Custody (9 page)

Her parents were horrified. Did their daughter really think they did not want her home? They only wanted the best for her. And how could she leave without her jewellery, did she want to gift that to them?

Ishita had to speak to SK again. Her jewellery was in the family locker, and it was her mother-in-law who had the key. She trusted him to do what was right by her, and to return the pieces she had come with.

That evening SK handed her a plastic-wrapped packet. She put it in her suitcase without checking its contents. Her clothes were already packed in a steel trunk. She was sure that no one in that family would even consider as returnable all the linen, the kitchenware, the TV, the bedclothes, or the carved wooden bed that had been part of her trousseau. Well, if they wanted to send these things back, fine, if not, fine. She didn’t care.

It was late at night. Hopefully there wouldn’t be too many people around in Swarg Nivas to witness her ignominious homecoming. She dialled for a taxi, then called the servant to help with her baggage. He did so without meeting her gaze. No one came out to say goodbye.

In the taxi her tears fell silently and were wiped away silently. She needed to get all her crying done before she arrived.

Two and a half lakhs were to be handed to Ishita on the first signing of a mutual-consent divorce. Two and a half more would be given six months later when the final proceedings were over. The interim six months was a period meant for the reconciliation process. What process, thought Ishita drearily, what process? There never was a chance.

Six months later the divorce was through. Ishita was twenty-seven. Her mother tried to hide the conviction that her daughter’s life was over. Even her father had to admit that the path ahead was obscure.

After the divorce Ishita resumed her maiden name. There are women who keep their own names once they get married, she told her parents bitterly, I should have been one of them.

Ordinarily the parents would have shuddered at the inauspiciousness of such an idea, but now everything had changed.

IX

The Lovely Detective Agency, Results Guaranteed required a minimum of one month to arrive at their conclusions. In matrimonial cases, they said delicately, they only relied on absolute proof. What constituted absolute proof? demanded Raman. He himself would be satisfied with a brief account of the subject’s activities, places visited, people met, he elaborated, not quite meeting the eye of the sleazy individual who was going to shadow Shagun. Who else but voyeurs would choose such a profession?

Sleazy was firm. People met could only be documented through photos. In their experience the client’s first reaction was disbelief. Confidentiality was their policy and the negatives would be handed over to Mr Kaushik. Half the fees were payable in advance. In addition they would charge photography costs as well as travel expenses.

It would only be necessary to confine activities to Delhi, said Mr Kaushik, staring at the man’s fat fingers, drumming out a pattern on the glass-covered surface of his Godrej desk. With every suggestion, he felt his dignity crumbling. He hadn’t realised how demeaning this detective business was.

‘We need pics of the subject. Face, full-body, recent.’

It sounded so horribly intimate. He sat in shamed gloominess as he felt the sanctity of his family violated.

‘More than one of us will be put on her trail. If we want twenty-four-hour surveillance, that is a must.’

‘Twenty-four-hour surveillance? Is that necessary?’

‘We always tell our clients the best results are got from this only, and therefore cheaper in the long run.’

‘Very well.’

‘So how soon can we expect the pics?’

‘Soon enough, don’t worry.’

Raman left the Lovely Detective Agency, even more sick at heart. He had not thought that possible, but he was learning something every day.

Family pictures were Shagun’s department.

‘Where do you keep our albums?’ he asked that night.

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘I want to look at them. Do you mind?’

She stared at him. Perhaps he was going crazy. ‘Why? In all these years you never asked to look at them.’

‘In all these years I had no need to.’

What was this enigmatic remark supposed to mean? That she should break down over a veiled reference to the changes in their life? Well, he could take his albums and – an Ashok phrase – stuff them up his ass. She smiled absently and when he saw the look on her face that obliterated him completely, Raman was very glad he had gone to the Lovely Detective Agency.

‘They are in the last shelf of the bookcase. Be sure to put them back carefully. I don’t want to rearrange them all over again.’

