Her mother was at home in the kitchen at the back and cried out on hearing Rita enter. ‘I’ll just take my bag up!’ she replied in what she hoped was a jaunty, carefree voice, ran upstairs and then into her bedroom, the same bedroom she had slept in all her life, stood before her mirror. She had looked unremarkable in the guest washroom, even wan. Now her hair looked shiny, her eyes were sparkling, her lips indecently plump. She let her fingers run over her face, to make sure that she could still feel herself, then remembered his fingers, how she had let him touch her all over. She descended the stairs slowly. Her parents’ ornaments and trinkets were displayed haphazardly, the wallpaper clashed with the curtains, the carpets were threadbare. The house remained unchanged, but she was.
When, later that evening, her mother called her to the phone, she heard his voice, indistinct, he was calling from somewhere noisy: sorry to renege, could you take the train back? Her heart plummeted into her stomach; her body was frozen cold. He would never speak to her again; she would be asked to leave the university. And because she was sure that if her parents’ eyes met hers they would guess the truth, she tried her best to avoid looking at them, limiting her appearances over the following days. If they were hurt by her distance after weeks of absence, they did not show it, did not interrogate her, as if they were afraid of what they might uncover. Only when her teacher Jayshri called – she needed someone for a performance, there had been a drop-out due to illness – and Rita refused did her mother intervene, nonplussed. ‘But she said it was a dance you were very familiar with, mol. Why don’t you call her, find out . . . ?’ She dug in her heels. There was no doubt that Jayshri would see on her face what had happened; the word impure would be emblazoned on her forehead. She had sinned: she had encouraged a married man, for why else would he have felt brave enough to do what he had done? A man whose wife was an invalid. This wife became now, in her thoughts, a consumptive, tragic heroine.
On Easter Sunday, she faked a stomach ache to avoid attending Mass with her parents: if she took the communion wafer it would burn a hole inside her. She spent the morning in her bed, only leaving it when the house was empty, to go and sit in her mother’s sewing room, and then to walk in the park nearby. The fresh air was invigorating and outside of her parents’ house she could view herself and her actions a little more dispassionately. She had chosen a university some distance away so that she would have space: space to do what? A boyfriend, a relationship: she had hoped for these. She had wanted, in effect, to confound all her friends who teased her for being too dutiful, too obedient. She had wanted to confound herself, be reassured that she was able to reveal herself, truly – be naked with a man – to dispel some of the intrigue that surrounded the act. Hadn’t she spent the first term in awe of Julian, hoping she would catch his attention? When she had, she had been scared by him. You must be batting them away. And instead, the most inadvisable, inexcusable liaison, but one which had swallowed her whole.
But she could stand back from herself for long enough to see that she had never expected, except in those last few moments, for anything to happen between her and Ben Martin. Prior to feeling his body against hers, she had only ever imagined an intangible, unconsummated romance. But once she was in his arms, there had been no surprise, as if that moment had been preordained; as if her life until then had been a prelude to what was certain to happen. She could see now that he had not expected her to be so inexperienced: he would have seen her earlier in the year, with Julian, made his assumptions. The blood smeared on her thighs would have apprised him of the circumstance, added another distasteful dimension to the encounter. He had disengaged as a result; the moment had only been a moment. What did he know of her? And she of him? She could not have him: that was his message when he had phoned. He had discovered he loved his wife, his sickly wife. In sickness and in health. He did not want to betray her further. He was not cancelling a lift. He was cancelling her, erasing her as Julian had erased her.
Her brother and family arrived that afternoon, and everyone gathered around the table for the Easter meal. The smell of baked rice, spiced chicken, cardamom and cinnamon wafted from the kitchen: her mother’s biriani. The meal began, her mother having slaved over several different curries, when the biriani alone would have sufficed, delighted to have the whole family together again. The room grew warmer as the dishes were opened, steam condensing on the windows. She regarded her family: her father, dignified, meticulously separating the meat from the bones; her mother perched at the end of her chair, ready to jump up at any request from her sister-in-law, who sat, solidly immovable in her chair, Mira on her knee, until the child squirmed off and then clambered onto Rita’s lap. ‘She missed you,’ Joy said, ruffling his sister’s hair and then his daughter’s. After a cursory, are you feeling better? How are your studies? there were no more questions directed to Rita. As usual, she sat on the edges of the babble, allowing the talk to flow around her. On one side of the table, Joy held court – the sale of stocks and speculation on the market – their father grunting in response. She turned her head the other way: Rita’s mother was nodding submissively as Latha pronounced that the chicken didn’t taste quite right. She was suddenly repulsed by the stultifying, suffocating mundanity of it all. The table groaning with food, her mother nervously responding to questions, her father studiously chewing, her brother and his confidence veering into smugness. This was her life, and the life she had ahead of her. Was that why she had fallen for Ben Martin? Because he was a world away from hers?
She arrived back after the Easter break and avoided his corridor. There was no mention of her transgressions and no call to an office, no reprimand. She stopped cooking with her friends, started spending longer hours in the library, where she made copious notes while her mind remained blank. The physical action of putting pen to paper, seeing pages filled with closely lined script, in some way stifled her fears: that she was in the wrong place, that she did not fit in. The only place she did fit in were the lessons she continued to help with at the weekends, Maria commenting that she looked thinner: was she taking care of herself ?
