Secrets and Sins

Aman took a deep breath, searching his memory…Had he imagined Riva’s face in the crowd as he had left BAFTA earlier this evening? He’d always thought of her as a Londoner, an idea he’d picked up from a small newspaper piece he had read in India when she had won that prize a couple of years ago. He had never heard of the Orange Prize before but, from the tone of the piece, it appeared to be something fairly major in the world of books. It had come as no surprise to Aman that Riva had gone on to become an acclaimed author. She had always been so intelligent, even as a teenager, and had diligently read every single book on their reading list in that first year, sometimes helping Aman by giving him compact précis of the more difficult ones. She’d been unfailingly sweet to him during all that time, and Aman had been sure she had been as much in love with him as he had been with her. But in the end Riva had succumbed to Ben’s persistent attentions and Aman had stupidly allowed her to drift away. Looking back now, Aman knew he ought to be kinder to himself. It hadn’t been stupidity that had led to his losing Riva but a lack of confidence; today, of course, he would have dealt with things quite differently. Then Riva had seemed so superior to him, so clever and so smart. It was no surprise she’d chosen the English guy over him really…

Aman looked unseeingly at the pictures flickering on the screen before him. He’d never forgotten that distant past, even though he had firmly walked away from it and not stopped to look back. But this afternoon, he had thought about Riva a lot, his memories sparked by that chance meeting with her sister at the PR firm. The sister had confirmed that Riva did indeed live in London. And – this was the bit that still stuck slightly in his craw – that she had finally gone on to marry Ben. At least, the sister had mentioned the name Ben; it had to be the same guy. It sounded exactly like the kind of golden life Aman would have expected Riva to be enjoying by now. So what would she have been doing lurking among a crowd of his fans at the BAFTA entrance today?

Aman shrugged. As before, he must have imagined seeing Riva in the crowd. It was silly but quite often he imagined he had spotted Riva when travelling in England, seeing her standing on railway platforms or across crowded shop floors. Aman pulled out the small clutch of business cards that was still in his pocket. ‘Kaaya Walia’ was the name printed in a large curly font, flamboyant gold on ivory. Aman had never met Riva’s sister before, and during their meeting this afternoon she had mentioned still being in school when Riva had joined university. She was a good-looking woman, though not a lot like Riva, being harder and far more sophisticated than the teenage Riva of Aman’s memories. But then, Riva might by now have changed a great deal herself.

Aman picked up his drink again, reflecting on how Riva’s success – unlike his own – was completely unsurprising. Even as a first-year student, she’d shown signs of making it big some day, being so bright and focused and determined. And yet she was one of the most gentle girls he had ever met. People like her deserved their success. Unlike him, who had merely got lucky. His own mother sometimes joked that fame had dropped into his lap when he had been half-asleep and lounging on the sofa one lucky day.

Aman took a long swallow of his lime soda, wondering, not without embarrassment, if Riva ever watched any of his films. Perhaps she and Ben laughed at the thought that the shy and rather silly young suitor she had humoured (and Ben had had to fight off) back at college was now a film star. Famous enough to be featured on the cover of Time magazine recently. He looked out of the window and, in its black emptiness, saw his own face looking back. The Time article had described him as ‘handsome’ and ‘aloof’ but what Aman saw when he looked at his own reflection was the rather diffident and uncertain man he had always been. Stardom hadn’t changed him that much. It certainly hadn’t made him any happier.

Aman smiled now, wondering whether he could blame his ‘aloofness’ on his early heartbreak over Riva. If he were honest, he had never completely gotten over her. The easiest explanation was that Riva had been the first girl he had fallen for and maybe it was true what they said about the first cut being the deepest. Or perhaps it was something to do with the fact that she had dumped him – in contrast to all his subsequent relationships where he had been the one to end things. Aman became pensive again. The most likely explanation for the warmth with which he remembered Riva was that his marriage to Salma had turned out to be such a calamity. It was wrong but, every time Salma behaved in a difficult fashion, Aman was unable to stop himself imagining what it would have been like to have married someone as kind-hearted and lovely as Riva instead.

