‘Hold on. Mummy wants to talk to you. I think about lunch.’
Leela was left mouthing ‘What?’ to herself in the mirror after the fashion of a cartoon character. She looked at her reflection: were Tintinesque drops of perspiration flying from her face in alarm?
‘Hello?’
A pause. Vikram’s mother was the kind of woman who managed to be ineffably feminine even on the telephone. ‘Hello?’ she said softly.
Oh come on, thought Leela. ‘Hi, Mrs Sahni.’
‘Shalini, Leela.’
‘Hello Shalini.’
Pause.
‘Leela, I was wondering if you might have the time to have lunch with me one day?’
‘Oh. That’s very kind.’
‘Will it be possible for you? This week?’
‘Well …’
‘Which day?’
‘Thursday?’ It was far enough off, she could tell Joan a couple of days before.
‘Lovely. One o’clock?’
‘One o’clock.’
‘See you then, my dear.’
Leela remained looking at the phone. Shalini had hung up.
On Tuesday she forgot to chase the istriwala for her ironing; on Wednesday she was late home and missed him. She couldn’t wear her smarter clothes, therefore. She took out various things from the closet, examined them, wondered where she and Shalini might go for lunch, tried to imagine what her motives were – perhaps just a simple thought of eating lunch together, or feeding the hostelite Leela. Had it been one of those lunches, the sort her mother would take her to when she was in Bombay for work, clothes would have been tertiary. The main focus would have been large quantities of good food. Swati Snacks, for example, or Vithal Bhelwala, or Samovar. Back to the lunch at hand, she couldn’t work out what Vikram’s mother wanted, if anything. Anyway, she couldn’t go suspiciously dressed up, even had this been possible, to the office. Questions would be asked. Sathya – who seemed to be looking more and more haggard, and was out of the office as much as once a week – would notice, ask what was up. Joan would enjoy keeping Leela on a random pretext.
She put on an embroidered sleeveless top that her mother said was nice, and a pair of jeans and forgot about it except for the need to keep an eye on the time all morning lest she be late to meet Shalini outside Regal. As the last half-hour in the office approached she began to feel strange. Sathya wasn’t there. Joan raised an eyebrow but said nothing as Leela went to the loo three times in thirty minutes to check her hair.
‘I’ll go now, for my lunch.’
Joan nodded.
Leela bolted. She couldn’t get a cab to go the short distance but had left herself just enough time to walk. Her heart raced, she wondered if she would be late, or smell sweaty and look dishevelled. Car and truck exhausts seemed to want to breathe on her; the April heat was intense; she nearly had her foot run over twice by an amorous motorcyclist. She got to Regal and tried not to look panicked. Her face must be shiny. Breathe. She squinted into the glare.
A thin young man came up.
‘Hello madam, how are you?’ he asked in polite Bombay Hindi.
He looked young and was neatly dressed in shirt-pant. Leela smiled at him and looked away.
‘Madam, do you want a map? World map hai, India map hai.’ He opened the A2 posters and began to unfurl them.
‘No, thanks.’
The sun glinted off the lamination. She felt a childish attraction to them, perhaps because they resembled the comic books she’d loved in childhood, or perhaps because of the large expanses of turquoise sea. Her knowledge of the different states and some of the smaller cities was poor; she began to peer at Andhra Pradesh.
‘Le lo Madam, le lo. Main aaj hi aaya hun Bambai,’ he began to whine. Buy one, I only came to Bombay today, ‘yeh mera pehla din hai, le lo’, this is my first day, please buy one. ‘Bahut achcha hoga aap ke liye’, it’ll bring you luck.
‘You’re saying it won’t be lucky for you? How much are they?’
‘Two hundred rupees.’
‘No way.’
‘Please madam, it’s my first day, no one’s bought one, please, it’ll be very good for you, take one, take two, I’ll give you a good price.’
What if it really was his first day in the city? She remembered sitting in the café here on a Saturday morning, reading the newspaper, ignoring the white tourists, watching the street kids eye them through the glass.
‘I’ll give you a hundred rupees.’
‘No madam, very good quality, special price for you, one-fifty.’
