A Scandalous Secret (20 page)

‘Hello?' she said, her voice low.

An equally muted voice responded. ‘Yes?'

‘Is that … is that Neha? Neha Chaturvedi?' Sonya asked.

‘Yes,' came the hesitant response.

Sonya paused to take a breath before speaking again. She could feel both Estella's and Keshav's hands on her shoulders, offering silent support. ‘I wrote you a letter recently,' she said. ‘I'm Sonya Shaw.'

There was a long silence before the voice spoke, its tenor remaining unchanged, low and grave, as though this phone call had been expected all along. ‘Hello, Sonya. Yes, I received your letter. I was going to respond but needed some time to think.' Sonya remained silent as she did not know what to say next and, after a pause, Neha spoke again, her voice dropping now to a whisper. ‘You are outside my gate?'

‘Yes,' Sonya responded.

‘Look …' Neha said, her voice still barely a whisper. Sonya thought she discerned a tremble in her voice too as she continued, ‘We need to talk properly. Not like this. Can you … can you meet me in Lodhi Gardens in half an hour?'

‘Lodhi Gardens?' Sonya repeated for Keshav's benefit and he nodded vigorously.

‘Do you know where it is?' Neha asked. ‘It's just around the corner from here.'

‘I can find it,' Sonya said.

‘I'll be there in half an hour – eleven thirty – near the duck pond. Ask someone for directions,' Neha said before abruptly hanging up.

Sonya returned the phone instrument to the guard and managed to make it back to the car before she burst into tears. Both Estella and Keshav wrapped their arms tightly around her while she wept as though a storm were raging through her. Then she sat up abruptly and wiped her face with her hands, saying as firmly as she
could, ‘I mustn't cave in now. Gotta keep my head. She wants to meet me.'

‘Bloody Nora. When?' Estella asked.

‘Eleven thirty. How far is Lodhi Gardens from here, Keshav?'

‘Two minutes,' was his response. ‘Ten minutes max, including parking etcetera. Do you want to head off there now?'

Sonya nodded. ‘Yes, please. We'll need to find the duck pond too.'

‘Are you okay, hon?' Estella enquired as Keshav started up the car. Sonya nodded. She felt suddenly drained of all emotion, the anger and rage with which she had first embarked on this journey having worn her out at the most crucial moment. Estella persisted. ‘Do you want me to be with you when you meet her, Son? Or do you want to do this on your own?'

Sonya considered her options. After a while, she said, ‘I should meet her on my own, Stel. But would you and Keshav be somewhere nearby, please? Within calling distance?'

Estella nodded soberly. ‘Of course. We'll be right there for you, don't you worry.'

In a few minutes they were at Lodhi Gardens and Keshav pulled the Ambassador into a small car park. They entered lush green gardens through a small metal gate. It was a beautiful park, full of old trees and even older tombs and monuments that were so much a part of the Delhi landscape. But Sonya had no appetite for the lovely surroundings. Her insides felt so tightly wound up, she was scared she might puke. Her Dad's pet name of ‘Drama Diva' notwithstanding, this was truly the most momentous encounter Sonya knew she would ever face in her life.

Neha replaced the phone receiver with trembling hands. Her heart was thumping so hard, she felt faint and had to grip the edge of the marble counter for a few seconds in order to regain her balance. She looked surreptitiously over her shoulder even though she had taken the call in the kitchen, a part of the house that Sharat never visited. Only Ram Singh was pottering at the stove, and he clearly had not thought anything of the memsahib taking a call in the kitchen. Neha's thoughts were racing. She had left Sharat in the breakfast room on the far side of the house, absorbed in the Sunday papers. Surely he would not notice her absence for an hour or so. She had to go to Lodhi Gardens – there was no way she could avoid this meeting any more …

Neha slipped upstairs to wear something more sober than the pink tracksuit she had worn for her yoga session that morning. The terrible irony of doing something as mundane as choosing what to wear when she met her grown daughter for the first time struck Neha as she stood before her walk-in wardrobe and stared blankly at rack after rack of elegant clothes. She tried to suppress her panic by reminding herself that Sonya could be a very angry young woman or even a hard-nosed trickster with
an agenda of her own. Neha recognized that she was employing cynicism as a defence. In truth, she couldn't help hoping that she was wrong to be pessimistic about this meeting with Sonya.