Their becoming classmates had been something of a happy accident. That English degree had been a disastrous choice of subject for Aman but it was all that had been on offer for a green school-leaver from India with unimpressive grades. The course apparently demanded A’s and B’s but his Uncle Naz had been breezily confident about getting him admission, assuring his anxious parents back in Bombay that British universities were now desperate to get full fee-paying international students to join up. ‘Better than having the boy hang around a city like Bombay, getting bored and getting into trouble,’ Naz Chachu had cheerily assured his parents on the crackly long-distance line from Leeds. Aman’s parents had agreed without too much hesitation. Bombay colleges had all closed their admissions, even their second lists. And, after all, Naz himself had once been the family black sheep, whom life in England had straightened out in a way no one would have imagined when he had first left India with a few hundred rupees in his pocket. Just ten years down the line, Naz Chachu not only owned a string of petrol stations, he was branching out into motorway cafés and – three years ago – had shown further good sense in marrying a girl from a moneyed family. In a move that signified his total and complete redemption, he was offering to take the next generation’s black sheep into his home in Leeds to sort him out.

But Aman had arrived in Leeds in the midst of a grey autumn, and he could recall that the only thing that had prevented him from jumping onto the first flight back home was the sight of a pretty young Indian girl in a red miniskirt who had accosted him on his very first day at the university outside the Chancellor’s office to insist that he join the Union’s protest. ‘But what are you protesting against?’ he had queried half-heartedly, not keen at all to spend his very first day at college being thrown out of it. Not after the trouble and expense poor Naz Chachu had gone through.

‘The hike in the tuition fees that overseas students are required to pay! It’s downright shameful,’ the girl had replied, her face frowning and pink with annoyance. And Aman had been too shy to confess that, despite being an overseas student himself, it was an issue he knew absolutely nothing about. Besides, the girl was far too attractive to be disagreed with, and so he had meekly allowed himself to be press-ganged into joining the small band of predominantly brown-faced students, all of whom were carrying placards and shouting a great deal. She had disappeared into the crowd with a pert flash of her skirt after that but, fortunately, soon popped up again, handing Aman a dustbin lid and a wooden ladle with instructions to ‘Make as much noise as you possibly can, okay? Yell, if you must. That’s the only language they understand.’

Even though he did not know whom she was referring to as ‘they’, Aman had obediently made as much of a din as he could, shouting and clanging for all he was worth, all the while keeping an eye on the red miniskirt as it flashed around the quadrangle. Its pretty owner appeared to be quite definitely in charge of events as they unfolded. Aman recalled how, finally, about an hour later, a great cheer had broken out among the protestors as the Bursar emerged from his office. He wore a harassed expression on his face as he beckoned to the miniskirted girl. When she disappeared into his office along with a couple of others, the remaining protestors seemed to lose both interest and momentum and Aman heard the word ‘pub’ mentioned as, one by one, people started to put their placards down and drift away. Only Aman continued to stand there, shivering in his too-thin jacket as the sun set over the roofs of the college buildings and the evening drew in.

When she emerged from the Bursar’s office an hour later, the girl looked startled to see him still standing under the tree, holding the dustbin lid and ladle she had given him.

‘Goodness, you’re not still protesting, are you?’

‘Well, I’m not shouting any more but I had to return these to you,’ Aman said, handing her the dustbin lid and ladle as though they were prize possessions. She took them from Aman, looking around at the empty quadrangle with a huge frown.

‘Don’t tell me they left you here by yourself to decamp to the pub? What utter bastards!’ she declared, looking in concern at Aman’s thin, shivering frame. He nodded dumbly and was astonished when she proceeded to take his arm. The discomfort of the cold autumn evening was instantly forgotten as she beamed up at him and squeezed his arm. ‘Well, our victory makes it all worthwhile, eh? We won! The Bursar’s going to take the matter up with the uni’s governing council so it’s only a partial victory at this stage. But well worth a celebration.’ She took her hand from his arm and added, a little more shyly, ‘Hey, thanks for joining in. Can I buy you a drink for your pains? Least I can do. I’m Riva, by the way.’

