Charlie Next Door

by Debashish Irengbam

Anupama looked around. As per the tradition of the Mumbai auto-rickshaws to mysteriously vanish into a black hole whenever most required, the roads were predictably empty. The clouds overhead loomed ominously grey, thereby adding to her worries. She was sure that arriving soaked to the bone would rank lower in terms of first impressions than arriving late, especially after the sample she had seen of herself this morning. Why did she always forget to buy an extra umbrella?

  She peered out into the distance, hoping to see a mirage of public transport, if nothing else. She barely noticed the approaching rumble of a bike from the gates behind her until it stopped right beside her. A familiar voice reached her ears.

  ‘Morning, Mrs Arora.’

  Her blood ran cold. No. God, no. Anything but this.

  ‘Mrs Arora?’

  Pretend you haven’t noticed him. Look at your watch. Look ahead. Pray that he gets the hint.

  The bike inched forward until the helmeted figure of Charlie was wholly in her line of vision. His mouth wasn’t visible, but she could tell from his eyes that he was smiling.

  ‘Oh, hello, Charlie,’ she mumbled, barely looking him in the eye.

  ‘Going somewhere?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A second passed, then two.

  ‘May I ask where?’

  Why couldn’t he let anything go?

  ‘Oshiwara.’

  ‘Oh, I’m headed in that direction. I can drop you off on the way.’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Is your friend coming to pick you up?’

  ‘No, but I’ll take an auto.’

  Charlie shook his head. ‘It’s a bad day to wait for autos. See that lady over there?’ He pointed to a glum woman waiting at the intersection ahead with her glummer kid. ‘She was there when I came in … forty minutes ago.’

  ‘I appreciate it, Charlie. But I’m not comfortable sitting on bikes.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m a careful rider. Besides, it’s about to rain, and you don’t have an umbrella.’

  ‘Neither do you,’ she retorted. A part of her knew she was being juvenile, but the thought of journeying with a guy who had witnessed her in one of her worst moments of insanity was too much to bear.

  ‘I have a spare raincoat. Plus, I could get you there in fifteen-twenty minutes flat depending on the traffic.’

  Anupama glowered at him. ‘You don’t know how to take no for an answer, do you?’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘It’s a character flaw.’

  And that was when it happened. A single, threatening drop of water fell on her neck, like a ransom note. She knew she had seconds to make a decision.

  She gazed out at the road in a final, desperate plea. Not a sign of anything even remotely mobile. Even the glum waiting woman looked despairing now.

  ‘Take out the raincoat,’ she said.

  Charlie removed his helmet, twisted around and opened a small duffle bag attached to the backseat. The familiar transparent, flowery raincoat emerged from it, disappointing Anupama, who was hoping for a more opaque one lest someone she knew spotted them on the way. However, beggars can’t be choosers, so she quickly donned the damn thing and climbed onto the pillion seat, only to sit waiting as Charlie carefully set and arranged his gelled hair using the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Are you done?’ she asked irritably.

  ‘Oh, so now you are in a hurry,’ he murmured, putting on his helmet.

  The bike gave a sharp jerk as he started up and opened throttle, nearly dislodging Anupama who grabbed Charlie’s shoulder so tightly he winced. She apologized, but decided to keep her hand on his shoulder anyway. Her initial plan had been to avoid any form of bodily contact, but it was one of those bikes with a narrow back seat, and anything was preferable to bouncing off into the air at the first speed breaker. Just a precautionary measure, nothing more. Try as she might though, she couldn’t help but notice how hard his shoulder felt.

  True to her prediction, within the span of half a minute, the clouds above burst open with a torrential vengeance. Her suit was fine, thanks to the raincoat, but her feet and sandals were soaked. She shuddered to think what her condition might have been if she had dug her heels in obstinately and refused Charlie’s help. At the same time, she noticed that Charlie hadn’t brought up the subject of last night at all, which doubled her appreciation. Perhaps she had been a tad hasty in her assessment of him.

