Sorting Out Sid (14 page)

He wished she wouldn’t put it quite like that, but realized it was a serious question. ‘Well, the Coke job was in Bombay … couple of years ago, my, uh, wife got a good job in Delhi. I took up the offer from Kollin’s so that we could move here together.’ Sid felt himself getting defensive. ‘It’s a pretty good company though. I’ve risen very fast at Kollin’s, so it’s been good for my career, actually. In fact, I’m way ahead of my batch mates.’

Sid cringed inwardly as he did an instant replay of that in his head. It sounded so arrogant. Neha continued to look at
him thoughtfully. He went on, ‘Except now, of course, it’s my marriage that’s being flushed down the drain
–
the very reason I took up the toilet company job. Ironic, isn’t it?’

What was he doing? He hadn’t meant to talk about his personal life with her
–
he barely knew her.

‘I’m sorry,’ was Neha’s simple response.

It sounded completely sincere, and not in the least embarrassed. Only then he recalled how the last time they met, he had foolishly blabbered on about how great his marriage was when she had informed him that she was separated. What a contrast she was to him. She was really easy to talk to, he realized, and for that reason he would have to double his defences. He quickly put out his cigarette and was about to suggest they go back inside when he noticed that she was only halfway through hers. Damn! He racked his brain a bit for a safer topic, and then said: ‘Hey, so Aditi told me about this friend of yours … Cynthia. A … uh, friend of mine went to her for a … session or something? I believe she does psychic readings?’

‘Oh Cynthia,’ Neha’s voice was warm and full of affection, ‘she’s such a darling.’ Sid was glad they were talking about someone else now, but his smile froze as Neha went on to say, ‘Stark raving mad, of course. But I love hearing her talk. She’s just so interesting with that cracked world-view of hers.’

He waited a moment so that he could modulate his voice to one of polite curiosity. ‘Mad? Why would you say that?’

She looked at his face to see if he was serious. ‘Well, come on, Sid. Someone who thinks she can see the future?’ She started to laugh. ‘Tarot readings? What a sham. Well, they all are, but actually Cynthia’s different. She truly believes that she has these special powers. Totally loony, but true to herself,
at least.’ She took a final puff of her cigarette and exhaled slowly. ‘Aditi went to her a few months ago. I had to calm her down after the session
–
she was so overexcited. ’ Something seemed to occur to her and she added, ‘Hey, I hope your friend doesn’t take this kind of thing too seriously. Wouldn’t want him or her…’ Sid nodded vaguely as she continued ‘…making some sort of life-altering decision based on the readings of a
psychic
.’

Neha’s laughter was light, and not in the least mocking but Sid had to force himself to join in. She finally put out her cigarette and turned on her high heels to go back into the house. He followed her slowly, murmuring in a weak voice, ‘Of course not. Who would be dumb enough to do
that
?’

2

The Accounts

‘W
here do you think you’re going?’

Sid looked at Mandira, wondering if the question was rhetorical. Given that he was heading into his bedroom, he thought it was fairly obvious. However, these days, he was trying even harder to maintain peace at home. So, after a slight pause, he answered in a polite tone, ‘Into my bedroom,’ and waited.

She continued to glare at him, standing at the kitchen door. Dinner had been a completely silent affair, but it was always that way on the days they still chose to eat together. He didn’t understand what she wanted from him now. He continued to wait and just when it looked like they would be standing there indefinitely, she said, ‘It’s Monday evening.’

He could see the truth in this and so he agreed readily, ‘It is, isn’t it?’ It didn’t hurt to be affable, even if you were divorcing someone.

‘Don’t be such an imbecile,’ Mandira snapped. ‘We agreed that we would start doing the accounts this week, starting today. Remember?’

He felt a wave of irritation wash over him, but let it pass and said, ‘Yes, okay, you’re right. We did say that.’ Great. There
went his plan for some FTV and a little self-help in the sexual department, in the privacy of his own bedroom. Out loud, he said in a neutral tone, ‘Okay, let’s do it then.’

‘Wow. Thanks, Sid. That’s a big favour you’re doing me, aren’t you?’ Rolling her eyes, she walked past him, saying, ‘We’ll sit here in the drawing room. I’ll bring the files.’

Sure, sure. He gazed after her, resisting making a face. We’ll sit in the drawing room. Neutral territory. Not like your room or my room. Don’t worry, I’m hardly about to jump you, he said silently to her retreating back. I will somehow find the strength to resist your attractiveness.

He found some small consolation by plonking himself down on Brownie harder than usual, and then immediately regretted taking it out on her. He made up by patting Brownie gently. Three more months of living together like this instead of just getting it over with. Stupid cooling-off period
–
court’s decision. His let his head loll back on Brownie and whispered, ‘Great idea, Judge.’ He added, rather uncharitably, ‘You old bastard.’

In the court, Sid and Mandira both maintained that they wanted to get a divorce with mutual consent, but the judge recommended
–
and when a judge recommended something it meant that you better just do it
–
that they live together for six months. And then, if at the end of that period, they still agreed that they wanted a divorce, it would be granted
–
it was apparently the norm. Cooling-off period, bah! If things got any colder around here, it would be the next Ice Age. What was the point? ‘Oh, I see, so you’ve wasted ten years of your life on each other and then figured you don’t want to be together? Ah … doesn’t matter … try it out for another six months, why don’t you?’ Double bah!

It was just a formality they were going through. There was a certain relief in not having to pretend to work at the marriage any more. But it was painful
–
living together, continuing to see each other every day … just sharing the household infrastructure while waiting to part ways forever. Sid tried not to think about it much, but it once occurred to him that they were like two raw, open wounds, constantly scraping each other. He thought it was terribly apt and also rather gross. He even felt tempted to share the metaphor with Mandira. But of course they seldom spoke to each other.

