Take One Arranged Marriage… (13 page)

An auto-rickshaw honked angrily behind her, and Tara realised that she’d wandered off the pavement and onto the main road. She stepped quickly back onto the pavement and the auto pulled up by her.

‘Think you’re taking a stroll in a rose garden, do you?’ demanded the driver, a large and aggressive-looking man. ‘If my auto had
touched you, you’d have screamed blue murder—and I’d have been put in jail most likely.’

‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Tara retorted, temporarily nettled out of her misery. ‘You’d have made an even bigger fuss than you are now, and I’d probably have had to pay you for breaking my legs.’

‘Like the cops would ever take
my
side,’ the auto-driver said, pleased to have provoked a reaction. ‘A poor man has it rough these days—not like you rich ladies, with your fancy clothes and expensive jewellery.’

‘Oh, stop moaning,’ Tara said in exasperation. ‘Look, are you free? I need to go to Forum Mall.’ Her legs were aching, and she was beginning to feel very thirsty. The coffee shop in the mall seemed to be as good a place as any other to regroup and decide what to do next.

‘Can’t see anyone in the auto, can you?’ the driver said. ‘Hop in.’

Tara dutifully hopped in and the driver took off, weaving through traffic at an alarming speed. Tara was still holding the clutch purse she’d carried with her to the wedding, and she opened it to check how much money she had. A few hundred-rupee notes, and her debit card. The card was the one linked to the
account Vikram had set up for household expenses, and Tara fingered it absently. Vikram had given her everything she could have reasonably expected, she thought. Car, bank account, a lovely home—everything except what she really wanted. She felt numb inside, as if all feeling had deserted her.

‘You have enough to pay me, right?’ the driver asked suspiciously over his shoulder. ‘Once this high-class lady got into my auto, and after I’d driven her some forty kilometres she told me she’d forgotten her purse.’

Tara didn’t reply, lost in thought, and he didn’t say anything more—though he kept shooting looks at her through the rearview mirror.

‘We’ve arrived,’ he said, as they pulled up in front the mall. ‘Seventy rupees.’

Tara got out and handed him a hundred-rupee note. ‘Keep the change,’ she said as he began to fumble in an extremely grimy pocket.

He looked up, surprised—tips didn’t come his way very often. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and salaamed. ‘And, madam …?’

‘Yes?’ Tara asked.

‘Don’t look so unhappy,’ the man said. ‘Everything that happens to us is God’s will. Our lives are in His hands.’

Startled by the completely unexpected pious sentiment, Tara stared blankly at him as he restarted the auto and whizzed off, narrowly missing mowing down a careless shopper who’d just stepped off the kerb. Thank heavens she hadn’t gone to the institute, she thought, if even an auto-driver who’d never seen her before in his life could tell how upset she was.

His unexpected sympathy had brought her close to tears again, and she blinked them back fiercely. The coffee shop was a bad idea, she realised, unless she wanted to entertain the waiters by salting her coffee with a flood of tears. A movie was a better idea, she thought, scanning the mall directory—at least it would be dark and no one would be looking at her.

Vikram heard his phone ping and picked it up to see a message from his bank thanking him for using his debit card for three hundred and fifty rupees. For a few seconds he thought the bank had made a mistake, before realising that Tara must have used the card he’d given her. The account was in his name, so the transaction alerts came to his phone.

So she wasn’t just taking a walk, then, he thought, looking at his watch. She’d been gone for over an hour, and he was beginning
to worry. He’d handled the situation badly, and Tara had every right to be upset, but he hadn’t expected her to vanish like this. He wondered whether to call her, but then thought he’d give her another half an hour—it was likely she’d be back by then, and he didn’t want her to think that he was being overly controlling, calling her up and demanding to know where she was.

Tara shut her eyes and tried to block out the soundtrack of the movie. Ironically, it was one she’d wanted to watch, but now she couldn’t bear even to look at the screen. The darkness was a blessing, though. She was in a corner of the movie hall, right at the back where no one could see her, and for the first half hour she’d let the tears roll down her cheeks unchecked. Now she was trying to figure out what to do.