Neha hastily pulled on a pair of white trousers and a mauve cotton top and slipped her feet into a pair of plimsolls. Then, quite deliberately, she took her phone and shoved it into the back of her dressing-table drawer. She neither wanted anyone to know where she was nor to receive any phone calls for the next hour or so.

Suddenly oddly calm, Neha returned downstairs and did a quick check on Sharat. He was still sunk in his favourite cane armchair that overlooked the back garden, engrossed in a newspaper article, his favourite Homer Simpson mug bought on a trip to New York full of steaming fresh coffee at his elbow.

Heart thudding, she turned and walked swiftly to the side door next to the dining room and silently exited into the garden. The gardeners were unperturbed to see the memsahib walking down the jasmine path, accustomed as they were to her using the back route into Lodhi Gardens for her morning and evening walks. Neha greeted them but carried on walking quickly, glancing at her watch as she left the compound through the side gate and crossed the service road. She had ten minutes to reach the duck pond, a distance that usually took no more than five minutes, and so she slowed her pace as she entered the park, trying to harness the maelstrom of feelings raging within her.

What would she say to Sonya? How would she greet her? Would Sonya be able to cope with her grief and anger … for surely those were the emotions the poor girl would feel for a mother who had abandoned her? Or were her intentions altogether more sinister?

These were Neha's muddled thoughts as she walked around the corner and saw a young girl standing by herself under a jacaranda tree, facing the duck pond. She stopped in her tracks and took in a sharp breath, because from this distance the girl could have been her, and time could have magically spiralled backwards to when she herself was eighteen. Sonya was tall and slim and her hair, like Neha's, was tied back in a thick, dark ponytail that hung down her back to her waist. The girl turned to lean her back on the cement railings and Neha saw an English countenance, a higher forehead, a nose much sharper than hers and eyes that were a blazing blue. Alastair's eyes.

 

‘Please, Alastair, I'm going to have a baby – our baby …'

‘You can't be serious. Our baby, indeed. Such sentimental tosh! There is no “our”; we don't have a relationship. Do you understand that, Neha? So there can be no baby, don't you see? What you need is a good gynaecologist, woman. Go straight to the Brooke Centre on Mead Street; they'll help you to get rid of it over there. It's a free service too. Don't delay things till it's too late, for God's sake.'

‘I don't want to get rid of it. Whether you like it or not, this is our baby, Alastair. Please, we can have a good life together if we try.'

‘Together? There is no together! Why don't you get it? It was a mistake – a one-night stand! You threw yourself at me and I succumbed, as simple as that; the oldest story in the world. Whoever said anything about marriage and – for God's sake – babies! You must be deluded if you think you can threaten me like this …'

 

Neha started to walk again, more slowly than before, as the girl spotted her and looked questioningly in her direction.
‘Sonya?' Neha asked, coming to a halt two feet in front of her daughter.

Neha could barely hear the girl's reply as she nodded and said in a low voice, ‘Yes, I'm Sonya.'

Neha wanted to reach out and touch her, some primal instinct propelling her forward, but she forced herself to stay where she was. Sonya was English, after all, and probably quite unused to tactile contact from someone she was not familiar with … from someone she hated?

‘Please tell me what I can do for you, Sonya?' Neha asked, her fingers clutched into tight fists inside her pockets. She was trying to keep her voice gentle but she was aware of how harshly the words seemed to be escaping her lips.

The girl's eyes widened slightly before she deliberately narrowed them, making her face far less attractive than before. Her voice too was now sharper. ‘You owe me an explanation, I believe,' she said in a suddenly clipped cut-glass accent that made her sound so much like Alastair.

