Chapter Ten

It was not easy for Bu to rid her mind of three people at the same time, dead Mangal, Kalpana the flirt and Vivek the...the flirt, obviously but also, and of course more importantly than being a flirt, the possible killer of dead Mangal. It was one thirty and outside the huge grey and white building of Churchgate station Bu tried to buy something from the rows of trolley stalls as a treat for herself. She tested the cotton of a floral night gown by pulling it taught between her fingers, counted the packs of one hundred cotton buds and tried to unravel the stitched on south Indian sari from a Barbie doll with a milky white face. She caught herself in an orange-rimmed shaving mirror. Ajit Yadav’s bruises around her neck were now the size of two rupee coins and a yellowy blue. She walked down Veer Nariman Road and stopped at the fountain named after a Roman Goddess, Flora. It was thirty three degrees and the most humid day of the year so far. She dipped her hands into the warm water. They looked like they belonged to an old woman. Her palms were pinkish red raw and spotted with blisters from carrying rice and oil from the shops and scrubbing the grey collars of her father’s shirts. No wonder, she had no one to help her with her burdens and they seemed to be mounting every day. Sweat was collecting under her nose. As she went for more water she bumped shoulders with someone. It was a boy from her school, Rohit Mehta.

‘Hi,’ said Bu quickly wiping her upper lip with the back of her hand.

Rohit was the kind of handsome that made heads turn, not just girls but parents too, he never greased up his hair and he was the only vegetarian in her class that did not wear glasses. Rohit pointed to her, he pretended not to know who she was, they laughed, it was funny. Bu asked him if he was shopping alone. He said he was just alone. They laughed again. Bu and Rohit strayed around the city. On one of the clogged and labyrinth like gullies that bordered Fort, the business district of Mumbai, Rohit bought her a drink from a stall - cool coconut water with a stripey straw. They past St Marks a school that neither of them had been able to get into and pointed to a group of three geeky guys and Rohit said that they looked like they waxed their facial hair. They laughed some more, it was funny. By sunset they were strolling along the coffin size shops and the sweet marts smelling of frying chick pea flour and raw sugar on Kalbadevi Road. Rohit bought her a packet of Bourbon biscuits. She glanced at the bottom, the sell by date had been scratched off. Slates of cardboard stuck together with old paper cream but she ate them anyway and the more she swallowed the better they tasted.

‘Would you...like to come over?’ said Rohit.

Vivek’s face floated into Bu’s mind, she kicked him out straight away.

Rohit did not live in a block of flats but an old style bungalow with a driveway and verandah that was a few miles from Kalbadevi Road. Bu was treated. Rohit played English rock on his guitar and sang. His singing voice was very different to his speaking voice, shrill and a bit girly but Bu had never been serenaded before. Two house servants prepared and served a hot supper and at nine o’clock, Bu said thank you many times to Rohit before going home, floating and giggling inside.

‘Want to tell me anything?’ Mr. Khosler slid back slowly from the kitchen with two mugs of milky cardamom coffee on a tray. Bu shook her head. ‘Come on, I know everything anyway. I’m the parent remember?’ Bu blew on her the top of her mug. He never knew her secrets. ‘I’ll get your phone back...soon,’ he said. Bu wished it were true. She took a deep breath. Why not?

‘You know Mangal...’ she said.

‘Forget all about him,’ said her father.

She was trying to, ‘I have...’ she egged herself on, ‘seen him, coming out of the lift at Maya,’ it was out at last. Her father did not react so she tried twisting the words around. ‘He saw me, when he was coming out of the lift,’ still nothing, ‘I went to the next floor and he saw me, I saw him and he thinks I know who killed him, maybe because I can talk to him and no one else can, but I don’t know, I don’t know anything...’

Her father stroked her soft hair, ‘is this about your mother dying? I wish she hadn’t died too, but we have to face it, reality, our fate.’

Bu stood in the middle of the living room, ‘Dad I saw Mangal like I see you, like he’s alive and not...dead.’

It was no use her father was dismissing her experiences with ‘it’s just your imagination’ and ‘all death is traumatic’ and ‘I know you miss school’ and ‘you’re now at a difficult age’ and there were a few more. None of them was helping her, ‘but Dad...’

‘That’s enough,’ Mr Khosler pictured Ajit Yadav in his flat alone with his daughter, his dirty hands around her childish neck. ‘We’re going to be just fine. Then you can just forget about the murder, pretend it never happened.’ he said raising his voice a little. ‘I know you don’t have luxuries but that’ll change Bu. There’s no need to panic about money and that’s why I think the best thing is that you...’

Bu went to the living room threshold.

‘...go to live with the Pravins,’ he said.

Mr Khosler looked at his wife’s photograph, garlanded with thick marigolds that hung next to the metal cupboard. She had the same pair of eyes as his daughter, they looked down on him with loving pity. Bu laughed at first until she could see that he meant it. She shook her head violently at her father, then shouted at him.

‘Stop it.’ Mr Khosler had made up his mind, ‘it’ll just be for a while...’

‘Dad, please...Dad?’

‘Go and pack,’ was the last thing her father said.

That night as Bu lay on top of her bed and on top of a soft bag full of all her worldly possessions she dreamt of Mr Pravin. He was outside his flat on the first floor of the Maya Building, on the stairwell. He was wearing a shirt that was exactly the same colour as the paint on the wall behind him - a lady finger green. Bu awoke the next morning knowing that her dream sadly would ring true. At eleven Mrs Pravin arrived. Mr Khosler did not look at Bu as she left but when the doors closed and the clicking and clacking of two pairs of champals had died away, he went to his wife’s photograph and a large, grey hole appeared where his heart used to be.