Weeks back from the break, she received an email from him, titled Meeting: Hi Rita. We need to schedule a meeting. Please let me know if Wednesday at 2 p.m. suits you. Regards, Ben. She did not reply, deleted the message, then later that day scoured her trash folder to find it again and see if there were any extra words she had not seen, any hidden message: she found none. She had two further meetings scheduled with him, but she went to neither. Then after exam week, the email, this from the student manager, saying that she was required to attend at least one meeting per term with her personal tutor, Ben Martin cc-ed in above, and records showed that she had not attended any. Could she please make her presence known to him?
When she knocked on his door, he was typing at his desk, and he rose to his feet, ushered her in and pulled out a chair, made a show of moving a pile of books, shuffling papers, and then, leaving the door ajar, sat opposite her. He was wearing his usual clothes: dark corduroys, a dark, collared shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Her heart swooped as she remembered how his hands, now clasped between his knees, had touched her everywhere, how he had wanted to feel every inch of her body.
‘You’ve missed a few appointments,’ he said. ‘And you’ve not replied to my emails. Did you get them?’
She nodded.
‘I think you can do really well, Rita, and I don’t want you to neglect your studies. Have you been keeping up with all your assignments?’
She nodded again.
‘One of my colleagues mentioned that you didn’t do as well in the exams as they had expected—’
‘I’m trying,’ she interrupted, and to her surprise her voice sounded firm. ‘I’m trying my best.’
This time he did not look away.
‘If,’ he cleared his throat, ‘if you would like to change personal tutors, I could find a way of getting someone else. I could find an excuse . . .’
She did no
t respond. He was silent, and she stared at her hands.
‘I’m so sorry,’ his voice was low. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
She looked up. He had his elbows on his knees, his head bowed. He had one hand in his hair, his fingers pulling back, as if he wanted to yank his head off.
‘I thought it would be best if you made your own way back here. That’s why I rang. I found your parents’ number on your records.’
She said nothing, and he continued: ‘I want you to know that it was never my intention. When I offered you the lift? Invited you in? I never intended to . . .’ His voice petered out.
Her skin felt cold, and she started to shiver.
‘Are you OK?’ His voice was full of concern. ‘Do you want to say anything?’
She was quiet for some moments, but then took in a deep breath and spoke: ‘You didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do.’
The silence between them extended, but she could not bring herself to look at him. She was still shivering. It was the hardest thing to be sitting across from him, when she could remember how warm he was, how his skin felt under her fingers, how his hands felt moving over her.
‘That day when I was crying?’ she started, and as if on cue the tears sprang from her eyes. He stood up quickly and closed the door, laid a hand on her shoulder briefly, then squatted in front of her. She raised her head and saw that he was watching her steadily, his eyes solemn.
‘It was because of Julian. I suppose I wasn’t what he wanted . . .’ Her throat was tight and her voice was gargled. ‘He dumped me pretty quickly—’
‘Rita—’
‘So don’t worry. I’ve had practice . . .’
Her words sounded too trite for what she was trying to express. She was crying so much that she did not see him get to his feet again, turn the key. Then he was kneeling next to her, so that she was crying into his shirt, the smell of him, his chest, his arms around her. I’m so sorry, he was saying. Then, his lips against her ear, Rita, Rita, you have no idea the effect you have on me. I’ve not stopped thinking about you for one minute. And then his mouth was on hers, and she could taste him again, feel his warmth.
He pulled her close, his hands moving under the jacket she was wearing, his tongue inside her mouth, so they were breathing the same air. She leaned into him, returned his kiss, it was so easy to do, and he pulled her to him, off the chair, so she was lying on top of him, so they were lying half under his desk.
She kissed him – a long, slow, searching kiss. It was just the two of them, in the dimness, behind the curtain of her hair falling around them, her body trembling with the release she felt, being back in his arms. She could feel his hands on the small of her back, pressing her to him, and then he started laughing, his body shaking against hers. You feel so good, he said, and she buried her face in his neck so he would not see her blush. He became serious, continued to stroke her. Did I hurt you, that time? he whispered, and when she shook her head, he said, I shouldn’t have been so irresponsible.
It was only after a moment that she realised what he was referring to; it had not crossed her mind. She lifted her head from his neck and touched his mouth with hers, let her tongue trace his lips, and she felt his hands move, briefly clasp her breasts, before he exhaled heavily, settling them on her hips. I’ve not got anything with me, he whispered, and I don’t want you to think I’m a brute.
She shifted slightly, and he drew his arms around her, holding her tight against him, as if they were now reunited, as if in celebration of what was meant to be.
But of course it wasn’t. It wasn’t meant to be, it wasn’t right, it was wrong, so wrong. Her skin gathered goosebumps despite the warmth from his body, despite the clothes they were both wearing. The books in his office regarded them silently. When she gently pushed his arms away, rolled onto her knees and onto her feet, smoothing down her top, the photograph of his wife met her eyes.
‘Can I see you again?’ he said.