It was best to be direct, Neha thought. ‘What is it you want? Do you want me to explain about the decision to give you up for adoption?' Sonya nodded in response. ‘First of all, how much do you know?' Neha asked.

An expression of irritation passed over Sonya's face at being faced with a question. But she took a deep breath and replied. ‘My parents told me all along that I was adopted. They said it made me more special than everyone else and that's certainly how they made me feel – very special and very loved. Apart from knowing that I was mixed race, born to an Indian woman and an Englishman, they knew little else so that's all they could tell me.'

Neha felt as though little knives had stabbed into her with Sonya's use of words like ‘my parents', ‘very special' and ‘very loved'. She couldn't help wondering if it was deliberate on Sonya's part to make her feel that way.

‘Well?' Sonya's voice was brusque.

‘Well what Sonya?' Neha's voice continued to stay calm and low-pitched.

‘Well, are you going to tell me anything more?' Sonya demanded.

‘What more do you want to know?'

Sonya paused. ‘Mostly why you did it, I suppose.' Her tone was still unsympathetic.

‘Why did I give you up?' Neha asked, her mind going strangely blank for a few seconds as the most traumatic event of her life rose to the surface again, dislodging every single good thing that had happened since. Suddenly, with her long-lost daughter standing before her, the sadness overwhelming Neha was so powerful she thought she might faint. Then she steadied herself and repeated. ‘Why did I give you up?' After a pause – ‘Because … because I had no choice, Sonya.'

Sonya cut in angrily. ‘That's what I thought. That's how I comforted myself all these years. Until I saw the social worker's report recently.'

‘Report?' Neha asked.

‘Yes, the adoption social worker wrote a report at the time. Have you not seen it?'

Neha shook her head. ‘What was in the report, Sonya?' she whispered.

Now Sonya was distraught, her face twisted as her emotions took over. ‘That you were an educated woman, studying in Oxford, that you were articulate and smart and intelligent and well off. Which can only mean one
thing … that you had
choices
! They
asked
you what your choice was. They offered you support to look after me. You
had
the choice not to give me up, but you
did
. And … and … far worse, having given me up, you never once turned around to enquire if I was all right. If life had treated
me
kindly. While you …
you
went on to a superbly comfortable life in a bloody mansion here in Delhi – I've seen it for myself even though you're trying to lock me out! Tall gates and guards and cooks and servants. You live like a fucking princess and have the fucking cheek to tell me that you had no
choice
?!'

Neha reached out a hand as though trying to physically fend off Sonya's angry words. She opened her mouth to plead with Sonya but the girl was backing away from her now, her face all red and blotchy, tears spouting uncontrollably from her eyes. And, before Neha could utter another word, a pair of youngsters – an English girl and an Indian lad – had appeared from behind a tree and dragged Sonya away. Sonya was so distraught that she was unable to resist and allowed herself to be pulled away.

Neha stood watching helplessly as the twosome led Sonya in the direction of the gates, each holding an arm of hers. Sonya did not turn back but the boy, putting an arm protectively around Sonya's shoulder, turned and cast a glance back at Neha. Even though they were already at some distance, and her vision was blurred by tears, Neha could see how full of hate that look was.

There were no more tears from Sonya that afternoon, but she was silent and taciturn as Keshav insisted on carrying on with their sightseeing trip around Delhi. ‘It will make you feel better,' he said, ‘I promise.'

But Sonya only got gradually more depressed as the day progressed, her mind darting heedlessly back to the meeting with Neha. She had to admit that Neha looked like a nice enough woman, not quite the snotty bitch she had expected. It also did not help that she looked so young, and sort of vulnerable as she had shouted at her; she was way younger than Mum and Dad. Doing the sums in her head, Sonya realized that Neha was probably only in her mid-thirties: fifteen years younger than her mother back in Orpington. Shockingly (and even though Sonya had prepared herself for this possibility) Neha also resembled her rather more than anticipated. It wasn't so much their face or features but a general air and manner that they seemed to share. That impact of seeing herself mirrored in someone else – a stranger, and a stranger she reviled – had been more of a shock than Sonya had imagined, almost akin to a physical blow to the stomach.

