one who didn’t seem entirely pleased, and Shefali heaved a sigh of relief after she’d seen her parents off at the airport.

‘My mum drives me bananas,’ she confided to Neil over a cup of coffee at their favourite café. ‘She seems to think that if I’d only gone back to Delhi she’d have got me a maharajah to marry at the very least.’

Neil laughed. ‘I can’t blame her for thinking I’m not a very good catch,’ he said. ‘She’ll probably resent my existence for the next twenty years.’

‘Oh, she’ll come around once we have kids,’ Shefali said. ‘She’s nuts about my nephew, and she was trying to hide it but she took quite a fancy to Nina as well.’

Neil hardly heard the last part of the sentence.
Once we have kids.
He felt as if she’d punched him in the stomach. And she’d said it so casually, as if it was a perfectly natural thing—which, to be fair, it was. God, he’d been so stupid and short-sighted, rushing into an engagement without clearly spelling things out to Shefali.

He looked away for a few seconds, and when he turned back to her his face had a steely expression on it that made Shefali’s heart sink all the way down to her stilettos.

‘Shefali, I thought you knew,’ he said. ‘I don’t want any more kids.’

Shefali stared at him in dismay.

‘You mean...?’

‘I mean no more children,’ he said heavily. ‘I don’t think I can go through the experience all over again. At least it’s not something I’m ready for right now.’

‘And you thought I’d be OK with that?’

‘I told you,’ he said, though he realised now that it hadn’t registered. ‘The night we had that argument—before Bela broke her leg.’

‘That was
aeons
ago!’ Shefali said in disbelief. ‘You also said that you’d never remarry—how was I supposed to know you meant part of it and not the whole thing?’

‘I realise that,’ Neil said. ‘And I’m sorry. But I don’t want more children. I should have talked to you about it again before—’

‘But
I
want kids!’ she interrupted, her voice shaking in her agitation. ‘I love Nina, but I want to have children of my own as well. Not right away, but in a few years. And you won’t be bringing up a child alone this time. It isn’t the same thing at all!’

‘That’s not the only reason,’ Neil said. ‘It wouldn’t be fair to Nina. She’s used to being the centre of my life. If we have a child together it would make her feel excluded—as if she’s being sidelined out of my life. And there’d be a huge age-gap between her and any child we had. It’d be like a whole new family that she’s not a part of.’

Holding on to her temper with difficulty, Shefali said, ‘It would probably do her good, having a sibling. Being an only child isn’t very healthy.’

‘I think
I’m
the best judge of what’s good for my daughter,’ Neil said.

At that, Shefali stood up abruptly, pushing her chair back. ‘I thought the whole point was that she was going to be my daughter too,’ she said quietly.

Neil looked up at her. ‘Would you still think of her as your daughter if you had a child of your own?’ he asked.

Shefali gave him a long, steady look. ‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,’ she said. ‘And I can’t believe you’re telling me the day after we get engaged that you don’t want to have more children.’

‘I thought you already knew,’ Neil said. ‘I’ve spent the last four years caring for Nina, and I don’t regret it—not for a minute—but now that she’s a little older and more independent I don’t want to start the whole cycle all over again. It probably seems appallingly selfish to you, but that’s the way I feel.’

Shefali sat down again slowly.

‘I’ve always wanted children,’ she said. ‘There was a huge age gap between me and my older brother, and he left home for college when I was still quite little. It was like being an only child. I always used to think that when I got married I’d have at least three children, so that the house would be full of kids playing and having fun.’

‘I can understand that,’ Neil said. ‘But I can’t change the way I feel. If you’re uncomfortable with it there’s still time—we can postpone the marriage, or even cancel it if that’s what you want.’

He said it casually, but his hands were clenched tight—Shefali, however, was too upset to notice his agitation.

‘No, we’re not cancelling the wedding,’ she said fiercely. ‘I can’t have another broken engagement. It’d kill my parents. We’ll just have to work this out.’

‘Assuming we
can
work it out,’ he said, ‘I would ideally like to avoid a second divorce as well.’

Shefali looked away, but not fast enough, and Neil’s expression changed when he saw the deep hurt in her eyes.

