Tea for Two and a Piece of Cake (23 page)

I ask Mrs Singh if there is anything else she needs or
whether we can leave. She asks me to wait and then brings her cheque book. She asks whose name the cheque should be made in favour of, and I tell her my maiden name, while I watch her writing out a cheque for eight thousand five hundred rupees.

I thank her once again for the opportunity to serve her and tell her I hope she likes the food.

Akash and I walk towards the car and, once inside, he suddenly leans over and gives me a kiss on the cheek, saying, ‘You were terrific lady. Simply terrific!’

I squeeze his hand tightly and say nothing.

In the car, Akash says, ‘Nisha, it’s been such a long day. Let us have a drink before we get home. I know just the place and they have tables facing the ocean too.’

I badly want to. But when you become a parent, you sign off forever your rights to live a life for yourself. Every little decision, even the seemingly inconsequential ones like which restaurant to eat food in, have to be carefully thought of and weighed to see if they have high chairs, and whether they hand out printouts and crayons for colouring, all so that your kids can amuse themselves and hopefully let you eat in peace.

I tell Akash that we have to hurry back home as Tanya has been at Mrs B’s house for almost a whole day now. Plus, we also need to keep a close watch on Rohit’s condition as per the doctor’s instructions.

‘Right. How silly that I even suggested it. Sorry, Nisha! I can be such an idiot sometimes,’ says Akash.

I look at him in the semi-darkness, driving that car, his face lit by the street lights. He is twenty-seven and he is not even a husband, let alone a father. Yet, the
maturity he has displayed today, the fact that he has been around with me all through, and the fact that he is now apologizing so contritely, fills me up with an indescribable tenderness towards him. He could be in a pub right now, with young women his age, getting drunk, dancing and enjoying life. Instead, he chooses to spend his weekend in a hospital with
me
, a woman with two children.

I lean over and give him a kiss and his face breaks into a big smile.

‘You are not an idiot, Akash. You just aren’t a parent yet.’ I say softly.

But he doesn’t seem to have heard much as he shouts ‘woohooo’ and turns up the volume on the stereo on our way towards my home.

My Friend of Misery

O
nce home, we ring the bell to Mrs B’s apartment. It looks as though we have woken her up from deep slumber as she takes a long time to open. As she slowly opens the door, she looks as though she will drop off to sleep any moment, and I do feel bad for her. Even at my age, looking after two children is no easy job. So for her, it must have been really hard to keep a watch on Rohit.

‘Hello, how did it go? Both the children are fast asleep,’ she says in a low voice.

‘Really sorry if I woke you up Mrs B, but we got here as fast as we could,’ I say in a whisper.

‘That’s okay, I was reading and waiting for you,’ she says.

Akash says that he will carry Tanya while I can carry Rohit.

Ten minutes later, both children are tucked safely into bed.

‘Let’s do one thing Nisha, let us shift this table and push the bed against the wall. That way, Rohit will have less chances of trying to climb out.’ he says.

That makes sense. So we move the table and push the bed to the wall, with the two sleeping children on it.

Then I make a barrier at the foot of the bed with two pillows. I also pull out an old mattress so that in case Rohit falls again, he would be cushioned by the mattress.

Akash and I go and sit in the drawing room.

Akash looks at me again and says, ‘God, Nisha, you really
are
beautiful.’

I have the grace to blush.

Even at my age.

Even though I am older.

And even though I am a mother of two children.

And I am surprised. It’s been ages since I felt this way.

And with that one statement, and with that look in his eyes, we both know he has crossed that fine line which separates friendship from a deeper relationship between a man and a woman. He has altered forever what existed as a pure friendship between us, and there is no going back now.

I do not know how to handle it, and so I try to cover up. ‘Let us celebrate, Akash. Let’s pour ourselves a drink. To the first successful order execution of The Magic Saucepan,’ I say.

Akash gets two glasses and pours out the remaining wine from the day he had come over with it. We are sitting right next to each other, amidst the hired vessels, the burnt noodles, and other stuff spread around in the drawing room. We are sitting right next to each other on the sofa, and I slowly prop up my feet on the centre
table. Akash puts his arm around me and slowly places his left foot over mine, taking my right arm in his left.

The air around us is thick with the sexual tension between us.

Of course I know where all this is leading to. The only man I have ever had sex with is Samir. And somehow, after I became a mother, I had stopped feeling desirable. I am always Tanya’s mum or Rohit’s mum. But, tonight I feel different. Akash looks at me with passion, and to think that I am driving him crazy with desire is
hugely
flattering. I have a sudden desire to give in, to surrender myself completely to him. Plus, there is a subconscious desire to get back at Samir, no matter how much I refuse to confront it on the surface.