  ‘Thank you, Charlie,’ she said.

  ‘Not at all. I had to make up for the cream biscuits anyway—’

  ‘Stop the bike.’

  ‘Joking, joking! Wow, you’re sensitive.’

  Anupama resolutely kept her eyes on the road, her mind struggling to absorb the surrealism of her situation. Here she was, a forty-two-year-old mother of two, seated on a motorcycle behind her twenty-something neighbour in a plastic raincoat, feeling guilty about her inebriated rendezvous with him the previous night. Add to that the probability of the aforementioned neighbour being a commercial sex worker, and for the first time, she found herself feeling grateful that her mother wasn’t around anymore. This was probably not how she had envisioned her daughter’s domestic future. Someone had once told her that the rains were actually the tears of our ancestors’ souls up in heaven. If that were true, she was certain her mother was seated in the front row right now, wringing out her handkerchief.

  ‘You don’t have to feel guilty, you know,’ said Charlie, craning his head back a bit. ‘You should see me when I’m drunk.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ she said tersely, adding, ‘I think it’s best if we forget about that incident. I am usually not like that. In fact, I am never like that.’

  ‘So what happened yesterday?’

  ‘Nothing. I just got together with some old friends…’

  ‘Yeah, that’s how it normally starts,’ he chuckled.

  ‘Can we just drop it?’

  He shrugged again, his right shoulder bouncing her hand as he did so. ‘So, you like the rains?’

  Anupama sighed. God forbid she got five seconds of silence with this guy. ‘Not really. I like them when they begin, but then it becomes all slush and muck and filth.’

  ‘And yet, we miss them once they are over, right?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘So you’re more of an indoors type that way.’

  ‘During the monsoons, yes.’

  ‘Pity,’ said Charlie. ‘You don’t get a lot of folks who like to get wet in the rain anymore.’

  ‘Well, maybe in your own age-group—’

  ‘Oh, you’d be surprised. Girls these days, they panic over stuff like tanning and frizzing and God knows what not. Some of them don’t even drink regular tea for fear of staining their teeth. It’s just become all about the looks with them, right?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘That’s why I prefer the company of older women.’

  Her fingers convulsively loosened over his shoulder. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘A lot of my clients are in the above-forty bracket, and they are so much more fun to be around, you know. Maybe because they aren’t really obsessed with themselves anymore – maturity with age and all that…’

  Anupama was barely listening, her eyes scanning the road for any empty auto-rickshaws or taxis. She felt outraged. How dare he discuss such things with her openly? One night, the one solitary night in her otherwise normal existence, she meets him when she is a tad tipsy, and he dares to assume that they are tarred with the same brush? Things were spiralling way out of control, and once again, she only had herself to blame. This was a terrible mistake. All she wanted to do now was to get away from him by any means and as soon as possible. She could see the screaming headlines in tomorrow’s Metro section: ‘Woman Leaps Off Moving Bike. Motive Unclear.’ And for an insane moment, she did consider the possibility of getting off at the first possible opportunity, but the risk of getting run over by the rush hour traffic held her back, and then the probable news by-line occurred to her too: ‘Traces of alcohol found in vic
tim’s system. Police interrogating male escort neighbour accompanying her.’

  She put her hand back on Charlie’s shoulder, resolving to cut off all ties with him as soon as she got dropped off safely. He couldn’t try anything objectionable on an open bike anyway.

  She was relieved when they finally reached their destination. Mumbling a quick thanks, she got off the bike and was walking away when she heard Charlie clear his throat.

  ‘Is your friend going to drop you back?’

  ‘Probably. Why?’ she asked, suspicious.

  ‘So … can I have my raincoat back?’

  It was only then, looking at his dripping T-shirt and soaked jeans, that Anupama realized that his decision to get wet in the rain was probably not a voluntary one.

  ‘You don’t have a spare raincoat, do you?’

  Charlie smiled sheepishly.

  ‘Then why did you say so?’

  ‘Would you have taken it otherwise?’