Aman leant back on the headrest of his aircraft seat, remembering that long-ago time. No doubt anyone who knew him then would declare that he had changed unimaginably – and not necessarily for the better! Fame had converted his boyish shyness to ‘aloofness’ and his open, trusting nature to cynicism. Even the susceptibility he once had to the sort of kindness Riva had shown him was now transformed into the deepest suspicion of people’s motives. But, back then, he had been so easily touched by Riva’s friendship and the manner in which she had firmly taken him under her wing. That day outside the Bursar’s office, she had marched him into the smoky warmth of the Hare & Tortoise and introduced him to everyone as though he was her best friend. The others had been faintly curious but eventually accepting of him, despite his being a bit of a fish out of water: a teetotaller, fresh out of India and completely clueless about some of the jokes they tossed about so nonchalantly. Looking back, Aman realised that they had all been nice enough – all except for Ben. Aman had soon worked out that the fellow was already madly in love with Riva and consequently jealous of the attention she was showering him with. Ben wasn’t to know that she was only feeling sorry for the lost soul Aman had been back then! In fact, it was probably pity that had led to her first sleeping with him four months later too. But, mere weeks after that, she had gone off him again, and slipped back into her own circle of friends; people who were like her and with whom she would naturally feel more at home.

Aman chewed on a slice of lemon, trying to recall the names of all the others…Susan was Riva’s best friend, a gregarious redhead who had been to the same school as Riva and had joined Leeds Uni too, but in the History department. Her name had stuck in Aman’s head for some reason but, try as he might, Aman could not now remember the name of the medical student Susan had been going out with…a tall, gangly, serious type who talked a lot about joining Médecins Sans Frontières when he had completed his MBBS…Jack? John? No, it had gone…

With all those young faces now floating around in his head, Aman tried to settle into his aircraft bed. But, after half an hour of trying to fall asleep, he was still awake, wondering if, like Riva, Susan had gone on to marry her college sweetheart. They had seemed a well-suited pair, the chatty redhead and her medical student boyfriend who had such a grave and serious air about him. Aman had heard them talk about joining VSO together…Perhaps they had, and were now working side by side in some corner of the world, helping the poor and dispossessed. Some couples were like pieces of a jigsaw slotting in perfectly together, Aman thought as he finally fell into a troubled sleep.

Chapter Seven

The sudden clear knowledge of Joe’s infidelity came like a physical blow to Susan’s stomach. The unease had been growing for days but she had so far had nothing definite to put her finger on. One could not possibly make an accusation, or private judgement even, on the basis of such vague observations as a spouse’s far-off look, for heaven’s sake! Not if she did not want to be seen as completely paranoid.

There had been other things, though. Until last month, Joe’s BlackBerry had been an instrument carelessly strewn about the house, often beeping insistently while Joe raced about the house searching frantically for it, or nearly getting chucked into the recycler along with the Sunday papers. Now, however, Susan had observed the damn thing become a permanent accessory to her husband, looped around his neck on a cord, and glanced at frequently and surreptitiously. If Joe had been seventy, Susan would have understood the neck-cord thing but he was thirty-five, for God’s sake, and far from requiring memory aides! Before the suspicion had crept in, sitting like an unmoving lump between them, Susan had quite casually asked Joe about his sudden attachment to his mobile phone. He had looked confused for a moment – clearly not realising he’d made it so obvious – before speaking quickly, thinking on his feet. He was considering dispensing with wearing a watch, he said, and had Susan noticed that youngsters never wore watches any more? Their whole array of technological needs was now being met by their phones, apparently. Susan had at first accepted Joe’s explanation without question, even agreeing that most of her older students had in fact dispensed with wearing wristwatches.

What was more difficult to ignore was Joe’s more recent tendency to veer from overblown expressions of love to irrational snappishness, as though Susan had simultaneously become both her husband’s most loved person, and his most hated. There had even been that ghastly scene last month when they had been driving up the M4 to visit her parents in Stoke Poges. Joe had been silent for much of the journey, responding to Susan’s attempts at conversation with monosyllables or grunts. He had also been driving unusually fast and, when Susan had reminded him that they were in no particular rush to get there, he had slammed on the brakes and swung onto the hard shoulder in a quite terrifying manoeuvre, only narrowly missing a coach travelling on the inside lane. The angry blare of the coach’s horn was still ringing in their ears as Joe turned on Susan in a fury to yell, ‘Do you want to drive then?’ Startled by the unexpected aggression, Susan had silently swapped places with her husband and taken the wheel, unwilling to let Joe drive when he was in such an agitated state. Joe had calmed down just as rapidly, soon reaching out to cup his hand over Susan’s on the gearstick and mutter an apology. But, needless to say, the lunch at her parents’ home had been awkward.