‘God, I’m sorry,’ he said, reaching out and taking her hand even as she tried to pull away. ‘No, I mean it. I don’t know what’s got into me. I’m being a complete jerk.’

Shefali gently disengaged her hands from his. ‘Neil, if you want to call the whole thing off tell me honestly,’ she said. ‘I can handle the mess that comes with it. Don’t try and push me into calling it off for you.’

Neil groaned. ‘Sweetheart, I don’t want to call it off. Let’s talk about this properly later. We’re both too worked up to be able to discuss it rationally right now.’

Shefali didn’t think she’d ever be able to rationally discuss the prospect of never having children of her own, but she nodded, and they finished their coffee in silence.

Neil stared grimly out of the nearest window. He couldn’t help thinking that they’d have been better off if he’d resisted temptation and stayed away from Shefali in the first place. Now he couldn’t bear the thought of not being with her. Had he walked away two months ago he’d have kept her from getting hurt as well. But as things were right now they seemed headed for certain disaster—the most optimistic bookie wouldn’t lay odds in favour of their relationship surviving a year.

‘It’s ironic,’ Shefali said suddenly. ‘Reema didn’t want to have a child, and you forced her to. I
do
want to have babies, and you’re telling me you don’t want them.’

Neil tensed immediately, and she wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

‘It’s not the same thing,’ he said.

‘I’m not saying it is,’ Shefali said, getting to her feet. ‘It’s something that struck me, that’s all. Let’s go. I have a set of lesson plans to go through for next week.’

Except that the lesson plans could have been written in Ancient Greek for all the sense she could make of them. Her head was pounding in misery. She’d thought she could handle Neil not being in love with her, but not wanting children was something else altogether. For as long as she could remember she’d wanted babies—she’d even chosen to work in a playschool so that she could spend time with children before she had some of her own.

Her first impulse when Neil had told her he didn’t want kids had been to call off the engagement. But the thought of spending the rest of her life without him was too unbearable to contemplate. She’d told him she didn’t want to break off the engagement because her parents would be devastated—which was true. Only she was beyond such considerations now. The embarrassment of a broken engagement had seemed important when it was Pranav, but Neil meant so much more to her. She couldn’t think of anything other than the fact that she wouldn’t be able to live without him.

There was, of course, the possibility that he’d change his mind. Shefali smiled grimly. Betting her own happiness on Neil’s unlikely change of heart was so feeble that it was funny.

The phone rang and Shefali picked it up. ‘Yes, Neil?’ she said, her voice flat, though her heart was thumping so hard she could barely hear herself think.

‘I was thinking about what you said,’ Neil said quietly. ‘About my forcing Reema to have the baby and telling you I don’t want kids.’

‘OK...’ Shefali said, not knowing how to respond. Where was he going with this? Had he changed his mind after all? And if he hadn’t, why was he calling her?

‘You were right. I’m not being fair to you, and I probably wasn’t being fair to Reema either.’ Neil paused for a second, not sure how to phrase what he had to say next. He’d thought about the situation from every possible angle, and there was only one solution he’d been able to come up with. ‘If we do have a kid, it would be your responsibility,’ he said. ‘I mean, I’d provide for it financially and everything, but you’d need to be prepared to bring it up on your own.’

‘On my own?’ Shefali repeated after him like an automaton, anger stirring within her for the first time. ‘You mean you wouldn’t acknowledge the baby?’

‘I would,’ he said. ‘I do care for you, and I hate the thought of you being unhappy—’

‘You just don’t hate it enough to bring yourself to have children with me,’ Shefali said bitterly. Nothing had changed, and she’d been naïve to assume that it would.

‘So,
Nina’s
your child, but my son or daughter wouldn’t be? Is that it?’ Shefali asked. ‘Neil, that’s so cold-blooded I don’t know what to think. If anything, it’s worse than not having children at all.’

Neil’s hand tightened on the phone. He was finding it impossible to explain to Shefali what he was going through, but it looked as if he wouldn’t have to—Shefali sounded so coldly furious that she’d probably break off their engagement in the next sentence.

