Secrets and Lies

‘Oh God, it had whatshisname in it…’ she said, lifting one hand off the wheel to click her fingers frustratedly

‘You don’t mean whatshisname!?’ Anita laughed. ‘Oh, I just adore him! Left at the lights, Sam.’

‘Yeah, I know where we are now, thanks,’ Sam said ruefully, swinging to the left and pulling in at the door to Anita’s loft apartment, ‘although it probably won’t be long before I’ll be forgetting more than just the names of films and actors!’ She turned to her friend and added apologetically, ‘Oh, what’s wrong with me. The name will come to me the minute I’ve driven away from here. How annoying!’

‘Never mind, darling. Coming up to my flat for a glass of wine?’

Sam shook her head, smiling. ‘I need to get home before Heer turns in, sweetie. Is Hugh coming tonight?’

‘He’s on the night shift all week, but I’m going over for dinner this weekend. He’s cooking!’

‘We didn’t mention him at all tonight,’ Sam noted apologetically, turning off the ignition and looking directly at Anita.

‘Hardly surprising, given what was on all our minds.’

‘I hope it’s going well?’

‘With Hugh, you mean? Yeah, I guess. He does seem awfully nice, but then I’ve only known him a couple of weeks. Sounds awful, but I keep waiting for him to put a foot wrong. So far he hasn’t, I must say, but I do worry that it might just be by careful intent!’

Sam considered this for a moment before replying, ‘Well, even if it is by careful intent, isn’t it rather nice that he cares enough to do that?’

Anita’s grunt only sounded half-convinced so Sam continued her counsel. ‘Listen, don’t keep watching and waiting for something to go wrong. Just relax and enjoy getting to know him.’ Sam stopped, vaguely aware that it was a bit rich for her to advise anyone on matters of the heart.

Anita nodded. ‘You’re right, Sam. I’m too much of a cynical old cow for my own good sometimes. Listen, call if you need to talk, okay? Any time. You know that.’

Sam reached out over the gear-stick to kiss her friend’s cheek before she got out of the car. ‘You too. Call me whenever you can.’

She started up the engine again but waited until Anita was through her door before reversing and heading back for Borough High Street. She jumped as a motorbike courier flashed by, inches away from the side mirror, and cursed under her breath. That second glass of wine had been a bad idea, taken only because Bubbles had insisted that the police would never be prowling on a night as wet as this. How stupid of her to have taken advice from someone who never drove! The last thing she needed after such an emotional meeting with her two friends was a brush with a policeman waving a large breathalyser. If that did happen, she was sure she would collapse right into his arms in a flood of tears.

Sam nervously edged her Audi into the stream of traffic heading for Waterloo Bridge, earning an angry toot. Well, she hoped this was the way to Waterloo Bridge; even the road signs were virtually invisible in the rain. Sam cursed again. Akbar had told her weeks ago to get a sat-nav device fitted in her car, but, as usual, she’d forgotten. She didn’t usually travel south of the river as Anita was the only person she knew who lived there and she was generally happy to meet in town. Sam had made every attempt to refrain from postcode snobbery, but no matter how hard she tried to be comfortable south of the river, she invariably felt a little lost and threatened the minute she got past the South Bank Centre. Even at the start of the twenty-first century, these grubby narrow streets managed to look faintly Dickensian to her.

As she neared a large green sign, Sam peered upwards trying to read it—ah, Westminster Bridge, that would do nicely. She started to breathe easier as she drove under the blue railway bridge that she recognised as being the old Eurostar line. Now she knew where she was and pressed her foot on the accelerator with more confidence, heading for the bridge. Glancing out of the window, she saw that the river was a sludgy brown, the rain having chased all tourist traffic away from the choppy dark water. The Houses of Parliament looked as secretive and mysterious as ever, their narrow Gothic windows sending thin golden slits of light piercing through curtains of rain.

Perhaps it had not been a great idea, Sam thought, meeting the two people who shared those dark memories that had been triggered by the arrival of Lamboo’s letter. Instead, she ought to have gone somewhere bright and busy like Harvey Nicks, distracting herself as she so often did with a platter of moules frites at the rooftop café, and enjoying the anonymity of the summer crowds. Even if she had stayed at home and played Heer’s favourite tennis game on the Wii console, she might have ended the evening feeling less wretched. Luckily, Akbar had left this morning on a business trip, accompanying his boss to Frankfurt and Berlin for three days. She had come to rely on little breaks like this ever since Akbar’s firm had merged with the German practice, and she was grateful that she wouldn’t have to endure his sarcasm tonight: ‘What’s agitating the acidic Anita these days then?’ or ‘Ah, the bimboesque Bubbles Raheja—now if she had one more brain cell she’d be plant life.’ Sometimes the sarcasm was preferable to the more direct hits, though: ‘What’s with the glum face? Some of us have been hard at work and have earned the right to be morose, you know.’