Despite Susan’s rather affable and trusting demeanour, she was no fool, and had contemplated the possibility of Joe having an affair with a pragmatism that had impressed even her. Then she had hastily put the thought away, feeling disloyal for even considered it. Besides, the very idea was too exhausting in its potential for grief.

But now, tonight, proof was here staring her in the face.

Curious how the tiniest of actions could escalate into an event so big, so devastating. Who would have thought that five minutes could change your life? All she had done that evening was to excuse herself to use the ladies’ at the restaurant. Wending her way through the other tables, she had seen Joe leave the gents’ just ahead of her; but he did not return to their table as she expected, instead walking out of the restaurant into its herb garden, all his attention on the keys of the BlackBerry he was jabbing. Still thinking nothing of it, she had followed him, planning to give him a mischievous private snog before they returned to their table of celebrating friends. It had been a noisy evening, with everyone congregating at the River Café after work, and Susan had barely managed to grab a few words with Joe before they had been caught up in the general merriment of gift-giving and catch-up chatter. A hug was now in order, especially seeing how unusually tired Joe had looked as he had walked into the restaurant, his tie askew, that distant expression on his face again.

She could just about hear Joe’s deep voice as she came up behind him, expecting him to turn at the crunching sound of her heels on the gravel path and smile at her. But his attention had seemed consumed by his call, his head bent, his voice low and caressing. Perhaps it was that which made Susan stop – the intimate tone of voice that she had always previously assumed was reserved for her. She came to a halt just before she reached out to touch him, her heart lurching sickeningly when she heard him say, ‘I have only a couple of minutes, darling, but I had to call you…Where are you?’

Oddly, there was a part of her that, instinctively recognising an intensely private moment, had wanted to slink away. Later, talking to Riva, Susan would even exclaim ruefully at that memory – laughing at her typically doltish instinct to be considerate to her husband, even at her own expense. But then that irrational moment had passed, and she reached out to touch Joe’s elbow. He had swung around and visibly flinched at the unexpected sight of her; almost as though she were not his wife at all but a crazed mugger carrying a knife. Their eyes had locked for a few confused seconds in the moonlight. Susan could see Joe struggling to remember what he had just said that might have been overheard. Comically, the silence between them was filled by the unmistakably female voice that continued to emerge from the mouthpiece of Joe’s phone, crackling from somewhere far away, unaware that it was not being responded to any more. Then Joe had cut the line dead, muttering a lame excuse to Susan about a patient needing emergency advice, before stuffing his phone back into the top pocket of his shirt. Susan had nodded, looking blankly at the small bulge that the phone formed against Joe’s chest, almost as though expecting it to involuntarily start speaking and offer a more credible explanation than the one she had been given.

Susan had accepted her husband’s blatant lie, quite simply because it was far less devastating than the truth. Then she had swiftly and silently walked back into the restaurant, Joe following her. They had weaved their way past all the other diners, making painfully slow progress back to their own table at the far end of the restaurant, and soon were swallowed up once more in the noisy warmth of their celebrating group of friends.

It was the fortieth birthday party of David, Joe’s oldest friend, now a paediatrician at Great Ormond Street Hospital and one of Susan’s best chums too. David’s plump face was by now quite pink from all the Shiraz he had been consuming. As Susan now slipped back into her chair, he enveloped her in a bear hug, slurring fondly, ‘Dear, darling Ginger…’ (David was the only person Susan ever allowed to call her Ginger) ‘…where have you been? I was quite lost without you, y’know…don’t be running off like that again…’

Susan, still trying to calm her racing heart, smiled at David, but, over his head, she could see Joe excusing himself from the table again, walking swiftly back in the direction of the toilet. Of course, he was going to call and apologise to the person he’d so rudely cut off – Susan knew that without a doubt. And, despite the smile for David that was still frozen on her face, she could feel her heart break into a million bits inside her chest.