Her first thought had been to leave Vikram and move into the institute hostel, but further thought had shown how impractical that was as a plan. Nothing Vikram had said or done justified her breaking up their marriage. And her parents would be devastated. A daughter who was divorced or even separated from her husband would be a far greater disgrace than a daughter who’d run away from home to study further.

She’d have to go back, however much it hurt her to do so. But not tonight. She didn’t feel she could bear it.

By nine-thirty Vikram was pacing up and down the house. It was more than eight hours since Tara had left, and he’d tried calling her several times. The first time the phone had rung but she hadn’t picked up. After that he’d been getting recorded messages that first told him the phone was out of coverage area, and then that it was switched off. His phone had pinged a few times—his over-helpful bank, thanking him for withdrawing ten thousand rupees from an ATM and, a little later, for spending six thousand five hundred and thirty-five rupees on his debit card.

He messaged Tara, asking,
Where are you?
hoping she’d see the message and reply when she decided to switch on the phone. The house felt very empty without her, he realised.

His phone rang, and he reached for it eagerly, hoping it was Tara calling him back. It was his mother, however, and his first impulse was not to answer. But it kept ringing and, knowing how she worried about him, he finally picked up.

‘Hi, Amma,’ he said.

‘How was Lisa’s wedding?’ his mother asked brightly.

Lisa’s wedding. He’d almost forgotten about it—it seemed so long ago and so unimportant compared to what had happened next.

‘OK, I guess,’ he said. At some point Lisa would tell his mother about her breakdown, but he didn’t feel like talking about it over the phone.

‘I saw some of the pictures her mother loaded onto Facebook,’ his mother said. ‘Lisa looked lovely. There was one of you and Tara, too. Isn’t Tara well? She looked very tired and stressed in the picture. Where is she, by the way? I tried calling her a while back, and her phone seems to be switched off. She hasn’t answered any of my messages, either, and that’s not like her.’

‘She’s gone out,’ Vikram said through his teeth, cursing Facebook and a world where mothers had access to mobile phones and the internet. If Tara had left him his mother would have to know, but if she was just staying away in a fit of pique there was no reason to get his mum worked up.

‘To the lab again?’ his mother asked. ‘Vikram, I don’t have anything against Tara studying as much as she wants, but you need to
make sure she doesn’t overstrain herself. She works way too hard. You need to take care of her. It’s the first time she’s been away from her family.’

‘Right,’ Vikram said, not able to take it any more. ‘Amma, I’m sorry, I need to go. I’ll talk to you later.’

He put the phone down and buried his face in his hands. He was missing Tara unbearably, and he was worried about her, too. If he was lucky she’d have gone to Dr Shanta, but knowing Tara it was unlikely. She wouldn’t want anyone to know how upset she was.

He sat up suddenly. There
was
a way to find out where she was, he thought, picking up the home phone to call his bank.

Ten minutes later he knew that the debit card had first been used at a movie hall in a mall, and that the cash withdrawal had been at an ATM in the same mall. The next time the card had been used it had been at an upmarket hotel on MG Road. His first reaction was relief. She was safe, and if she’d checked into a hotel in Bengaluru she wasn’t planning anything drastic like going back to her parents. At least not yet.

His immediate impulse was to follow her to the hotel, but sense prevailed. He didn’t know
her room number and, while he could quite easily bluff his way past the hotel’s guest confidentiality policy, it wouldn’t be fair to Tara. She’d left because she wanted to stay away from him, and he should respect that. It was hard, though, and it became even harder when he saw a message on his mobile phone from Tara.

Will be back after a few days. Sorry about this. Need some time to myself. Don’t tell parents, please
.

He tried calling her, but her phone was switched off again.

Vikram spent a sleepless night, with the day’s conversation with Tara spooling relentlessly through his head. He’d been careful to keep his own heart guarded, he realised, but, being a selfish bastard, he hadn’t given a thought to Tara’s. To be fair he hadn’t thought her heart needed guarding. He knew that women found him attractive, and several in the past had claimed to be in love with him. But those were infatuations that had burnt out as quickly as they had flared up, and in Anjali’s case she’d ended up hating him. He’d never thought that a woman who knew him as well as Tara did would fall in love with him. He was
good in bed, he knew that, but that was all he had going for him.

