Addi rolled her eyes, feigning annoyance. ‘Now you know why he’s always on driving duty.’
‘. . . there’s camels and genies and ninjas . . . and snake charmers . . . I mean . . . you could find a genie . . . or a ninja . . . on a camel . . . It’s all written, guys . . . You know what I mean? It’s all written . . . fate . . . even snake charmers . . . you see . . .’
James was on a roll.
‘Umm . . . I think I might have the next two decades covered,’ she said before both of us burst into laughter.
‘Have you seen Mummy?’ I asked when we had recovered. ‘I ran into Uncle Bill earlier. He was looking for her.’
‘Uncle Bill?’ she asked, looking at me. ‘I didn’t think he would actually come. Aunty Jane too?’
‘Yep,’ I said.
Addi looked as perplexed as I felt. As a child, I had adored Uncle Bill. With his broad build and spectacled grey eyes he reminded me of Daddy, but things had been tense with him over the past few years. Mum and Addi had never really got along with him, and Aunty Jane was a bit – how should I put it? – eccentric.
Addi shrugged, her attentions already back on James. ‘Well, I need to see Mum anyway. I’ll tell her. Where’s Roy?’ she asked.
‘Gone for refills,’ I said, pointing to my almost empty glass. My eyes sought him out amongst the people gathered around the makeshift bar. ‘Looks like he might be a while.’ Geeta had intercepted Roy. She was gesturing wildly, clearly trying to make a point. Roy was nodding along, hands in his pockets. He looked towards the bar briefly before turning his attention back to Geeta. I almost laughed out loud. To anyone else, it would look like Roy was listening intently but after nearly ten years together, I knew he was blanking her out, itching to get away. Everything I loved about India – the chaos, the sense of community, the traditions – Roy hated. He had surprised me with his limited knowledge of rituals and conventions when we started planning Addi’s wedding. You wouldn’t think he had grown up here. James was probably more at home in India than Roy was.
I spotted Emily standing alone in the corner and I made my way over to her, stopping en route to exchange jibes with groups of friends and relatives. Despite the cool desert breeze, Emily had taken off her shawl and draped it over one arm, showing off a rose-gold mini-dress with a plunging V-neck – the kind of style I’d sell to an Essex boutique.
‘That’s a nice dress,’ I said, reaching over to feel the fabric. Polyester; about £6.50 FOB; probably made in Vietnam or Cambodia to benefit from the GSP, though once we had the Euro hub up and running, I could get the same price from Romania and bring in the shipment quicker. I caught myself slipping into work mode and changed the subject in my head.
‘I’m so sorry we haven’t spent much time with you. It’s been so manic.’
‘Please don’t worry about it. I’m just happy to be here. It’s such a different—’
‘Mia, someone said Roy’s mother is looking for you,’ my cousin Mansi interrupted. ‘Somewhere there.’ She waved towards the main hotel block before wandering off.
‘Sorry,’ I said to Emily with an apologetic smile and hurried away from one forced conversation to the next.
‘Ma, how are you?’ I asked, bending over to touch my mother-in-law’s feet.
‘I’m okay, Mia. It’s certainly a lively party, isn’t it? So . . . free.’ She shuddered. ‘Not like how our family does things. But of course your family is different.’
‘How was your trip?’ I asked, trying to keep it light.
‘Tiring. I was expecting Siddhant at the station.’
It took me a second to clock on that she meant Roy. No one called him Siddhant except his parents. He had switched to his middle name when he moved out of his parents’ house years ago. I had only ever known him as Roy.
‘It’s heartbreaking when your only son cuts you out of his life. His father can’t even talk about it. Did you speak to him?’
I did speak to Roy. Several times, in fact. His response was always the same.
‘Give him some time, Ma. I’m sure he’ll come and visit you as soon as he can. He’s just so busy right now,’ I said.
‘Too busy to come and see his parents?’ Her voice went up an octave. ‘I’ve been so unwell. My blood pressure . . .’
I tuned her out.
