Secrets and Lies. Jaishree Misra

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СКАЧАТЬ car and liveried chauffeur in the way most people did, sneaking unashamedly curious peeks at the occupants of the rear seat to catch a glimpse through smoked glass of such blessed beings that could afford to ride in a Maybach. They were hardly likely to know that she, Bubbles, rode in it only when accompanying her imperious mother-in-law like some kind of handmaiden. Nor would they know that there were things money and Maybachs couldn’t achieve, such as being able to get through the London traffic faster on a day like this. There was no point getting tetchy with the poor driver, as her mother-in-law had done a few minutes ago. He was doing his best with the bulky car that had purred again to a standstill. To distract herself, Bubbles delved into the magazine rack behind the seat and found copies of Tatler and American Vanity Fair. She leafed through the first and then the second, trying to absorb the gossip and the fashion tips. But her concentration was terrible today. She hadn’t been able to think straight since the arrival of Lamboo’s letter this morning, unable even to speak to Sam when she had seen her name flash repeatedly on the screen of her phone. Slapping the magazines down on the seat, Bubbles opened her bag and took out the envelope for the umpteenth time. She gently ran her fingers over its rough paper, in some inexplicable way relishing the painful tug she felt in her heart. Just when her psychotherapist had confirmed that she was finally learning to put futile memories away, this! Someone—it must have been Anita—had once said that people remembered happy things like their childhood days and first love and first taste of ice-cream in a cone only when they were unhappy. If that was so, then it was clear to Bubbles that she was condemned to be surrounded by her memories despite the best psychotherapy Harley Street had to offer. And how they had rushed back this morning, faces and voices emerging thick and fast from some kind of wintry mist, even the tiniest details etched with sudden frightening clarity before her eyes. Bubbles shoved the letter back into her Mulberry tote, nervously rubbing her other hand over the cold hardness of its metal studs, warming them against her palm as she looked out at the rain.

      It had rained in Delhi too that morning long ago, complete with lightning flashes and thunderclaps, which was not so unusual for late December. The downpour had made the roses in Miss Lamb’s garden drop their petals all over the winter earth, like red spatters of blood. Or so Bubbles had thought, until she had actually seen what blood looked like after it had fallen on wet earth—virtually invisible to the eye. She shuddered. ‘Where are we now, Mottram?’ she asked in a high voice, for want of anything else to say.

      ‘Old Burlington Street, Madam,’ the chauffeur replied. ‘I’m trying all the back roads to get out of this mess. Not long now, hopefully.’

      Bubbles recognised the shops of Regent Street as the car turned a corner and she saw shoppers burdened with raincoats and bags, crossing the road and waiting at bus stops, looking as though they carried the weight of the world on their shoulders. She wondered sometimes at the sorrows that might afflict other people, occasionally feeling pangs of guilt at her own rather pampered existence. The cafés were all brightly lit and buzzing with people taking shelter from the rain. She could see a couple kissing in the large window of Starbucks, a mug of shared coffee steaming in between them.

      The car crawled over the lights at Piccadilly Circus. They weren’t far from Heebah now, thankfully. Suddenly Bubbles longed to see her two old schoolmates more than anyone else in the world. Anita could be such a pain sometimes, carping on about left-wing stuff and recently making her feel personally culpable when her in-laws’ company bought up an airline. As though those were things she had any control over at all. She’d tried sarcasm (‘I’m not exactly Binkie’s dad’s business advisor, y’know’) but nothing could stop Anita once she had mounted her soapbox. Sam was different, good old Sam. Unfailingly tactful and diplomatic, always playing peacemaker. In truth, though, Bubbles loved them both, even Anita, whose energy and intellect she could draw upon when required, which was frequently. Sometimes she wondered whether it was the combined presence in London of her two oldest friends that had kept her sane all these years. In that respect, at least, she had been lucky.

      After the chauffeur had pulled up alongside the maroon and gold awning of Heebah, Bubbles stepped out gingerly, careful not to get her new Manolos wet. A couple of men gave the car, and then her, appreciative glances as she wended her way past the pavement tables into the restaurant, pushing her heavy mane of auburn hair back from her face. Her linen trouser-suit was probably crumpled, but she could tell from Heebah’s fawning mâitre d’ that she still looked expensive. She had never figured out how people uncannily smelt affluence emanating from her person, but they invariably did, even when she hadn’t bothered to dress up.

      She made her way across the room as she spotted her two friends. They were deep in conversation and saw her only when she was ushered into her seat. After she had ordered a champagne cocktail for herself, she turned to them. There was none of the usual preamble about clothes and hair and weight today. Instead, she nodded at the letter that lay on the table between Sam and Anita and said sombrely, ‘What the hell do you think Lamboo’s doing?’

      ‘I was just saying that it’s amazing how she managed to track us all down,’ Anita observed, adding, ‘well, that’s assuming she has sent letters to everyone. I haven’t had mine yet.’

      ‘It must be waiting for you at your flat. She wouldn’t leave you out. Wonder whether she’s written to everyone, you know, the whole batch of ’93?’

      ‘Something tells me it’s just us, actually’

      ‘She must have met someone who knew our addresses,’ Bubbles suggested. ‘Or maybe the internet makes all this easy now. My Ruby was talking about some Facebook website thing where her school friends meet and chat or something…’ Bubbles stopped rambling. The last thing any of them wanted was to be chatting to their other school friends, their little circle having snapped firmly shut the minute they had left school.

      ‘It wouldn’t have been that difficult to trace us,’ Sam was replying in her usual pragmatic manner. ‘Why, Lamboo might just have called one or the other of our parents in Delhi. I think we’re worrying too much. Maybe it’s just as her letter says: she’s retiring from Jude’s and wants to see us before she “disappears into the deep hush of a convent”.’

      ‘Mmm, I don’t know…typically poetic, but something tells me it’s more than that,’ Anita said dubiously. ‘It’s clear she’s holding something back…like here, where she says, “I have so much more to tell you girls before I go, but perhaps it is best to wait until you are all gathered here together as before”’. Anita tapped the letter with her forefinger. ‘How the fuck does that not indicate she really wants to say something else, huh? Would she really summon us 4000 miles just to say goodbye?’

      It was Bubbles who first said the unsayable, uttering the name not mentioned between them in all these years. ‘Do you think they might have found some new leads in Lily’s case?’ she asked in a small voice.

      ‘Nonsense. After fifteen years?’ Anita scoffed, although she sounded more nervous than incredulous. ‘I can’t see the Delhi police being that efficient somehow.’

      ‘It’s possible she just suddenly got a bit maudlin or emotional or some such. After all, the date she’s suggested will be exactly fifteen years since Lily died,’ Sam offered before trailing off.

      ‘Lamboo emotional? Don’t think so somehow. It just isn’t part of the Brit psyche, stiff upper lip and all that.’

      ‘Oh God, it just doesn’t make sense,’ Bubbles said, picking up her champagne flute from the table and taking a long swallow. Sometimes the very act of thinking made her head hurt.

      ‘D’you know,’ Sam said, wrapping her shawl around her shoulders, ‘I met Aradhna Singh at a lunch party the other day. She was just back from her school reunion at St Jude’s. Makes a point of it to go every year, apparently. СКАЧАТЬ