Chapter Eight

Joe woke on the morning after David’s party, unsure for a moment of where he was, blinking in confusion at the sun streaming in through the thin linen curtains. Then he groaned as he felt his stomach churn and a dull ache hit him between the eyebrows. He’d drunk way too much last night. But that had seemed the only option after that ghastly mishap with Susan and the phone call. He wasn’t sure how much she’d overheard of his conversation, especially as she’d seemed fine later, laughing and joking with David as usual.

He recalled feeling his knees physically buckle underneath him when Susan had materialised behind him in the garden of the River Café, while Kaaya’s voice had been caressing his ear. How strange was this thing called guilt – on the one hand, it had the power to make him feel as if a knife was slashing away at his insides and yet…yet, there were times when he was so completely inured to it, he could look straight into his wife’s face and lie, coolly and blatantly, without the slightest pang. Why, there had even been the day – at the birthday party Susan had recently thrown for Riva – when he had lost control and kissed Kaaya full on her lips, his hands running all over her lithe body as he pressed her against the fridge, all the while hearing Susan’s laughter in the next room. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he was himself a psychiatrist, he would have thought this behaviour a form of madness.

But that was what women like Kaaya did to men like him. She was just so beautiful and so captivating, he was like a ball of putty in her hands. Joe knew he wasn’t a weak man, never had been. Not with alcohol, not with women. It was something he prided himself on. But it was literally as though he had had no choice at all once Kaaya had set her sights on him. Of course, they had met many times over the years – he had even attended her wedding to Rohan, for Christ’s sake – and although he had long thought of her as the most gorgeous thing he had ever laid eyes on, he had never even considered flirting with her. Not least because he would never have dreamt of hurting Susan with that kind of behaviour. Now Joe realised, of course, that the only reason he had not fallen for Kaaya before was because he had thought her completely inaccessible; he had never once imagined that she would spare him more than a moment’s thought. Until that night, when they were all gathered quite casually at Riva’s house and Kaaya had caught him looking absently at her cleavage. Instead of doing that thing that women like Susan did – rather sheepishly adjusting their necklines and swiftly looking away – Kaaya had deliberately bent over to pick up an almond out of a bowl, further revealing the alluring swell of her breasts. Then she had looked up at him through her lashes and smiled knowingly as she delicately placed the almond on her tongue and chewed on it, leaning back and running one finger along the rim of her wine goblet.

That had been the start of it and Joe still felt giddy at the memory of the days that followed – the snatched flirtatious conversations at parties and restaurants edging them closer to very dangerous territory, that first kiss on Riva’s wet driveway last Christmas, stolen while the others were busy collecting their brollies and drunkenly kissing everyone else in the hallway, and finally, one frozen day in January, a long, lingering lunch at China Tang, which he had managed by pleading a trumped-up illness at work to be able to leave at midday. It was only after that lunch, convinced by Kaaya’s passionate air and seeming sincerity, that Joe had finally plucked up the courage to take their relationship to the next logical step, one he was quite sure he would not have taken for a mere physical fling. It was something he had only rather wildly dreamt about before, listening with some amusement to other people gossiping about such things in half-horrified, half-admiring tones. Adultery. Infidelity. Big words, as though it required more than a couple of syllables to express such major transgressions. At what stage exactly did one describe a relationship as adulterous? When a man first held his wife’s body and imagined she was someone else? When he first lied to a woman he barely knew about the state of his marriage, allowing a near stranger to believe that his wife of ten years could not make him happy? Even if it had to be a physical act, at what precise point in the continuum between kissing and having full-blown sex did an affair slip into the realm of infidelity? The simple truth was that, by the time Joe had decided to have sex with Kaaya, he had seemed to have no choice in the matter at all. He was, in fact, so ready to burst with love and longing for this beautiful, beautiful creature, so convinced that it was nothing short of a gift to be offered her love, that turning away from it would have seemed the bigger travesty. He had loved Susan well enough, but now it was as though he simply loved Kaaya more.