While Estella had offered mostly silent sympathy, Keshav had been quite relentlessly playing the buffoon all
afternoon, trying to cheer Sonya up with a series of inane and not very funny jokes. Finally, exhausted, they ended up in Khan Market where Keshav took them into a roughly cobbled back lane and up a narrow flight of stairs to a colourful little café that advertised a range of sandwiches, cakes and fresh fruit juices. Sonya could not face eating anything so she sipped on a glass of orange juice as Estella and Keshav ordered grilled sandwiches.

‘Hey, let me take you both to a disco tonight,' Keshav said, biting into a giant club sandwich.

‘No, not a disco please,' Sonya protested. ‘Or go with Stel. I'm just not up to it, Keshav.'

‘Well, I'm certainly not going without you,' Estella declared.

‘C'mon, Sonya, it will be fine. It is just what you need to pep you up when you're feeling down, no?' Keshav pleaded.

‘We're not dressed for it. And it's too far to go home and back again in this traffic, isn't it?' Estella said.

But Keshav was prepared for all objections. ‘Your clothes are fine. Or you can always buy something from the shops here if you really want. My friend Gopal lives near here so we can go there to get washed and changed. I'll ring up Didi and tell her we'll be late so that she's not worried and also so that she doesn't make dinner for you.'

Sonya hesitated for only a moment before she nodded. She had been a total killjoy all day, robbing both Estella and Keshav of the fun they ought to be having. Besides, it would be good to do something – anything! – that would help distract her from the dark and twisted direction her thoughts were insisting on taking. ‘Okay, let's do this disco thing then,' she said, trying to smile.

‘Are you sure, Sonya?' Estella enquired. ‘If it's all been
too much for you, we can go back and have a quiet night in, just the two of us? Would you like that?'

‘Ah, come on, girls, take a break from all this drama and emotion,' was Keshav's firm reply while Sonya hesitated. And so she gave in, oddly relieved to have someone stronger than her step in and take the decision.

After buying a pair of cheap spangly halternecks from a shop in the market, Sonya and Estella accompanied Keshav to a sprawling bungalow not too far from Khan Market. ‘A junior minister in the Civil Aviation Department lives here,' Keshav informed them as they drove in. But, instead of going up the main drive to the big house, Keshav swung the car into a side road that led to the servants' quarters. Sonya remembered suddenly that Keshav was the son of the Mahajans' driver and realized that his friend was far more likely to be living in servants' quarters than in a rich man's bungalow. It suited her fine, of course. At the moment, she hated the smug hypocrisy of all those people who lived in Delhi's giant, sprawling bungalows; big shots who led supremely cosseted lives, waited on hand and foot by dozens of servants to whom they probably paid a pittance!

‘Gopal's mother works in the minister's house as a cook,' Keshav explained as he pulled up outside a pair of tiny cottages. She was immensely grateful that Keshav did not consider them – with all their Western ways and talk – to be merely a pair of spoilt rich girls completely alien to his own world, even though he did seem fascinated by their lives in England. His college education and subsequent ease with English had made it easy for Sonya to forget the disparity that would otherwise have existed between them. Even in the few days she had been here, Sonya had observed the bubbles in which the wealthy in India lived, even kindly
people like the Mahajans maintaining an us-and-them air with their employees that seemed quite the natural order of things. Even though Keshav had graduated to some kind of halfway world with the assistance of the Mahajans, it hadn't been difficult to notice that he too continued to maintain a discreet formality with them.

The girls got out of the car and shook hands with Keshav's friend, Gopal. He wasn't as polished as Keshav, and his English not as good. But he seemed delighted to be unexpectedly presented with the company of two English girls, falling over himself to make them comfortable in his home as he ushered them in and offered them all manner of food and drink.

‘Pepsi? Tea? Coffee?' he offered eagerly.