‘Okay.’ She chose a map of India, political, with many place names in each state, and the seas clearly marked: Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea. There was Kanyakumari at the tip. She felt the same strong but obscure patriotism that she recalled from childhood, watching the Republic Day parade on a neighbour’s television. Those memories were concrete but seemed fictional; not more fictional, though, than London, or Richard, or school and its unending misery.
She gave him the money and he rolled the map up for her and produced a rubber band to hold it in place. Leela stood looking at it. A minute later, he came up behind her again. ‘Madam?’
She wheeled around, snapping, ‘I just bought one, didn’t I?’
It was Shalini’s driver.
‘Madam is waiting,’ he said.
‘Coming.’
The car was parked in a side road, and Leela, holding the map, got in.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘Hello dear. I was worried you were lost.’
‘No, I was there, I just – I got caught up. This boy was selling these.’
The car had started moving again, the air conditioning was on.
Leela tried to wedge the rolled-up map into a less inconvenient place near her leg. Vikram’s mother wore white slacks, perfectly pressed, and a sort of kurta blouse. She carried a tan handbag.
‘He said it was his first day in Bombay,’ Leela said.
‘Oh yes, they always say things like that.’
‘No, I really think it might have been.’
‘I don’t think so, dear.’
Leela opened her mouth to argue and shut it again. They rolled up at the Taj.
‘I thought we might go to Souk, they have a nice lunch buffet,’ Shalini said.
‘Great.’ Leela wasn’t sure whether to leave the poster in the car. A large turbaned man was holding open the door. She got out, still holding the map.
‘Perhaps we can have a look at the shops later,’ Shalini said, as they crossed the lobby.
‘Yes, sure.’ Leela was both rebellious and embarrassed in the perennial scruffy kolhapuris and jeans, amid the brocade furniture and smiling staff. ‘I like the Taj best of all the hotels in Bombay,’ she told Shalini. ‘I like the pretty girls who open the door for you and smile and say hello. Sometimes it’s nice just to come here for the air conditioning and the loo and the smile.’
She was confiding, but Vikram’s mother raised an eyebrow and remained silent.
Leela tried to continue talking while they were led to a table near the enormous windows.
‘The view is lovely,’ she said, as a waiter served hot starters and tripped over the rolled-up map under her chair.
The view was lovely: Bombay, grey, hazy, slightly diminished through tinted glass; the sea, and a small island which the navy used.
Shalini smiled.
Leela worked her way through humous, tahini, and aubergine dip, and wondered why she wasn’t enjoying the food more. It was the Taj, after all. When she had to come here for a meeting she fell on the biscuits and tea with delight. Now, she wasn’t having a particularly good time. The food was also boring. You could eat dirtier, tastier versions of the same thing off the Edgware Road.
‘Are you enjoying the food?’
‘Yes, delicious,’ she said, obliged to eat more pitta bread.
‘My dear, I notice you don’t – you don’t wear very much jewellery. You dress very simply, which is nice. But I wondered if you’ve seen some of the newer designers at boutiques like the Courtyard? You might really like them.’
Leela nodded.
‘You girls today have so much to do, and that’s wonderful. So many opportunities. But it’s also important to be presentable, take care of that side of things.’
Leela smiled.
‘Maybe it would be nice if you got a manicure once a month or so. And you might not know, you haven’t lived in Bombay long, I can point out the best dry-cleaner. There is a place in Colaba, but the best thing is to save a few pieces and send them to Beauty Art at Churchgate.’
‘Right.’
‘I have a good fellow who makes sari blouses, too, for when you need to go to a formal occasion. You have some saris?’
‘I generally wear my mother’s. She has some old temple saris and Bengali silks. But I don’t really know how to tie a sari.’
Vikram’s mother seemed exhilarated. ‘It’s just a case of working with what you have,’ she whispered. ‘Do you see?’
Leela didn’t, and nodded. She wondered if she should claim to be going to the loo and leave. What would happen? She couldn’t do that. She thought of Vikram’s delighted face. ‘Mummy wants to spend some time with you.’
You can’t suppose, Leela said silently, that I will do what you want. I don’t even do what my parents want, as a point of principle, and I care about them.