  She was speechless, and upset with herself for being so. Quietly, she removed the raincoat and handed it to him. It took her a moment to realize he was staring at her face.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s …’ he muttered, and then without warning, his hand shot up and touched the side of her forehead. She shied away violently in alarm, startling him.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she spat out.

  Charlie looked at her in puzzlement, and then slowly brought his hand forward to show a small grey-white feather. ‘It was stuck in your hair.’

  Her eyes shifted focus between the feather and his widened eyes. For some reason, her heart was pounding, and her breathing was erratic, as if she had just had a near-death experience. She didn’t know what to say, so she turned without a word and walked away. She could sense him behind her, waiting, staring.

  A small voice inside her told her she was being rude and weird, but she didn’t care. Pleasantries were the furthest thing on her mind. She held her breath – and hoped – for the rumble of his bike to fill the air, and when it didn’t, she just turned around the corner of the nearest building and blocked him from sight, resolving to lock this memory away for future remorse in due time. Right now, she had a client to handle.

  Shut it away. Shut it away and then open it later…

  5

  She couldn’t shut it away, though. Not this time.

  The incident kept playing in her mind throughout the meeting like a broken tape, each time with a different and better ending. Why did the imagination worsen one’s humiliation by displaying a million alternate possibilities that could have happened instead of the one that actually did happen, after it’s too late for anything different to happen? She could have just laughed off the misunderstanding and walked away with poise. Or she could have apologized to him and thanked him for the lift anyway. Or she could have explained her situation coolly to him and got an apology – albeit a confused one – in return. She could have done many things, other than behaving like a woman possessed by a demon with intimacy issues. Mrs Govindikar wouldn’t have lumbered away like that. Neither would have Renu. Or Neena. No, that special demented response was reserved exclusively for select souls like her.

  She could barely focus on the new client, despite all her efforts, and was relieved when the meeting finally got over. She did recall smiling and nodding a lot, and prescribing metal wind chimes in the centre of the living room for some reason, but the client seemed happy enough. Renu had passed her an enquiring glance from time to time, but she had nodded and smiled at her as well.

  On their way back now, they had stopped at a traffic signal, its red gleaming light the only spot of colour in a street where every other colour was bleached grey by the weather. Anupama looked out at a young couple on a bike ahead of them. Neither of them had a raincoat, but they didn’t seem to mind getting wet. The girl had her arms wrapped tight around the guy, unmindful that the lacy outline of her bra was clearly visible through her soaked top. The epicentre of her mental stress shifted to her daughter now as she wondered, feared rather, if Misha was also sitting pillion on a bike – or scooter, God only knew that man’s economic strata – like this, her arms wound tightly around that unfaithful apology of a man. What was it about the rains that made people so reckless and hormonal?

  She blamed it on the movies. No one hooted or ogled at the drenched-girls-dancing-in-the-rain item numbers in movies unless the sequence demanded that the hero rescued her precipitately. The rains symbolized a period of fertility, of unabashed, unapologetic sexuality. It was the time when bold heroines consummated their relationship with bolder heroes in abandoned barns, while the gullible supporting actresses hooked up with the lascivious villains only to get pregnant and dumped later. Your honour and fate depended on the amount of footage decided for you. The problem was that in real life, every girl imagined that she was the heroine and no one wanted to believe otherwise, and that was where all the trouble began. At least, that was the theory that her mother had expounded to her. And boy, would the old woman be dancing with joy now at her plight. It was all karma, her mother would croon. History repeating itself. La-dee-dah … what goes around comes around … dum-dee-dah…

  ‘Where are you lost?’ Renu’s voice cut in.

  Anupama took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘I saw a love bite on Misha’s neck today.’

  She skewed around in the passenger seat to see Renu sitting still, her eyes amused and lips pursed shut.

  ‘Don’t you dare laugh.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she squeaked. ‘I mean, that’s – um – that’s disturbing. So, who was it?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  ‘Mehul, really?’

