A Scandalous Secret. Jaishree Misra

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      ‘Ananda’s a great idea, sweetheart,’ Sharat said. ‘You love it there, don’t you? I must say I was worried at the thought of you wandering around Samarkand on your own. Let’s do that together some other time, yes?’

      ‘Well, Sandhya went on her own to Samarkand and Tashkent, and said it was fine. But, yes, I’d rather go there with you. There’s no hurry …’

      ‘For now, Ananda will be the best break and do you some good before the winter sets in too. And I’m happy for you to indulge, seeing how little I care for all that alternative yoga-shoga stuff myself! Get Chacko to book it for you today.’

      Sharat left the house in a flurry of phone calls, still talking into his BlackBerry as he got into the back seat of his Mercedes. As was customary, Neha stood on the step watching his car leave the gates to be swallowed into the morning traffic on Prithviraj Road. If she could only tell Sharat about the letter … Over the years, she had grown used to telling him everything, even the tiniest details collected over the day. But this was different. This was a revelation that would shatter his world … rob him of every last ounce of love and trust he had for her …

      Neha turned and returned indoors, her steps lethargic and heavy as she climbed the sweeping stairs up to her bedroom on the first floor. She locked the big teak door behind her and then, almost as though pulled by a magnetic force, made for the cupboard where the letter lay. She had not been able to reread it since it had arrived yesterday but she had thought of virtually nothing else. Her sleep had been broken by strange dreams in which she was wandering through a paediatrics ward full of screaming babies.

      Using the big bunch of keys that was almost always tucked into the waistband of her trousers or sari, Neha unlocked the outer doors before opening the safe that housed her jewellery when it was taken out of the bank vault. She had tucked the letter behind a stack of cheque books and could see a corner of the white envelope sticking out from under the large blue velvet case of her antique pearl choker. Holding the letter to her chest, Neha climbed back into bed and pulled the silk razai over herself. She read and reread the words, running the tip of her forefinger over the childish writing and the name ‘Sonya’, before starting to cry. At first, she cried quietly, sobbing softly into balled fists, the letter lying now in her lap. Then, helplessly, as the tears grew more copious, Neha tried desperately to muffle her moaning and hiccupping by holding a pillow over her face. It was the kind of weeping fit she had not indulged in since she was a child. The floodgates had opened up and Neha – strong and controlled and always in charge – was back to being a frightened and confused teenager all over again.

      The thin blue line on the home pregnancy kit was unmistakable. Could it be faulty? Please, please, let it be faulty! It had to be wrong! This was not how pregnancies happened, surely. But someone was outside the toilet now, awaiting their turn. Must hurry, get rid of the evidence, stuff it into the bin, cover it up with lots of tissue, pull the flush and get out before anyone realizes something’s wrong!

      I emerged from the toilet, and my life was changed. I was a child no more because I now had a dark secret. Nothing like the kind of secret children keep. A big and terrible secret that would need to be covered up, like that pregnancy kit in the bin, hastily shoved under soiled tissues and detritus.

      Chapter Six

      Waking up the day after her party, Sonya studiously avoided looking at herself as she went past the mirrored wardrobes to her bathroom. Day-old mascara was terrible – more panda than princess on the morning after!

      She slipped off her nightshirt and examined the top half of her body critically. Tim had told her again last night that she had the perfect figure, trying to be romantic by snogging her under the stars and struggling to stick his clammy palm under her sari blouse, telling her how much he was going to miss her. But, in reality, there had been nothing romantic at all about that fumbling grope in the middle of a wet field stinking of manure. Sonya had finally shoved Tim away, put out by his sour beery breath and worried he would tread on the edge of her sari and get mud all over it. His eagerness to please was truly starting to irritate rather than endear. He had made such an ass of himself at the party too – he’d never been able to handle too much drink. When on a sudden impulse a few of the girls had piled into a car to go into Orpington town centre for ice creams, he had insisted on coming along. And then, instead of going into the ice-cream parlour, he’d stood outside, still dressed in his Roman toga and squirting startled passers-by with his plastic sword that doubled as a water pistol. One elderly pensioner had been so enraged by the unexpected attack that he had chased Tim down the road, waving his brolly and shouting profanities until Tim had been rescued by an escape car full of giggling girls.

      Sonya counted in her head while brushing her teeth. Tim had been her boyfriend for eight months now and, at first, Sonya had thought they were made for each other, both of them being clever and bookish and ardent followers of Man U. But lately (and she should admit that perhaps her unexpected four As and subsequent admission to Oxford had something to do with it), Sonya had started to find Timothy’s adoration clingy and suffocating. She would probably upset Mum something terrible if she dumped him, however, as Laura had taken an early shine to Timothy’s shambling diffident manner. She had always been a bit of a sucker for middle-class manners and speech too, all that mumbling and swallowing of consonants. ‘An accent snob, that’s what you are, Mum,’ Sonya was given to joke. ‘Oh, and a sucker for the starving millions! You don’t need to feed him every day, you know. He’s perfectly well-fed at his own house.’ But the mere sight of Tim’s thin, gangling frame entering their home seemed to set Laura off on a reforming mission into the kitchen, where Timothy had of late become a habitual visitor, treated to the Shaw household’s typically robust and nutritious meals. ‘You may not think so now but this lad will make something of his life,’ Laura Shaw often said soon after Tim had gone, sometimes adding darkly, as though reading her daughter’s mind, ‘Do hang onto him, love – good boyfriends are like gold dust, you’ll soon discover.’

      Sonya towelled herself dry before she wandered back into her room and opened her wardrobe to find something suitable for what promised to be a warm day. Was there a dress code for a dump-your-boyfriend-day, Sonya wondered, only half joking with herself. It was best not to look too scrummy, lest the dumpee’s pain was thus intensified. And not too plain so as to cause no pain at all! Sonya shook her head. Perhaps she did not need to agonize so much over splitting up with Tim. It was very likely that his imminent departure for Durham University would finish things off between them anyway, the distance between Oxford and Durham being not inconsiderable for a pair of penurious students. But Sonya had always liked clear lines and stated intentions and the last thing she wanted was to skulk around avoiding Tim when it was so much easier to just tell him the truth.

      Would she miss him at some point, Sonya wondered, hooking together her bra while staring at herself hard in the mirror, trying to induce some guilt. Then she shrugged her shoulders. Given the way Tim had whinged on about her going off to Asia with Estella, she thought not. And it wasn’t even as if he presented a viable option! His delicate stomach had made him nervous of travelling abroad (a take-away from the Shalimar down the road invariably brought on the runs, from what he’d once let slip) and so Tim had never been seriously considered as a travelling companion for the two girls, despite both their parents suggesting it at some point. Besides, in a crisis, Sonya was sure that she and Estella would keep their heads a lot better than Tim ever would.

      Twirling a pair of knickers on her forefinger, Sonya turned to examine her smooth, bare bum in the full-length mirror. Hmmm … not bad at all, she thought, finally recognizing – this recognition having come only well into her teens – how lucky she was to have her unusual golden skin tone that never required the hours on sunbeds and pots of tanning cream that so many of her friends were slaves to. There were some advantages to being of mixed race. Someone at school had, in fact, recently told her that the blend of Indian and European СКАЧАТЬ