‘You know, there is an adjustment, when you’re with someone, and with their family and friends. It’s a new start, in many ways. But it can be fun.’
‘Mm.’
‘When I got married, I was much younger than you. Those were different times. I’d just finished college. Vikram was born a year later. I had to learn in a hurry. There are some mistakes it isn’t worth making for yourself.’
Leela nodded. She was unsure what was being talked about. Birth control?
‘Any dessert for you, dear?’
‘No thanks, I’m really full,’ Leela said, then felt despondent, remembering the expression was inelegant. What were you supposed to say? ‘I’m satisfied’, or something of the sort. ‘I couldn’t possibly’, but that might be as vulgar as sticking your little finger out when drinking tea. She grinned. Vikram’s mother gave her an odd look.
In the arcade downstairs they stopped outside a jeweller’s. ‘Do you see those earrings? Very lovely. And quite simple, really.’ Shalini pointed at a pair of enamelled chandelier earrings, set with uncut diamonds.
‘Yes, beautiful.’
‘We should come back here. First maybe shoes.’
In the shoe shop, Shalini pointed out with approval various styles. ‘Those look smart, don’t you think?’ Elegant tan shoes.
‘Yes.’
‘Or those.’ Jewelled wedges. Those look Sindhi, thought Leela, reprising her sister’s summary of some cousins’ sequinned clothing and footwear.
‘Maybe a bit bling for me.’
‘They also make kolhapuris. Would you like to see? Very elegant.’
‘I’m wearing kolhapuris.’ Leela smiled.
Shalini asked the salesmen, who brought out silver and coloured kolhapuris with and without heels, their soles stamped with the shop’s logo.
‘They’re nice. But a lot more expensive than the ones I get in Pune, and those are from Kolhapur,’ Leela said.
Shalini’s face became blank. ‘Maybe we can look in the jeweller’s again.’
Over trays of velvet and across from the wily face of a polite man with a moustache, Leela allowed herself to be bought a pendant and chain. The pendant was silver, meenakari work with glass rather than diamonds in the back. The enamelling was delicate; it was crescent shaped, larger than things she normally wore.
‘It’s very pretty, thank you so much,’ she said.
‘It’s only silver, but I think it’s a good idea to start wearing some jewellery.’
‘I normally avoid buying or being given things that I might be sorry if I lost when I move,’ Leela said.
A hand fell lightly on her shoulder. ‘Well, you’re settled now. So you can stop doing that.’
Leela was startled, as though some deeper part of her consciousness had been disturbed; as though someone had interfered with her back. ‘Yes.’
A few evenings later, alone at the hostel, she tried to sort through the various pieces of information and impressions in her mind. Shalini’s face, slightly sharp, waiting, and her words, which seemed innocuous and yet which Leela couldn’t quite understand; then Vikram, who wanted to see her every day, to talk on the phone when he got home from dropping her off, who was always slightly early when she had to meet him; then her increasing sense of disorientation. She had lost direction, and was moving away from everything that was familiar. There were too many things to get in order. When she tried, they slid around, and would not stay. Sitting on her bed, trying to think, for she was sure that if she could think about it with concentration and calm, it would all make sense, she missed dinner. She undressed, got into bed, and fell deeply asleep. In the night she woke, hungry and tired, and didn’t manage to get up to drink water; the cooler was two floors away.
She dreamt of Richard. She was standing naked in front of his closet with him before they got ready. He knew about Vikram; he was saying to her, ‘It won’t work out. You’re not over me yet.’
Her heart flipped in terror, as though she would be found out. He opened the closet and from the top shelf took a bowler hat.
‘See?’ he said.
She wore the hat, then tried to hide it in her room, but it kept falling out of the cupboard or sliding out from under the bed. Vikram was there. His face was disappointed.
‘It’s not my fault!’ she cried.
In the morning she had a fever. She asked the bai not to clean, and slept till the afternoon. She couldn’t see Vikram, and he called and became more worried. The next afternoon he came to pick her up. She had packed a few clothes; he was taking her to his house.