Roy had vanished as soon as he saw me talking to his mother so I didn’t even have a drink to soften the edges. I had always loved how stubborn and idealistic Roy could be. But God, did I hate it when he left me to deal with his mother. It was like being in a hostage video. Smiling outside, dying inside. In the first few years, I had really tried. Roy’s relationship with his parents, or rather the lack thereof, bothered me to no end and I had made it something of a mission to try and fix it. I was so excited about the idea of having an additional family; I had thought they’d be thrilled to have me too. Needless to say, they weren’t. Roy stood his ground and they stood theirs. Roy’s parents’ refusal to accept a ‘half-breed’ cemented his aversion to them. The fact that I was the only reason Roy was still connected to India was an irony lost on his parents.
Roy and I had had a big argument when I was finalizing the guest list for Addi’s wedding. He didn’t want to invite them at all and, I have to admit, I considered it. His mother made everything so complicated. But in the end convention won over convenience. It was bad enough that his father hadn’t come; if his mother had also been missing, there would have been way too many questions. Everything had been perfect so far. There had been no major disasters, everyone was having a good time, I was amidst all my favourite people and I wasn’t going to let my mother-in-law’s melodrama ruin any of that. So I did the only sensible thing you can do when you’re being held hostage – I switched her to mute, put on a sympathetic smile and nodded along.
I woke up with a groan the next morning. My head was throbbing. It was early. Roy was already awake. He was sitting up in bed, frowning at his phone.
I snuggled up to him. ‘You disappeared last night.’
‘I know, I’m sorry. I was so wasted, I just came up and slept. You were out for ages.’
I must have muttered something incoherent then dozed off because when I came to again, Roy was sitting next to me, freshly showered, holding a Nurofen and a steaming cup of coffee.
He planted a kiss on my forehead. ‘Here, take this.’
I checked my phone. It was quarter past ten. We had organized a city tour and traditional Rajasthani lunch for the guests. Everyone was supposed to meet in the lobby at half ten.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said, reading my mind. ‘I’ll manage the guests. You just relax and spend some time with your mum and sister. I’ve ordered pancakes for you.’
Just like that, the flash of irritation from last night disappeared and I resolved to deal with my in-laws better. Roy may be temperamental but this was the man I loved. He was flawed, yes, but then so was I. This was my Roy. The man I had so easily fallen in love with and quickly married. Moody? Yes. Restless? Extremely. Short-tempered? Sometimes. But always kind, always gallant and I loved him despite my many, many insecurities, his hang-ups and all the little complexities that made up our marriage.
‘You’re too good to me.’ I gulped down the Nurofen and dragged myself out of bed. I felt like shit. Every muscle in my body was aching. I’d had seven – no, wait, eight – drinks last night. And then there were the shots. Even my eyelashes felt heavy, glued together. I must have left my make-up on. Oh well.
Roy was getting ready to leave when I emerged from the bathroom.
I kissed him before climbing back into bed. ‘Thank you.’
‘Hey,’ he said, his voice cracking with tenderness, ‘I love you.’
ROY
Thursday, 10th September
I love you. I love you?
I closed the door softly behind me.
Guilt wracked through me. I couldn’t believe that I had betrayed Mia and then acted as if nothing had happened; that I had kissed
Mia and told her I loved her, as if I hadn’t kissed another woman just last night.
You’re amazing, Emily had said.
Just thinking about it . . . it hit me again. The regret. The nausea. The utter, complete shame of it all. Unfamiliar tears pricked my eyes. A reminder of how different this was to my little indiscretions with past girlfriends. This was Mia. My wife. My beautiful, fragile, would-do-anything-for-me wife. Fuck.
Fuck.
I wanted to go back in time and shake some sense into myself. I couldn’t believe I had been stupid enough to walk off with Emily like that, drunk as I was. I knew that girl was trouble.
You’re amazing.
This would kill Mia.
Sure, things had been tricky recently. Mia was always anxious, we had both spent too much time focusing on our careers and not enough on each other, and then there was the never-ending situation with my parents. But despite all the usual disappointments that came with marriage, Mia and I . . . we loved each other. We were happy.
