Secrets & Saris (5 page)

Embarrassed at having said so much, Shefali picked up her paintbrush and started slathering paint on the wall.

Neil went back up the stepladder, but after while he said softly, ‘You’re pretty amazing—you know that?’

Startled, Shefali almost dropped her brush as she turned to look at him.

He gave her a quick smile. ‘I mean it. I’m not the kind of person who hands out empty compliments.’

That she could believe—if anything, he erred on the side of brutal frankness.

‘Thanks,’ she said, and Neil grinned at her.

‘Let’s get the last wall done with and then I’m off,’ he said. ‘I need to pick Nina up from a friend’s house.’

FOUR

‘So he said
that when my hair grew out I should tie the front part of it back and the layers would become more defined,’ Shefali said, peering into the mirror worriedly. ‘That doesn’t seem to be happening.’

Neil tried valiantly to control his expression, failed, and burst out into laughter.

‘Get it cut,’ he said. ‘I’m sure the city has at least one decent hairdresser.’

‘But I always...’ Shefali said, and then, seeing the ridiculous side of what she’d been about to say, started laughing. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s just hair—if they mess it up it’ll grow back again.’

‘Right,’ Neil said. He reached out a hand and solemnly prodded her cheek.

‘What are you
doing
?’ Shefali asked, jerking back and swatting his hand away.

‘Checking if you’re real,’ he said, his eyes glittering. ‘You’re so perfect I was expecting plastic.’

She glared at him. It was a week since he’d helped her out with painting her living room, and he’d come over twice after that, with Priti and a couple of other guys from his TV crew who’d drunk large quantities of
nimbu paani
and helped her get the rest of the flat painted. Today she was going with him to attend a class reunion at a nearby school—one of the ex-students in town for the reunion was a Bollywood actor who had made quite a name for himself playing character parts, and Neil was interviewing him for his show.

‘You’re the one who told me to dress up a little,’ she said indignantly.

‘But you’re perfect all the time,’ Neil protested. ‘Perfect swingy hair, perfect make-up, perfectly ironed, perfectly
fashionable
clothes, perfect shoes—
Ow
, perfect aim with a hairbrush...’

‘You deserved that,’ Shefali told him sternly as she took her hairbrush back, but she was smiling.

The more she got to know Neil, the more she liked him. He continued to be brutally frank about everything, but he was helpful, funny and incredibly loyal to his friends. He also seemed to be incredibly unaffected by Shefali—it was as though that first kiss had never happened. The trouble was Shefali continued to find him as attractive as she had when they’d first met, and it was a little annoying and more than a little frustrating that he treated her like one of the guys. She still didn’t think that she was ready for a relationship, but it would have felt good to think that he was holding himself back too, battling his feelings because the time wasn’t right for either of them...

She bit the thought back with a sigh as Neil got off the sofa and said briskly, ‘Come on—hurry up or we’ll be late.’

The party was more fun than she’d expected. Most of the guests were in their early thirties, and they were a happy mix of people. And of course there was the actor—a dark-skinned man with an intelligent mobile face. He specialised in honest uneducated villager roles, and it came as a bit of shock to hear him speak perfect English. Neil and his crew were circulating among the guests, with Neil doing short interviews with each of them. Later he would cut and edit the segment to around three minutes, but he’d shot for well over an hour before he wrapped up and came to sit next to Shefali.

‘Very bored?’ he asked,
sotto voce
.

Shefali shook her head. ‘Not at all. I spent a lot of time talking to a woman who’s a major in the Army—very interesting the stuff she had to say. Her husband’s in the Army too. And I met a chap who runs a consumer durables dealership. He said he’d give me a good bargain on a washing machine.’

Neil raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re buying a washing machine now? What happened to the austerity drive?’

‘The washerwoman’s ruining my clothes,’ she said. ‘Last week she put a red kitchen towel into the wash with my under-things, and I now have seven pink bras.’

‘Dipping into the money your grandmother left you?’ Neil asked, trying not to think about Shefali in a pink bra.

‘No, I sold my engagement ring,’ she said flatly. ‘Before I left Delhi. He could hardly ask for it back.’

Neil’s eyebrows arched up, and he said after a pause, ‘Good for you. I hope you got a good price for it.’