Sam would never in a hundred years be able to explain to Akbar about Miss Lamb’s letter and the despair it had brought upon her. She’d mentioned Lily’s death to him once in the early days but he hadn’t seemed to take it seriously, and she had assumed that things like that were probably commonplace for someone in the legal profession. She hadn’t wanted to dwell on it anyway—not at a time when she had just got married and her life suddenly seemed to be blooming again. Later she had told herself it was just as well she’d never revealed any of the details to Akbar. Without a doubt, he’d have subsequently used the knowledge to make her feel even more remorseful than before. She could almost hear his sneers, especially seeing that he’d always harboured a special resentment towards her school friendships: ‘What sort of a Social ends with a kid being found dead?’ ‘So that’s what your gang was like at school, sure explains a lot!’ He never noticed that he was usually the only person enjoying his remarks, so busy sniggering at his own wit that he invariably failed to look around and see the stricken expression on her face or, worse, the embarrassment of whoever was in their company observing Sam’s mortification.

Sam slowly relaxed her fingers on the steering wheel as she passed the bright chaos of Knightsbridge and the traffic eased a bit. Hyde Park was covered in wet darkness, its black and gold wrought-iron gates closed for the night. She drove along with Classic FM playing softly on the car radio, trying to remember when Akbar had changed from being the charming, suave man she had fallen in love with to the remote stranger she was now married to. She couldn’t understand why his main source of entertainment seemed to lie in belittling other people, especially her.

Sam recognised Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’ as it swelled through the speakers and felt a familiar prickle behind her eyelids as it slowed and turned soft and poignant towards the end. Elgar invariably caused sad memories to unspool and undulate through her head, but today even the soothing tones of the radio presenter was making her want to weep. It came to her as it always did in her lowest moments: it wasn’t Akbar, it was her. It was she who had changed her husband, embittered him in some way by letting her own misery seep into their life together. She had never quite measured up to Akbar’s brilliance anyway, even in the early years of their marriage, doing a part-time job in a library briefly before giving it up, embarrassed by the growing disparity in their salaries and the sheer inanity of carrying on working when he was earning such mega-bucks and needed her to be a support to him. Then, sitting around at home all day or meeting other non-working wives for lunches at Nobu and Zuma and attending the weekend parties thrown by the Kensington banker-lawyer set, she had slowly started to put back on all the weight she had lost at college, almost without noticing it.

It was almost certainly her growing size that had first put Akbar off her, and perhaps it was that which had started off the sarcasm too. Maybe Akbar had thought that jokes were a less hurtful way of letting her know that he did not like being married to a fat woman. But early on she hadn’t taken the hint when he disparaged other overweight people, even those he didn’t know, declaring in that superior way of his that they were all indubitably either ‘weak’ or ‘lazy’. But their sex life had started to dwindle at some indefinable point and then there had been his gift of an exercise bicycle on her thirtieth birthday.

Sam turned down her road and drove past her neighbours’ familiar handsome town-houses, some advertising plush interiors through uncurtained windows. She wondered at that sometimes; she herself always drew the curtains before the lights were turned on—not that she didn’t have expensive contemporary art on her walls or designer custom-made sofas to show off, but there was something comforting in silently declaring that not everything had to be publicised and made known.

Fishing out the electronic buzzer from the glove compartment, she watched the tall metal gates to her house swing slowly open. The maid had drawn the curtains of all the upper windows and only the kitchen was visible from the garden as she pulled into the drive. She could see Heer’s small black head bobbing around inside and felt her heart melt as she turned the ignition off. At least she had her daughter’s love—although who knew for how long. Heer was growing up to be the spitting image of Akbar, and might inherit—dear God—his sense of humour too one day.

Sam gathered her things from the back seat of the car and ducked under the dripping honeysuckle. Heer let out a reassuringly delighted shriek as she walked through the kitchen door. ‘Mamma, Mamma, look what Masooma and me have been making for you!’