The top portion of my saree has ridden across my blouse and my breasts beckon invitingly. I make no attempt to push it back and cover myself. I can hear Akash’s breath quickening. I turn towards him and pull his face towards mine and we kiss. It is a kiss of hunger, a kiss of desire and longing, a kiss which expresses just how deeply he feels for me.

I find desire coursing through my veins. I don’t even remember the last time I had sex with Samir; perhaps it was before Rohit was born. And then too, it was just sex with Samir.
Married sex
which has a pattern of familiarity and comfort. It is all good in the beginning, but after two or three years, it becomes boring. Even foreplay usually degenerates to just a nudge and a poke. Of course, the arrival of children does have a way of putting a full stop on the libido. Children are natural, walking, talking contraceptives.

But tonight, in my blue chiffon saree, sitting next to Akash with our arms and legs wrapped around each other and our mouths exploring each other, I forget to be a mother. I have been one for far too long. Tonight, I finally remember that I am a woman too. I want him inside me more than anything else at that moment. I reach out for his shirt and find the gap between the buttons, hungrily slipping my hand in.

But he takes my hand and kisses it.

And then he stops me. ‘No Nisha. Let’s not do this,’ he says.

I am surprised.

‘Nisha, I want you more than anything else in the world, but no, let us not have sex. Let us wait.’

I wonder what has come over him. One minute he is kissing me so darn passionately and setting my body on fire, and the other moment he is pouring water all over it.

He kisses me gently on my mouth again and says in almost a whisper, ‘With all my other girlfriends put together, they never made me feel quite this way. It was just sex, even though I had fooled myself into believing I loved them. I never had. It was you that I was looking for in them, Nisha. It was you all along.’

‘So now you have me, Akash.’

‘But what we have, I don’t want it to be about sex alone. It is something far more powerful. Let us preserve its sanctity. You have had two glasses of wine. I want you to be sure, Nisha. I want you to be dead certain about what you are doing. Don’t get me wrong, Nisha. I love you and respect you. I always will. I always had. Even before you married Samir.’

The enormity of what he has said sinks in slowly like a drifting leaf falling down in autumn winds.

‘Oh my God. Why didn’t you tell me all those years back then, Akash?’ I ask.

‘What life could I have given you back then? I was just a graduate then and I was only twenty-one, Nisha! I did not even have my IIM degree, and Point to Point was just a stopgap arrangement till I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. And by the time I realized it, you were already married and expecting too.’

‘Yeah, I was in a big hurry to marry Mr Right and become a mother, wasn’t I? And I got what I wanted, and now it is a fine price I have paid.’

‘All I can say is that Samir is a fool. Can’t he see that he has a beautiful wife who loves him deeply and who has given him two little angels?’ I contemplate on what he has said. He is partly right, but he is wrong too.

‘In the end, what it amounts to is that I just wasn’t good enough, Akash. I agree I did make mistakes, but still I do feel it did not call for such a drastic step. Then again, maybe I have been a good mother, but I don’t think I had ever been a good wife, Akash. I am to blame too.’

‘Just stop thinking about all this. What has happened has happened. We can analyse it a million times and still it will not change anything.’

He kisses me once again and gently escorts me to the bed. I am too drowsy now to even bother to change out of the saree. The day’s events have finally caught up with me and I can barely stay awake now. I slowly sink into blissful sleep. And the last thing I remember is Akash covering me with a blanket and tucking me in.

The next day is a Sunday, and Akash wakes me up with tea and buttered toast arranged neatly in a wooden tray.

‘Wow! You are up early, and who told you to make all this?’ I ask him.

‘At least say thanks,’ he says in mock anger.

‘Thank you, Akash. That’s really sweet of you,’ I say and he smiles.

‘I had to wake up early. Those guys will be here in ten minutes to take away all these vessels. We will have to pay a little extra because we burnt one vessel.’

‘Never mind. I wonder what Mrs Singh thought of the food, though.’

He smiles a broader smile and shows me a text which reads:

‘
Thank you Akash for recommending The Magic Saucepan. The food was appreciated by everybody and the party was a grand success. I have texted your friend too. Mrs Singh

‘Wow!‘ I exclaim, as I reach for my mobile and read her text. She has thanked me for the wonderful food and has said that the party was a huge hit.

One part of me is hugely relieved, but the other part is also appalled at how causally and easily we have pulled off this deception. We decide to bury our little secret there and then.

Two days later, after Tanya leaves for school, I get a call from an unknown number asking if it is The Magic Saucepan. When I respond in the affirmative, the lady at the other end says she was a guest at Mrs Singh’s party and that she had really enjoyed the food. She says that she had taken my number from Mrs Singh. She wants to know if I can cook Indian food for eight people for a party to be held this Saturday. She says she can get the food picked up if I tell her the time. She wants two curries and a dry-chicken dish. She says she has a house help who makes good rotis and will also be making jeera rice, and she needs only the curries and the chicken. I tell her it will not be a problem.