Mandira had developed a fetish for doing the accounts and had been pestering him about it repeatedly. Sid knew at the back of his mind that the accounts actually needed to get done. They had to figure out how they were going to handle their finances with the separation. Still, doing the accounts struck him as such an unpleasant chore that he had managed successfully to delay it. Until tonight, of course.

He sighed and stroked Brownie absently as he waited for Mandira. She had no problem dealing with unpleasant tasks
–
she rarely postponed things. It was one of her strong points. So, of course, by now she had already broken the news to her family. Her parents were devastated
–
they had always been genuinely fond of Sid. Apart from many conversations with Mandira’s parents, Sid had already also spoken to about eight other people from her very large and close-knit family. With great patience, Sid assured everyone that it was nothing to do with them, and that no, there was no hope of making it work now. And yes, they both were quite sure that divorce was the only way forward. Everyone was very upset. Sid and Mandira had been the perfect couple as far as they were concerned.

It was when he had hung up on Radhika bhabhi, who he could sense was in tears by the end of their conversation, that Sid felt a pang
–
he would lose the close connect he had built over the years with Mandira’s family. He had always got on well with all of them and was a great favourite of the household
–
the heart of all family reunions. And it was all going to be over once the divorce kicked in. He had married only Mandira ten years ago; but he would be divorcing her whole family now.

It irked Sid sometimes that Mandira made it sound as if it was all his fault. The general consensus in the family was that if he had only yielded to her reasonable desire for a child, they, perhaps, would still be the close-knit couple that the family had seen for years. He sighed. There was no way that he could explain, and there was no point anyway. No … he decided now. If it made things easier for Mandira to position their break-up in this manner, he was happy to play along.

He knew Mandira was mad at him because he still hadn’t told his parents about the divorce. She had been pestering him for a while now, saying, ‘What if they call and ask me about it? What if they hear it from the rest of the family?’ He knew she was right, but didn’t see the hurry to break the bad news to them. He maintained with Mandira that he had to wait for the right moment. After all, his father was a heart patient and it would have to be broken gently to him, later. Ideally, much later, he thought.

‘I can’t believe you can be so secretive with your own parents about something as important as this,’ Mandira often lashed out at him. ‘I told my folks the minute I made up my mind that it couldn’t work between us.’

That was the other irritating thing, Sid thought, as he watched Mandira bring a bunch of grey and blue files into the drawing room. She was acting as if their divorce had been only her decision all along. Well, that’s not how I remember it, he thought, as she opened up one file and began to sift through the papers in it.

On the night that Sid had followed Mandira to the farm, they had gone home separately. He had driven rashly and almost unseeingly back to Bellavue Boulevard, and then waited in his parked car for her. A while later she had arrived. She parked her car, and then walked over and let herself into the passenger seat next to him. To his surprise she seemed prepared, almost proud. The first thing she said to him was, ‘Go ahead and think what you want to. It doesn’t even matter any more.’

Her parents, who had turned in at about their usual 10 p.m., were oblivious of the fact that their daughter’s marriage was ending over a four-hour-long conversation in a car parked downstairs. Mandira had been hostile at first, refusing to answer any of his questions about what had been going on with Vikas and for how long. She maintained that she didn’t need to defend herself, insisting that Sid leave Vikas out of it, and not blame him
–
he wasn’t the root cause of the problem anyway.

Sid listened, resigned. He supposed she was right
–
the thing with Vikas was more likely the effect of the growing distance between them rather than the cause. At one point Mandira broke down. Sid looked at her agitated and expressive face trying to recall who she had been when they first got married. He felt terrible for having put her in this situation, and he now wished that he had quietly gone home after confirming where
she was. What had he really gained from embarrassing her like that? He felt every bit of her hurt and embarrassment as if it were his own. And then, underneath it all, somewhere deep down, there were his own feelings of having been betrayed. If this was the upper hand, it certainly didn’t feel like it. Unless of course, the upper hand was supposed to feel like it had just slapped the living daylights out of you.

Once she finished ranting and raging at him, Sid started to speak. He reasoned with her, patiently asking a series of questions
–
if she truly felt she ever could be happy with him, whether their disconnect could really be bridged, if she had any bright ideas that they hadn’t tried earlier. Finally they had agreed. It wasn’t going to work, and neither of them even felt like trying any more. So that was that.

And now, Mandira had started to use terms such as ‘When I decided to end it’. Sid wondered what satisfaction it gave her to feel she had been the one to throw in the towel first. But this, like everything else, wasn’t worth a discussion.

Sid suspected she was still seeing Vikas although he hadn’t asked. For the last few months he had avoided meeting Vikas who had called him a number of times. He hadn’t even answered. Part of him suspected that sooner or later they would probably have to have a conversation to attain that thing that women called ‘closure’. But for the time being, Sid just didn’t want to talk about it. He supposed he was mad at Vikas, and he did feel stabbed in the back, considering that Vikas was his friend. But for some reason, Sid couldn’t bring himself to bother to be really angry with him. Maybe he was blocking it out. He was usually pretty good at that sort of thing. He did, however, feel very sorry for Sunny. It wasn’t fair of Vikas to be cheating on her; there was nothing wrong with
their marriage as far as he could tell. For some reason, Sid felt more anger about Vikas cheating on Sunny than about Vikas sleeping with Mandira. A crazy thought now popped into Sid’s head
–
perhaps he should get together with Sunny to pay back Vikas and Mandira. He immediately chastised himself; he shouldn’t have allowed such a sacrilegious thought to enter his mind. After all, Sunny was above all this. She was sweet, honest and pure to the point of being virginal. He thought for a moment what was wrong with this line of thought, and remembered that Sunny had two sons.