Sam smiled as she peered at the pale brown sludge in the bowl. ‘Masooma and I, beti. But what on earth is it?’

‘Chocolate mousse!’

‘Oh dear, perhaps it needs a bit more chocolate then. What have you put in it?’

‘Two bars of Dairy Milk and some cocoa, an egg whipped up and…here, try some.’

‘Actually, Mamma’s eaten, sweetheart,’ Sam said hastily as Heer held out a spoonful, feeling bad at the disappointed moue her daughter’s mouth instantly formed. Even though she had only nibbled on some pita sticks and olives at Heebah, she did in fact feel rather ill and couldn’t face the thought of food. She turned to the maid and spoke in Urdu. ‘No dinner for me tonight, Masooma. Has Heer eaten?’

‘Yes, memsahib. I gave Heerbaby dinner at six. Daal meat with rice and salad, as memsahib said.’

Sam nodded. ‘Thank you, Masooma. Heer, darling, I’m going to get changed…’

‘Oh memsahib, there was a phone call from India. It was Zeba Khan madam. She wants you to call back. I have written phone number down here.’ Masooma could hardly contain her excitement. ‘Memsahib, it is Zeba Khan, film star, your old friend you told me, no? I know her voice so well I immediately recognised.’

Sam nodded blankly as her heart sank. So Zeba would have received Lamboo’s letter too. There had been no contact from her in months, and the only reason for a call out of the blue would be that letter. Sam felt quite sure she could not stand talking about the letter and reunion any more. Despite Anita’s conviction that they would all benefit from ‘laying old ghosts to rest’, as she put it, Sam now felt exhausted at the very thought. Reunions were for people who wanted to stay in touch, and she had done that with Bubbles and Anita because they had both been in London as long as she had, and because they were, after all, the closest thing she had to family here. Since that chance meeting at Heathrow, there had been the occasional email from Zeba who, for all her starry airs, had evidently never forgotten that she had to thank Sam for never revealing her affair with Mr Gomes, despite being class monitor and Lamboo’s favourite. But that had been the sum total of her old school friendships. And given everything that had happened, that was probably the best way to keep it.

Sam changed into a tracksuit and lay down for a few minutes, recalling all manner of things from her schooldays. Then, suddenly, she swung her legs off the bed, sitting up abruptly as she decided to pick up the phone and return Zeba’s call. Perhaps she would know more about exactly what Miss Lamb had in mind for them all.

The ringing tone on Zeba’s mobile was distant before she heard the click and Zeba’s famously husky voice, thick with sleep, mumble an indistinct ‘Hello’.

‘Oh goodness, how stupid of me, I’d completely forgotten about the time difference, Zeba, it must be past midnight there—sorry! Were you asleep? I only just got in and just wasn’t thinking…it’s Sam here.’

To Sam’s surprise, Zeba sounded relieved rather than annoyed. ‘Oh, that’s okay, Sam, no problem. I’m so glad you called. Wasn’t really sleeping as I’m totally jet-lagged.’

‘Been travelling?’ Sam asked, unsure whether to mention the letter until Zeba brought the subject up.

‘More than I’d like,’ Zeba replied. ‘You got Lamboo’s letter too?’ she asked in her habitual abrupt style. Luckily, there was no beating about the bush with Zeba. Sam recalled there never had been.

‘Yes, this morning, Zeba. What is she up to, do you know?’

‘I have absolutely no idea. But I must say I get a very bad feeling about it. As though it’s a…a plot’. Zeba tried to joke. ‘A plot in a really bad Hindi movie.’ But neither she nor Sam could bring themselves to laugh.

‘I’ve been feeling pretty spooked myself, to be honest,’ Sam replied.

‘What about Anita and Bubbles? Have they had letters too? Have you seen them?’

‘We just spent the evening together, to talk about it in fact. Anita wants to go. In fact, she wants us all to go. Brave it out, she says.’

‘She has a point. I’ll go if you guys are coming.’

Sam, trying not to sound too surprised, responded with a nervous laugh, ‘Safety in numbers, huh?’

‘Well, something like that…I hope you guys don’t think it too weird for me to join you out of the blue, but we had grown very close that year, remember? Us four, that is.’

‘Of course it’s not weird, Zeba, we’ve been classmates since we were tiny,’ Sam said, trying not to sound doubtful but quite uncertain of whether someone like Anita would care to have Zeba suddenly back in their inner circle.

