Secrets and Sins. Jaishree Misra

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       Chapter Four

      It was twenty past nine by the time Riva finally spotted the garish neon sign of Maroush glinting through the curtain of sleet that veiled everything in a thin grey. The normally colourful and welcoming shops of Arab Town had their doors closed against the wretched weather and the windscreen wipers on passing cars were going nineteen-to-the-dozen. Despite the rain, pedestrians were thronging Edgware Road as usual. Who were all these people out shopping and celebrating on a ghastly night like this, Riva wondered, elbowing her way past wet shopping bags and umbrellas. Despite her shortness of breath, she sped up again, imagining Ben’s irritation when she eventually stumbled into the restaurant. He had been in a bad mood for the last couple of days and only the other night he had complained, ‘You’re never ever on time, Riva. Well, not for me anyway. Deadlines for publishers, yes. Appointments with that agent of yours, of course. Lunches and meetings with friends, oh, it goes without saying. You’re on impeccable behaviour for all of them. But the simple matter of being on time for me seems completely out of the question.’ He hadn’t seemed angry when he had said it – merely sort of weary – and Riva had not argued, knowing that the remark had emerged from his present depressed view of the world. She sighed. It wasn’t easy for an ambitious man like Ben to find himself in the unlikely position of househusband.

      She ducked under the awning with relief, her head and clothes momentarily lit pink by the flashing neon sign of the restaurant. She knew she must look a right old state, her hair wet and in clumps, her Ugg boots soaked through. She had hopped on a bus at Piccadilly and ended up trotting the half-mile distance from Marble Arch rather than hailing a cab, quite simply because there had not been one with its light on. But it would annoy Ben if she said that she had walked – he was quick to assume these days that her habitual frugalities were due to his being out of work. Every so often he took pains to remind her of the fat payout he had received from the bank when he had been made redundant. In Riva’s view this was quite unnecessary – she hadn’t been financially dependent on Ben for many years as her own account now received regular injections of royalty payments. But it was curious how even a man as liberated as Ben preferred to be seen as the breadwinner rather than an equal partner in the kind of joint endeavour they had always agreed their marriage would be.

      Riva stamped her boots outside the entrance and tried to retie her mussed-up hair with a wooden clip. Of course she wasn’t going to confess to Ben that Aman and his film were the reason for her lateness. She had always hidden those little jaunts to the cinema from Ben, assuming that he would be jealous of the unlikely success of their old classmate, particularly as he was also her old flame. It was one of Riva’s more awkward memories when Ben had once spotted a cinema ticket to Feltham Cineworld in her purse, after she had told him she had been to see a Hollywood film starring George Clooney. He had had the good grace to laugh off her white lie, and even jested a little at the memory of Aman’s crush on Riva back at uni. But Riva had, of course, been mortified to have been caught red-handed with the ticket to Ishq in her purse, a feeling akin to the time her father had spotted seven Crunchie bar wrappers in her bin, bought using the change she had pinched from the bowl in the hallway.

      Riva thought up her excuses now, rehearsing them as she stepped through the doors of the restaurant and spotted Ben sitting by one of the tables at the window, looking out at the rain. She slipped off her coat and handed it to the waiter before making her way across the crowded room towards him. Her heart melted at sight of his slumped shoulders: everything about him spelt out his depression.

      ‘Oh, Christ, sorry to be so late, love,’ she said, lightly kissing Ben’s cheek and sinking into the seat facing him. ‘How long have you been here?’

      ‘What excuse do we have today, huh?’ Ben asked, raising his left arm and waving his watch at her, his voice uncharacteristically peevish.

      ‘Oh, don’t ask! No cabs to be had for love nor money on a night like this. And the meeting at Gideon’s just dragged on and on. Antonia, the PR girl from the publisher’s was there too, and wanted to discuss the digital media campaign for the new book. You’ll never believe this but they’re talking about a seven-city tour across Europe, which, of course, would be lovely, except…’ Riva realised that Ben was no longer listening, his attention focused quite deliberately on the wine list.

      Riva lapsed into silence, glad to have been stopped in her tracks while lying so shamelessly to her husband. It really did make her feel quite hateful. Not that all of her utterances were lies exactly, as Riva had indeed had several conversations with both Gideon and Antonia in the course of the day, but it was certainly not true that she had been in a meeting with them this evening. It suddenly crossed Riva’s mind that Ben may have read something online about Aman Khan being in London to promote his new film. She flushed at the thought – it would not take much for him to put two and two together and guess that she had gone to see him at BAFTA. Nervously, she reached out for Ben’s glass of water and watched him over the rim as she sipped. His face looked more drawn than usual today, his grey-blue eyes bloodshot, and Riva wondered if he had spent all day staring at his computer screen. She sighed and sat back in her chair, feeling an inexplicable surge of sadness overcome her. Riva had always striven not to rub Ben’s nose in the success of her publishing career, conscious of the fact that Ben had been the one with real writing ambitions back in college. Of course, he had greeted Riva’s unexpected book deal with excitement and good grace at first, perhaps anticipating with typical confidence that his own chance would surely follow before long. He had even joked of how they might one day become the ‘golden couple in publishing’, both of them enjoying flourishing literary careers. But, as the years passed with submission after submission of his being turned down, Ben had not been able to help becoming just a tiny bit bitter. Riva had done her best to assist in whatever way she could, but she cringed when she recalled the weary look that would come over her publishers’ faces whenever a husband with writing ambitions was mentioned. The most brutal blow had come when Gideon, Riva’s own literary agent, had returned Ben’s manuscript with a terse and uncomplimentary letter of rejection. Ben had found it СКАЧАТЬ