Once upon a time he had liked the fact that she was so careful about the handsome leather albums that illustrated the family’s twelve-year history. Now as he searched through the pictures of the past, he tried to look for the lies in them. Holidays, school and family events, smiles wreathed across every face, his wife the same charming creature from start to finish, unaffected, tender, posing, it seemed happily, with him and the children.

She had not even asked why he wanted the albums, how unnatural was that? His face grew stiff with suppressed pain. Quickly he slid two pictures out from beneath the protective sheet.

Before handing over these precious photographs, he would try and talk to her mother. He knew she would do anything to keep the marriage intact.

Two days later Shagun visited an ill-at-ease Mrs Sabharwal. ‘What is this mysterious thing you wanted to see me about?’ she asked.

‘Raman phoned.’

‘So?’

‘He is worried about you.’

‘Rubbish. He is just worried about himself.’

‘Beta, give him some credit. After all these years you have suddenly turned against him. Naturally he will look for reasons.’

‘Come to the point, Ma. What did he say?’

‘He wanted to know if there was something troubling you. He finds you changed, less interested in the children and the household.’

‘What a bastard.’

In the face of this reaction, Mrs Sabharwal did not know how to continue. She had tried to convince Raman that the only thing wrong with Shagun was that she needed a little change. She would look after the children if they went on a holiday, it was not healthy to work so hard, his life was of greater value. If he didn’t want to say anything directly, she could make the suggestion to Shagun.

Her flustered insistence increased Raman’s suspicions. Abruptly he terminated the call, he was sorry, he had not wanted to cause concern, and this formality from one who had been so close to her increased her grief.

‘So? Is he now going to spy on me?’

‘Such a thing is beyond him.’

‘Then? What did he want?’

‘Does he have to want something? Have you forgotten he has been phoning me for twelve years?’

‘High time he stopped. Just because his own mother is so horrible, doesn’t mean he can have mine.’

At this point, Mrs Sabharwal almost gave up, but thinking of the desolation in Raman’s voice, she tried again. Maybe the couple should go on a holiday. He had said he was too busy, but she knew that was just his pride.

‘A holiday? Are you mad? Why?’

‘It will be good for you two.’

‘Who is you two?’

‘What kind of question is this? You and Raman – who else? I will keep the children.’

‘Did Raman tell you to ask?’

‘No.’

‘Then?’

Her mother watched her lip curl, then burst out with, ‘I think Raman suspects.’

‘Nonsense, he is too stupid.’

‘Don’t talk like that.’

‘Why not? Just because you love him doesn’t mean I have to.’

‘He is the father of your children.’

‘So?’

‘Give him some respect. Till now you never thought he was stupid.’

‘Till now, till now. What did I know till now?’

‘Beti, have you ever thought of the consequences of your actions? Even if you don’t care for Raman, for heaven’s sake preserve some appearances. You think all wives love their husbands? But they stay married. You are so idealistic, you don’t think about the long term. What about society, what about your children?’

Shagun turned her head away. Against the word ‘children’ she had no defence. Drearily she thought yes, what about the children? She couldn’t leave them, she didn’t see how she could take them. Ashok had a transferable job: even if he got an extension, he would eventually go, and she, she would have to stay.

In this situation all she could do was live from day to day. She didn’t want to hear her mother’s worries, they echoed too precisely her own fears.

‘Till now you were a happy wife and mother,’ observed Mrs Sabharwal sorrowfully. ‘If there was something wrong, you never said. Now this man has come to fill your head with rubbish ideas.’

This was the trouble with her mother, thought Shagun, she just couldn’t leave her past alone.

*

After the phone call to his mother-in-law Raman put the photographs of Shagun in his briefcase, only glancing at them briefly. She had been the woman who held his heart in her hand, and though he knew she did not love him with an intensity similar to his own, it hadn’t seemed to matter.

No longer.

Once Raman commissioned the Lovely Detective Agency he began his certain descent into hell. How many men needed to initiate something like this? Was the problem that he had married someone too beautiful? His mother had thought so all along and now his mother-in-law’s voice suggested it was just a matter of finding out the details.