We were successful.
I had gone and ruined all of that.
MIA
Thursday, 10th September
A stack of pancakes and two cups of coffee later, the bassline of my hangover dropped to a gentler, more manageable hum. It was almost soothing, this quiet buzz in my ear, a reminder of the madness that had ensued last night. I smiled to myself. It was real. I hadn’t imagined it. It had been a great night. I hummed as I showered and dressed. I had arranged to meet Addi downstairs at midday – I was a bit late but Addi wouldn’t mind. Most of the guests were away so I could dress casually. I threw on my favourite Alexander Wang jeans and a linen T-shirt and stepped into my plimsolls. No heels, thank you very much. My feet were still sore from all the dancing last night. A quick slick of lip balm and I was ready to go, armed with my iPad, some Post-its and a pen.
I checked the time again as I waited for the lift, squinting at the scratched dial, the watch on my wrist much older than me. It used to be Dad’s when he was a student and I’d inherited it from him. The mahogany leather was curling up and peeling off in ripples after years of constant use. I frowned at the deep horizontal ridges branching out from the hole I’d had added in. They were threatening to split the strap in two. I had been refusing to get the strap changed for years but I’d probably have to concede soon.
Dad had been austere in his possessions and, aside from his books, most of which had gone to Addi, there wasn’t much in terms of personal effects for either of us to hold on to. Mum had had a big clear-out the day after the funeral. Uncle Bill and Aunty Jane were always around in those days, and I remember overhearing Aunty Jane telling Mum to leave it for another day. It was too soon, she had said. But Mum had been stoic, adamant. She found it painful coming across all of Dad’s things, she said. She kept forgetting he wasn’t coming back and she couldn’t have a breakdown every few hours, not with two little girls to look after. In just one afternoon, Mum and Aunty Jane had folded up all of Dad’s clothes and stacked them up in boxes, ready to be sent to Iraq or Burma or one of the many refugee camps Mum sent things to every year. I had presumed the watch went in one of those boxes to some far-off camp so when Mum gave it to me, six years later, on my thirteenth birthday, wrapped up in pale blue tissue, it had been a welcome, if tearful, surprise. I had raced up the stairs to show Addi, laughing and crying at the same time. Daddy’s watch had been a constant companion ever since, staying firmly clasped around my left wrist for most of the last sixteen years. I intended to wear it to my thirtieth next year.
As if on cue, the lift doors opened and I all but walked into Uncle Bill.
‘Didn’t you go for the city tour?’ I asked, giving him an awkward half-hug as we traded places.
‘Did you tell your mother I was looking for her last night?’
‘No, sorry, I—’
‘Tell her to come and find me,’ he said. The lift doors closed and his looming figure disappeared down the corridor.
The decorators had started by the time Addi and I reached the ballroom. We had agreed on a clean blue and cream colour scheme for the wedding – a stark contrast to the kitsch theme of the sangeet and mehendi. Though we had hired a specialist decorator for this evening, I was nervous about whether the crew would be able to deliver everything I had asked of them. It hadn’t been possible for me to fly down before the wedding and I’d had to brief them via Skype. The flurry of activity in the ballroom was a good sign and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. When I had requested hydrangeas, delphinium, anemones and roses, the florist had politely reminded me that they were in the middle of a desert and then swiftly sent me an invoice reflecting the air freight and ‘convenience’ charges. Nothing was impossible in India as long as your pockets were deep.
The flowers had arrived in insulated boxes that morning and the florist was busy arranging them into bouquets. Addi and I walked to the centre of the room, where someone had laid out printed copies of all the pictures from my Pinterest board next to large-scale printouts of the ballroom’s floorplan. It had been a nightmare procuring these – hotels were nervous about these things after the Mumbai shootings.
‘Wow! This looks great,’ Addi said, crouching down to leaf through the pictures.
‘You’re welcome, sis,’ I said, walking around to look at the centrepieces. I had requested that each table have a slightly different bouquet of flowers in the vintage crystal vases. Same but different.