‘Just water, please,' Estella smiled before entering a living room that was minuscule in comparison with the Mahajans', no more than six feet square, with peeling walls that had green damp patches across one side. The furniture comprised a low table and two deckchairs with aluminium frames on which both girls had been seated at Gopal's insistence. Keshav had settled himself on a cotton carpet at Sonya's feet and was fiddling with an ancient radio that sat in one corner of the room. Sonya swigged back her glass of water and was about to put the glass down on the table when Gopal whisked out a tray with a huge smile. He seemed as nice as Keshav and Sonya thought it a pity that she could not speak a word of Hindi to put him at his ease. In the meantime, Keshav appeared to have had some success with the radio which was now issuing forth a tinny strain of Bollywood music. Estella was surprisingly quiet, sitting in the corner defensively with her hands on her lap.

‘Is there a toilet I can use?' Sonya asked, and Keshav promptly sprang up to show her where it was.

He ushered her through a doorway covered with a faded curtain and Sonya found herself in a small bedroom with one bed pushed up against the far wall. Keshav held out his hand to help her step over a mattress that had been spread out on the floor. ‘I'm sorry about this, it is not what you are used to,' he said. ‘Gopal shares this house with his mother, you see. She is a widow and they don't have much money.'

‘Oh, don't worry about it, I've lived in all sorts of places on my travels,' Sonya lied. She continued to hold Keshav's hand as he took her through a small blackened kitchen area and out into a small yard. A thin ragged dog sunning himself in the yard looked up with faint curiosity, tapping his tail in the dust as Sonya and Keshav picked their way across the uneven flagstones to an outside toilet.

‘I will wait here for you,' Keshav said chivalrously, as Sonya ducked her head and entered a small space that was so dark it took a few moments for her eyes to adjust themselves from the sunshine outside. A naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling suddenly came on and Sonya guessed that Keshav had turned on the switch from outside. She blinked in confusion, stepping back as she saw that she was standing at the edge of a cracked ceramic bowl embedded in the floor, surrounding a hole in the ground. Sonya had never seen this sort of a toilet before but was damned if she was going to ask Keshav for instructions. Instead, using her instincts, she gamely hitched up her short dress, pulled her knickers down and squatted.

By the time she emerged, Keshav had organized a metal bucket full of water and used a plastic mug to scoop water out and pour some over Sonya's hands. She washed her hands using a small piece of soap that was red in colour and had a medicated smell. Then she splashed
some water over her hot face and looked up at Keshav, laughing as she suddenly saw the funnier side of this strange new experience. Keshav seemed to get the joke too and, as they laughed together, he lobbed the mug back into the bucket so he could reach out and hold her wet face between his hands. With a tender expression on his face, Keshav laid his lips gently on Sonya's. She froze for a minute and then melted against Keshav as they kissed more passionately, Keshav's arms winding tightly around Sonya's waist, his hands lacing her hair.

They finally pulled apart and Keshav, trapping Sonya's gaze with his mesmeric dark eyes, whispered in a gruff voice, ‘Later, yes? Now we better go back inside …' Sonya nodded and, still holding Keshav's hand, allowed herself to be led back through the courtyard, past the dog who was now eyeing them with a bored expression on its face. Her lips were still faintly wet from Keshav's kiss and Sonya felt a little frisson at the thought of what might come later. Whatever Keshav had in mind when he said ‘later' was something Sonya knew she would find difficult to resist. In a strange way, she already felt totally protected by Keshav, her earlier bruised feelings over the encounter with Neha somehow assuaged by his strong, comforting presence.

Indoors, Gopal and Estella appeared to have overcome their communication problem by cranking up the radio as loud as it would get in order to prance around to a boppy Bollywood song. Sonya was glad to see Estella looking more relaxed. They must have been at it for some time as Sonya saw that the table and chairs had been folded back and leant against the wall to create a dance floor, while poor Estella was already red in the face and quite out of puff.

‘Come, join in,' Gopal said, executing what looked like a very complicated twist technique that nearly brought him to the floor.