For one month Raman lived in no man’s land. Much of that time was spent on tour. Back home he dreaded the evidence his yearning heart obsessively sought, that his wife had changed towards him. When they were together he felt barriers he was not invited to bridge.

Shagun was largely unaware of this. Contrary to her mother’s opinion, she was not determined to think ill of her husband, it was just that with her heart full of another man, the married occupant had to be accommodated on the margins.

It was her children who dragged her back to the reality of the past twelve years, standing like sentinels in the way of what her whole being craved, a life with Ashok Khanna. She owed it to them to try and save her marriage. But the effort was too much, she couldn’t make it in a sustained way. These days she appeared schizophrenic: one minute madly concerned with her children’s well-being, the next abstracted, the next excessively attentive to Raman, the next absorbed in her private world.

Meanwhile Raman was doing really well at work. The Mang-oh! schemes were bearing fruit, and the fact that there was no one to share his triumph made his success hollow.

He was certain of a big bonus, but the plans mooted with so much pleasure about the World Cup had now soured. His friends were still going ahead with hotel and plane reservations, trying to figure out which combination would allow them to see India play. Shagun’s silence at these sessions made him silent too. Why should he spend his hard-earned money on certain misery? He didn’t want to be trapped with a wife who seemed unaware of his existence.

The days passed like this and nothing brought relief.

‘Darling?’

Ashok glowed. It had taken so long for her to address him by any endearment that each of them struck him as an achievement.

‘Say that word again.’

‘No, listen. I think he knows.’

‘He does seem rather pulled down.’

‘You see.’

‘But he is performing brilliantly. And working hard, doing promotional events, getting local celebs and sponsors. He has successfully created a demand for Mang-oh! in six cities, and incidentally increased the sales of water and beverages. We are now moving into permanent commitments, donating refrigerators, refurbishing school canteens, on the condition that only our products are sold. A huge bonus and a special mention await him at the end of the year.’

Shagun did wish that everything didn’t have to ceaselessly revert back to The Brand. Though perhaps inevitable, it wasn’t
nice.
When she said this, he only laughed. Ashok didn’t bother to remember all her wishes, her likes and dislikes. She was still getting used to this.

‘That’s wonderful – that The Brand is doing so well,’ she now said dutifully.

‘You don’t really care, do you?’

‘It’s just a drink.’

‘It’s my life, or was until I saw you.’

‘Well, I hope seeing me won’t affect your career.’

‘Are you sure he suspects?’

‘He avoids me.’

‘All the better for us. So what if you are married? You are mine. I don’t want to share you with anybody.’

‘No, seriously.’

‘Seriously.’

She blushed, and he thought for the hundredth time that he could spend his whole life just gazing at her face.

‘Besides, avoiding you must be good for him. He is becoming so innovative, it’s amazing. After the target schools he moved to colleges, and then he thought of hiring students to promote Mang-oh! on campus. Saves us money and gets better results. Unlike earlier, he has all the data at his fingertips. People are beginning to notice the way he is campaigning.’

‘Well, it will be for the first time. They never noticed him before.’

‘I wonder why. He is solid.’

What business does he have to speak of Raman in those terms? thought the wife resentfully as she heard words her own mother had used so often. Ashok went on pensively, ‘I think he needs to have someone behind him. Even if only notionally. He is a really good team player.’

‘Is he glad you are there for him?’ she asked with a difficulty he did not notice.

‘Not sure. We worked together more in the beginning – now all we do is toss around ideas – look at targets – but he sees how best to meet them.’

‘But don’t you feel awkward? After all . . .’

‘Once I am in office, I forget everything else.’

‘So he is a cog in a wheel?’

‘As am I.’

A silence fell between them as he played with her hair. He was forty-three, and found the distraction of being in love unnerving. For one thing his personal and his professional lives had become linked in a way that he found distasteful. Clear, straightforward, cutting to the chase, that was his temperament. It irked him not to have her when he wanted, not to call her openly, always thinking of what would be safe and what not.