‘Well, in that final year we were drawn together mostly by our common hatred of Lily.’

‘Oh, Zeba!’ Sam remonstrated mildly.

‘But it’s true, Sam, we might as well admit it. What on earth did I ever have in common with someone like Anita? Or Bubbles even?’

‘We may have grown apart now, Zeba, but back then we were all pretty much the same, weren’t we?’

‘Just a bunch of Delhi school kids, I suppose…’ Zeba’s voice suddenly sounded less crisp. After a small pause, she spoke again. ‘When do you think you’ll come to India, Sam?’

‘Mid December, when the schools here close, I expect. I’ll bring Heer, but I don’t know what Bubbles will do with her Bobby and Ruby. They’ll probably prefer going on one of their exotic holidays.’

‘I notice Lamboo’s suggesting the third weekend in December for this reunion, just like the Socials used to be.’

‘And the anniversary of Lily’s death,’ Sam pointed out.

‘Exactly what I was thinking. It’s so weird, Sam! As if she knew all along what we did that night and is now intent on reminding us of it.’

‘That wouldn’t be like old Lamboo. She wouldn’t hurt us, that I’m sure of. It could be some kind of memorial thing for Lily.’

‘After all these years? I don’t think so somehow.’ Zeba’s voice rose as a new thought occurred to her. ‘Do you think they might have found some new evidence, and they’re doing a kind of reconstruction thing?’

Sam couldn’t help a small laugh at that. ‘What, like they do on TV? Hoping someone will crack?’

‘Don’t laugh—what if someone does crack, as you put it, or remember something and it all comes out? Ugh, so macabre.’

Sam considered the possibility. It wasn’t entirely nonsensical and Zeba had a public reputation to consider. This was the kind of story those film rags would fall upon with relish, poor Zeba. Poor all of them—nobody needed something like this when life was already so complicated. ‘Murder will out,’ she said softly, remembering Miss Lamb explaining the nature of guilt in one of her Macbeth lessons.

‘Don’t! You’re really scaring me now,’ Zeba implored. ‘But, really, if you think about it, Sam, we’ll all be gathered together in almost exactly the same circumstances. It’s a well-known ploy used by the police the world over. Agatha Christie always did it.’

‘But why now? All these years on?’

‘Maybe she wants to see justice done before she dies, see the guilty brought to book once and for all’.

Sam, unable to keep up her casual tone any more, started to weep at that, lunging for her bedside tissues and pressing a wad against her mouth. Sam had always been one of Miss Lamb’s favourites, never achieving the top marks Anita achieved in Lamboo’s subjects of English and History, but unfailingly making class monitor year on year, simply because the principal had trusted her so implicitly. Now, with stinging recognition, she realised how grievously she had betrayed old Lamboo’s trust in those last few weeks at school. Worse, she had not even attempted any sort of reparation, never once returning to visit either the school or its old principal.

‘Sam?…Sam? You okay?’ Zeba’s voice echoed distantly down the line.

Sam gathered herself together. It wasn’t just Miss Lamb and Lily. There had been so much to deal with that terrible winter, but perhaps Zeba had—in the midst of her present glitzy life—forgotten the dreadful events of that year. What Sam needed now, quite desperately, was to end this conversation. ‘Yes, I’m fine, Zeba. Look, I gotta go now. I’ve been out all evening and need to put Heer to bed. I’ll call you tomorrow…’

‘Oh God, I’ve upset you now, haven’t I? You aren’t crying, are you? Sam?’

‘No, no, I’m fine, Zeba,’ Sam mumbled, managing to keep her voice steady. ‘Look, stay in touch. I’ve told Anita and Bubs that we need to keep each other’s spirits up.’

‘Too right,’ Zeba agreed. ‘Yes, I’ll stay in touch too. You’d better go and sort Heer out now. Call me when you can. And try not to think about this if possible, Sam. We’ve all got our lives to live.’

MUMBAI, 2008

The following morning, Zeba managed to drag herself out of bed and get to work on time, despite having caught only five hours of sleep. Getting out of her car, she straightened her back and walked into the studio, knowing she was already getting full marks from the assembled crew for not making them hang about all morning like some of the other stars did. There were some things about her father’s strict upbringing that she did have to be grateful for.