‘I got a damn good price for it,’ Shefali said, her voice grim. ‘I took a cousin of mine along to a jewellery store and we told the owner that his fiancée wanted an exact copy of my ring. He gave us an outrageous quote—then I asked him to buy the ring from me at that price.’ A brief smile crossed her face. ‘He haggled, of course, but I got a good deal more than I would have if I’d just gone and asked him to buy it.’

Neil didn’t say anything, and Shefali gave him a hard look.

‘Shocked?’ she asked.

He shook his head, and then said, ‘Well, just a little.’

Shefali shrugged. ‘I may have been brought up to be merely ornamental, but I come from a family of diplomats. I can strike a good deal when I need to.’

Neil nodded. Shefali’s family was pretty well-known on the Delhi political circuit. He’d begun to understand a lot better why she’d needed to get away. Her ex-fiancé belonged to a family of wealthy industrialists, and their break-up had caused a major stir in their social circle. Her background also explained her sometimes uptight attitude—she was accustomed to being ‘on display’ most of the time, and found it difficult to loosen up. It couldn’t be more different from the way
he
had been brought up. Though his family was probably wealthier than hers, theirs was old money, and it came coupled with a fine disdain for other people’s opinion of their private affairs.

‘You know, you’re lucky Pranav changed his mind when he did,’ Neil said after a pause. ‘I know you don’t see it that way right now, but things would have been much worse if the two of you had actually got married.’

Shefali looked at him in surprise—this was a completely new point of view. ‘It would have been better if he hadn’t agreed to an arranged marriage when he already had a girlfriend,’ she pointed out. ‘Actually, it would have been even better if he hadn’t had a girlfriend in the first place.’

Neil smiled slightly. ‘Yes, well, what I meant was that, given he did have one, it’s good you didn’t end up married to him.’

‘Maybe,’ Shefali conceded grudgingly. ‘That’s not the way my family saw it, though.’

‘I’m surprised your father didn’t want you to take up a career,’ he said inconsequentially. ‘You’d have done pretty well.’

Shefali shrugged. ‘He has very strong views about a woman’s place in the family,’ she said. ‘But if I’d insisted I don’t think he’d have stopped me. The problem is that I just went along with whatever he planned for me.’

It was only part of the truth. She’d always dreamed of a perfect little family—husband, kids, the works. Her prospective husband’s face had been hazy in her mind. She’d just assumed that her parents would find her someone suitable. The kids, on the other hand, had seemed very real: two boys and a girl, the centre of her existence. She hadn’t even seriously considered a full-time career—it wouldn’t have been fair to the hypothetical kids. Now she cringed at the thought of admitting to anyone that her life’s ambitions had revolved around marriage and motherhood. She still wanted children—once she’d got her life back on track and found someone she could trust enough to marry.

She caught the bemused look on Neil’s face and said impatiently, ‘Not everyone’s as clear about what they want as you are, Neil.’

He laughed, his white teeth gleaming. ‘My family would split their sides laughing if they heard you say that,’ he said. ‘According to them, I’m the most directionless person to walk the earth.’

Genuinely surprised, she said, ‘But why would they think that?’

‘Probably because they’ve spent the last seven years watching me make a complete mess of my life,’ he said drily. ‘Quite unlike my sister, who’s an unqualified success...’

‘What does she do?’

‘She’s pretty much taken over from my father,’ he said. ‘She and her husband run our tea estates in Darjeeling. Her husband’s Sri-Lankan, and he grew up on a tea estate too, so they’re perfect for the job. I found it a little too staid and repetitive for my taste.’ He paused and stared moodily into his glass. ‘And then, of course, there was my extremely short-lived marriage.’

Shefali waited for a while, and when he didn’t say anything she put a hand on his. He looked up, surprised, and she squeezed his hand gently and said, ‘You can tell me. If you want to. God knows I’ve been pouring my woes into your ears ever since we met.’

Neil smiled and squeezed her hand back. Shefali felt a little thrill run through her arm, and she had to struggle to hide her acute awareness of the man across the table.

‘It’s not a very long story. Reema and I had been dating since our schooldays—our families were close, and everyone expected us to get married eventually. I’d just finished college, and I was thinking of going to the US to do an advanced course in film-making. Reema’s parents wanted her to go abroad too, to study further, but she wanted to be a singer. She had a lovely voice, and she was training in Hindustani classical as well as jazz.’

‘I thought you couldn’t learn both together?’ Shefali said, frowning. ‘They’re very different styles of music.’