‘It’s not about you,’ he said quietly. ‘It was a thought,’ he said. ‘Like I said, if it were down to me I wouldn’t have more children.’

‘If it were down to you, you wouldn’t have proposed to me either,’ Shefali said, an immense sense of weariness settling on her. It was no good battling this and pretending that she could make it work when Neil was so clearly not interested. ‘I’m sorry, Neil. I threw myself at your head and I’ve put you into this situation. Let’s forget the whole thing, shall we? You’ll be a lot happier without me, and I’ll survive without you.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Have a good life,’ she said, and cut the call, switching her phone off for good measure. ‘So that’s that,’ Shefali said out loud.

To her own surprise, she didn’t feel like crying or breaking things—she felt numb, as if someone very close to her had just died. Pulling a shawl around her, she went to stand by the window. This time Neil wasn’t likely to come rushing over to make up, but she couldn’t help glancing out. Just in case. The only person in sight was the neighbourhood night watchman on his rounds, and she closed the window with a bang and drew the curtains.

She was quite calm as she went around the flat, putting off the lights, but when she got into bed and picked up a book to read her eyes fell on the ring on her engagement finger. A giant hand seemed to squeeze her heart, and she bit her lower lip to suppress the tears that sprang to her eyes. She put her book down on the bedside table, took the ring off, and put it carefully on top of the book. Only then did she let the tears flow, switching off the bedside lamp and burying her face in the pillow so that she couldn’t hear the sound of her own sobs.

Nina didn’t come to school the next day, and Shefali was glad. She wouldn’t have been able to behave normally around her, and she didn’t want the bubbly little child being affected by what was essentially a grown-up quarrel.

‘Are you feeling all right?’ one of the teachers asked curiously as she helped Shefali lock up her office.

‘Bit of a headache,’ Shefali said briefly. She hadn’t told anyone that her engagement was off. She wasn’t sure if Neil had told Nina yet, and in any case the thought of talking about it was as appealing as a multiple root-canal.

If she was honest with herself, she knew she hadn’t wanted to break up with Neil—the previous night had been absolutely miserable as she’d tossed and turned, replaying everything she and Neil had said to each other in her mind. Only her bruised pride had stopped her from calling him. That and the thought that he might change his mind—
again
!—and come to her. Well, he hadn’t. Perhaps he was glad to be rid of her. Or was he expecting her to come crawling back to him on her own?

Shefali’s hands curled unconsciously into fists by her sides. The pain in her heart was almost unbearable. She might do it—go to him and beg him to take her back. However much it went against the grain.

‘That old lady’s waiting for you outside,’ one of the school helpers came in to say. ‘Nina’s nanny.’

‘I’ll be out in a minute,’ Shefali said, and her heart began to race.

She could think of no reason for Bela to be at school—unless she’d come to tell her that they were leaving, that Nina wouldn’t be coming back. Hurriedly, she pushed her hair away from her face and retied it with a scrunchie, glancing into a mirror to check that she looked composed enough. In spite of her age, Bela had sharp eyes, and Shefali didn’t want her picking up on quite how disturbed she was feeling.

‘Good to see you, Bela Mashi,’ Shefali said. ‘How’s the ankle?’

Bela looked up, and smiled, but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. She looked tired, and old.

Shefali instinctively put a hand out to her. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

‘Can I speak to you?’ Bela said without answering the question. ‘I would have called before coming, but I didn’t have your number.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Shefali said, helping Bela up and taking her into one of the empty classrooms. A couple of the teachers gave her odd looks as she settled Bela onto a chair with a stool for her injured ankle. Shefali went to the door and shut it, then came back to Bela.

‘I’m not going to ask you what happened,’ Bela said. ‘But Neil told me today that he’s not sure if you’re getting married after all.’ She paused a little, then said flatly, ‘He’s very unhappy.’

Right
. Shefali felt hot anger bubble up, but before she could say anything Bela continued.

‘He said it’s his fault. And he told me not to try talking to you.’

‘And so you came here as soon as you could?’ Shefali said sarcastically.

Bela gave her a steady look. ‘Yes, I did,’ she said, and Shefali immediately felt ashamed of herself. ‘I’m an old woman, and I don’t always do as I’m told.’