She looked around the Filmistan sets in amazement. This was good even for Shiv Mirchandani, whose hand was clear in the attention to detail. The fake marketplace had everything: the ration shop, the post office, the vegetable vendor with his trolley full of shiny aubergines and damp bunches of spinach. Zeba suddenly realised that she had not actually seen the inside of a real market for years, merely expecting the fridges and fruit bowls in her Juhu house to be well-stocked at all times. She’d even forgotten who in her domestic retinue had been delegated to oversee all that! But, from her childhood memories of accompanying Ammi to INA market every Sunday, the set designer had got this exactly right.

What a pity that it had all been put together only to be blown apart. Today’s shoot was the bomb-blast scene, which she wasn’t looking forward to at all. The mess and noise, the acrid smoke and smells—horrible. Then she’d have to be rushed to make-up for them to put the grime and blood on her face and clothes for the rescue scene. Zeba stopped short, remembering that her co-star on this film was Neel Biswas, a man with the most horrendous bad breath. She shuddered, imagining submitting to halitosis fumes as she lay in a swoon ready to be gathered up in her distraught lover’s arms.

Zeba sensed someone sitting down gingerly on the seat next to her and turned to see a grinning young girl—probably one of the extras. She felt her hackles rise. She really did not want to be bothered with useless chit-chat when she was sleep-deprived and trying to gather her thoughts for her scene. She had learned method acting the hard way, living as she did in a world where no one else even knew what the term meant. Perhaps she should cock an eyebrow at her maid or assistant to signal to them that they ought to be keeping fans at bay. There was a time and a place for adulation. But Zeba could spot nobody familiar in her immediate vicinity and reluctantly turned back. She’d be cool and distant—Zeba knew from experience that would send the girl scurrying off. No harm in being polite, though—you never knew when the press would descend in disguise, and those Starworld journalists were always looking to find something on her that would bring all her hard-won success crashing down.

‘Yes?’ she said with a plastic smile that she knew was not quite reaching her eyes.

‘Madam Zebaji, I am your biggest fan,’ the girl breathed.

Zeba nodded. She couldn’t help softening at the sound of those words, but she’d heard them so often that they had long ceased to really thrill. ‘Hmm, how nice to know that,’ she said, trying to sound pleasant but with scant success.

‘Madam, if you don’t mind…I am writing a book about our Bollywood industry and want to ask you…’

Zeba had been offered that excuse so many times that it wearied her. Did these people really think that writing books about the film world was easy? How silly they were to imagine that actors would ever stop acting for long enough to reveal their real selves to anyone? It was all an act, she wanted to shout at them sometimes, even the casual chats and confessional-style interviews. How on earth could anyone imagine otherwise? And who was this chit of a girl to offer the world her wisdom on Bollywood anyway? When people like herself, Zeba Khan, had slaved for years to make their way up its labyrinthine, treacherous corridors. Zeba’s beautiful face closed up. ‘Why don’t you make an appointment with my secretary for an interview. He will…’

‘I will most certainly, Madam. But I saw you sitting here, and if I can just ask you one or two things now. Just some basic questions…’

Zeba darted another look around her before nodding reluctantly—where was bloody Gupta, or her PA, or Najma even. Her status allowed her to have as big a retinue as she wished on set, but what a strange way they all had of vanishing when you most needed them. ‘Well, you know, I have just one or two minutes before going on the set…’

‘Don’t worry, Madam, I will not take up much of your time. Just one question…’

Zeba took a deep breath. This was one of those brazen ones who would not be shaken off. Some of these people had no shame, really, no sense of privacy. There were laws to protect the rich and the famous in other countries, but here in India, no bloody chance! Zeba put on her polite but resigned expression and nodded again.

‘Okay Thank you, thank you,’ the girl gushed, pulling out a bright yellow notepad. ‘Madam, Zebaji—may I call you Zebaji? Okay, Zebaji, please tell me when you first took up acting? I mean, when did you first think to yourself, “I am going to be a superstar”. A Bollywood thespian. Maybe Hollywood even!’

Zeba parted Bollywood’s most famous luscious lips to dish out the usual reply…ever since I was a child…my parents, recognising my unusual talent, used to…la di la di la la la…Her patter had been perfected over the years. And the old Hollywood question too—she was sick to the teeth of it! As if all her hard-won success in India amounted to nothing if she failed to get the nod from Hollywood. Which Hollywood star could claim to have a fan-following that stretched to a billion people, for God’s sake! Weren’t journalists supposed to be intelligent people? But, just as Zeba was formulating her reply into polite language, she spotted Gupta hurrying across to her.