Addi trailed behind me as I scribbled notes and stuck them to the vases where the arrangement wasn’t up to scratch, the neon orange of the Post-its jarring against the pastel flowers. ‘Are you still seeing the same therapist?’ she asked when I put my pen away.
I nodded. Huge brass urns had been lined up against the backdrop of the sandstone pillars, overflowing with bundles of cream- and honey-coloured roses.
‘Is it helping? Any more episodes?’
The French doors leading onto the terrace had been flung open and the terrace itself was lined with hurricane lamps and tea lights. We stepped outside. Two men on stepladders were setting up the mandap, where Addi and James would make their vows to each other. They were draping swathes of cream silk around the wooden frame, stretching, tossing the fabric, and then pulling it taut. Stretch, toss, pull. Stretch, toss, pull.
‘Not since last year . . . April. James was right about her being a good fit. She does . . . she just gets it, you know? More than any of the others . . . and I feel better, more in control,’ I said. I turned to look at her. ‘She’s a good therapist, Addi.’
The man on our right teetered on his ladder and I took a step towards him. He pulled, shifting his entire body weight onto the fabric and using his feet to stabilize the stepladder before resting on it again and resuming his three-step routine. Stretch, toss, pull.
‘Hey, this is not about getting a review for James’s colleague! You’re my baby sister and I am allowed to worry about you. Especially if you still haven’t told Roy?’ Addi persisted.
‘I can’t. You know what he can be like.’
We made our way back inside, the mid-afternoon sun still too harsh on the terrace. A young girl sat cross-legged on the floor, carefully unwrapping clear-glass orbs and placing a tea light in each, ready to hang them around the mandap once the drapes were done.
‘I know, darling, and I understand keeping it from everyone else. But you can’t keep lying to your husband. Roy practically worships you, and everything that happened . . . it’s so far back in the past, he’s not going to care about anything except being there for you.’
‘Yes, but he can be so narrow-minded sometimes. Roy is very . . .’ I sighed. ‘He just thinks therapy is for crazy people, you know? He’d look at me differently. I don’t know if I can take that.’
Addi put her arms around me and gave me a squeeze. ‘Oh Mia. I could ask James to talk to him? Maybe if he heard it from a doctor . . .’
I looked around the room. Everything was as it should be and the decorato
rs seemed to be running on time. The room would be ready by five p.m., they said, an hour before the first guests were set to arrive.
‘No. I’ll tell him myself, Addi. I just need some time,’ I said, standing back to examine everything one last time before we left.
It looked perfect but I could sense the familiar anxiety sneaking up.
Something wasn’t right but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
ROY
Thursday, 10th September
For once, the absurdities of social life in India entertained me immensely. I posed for countless family photos with near strangers, all of us hugging each other and grinning like long-lost friends when we had met barely twenty-four hours ago, our one hundred per cent natural fake smiles immortalized against the backdrop of the tourist highlights: the centuries-old fort cannon, the gilded window in the haveli, the arch of the Jain temple. The excessively friendly chatter that was usually a source of irritation distracted me and made me feel normal again.
Sightseeing accomplished, I bundled the guests into SUVs to go to Kuldhara, a ghost town thirty minutes away from the city, where Mia had arranged a sit-down lunch. I’d come across Kuldhara when I was researching locations for my Condé Nast series and had mentioned it to Mia one day over dinner. The next thing I knew, she had arranged a traditional Rajasthani meal for the guests amidst the mythical ruins.
I climbed into the last car in the convoy. The driver was wearing a bright green shirt and mirrored sunglasses – Ray-Mans, as per the logo on the top right corner.
‘Kuldhara, please. Can you overtake the other cars?’ I had to get there first to ensure everyone knew where to go.
‘Yes, yes, worry not.’
He zigzagged his way forward on the narrow road, dodging cars coming from the opposite direction with a slap on the steering wheel and some mild abuse. In a matter of minutes, we were leading the convoy.
‘Very hot in desert,’ he said.
Your Truth or Mine? Page 3