‘I’m going home tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Summer holidays.’
‘I see,’ he said. But when they got to their feet and he turned to motion that he was about to unlock and open the door, he let his hand drop. ‘Can I take your number then?’ He looked so uncertain of her response, so unsure that she would hand over this piece of personal information, that she felt momentarily that the decision on which direction they would take rested within her control. When she nodded her head and complied, he folded the piece of notepaper and said thank you quietly, before pressing his lips briefly against hers. And then he opened the door so that she could step out. Back into the corridor, back into the real world.
5
THAT summer, she flew to India with her mother and father; the visit had been planned for many months. She had last been to Kerala three years earlier. Until then she had accompanied either both her parents or her mother alone on yearly visits: always in the summer, always upsetting any plans she had made for a holiday job or outings with friends. But when Mira was born, Latha had wanted her young sister-in-law to live with them to help with the baby, so that her career as a pharmacist would not be disrupted, and for the following three years Rita was relieved of the obligation to travel back with her parents.
The heat and the rains were familiar enough. But walking barefoot on the cool floors, hearing the rain outside, bringing with it the mix of odours – of crushed flowers and spices, of clean water and dirty water – she had stared at the land around her with amazement. For, suddenly, she felt one with it. The lushness seemed to mirror her lushness; the sensuous warmth complemented the sensuality she felt. Even the film songs which she understood just enough seemed to echo her feelings of total loss at the separation, at the ache of longing she had for Ben, for the six weeks she had been promised to her parents, here, rather than where she wanted to be: there, with him. How had she never felt this way before? And what could people see of her feelings on her face? There were the usual compliments that came rich and fast, an implicit insult to her mother: how could you produce so beautiful a daughter? Her mother, impassive, with only the set of her mouth betraying her vulnerability, was so absorbed by the complex emotions that returning to her childhood home and then her in-laws’ seemed to entail, did not notice that her daughter beside her shone with a telltale lustre: lustrous hair, lustrous skin.
Her mother’s parents were both dead, as were her father’s, but her mother’s last elderly relative, an aunt, was now old and frail; this visit was considered the last chance to pay respects. She knew her mother found the return painful; there was much rancour over her mother’s barren years, only having Joy at a relatively advanced age and then, in an uncomfortable reminder of her parents’ sex lives, Rita ten years later, her mother by then aged over forty. Her parents became parents again when most of their contemporaries in Kerala were looking forward to some years of rest before grandparenthood. After a visit to the small village, set on a lake with its water birds and buffalo, a few steps away from a coast dominated by soaring cliffs – where her mother appeared untouched by the beauty of the land but looked wounded, a visit during which neither of her parents translated much of what was directed at Rita in her great-aunt’s thick dialect – they decamped further north: to the old rambling house that her uncle, Onachen, her father’s younger brother, and only sibling of any worth, had inherited. It was the family home of his wife who had died many years ago, leaving Onachen and his daughter Seline as caretakers of the house and caregivers to Seline’s ancient grandmother, Ammachi.
Seline was thirty, a graduate in chemistry, still single, having turned down the suitors her father had offered her some years back, when he was still of a mind to marry her off. That had all changed: they were now companions, business partners. As well as the house, Onachen had inherited an antique shop in Jew Town from his wife’s family; Seline had sole charge of the business when her father travelled away to source the wares.
Seline had organised Rita’s itinerary: ‘Six weeks is too long
just to follow your parents,’ she said. Rita would help in the shop, and, more importantly, Onachen and Seline had a favour to ask of her. Their long-term plan was to renovate the old house and open it as a guesthouse. For this to be a success they needed to have good relationships with other similar operations, so that guests could be shared rather than competed over. One, established now for many years near the Dutch House in Fort Cochin, was owned by Onachen’s friend, who was trying to entice guests to take dinner in the guesthouse by offering evening entertainment: a ruse learned from the expensive hotels on the mainland.
They wanted Rita to dance. She had to agree: it was impossible to deflect her uncle’s and cousin’s zeal. But some caveats: she would not wear the traditional heavy garments, as she would die in the heat. She would wear a costume not dissimilar to Maria’s design. And if the first session proved too complicated – if the music system was temperamental, if it rained too much, if there was not enough room to dance, if she felt in any way that it did not work – she would not do it again. Of course, of course: her uncle, her cousin and her uncle’s friend all reassured her with fervour. She remained unconvinced by their assurances, but when she and Seline made a reconnaissance mission, she was charmed by the environs. The garden was large, leafy, with fairy lights gaily decorating the edges. A thatched roof and a wide awning would protect the audience from any rain. There were tables dotted around with heavy white tablecloths and candles in old brass holders; these were lit when she arrived the first night. The small rectangular swimming pool, which acted as a buffer between the dance area and the guests, threw an ethereal light onto her that added to the atmosphere. There was an enthusiastic round of applause, whistles, after her performance, even though she had not done her best: easy to impress the uninitiated. More distracting were the comments some of the guests made – one older American man saying to his companion, sotto voce, She’s a babe – and the hungry stares from the waiters. Seline sat to one side of the dance area: the chaperone.
The Inheritance Page 4