‘Why bother with a disco, eh?' Sonya said, squealing as Keshav grabbed her hands and twirled her around so fast, she nearly careened into Gopal. They danced, all four of them, until the song was finished and then they collapsed onto the floor, laughing and out of breath.

‘Omigod, you're quite a dancer, aren't you, Gopal? Twinkle-toes …' Estella huffed, lying flat on her back, fanning her face with a magazine.

‘I learnt in school how to dance,' Gopal said.

‘Yes, the other boys used to tease him because only girls used to go for dance classes in school,' Keshav said.

‘
Billy Elliot
!' Estella said, explaining quickly: ‘That's an English movie about a boy who has to fight everyone – even his dad – because he wants to become a dancer.'

‘Is that what you want to become?' Sonya asked Gopal, ‘A professional dancer?'

Gopal appeared not to know how to answer and so Keshav cut in. ‘He tried to become a backing dancer in Bollywood but it's not possible without pull.'

‘Pull, what?' asked Sonya, puzzled.

‘You know, without knowing big people over there …' Keshav elaborated hesitantly.

‘He means influence, Sonya,' Estella said, always better at working out Keshav's brand of English. ‘I guess, like anywhere else, a newbie needs a godfather to get ahead in Bollywood.'

‘Yes, a godfather, a “
dada
” we say here in India,' Keshav said, nodding.

‘Also, there is not much money in dancing,' Gopal said.

‘So Gopal has recently taken a job in an office in Connaught Place,' Keshav added.

‘Really, what sort of job?' Sonya asked.

‘Peon,' Gopal said.

‘Helping to make tea and doing post and photocopying, and all such things,' Keshav explained.

‘Oh, that's tragic,' Sonya cried. ‘Imagine a dancer being stuck in an office job! I wish we could help …'

Gopal shrugged, apparently not wanting to discuss his stalled dancing career any more. Keshav piped up, changing the subject, ‘So are we all going to a disco? There's one very near here which is very good called “Ego”.'

‘Oh, must we? Can't we just hang around here for a bit?' Sonya asked.

Keshav looked at Gopal who nodded. He said something in Hindi and afer a quick look had passed between the two of them, Keshav translated for the benefit of the girls, ‘He says his Amma will only come back after twelve o'clock as the minister is having a dinner in his house.'

‘Oh, goodie, so we have this bijou little private disco all to ourselves?' Sonya cried. ‘We could phone for some food later, couldn't we?'

‘Or go to Kake di Hatti on Outer Circle – that's a
dhaba
, you know, where the truck drivers go to eat.'

Sonya's eyes shone with glee. ‘Oh, Keshav, I'm
so
glad we met you. Our holiday has been so much more fun. It feels like we're
really
experiencing India, doesn't it, Stel?'

Estella looked at Keshav and smiled somewhat warily. Sonya guessed that Keshav must have had words with Gopal regarding creating some private time for them because, half an hour later, Gopal suggested that he take Estella for a walk. ‘I will show you India Gate and buy you ice cream over there,' he said, looking pointedly at Estella.

Estella turned to Sonya, obviously concerned at the pairing off. ‘What do you say, hon?' she asked. ‘You okay with that?'

‘I'll be fine,' Sonya said firmly. By now she too was quite keen to get a bit of time alone with Keshav. Their tacit mutual longing was exciting to say the least and she knew she had what it took to resist any unwanted advances. Just some cuddling and kissing: ‘No harm in that', as her mum had nervously pronounced the first time Sonya had asked if she could take Tim up to her room back in Orpington.

Estella still looked faintly worried but she silently pulled her sturdy Timberland trainers back on before leaving the house with Gopal. Sonya watched them walk down the drive before Keshav grabbed her by the waist and drew her back indoors. With one hand holding her firmly as though frightened she would fly away, Keshav pulled the door shut and latched it. Then, wrapping both arms around her body, he kissed Sonya properly, slipping one hand under her blouse to search for the clasp of her bra. Sonya felt his fingers fumble and stopped him by whispering, ‘Not now, Keshav. Let's give it time, please …'