‘Reema was always the queen of having her cake and eating it too.’ Neil’s voice was light, but there was undertone of anger. ‘Except when it came to being a wife and mother. Because when we found out that she was pregnant all she wanted to do was get rid of the baby and get on with her life.’

Shefali was scandalised, and she knew it showed on her face. She didn’t know a single person who’d got pregnant out of wedlock.

‘That was Nina?’ she asked, hoping she didn’t sound either fake or judgmental.

‘That was Nina,’ he agreed. ‘I wasn’t going to have any baby of mine done away with. We’d been careless, and the way I saw it we had to live with the consequences. My mother was the only one who backed me up, but I got Reema to marry me and have the baby. After Nina was born I couldn’t force her to stay—and, honestly, by then I didn’t want to be with her either. So when Nina was six months old we called it a day, and Reema left for New York to complete her studies.’

‘And you had to bring up Nina alone?’

‘My sister offered to adopt her,’ Neil said. ‘She’s some years older than me, and her son is the same age as Nina—she said she could take care of both of them. I didn’t want that though.’

Shefali frowned. She could understand his scruples about Reema undergoing an abortion—however she couldn’t understand why a twenty-four-year-old single man would want to bring up a baby by himself when he had another option. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Wouldn’t that have been the best solution for both Nina
and
you?’

It was obvious that it wasn’t the first time he’d been asked the question, but she got the feeling that he’d never really answered it before.

‘It didn’t seem right,’ he said hesitatingly. ‘Reema had already left her. My sister would have looked after her well, but Nina would have grown up with the idea that neither of her parents wanted her.’ He flushed. ‘I couldn’t do that to her. I might have been young and inexperienced and unemployed, but I was still her dad.’

Incredibly touched by the admission, Shefali reached out and squeezed his hand. ‘You’ve had it tough,’ she said.

Neil shook his head. ‘Not really. I could have married again, of course, but after the whole thing with Reema I didn’t want to risk it. It wouldn’t be fair to Nina if I got messed up over a woman again. We’re better off on our own.’

Shefali was about to reply when all conversation was rendered impossible by the DJ turning up the music and loudly exhorting everyone to get onto the dance floor. Neil raised an eyebrow at Shefali, but she shook her head. She’d had enough of the party, and dancing with a bunch of uncoordinated strangers wasn’t really her thing.

Neil took her hand and led her out of the hotel where the reception was being held. The atmosphere had changed with his confession, and Shefali was acutely conscious of the hard length of his body as he walked next to her. And he wasn’t treating her like a buddy either—the look he’d given her when they’d left the party showed that he was as conscious of the attraction sizzling between them as she was.

‘What next?’ he asked as they got into his car. ‘We’ve missed dinner—do you want to stop somewhere on the way home?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I had heaps of samosas and chicken tikkas. I won’t be able to eat a bite.’

Neil grinned across at her. ‘Then I guess you won’t have space for ice cream either, will you?’

‘There’s always space for ice cream,’ she said, trying to sound as dignified as she could and failing miserably.

He laughed outright and they drove to the nearest ice cream parlour. It was crowded with college students, and Neil stepped out and got them two cones. ‘Don’t drip ice cream all over the seats,’ he warned. ‘This is a hire car. I need to give it back in good condition when I leave the city.’

They ate their ice cream in companionable silence. His explanation of why he’d elected to bring Nina up by himself had left Shefali with a new feeling towards him—a mingled tenderness and respect that made for a dangerous combination with the strong attraction she already felt.

‘You have an ice cream moustache,’ Neil said, and when Shefali tried to rub at her mouth with a tissue he took both her hands in his and held them together while he leaned forward and very, very gently licked the ice cream off.

Too stunned to react, Shefali sat stock-still as he started the car and drove towards her flat.

‘Why did you do that?’ she asked shakily a few minutes later.

Neil shrugged. ‘It seemed like a good idea,’ he said. ‘Look—we’re almost at your place.’

‘There’s a cow right in front of the school gate!’ Shefali squeaked in alarm, all thoughts of kisses driven out of her head by the sight. Cows were common in the city, and so were water buffaloes, and they roamed around the roads at will. Shefali still hadn’t got used to them, though, and pointedly crossed the road whenever she saw a herd approaching.

‘I noticed,’ Neil said gravely. ‘Maybe you could get out and shoo it away so I can park?’