  ‘No, Tarun,’ said Anupama.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Who’s Mehul?’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Who’s Mehul?’

  ‘Who’s “who’s Mehul”?’

  ‘You just said his name.’

  ‘Oh, no, no, that was some other Misha I was talking about. Right. Misha … Dhanjani.’

  Anupama looked ahead to see a giant hoarding of Dhanjani Jewellers in front of them.

  ‘Renu!’

  ‘He’s just some guy she is seeing.’

  ‘Then what’s Tarun?’

  ‘He’s … another guy she is seeing. That happens, right? You know how I was in college.’

  The fact that her daughter was turning into a younger version of Renu was enough for Anupama to mull over the degree of her sins in past lives to deserve this fate. Mass genocides, at the very least.

  ‘And she told you all this?’ she asked Renu. Her daughter. Trusting an acquaintance over her mother.

  Renu shrugged. ‘She just wanted to have a woman-to-woman talk.’

  ‘And what am I, a dinosaur?’

  ‘Come on, it’s no big deal. You know how we were with our mothers.’

  The fact that she was turning into a replica of her own mother was all the confirmation Anupama needed to conclude that this life was indeed designed to be one of martyrdom and penance. With some luck, she would be long gone and decayed before one of her kids ended up writing a Mommy-issues based bestseller or rap song dedicated to her.

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ said Renu bracingly. ‘At least the day can’t get any worse, right?’

  If only things were so simple.

  A strange premonition gripped Anupama the instant she stepped out of the elevator on her floor – a foreboding that intensified with each step towards her apartment door. Her eyes picked up the muddy footprints on the tiles leading to her apartment – men’s shoes, bigger in size than Nimit’s. Her pulse accelerated with every second as she hurried up to the door and unlocked it, swinging it open and barging in to see Nimit watching TV, while Misha sat on the corner couch with Charlie crouched on his haunches on the floor in front of her – her left leg stretched out and on his knee; her foot nestled in his hands. His fingers were probing around a spot by her ankle. His skin touching hers. His Calvin Klein underwear
label half-visible in the gap between his T-shirt and jeans. Her muffler still around her neck. His skin touching hers.

  It was all she could do to not scream on the spot.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I sprained my ankle downstairs. Charlie helped me up,’ replied Misha.

  Charlie swivelled his head around to look at her. ‘Hello, Mrs Arora.’

  Anupama stared at him.

  ‘I’ve done a short-term course in physiotherapy,’ he explained. ‘So, I was just—’

  ‘Out.’

  Every single expression within that room froze in place – the befuddled one on Nimit’s face, the horrified one on Misha’s, the stupefied one on Charlie’s, and finally, the enraged one on Anupama’s.

  ‘Out,’ she repeated.

  ‘Mamma!’ cried Misha.

  ‘It’s fine. I had to – get dinner anyway. Late, you know,’ mumbled Charlie, getting up. Using the longest arc route around Anupama, he shuffled and slunk away.

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ Misha shrieked at Anupama.

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ Anupama hollered at Nimit.

  ‘What did I do?’ he said blankly.

  ‘Have you no concern for your sister? You just let anyone in with her?’

  ‘But he’s our neighbour—’

  ‘So what! What do you know about him?’

  A series of low rattling sounds distracted them. Anupama whipped around to see Charlie still there, fidgeting and fumbling with the door knob as he tried to open it. He looked at her with the eyes of a mouse trapped in a laboratory cage.

  ‘Sorry. It’s complicated—’

  He stepped aside hurriedly as Anupama strode over and unlocked the mechanism before pushing the knob aside to click the door open.

  ‘Oh okay, that way,’ he murmured. ‘Thank you. Goodnight.’

  He was out before his sentence was complete.

  Refastening the lock, Anupama turned to face her children – two pairs of bewildered eyes. She faced Misha first. ‘Who is Mehul?’

  The anger on her face dissipated into nothingness within a fraction of an instant. ‘Just a friend. An acquaintance really.’

  ‘Tarun knows about him?’