He went to work the next day, though he was heavy-eyed and had a pounding headache. Something in his face stopped people from asking questions, though, and Justin cancelled a few meetings after taking a long look at him.

‘You look like hell,’ he said bluntly. ‘I don’t want you scaring clients away. If you’re coming down with something you’d better go home and wait it out.’

‘I’m fine,’ Vikram said wearily, and went back to his office.

He was dreading going back to an empty house, but he wanted to be there in case Tara came back, so he left work at six. There was no sign of her, and from what he could make out she hadn’t come back during the day even to pick up her things. Her cupboards looked undisturbed, and her toothbrush and toothpaste were in their usual place.

The cook had obviously been in the house during the day—yesterday’s uneaten dinner had been thrown away and a new one cooked. The table was laid for two, and Vikram’s appetite fled as he looked at it. He didn’t move the settings, though—there was still a chance Tara might come back later in the evening.

He finally gave up hope around ten o’clock and went into the TV room, mindlessly staring at the screen till exhaustion claimed him and he fell asleep on the couch.

When he awoke it was early morning. The light filtering through the green curtains made the room look like an underwater set from
Titanic
. Vikram sat up and picked up his phone to check his messages. There was nothing from Tara, a couple from work, and yet another message from the bank telling him that his card had been used at the hotel. On impulse he dialled Tara’s number. Switched off. He had the hotel number saved on his phone and, feeling pushed beyond endurance, he dialled it.

‘Can you put me through to Naintara Sundaram, please,’ he said to the operator. ‘I don’t have her room number.’

Tara picked up on the third ring, sounding groggy. ‘Hello?’ she said sleepily. ‘Who’s this?’

Vikram held onto the phone, tongue-tied for the first time in his life. The sound of Tara’s voice had unleashed a whole storm of emotions within him—he felt relieved, angry and vulnerable all at the same time. But uppermost was the realisation that he
cared
. He cared about Tara and he couldn’t live without her. Her absence was like a physical ache
within him, the agony increasing with every hour she was away. And the worst part was that he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to win her back.

The irony of the situation didn’t escape him. He’d been incredibly lucky to find a girl like Tara—he’d had the chance to build a new life with her and he’d blown it in every way possible. Even after that she’d fallen in love with him, and he’d blocked her off. He’d been so caught up with his own muddle-headed views on women and love that he’d let the most precious relationship in his life fall apart without making the slightest attempt to salvage it.

‘Hello?’ Tara said again.

‘It’s Vikram,’ he said, galvanised into speech by the thought that she’d cut the call off if he didn’t say anything.

There was a long pause.

‘Yes?’ she said, and her voice sounded remote and unfriendly.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes.’

Just the single word. No smart-mouthed comeback. His heart thudded uncomfortably in his chest. It might already be too late. If she’d given up on him she’d go and not look back.

‘When are you coming home?’

‘Home?’ Tara repeated, suppressing a hysterical urge to giggle. She’d been wondering if he’d want her back, or if he was so hugely relieved at her leaving that he’d suggest a divorce. It sounded as if he wanted her back, though. ‘I told you—I need some time to myself. I’ll be back in a day or two.’

He was silent, and for a panicky few seconds Tara thought she’d misunderstood him and he’d been crossing his fingers and hoping she’d say that she wouldn’t return.

When he spoke again his voice sounded oddly raspy, as if the words were torn from him. ‘I need you back.’

For what?
Tara wanted to ask him. Because she was a handy person around the house? Because she nicely filled up the wife-shaped gap in his social life? Because she amused him? She knew she’d start bawling if she got into an argument, though, so she just repeated, ‘I’ll be back in a few days,’ and put the phone down.

Immediately afterwards she took it off the hook and, burying her face in the nearest pillow, surrendered to a furious storm of tears.

Vikram was left staring at a phone that had suddenly gone dead, wondering if he’d made things worse.

Tara got home on Thursday—four days after she’d left home. Her stay in the hotel had helped to the extent that she had been able to think out a course of action. It hadn’t helped reduce the pain in her heart, though—it still felt as if she’d been punched in the chest every time she thought about Vikram’s reaction when she’d told him she loved him.