When in the hostel, sweating into her sheet, she had worried about nothing, simply following each exhausting stage of the fever: dreaming she was walking down a long, dilapidated corridor to look for someone, with someone else chasing her; when she arrived the person she was looking for wasn’t there, and she left again. Her only fear was of the hostel rule that when residents became unwell they must be taken to their local guardian’s home. Leela’s LG was a cousin of her mother, elderly, living in Bandra; she didn’t relish the idea of phoning her.
‘But what about your mother?’ she said to Vikram in the taxi. The outside world was bright, there was too much of it. She felt weaker, though she had been in bed for just two nights and a day.
‘Well, you know her. Of course she didn’t want you to stay alone while you were ill.’
She was too tired to resist, and beginning to feel lonely from the inevitability of the fever. She worried about dying, or suffering a relapse of the jaundice; inside, she had a sense that she must not damage herself. In the future, no matter how bad things appeared now, there would be things she must do.
Vikram took her to the spare room, where the blinds were already drawn, the air conditioner on.
‘Can you turn the AC off?’ she asked.
She got into bed, under a thick blanket lined with a sheet.
‘Let me get some limbu paani. Gopal!’
‘I don’t want,’ said Leela, and fell back into the long, slow funnel of her fever.
In the hours that appeared afterwards, Vikram was her friend. She would wake and find herself, wondering, in the spare room which came to imprint itself in her mind as one of the spaces where she had existed. Vikram would often be there too, reading in a chair near the bed or typing on his laptop. He came to lie in bed with her, and put his arms around her, his face in her hair. ‘I love you, Leela,’ he said.
They hadn’t yet had sex. Between Leela’s lunch of soup and an afternoon nap, they did. It was over soon. Feeling feverish, she held him and lay in his arms. The afternoon continued to unfold. She thought of the servant going out to shop and coming home to start the cooking, an endless routine of tasks after making lunch and cleaning in the morning. Her grandparents had also had a live-in servant, but Gopal was required to wear a white uniform. He called Vikram’s mother madam, rather than memsahib; Leela supposed this was considered more modern or westernised or something.
Lying in bed with her that afternoon, Vikram told her about his childhood. At eight, when his parents’ marriage was breaking down, he had been sent to boarding school near Panchgani. He’d known something was going on, but not what; he had been so lonely and miserable that he hadn’t been able to focus on what was happening at home. His father had been having an affair with a married woman, a family friend; it had looked serious. In the end, he stayed, but five years later he died of a heart attack.
‘Mummy had a really difficult time,’ he said. Leela, facing away from him, made sympathetic noises. She began to understand some of the other woman’s rage.
‘Has she been interested in anyone else since then?’
Vikram’s hand tightened on her hip; he swallowed. ‘I think there was something with a friend of ours, who’s divorced, when I was in England. I think. But I think she ended it.’
‘You know him?’ She turned to him.
He nodded.
‘They didn’t want to get married or anything?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know if she’d marry again. Or maybe he didn’t want to.’
‘How did you know they were seeing each other?’
‘I still don’t know for sure. His daughter said something to me. And once or twice, when I was here in the holidays I thought I heard his voice early in the morning, when I was sleeping, but Mummy said no one had come home.’
In the evening, when Leela was half asleep, she dreamt of a Christmas at Amy’s, the electric blankets Amy’s mother had put into their beds so that the sheets were warm when they came back from town at night … How hot she was. She sweated and turned. But it wasn’t she who’d taken part in these things, she knew that, and she was bewildered at the wealth of happenings that were attached to the surface of her experience. She woke to find a young man, bearded, grave, sitting at the side of the bed. She was definitely supposed to know him; for a minute she couldn’t remember his name. Vikas, she thought. No.
His face lit up, and she was embarrassed. ‘I came to bring you something. Do you want to get up for dinner?’
She sat up. ‘No. No. I might have a bath.’ She began to shiver. ‘Or tomorrow.’
‘Do you want some soup? Juice? Mummy’s asking. She said you should eat.’
Something in Leela recoiled.
‘Nothing?’
A sense came to her, more than an image, of the quiet corridor to her bedroom at her parents’ flat, and birds singing outside in the afternoon.
‘I want to go home,’ she said, and to her surprise heard in her voice a sound of crying.