Authors: Anita Nair

Tags: #Bangalore (India), #Widows, #Contemporary Women, #Domestic fiction, #General, #College teachers, #Fiction, #Cultural Heritage

The Lilac House (15 page)

BOOK: The Lilac House

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Half an hour later, Meera cannot hug her secret any more. She needs to confer with Vinnie. What is she to do with Soman? It niggles at her constantly, the fear that she is encouraging him.

‘He must have heard that Giri and I are no longer together. That it must be a good time to call me: the woman alone who could do with some cock in her life.’ Meera’s hand goes to her mouth. Who is this woman who uses words like cock and fuck and not just in her head?

‘Vinnie, I have to make sure that he understands I am not that sort of a woman.’

‘Who is that sort of a woman?’ Vinnie snaps when Meera tries to explain the confusion that rages in her. ‘What woman, unless she is a nymphomaniac, or a whore, sets herself up as an available woman? We don’t, Meera. Not even I. I know you think I switch lovers like I change the chopsticks in my topknot. But I am not available. You know what we are? Vulnerable!

‘That’s what we are. Vulnerable fools who believe that this time, no matter how often we have been proved wrong, we’ve found the right man. The one man who is going to enchant our lives into an extended fairy tale. The man you think you can lean into, and he’ll be there for you.’

Meera shudders at the phrase ‘lean into’. Nothing could explain it better. That letting down of defences. A sigh of relief. Soft, soft, softness and knowing that holding it all was a bedrock of strength. She missed that so much. To let go and know there was someone to lean into.

She thinks of the evening before. Soman had asked her to go with him to an art show.

It had involved sitting in a darkened room watching a video
that was part of an installation piece. What did Meera remember of the flickering images on the screen? Not much, she thinks. All she had been conscious of was the pressure of his arm on hers. The brushing of skin; the osmosis of attraction and the constancy of that moment. Meera glanced around her. Was everyone else sitting as they were? Meera felt a flood of warmth when she saw the tiny oasis each chair was. They, only they, seemed to be leaning into each other.

‘But Vinnie, won’t he think I was encouraging him? I should have moved away!’ Meera interrupts her.

‘Listen to yourself. You are so naïve, Meera. You sat next to each other and you get so het up about that. This is a fourteen-year-old child talking, not a woman in her forties. A sexually aware woman… Meera, your daughter must know more about men than you do!’

Meera smiles then. A rueful smile of embarrassment. How could she read so much into so little? She will grow up. Become the woman that Soman thinks she is, the woman Vinnie wants her to be.

W
ho is this woman? Meera asks herself, catching sight of her reflection in the hallway mirror. Tall and straight, her face not betraying even a flicker of the sickening dread she feels. The moment she feared is finally upon her.

Nayantara just arrived from Chennai by plane. Giri paid for the flight, she says. Lily and Saro look at each other and then at Meera. But Meera nods as if it is customary for Giri to pay for an air ticket. Giri, skinflint Giri, whose cheques are accompanied with complaints of how hard it is to not ask ‘why’.

She stands there rearranging the ginger lilies in a tall vase. ‘How
nice for you,’ she says, sniping a yellowing leaf off and squashing a curious ant between her thumb and forefinger.

Nayantara has come bearing a letter from Giri. She lurks now as Meera opens the envelope, willing her fingers to not tremble and expose her.

Giri has written saying that it is almost three months since they effected their trial separation. And in that time, since they have realized that their lives aren’t as enmeshed as they imagined it to be, and as they have proved that they are capable of leading happy and gratifying lives well apart, perhaps it is time to legalize the separation. So they are free to make choices and move on.

Meera feels her lips narrow into a line as she folds the paper and slides it back into its envelope. She catches the curious gleam in her daughter’s eyes.

‘Do you know what is in this?’ Meera demands, flinging the letter down.

Nayantara stands, hesitant, unsure if she should speak the truth or feign ignorance. It is daddy’s girl who shrugs.

Meera stares, appalled. ‘How could you? Do you realize that your father is asking me for a divorce? Did you know that was what you were bringing to me?’

Nayantara looks away. ‘Would you have preferred to receive a divorce notice by registered post? Isn’t that how it is done? He was thinking of you, trying to soften the blow. Mummy, don’t blame me. I am just the messenger.

‘You knew this was going happen; you knew it. Don’t fool yourself. You knew Daddy wasn’t going to come back. It was inevitable, your divorce!’

Meera is speechless.

‘I told Daddy this. I said you would hold me responsible. That you would be angry with me. But he said that you knew, as he did, that you couldn’t live together any more and be happy. He said if I brought the letter to you, it would be less upsetting. That’s all I did, Mummy. Don’t look at me like that.’ Nayantara’s eyes well up.

Meera takes her distraught daughter in her arms. ‘No, I am not blaming you. How could I? Your father and I…’

‘Mummy, why don’t you give him what he wants? Maybe he’ll come back then.’ Nayantara clings to her mother, an adult child who so wants her home back with mummy and daddy together under one roof and happily ever after in a painted rainbow that rises from the house into the horizon.

Why am I so angry? For that matter, why am I so surprised? Meera asks herself as she dresses. As Nayantara said, this was inevitable. She has heard from Nayantara enough to know that Giri has begun fashioning a new life. His second life for real.

In an apartment high up in the air with a view overlooking the sea on one side and the city lights on the other. There are heart shaped silk cushions and tall candles. Vases with flowers and glass beads clinking among the stems. Neither children nor old women would ever shabby its stark chic. No one to leave rings on the table or potato wafer crumbs on the sofa. No damp stains on the wall, nor the smell of mould that is hard to banish from a bathroom with ancient plumbing. To this home Giri would bring his new trophy wife and in their newly found muscle-toned nirvana, he would start afresh.

What can I offer him, Nayantara? The only thing that may have brought him back isn’t mine to give.

Meera thinks of the night some weeks before Giri went. He had watched her as she creamed her face.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘Those veins on your thighs…’ he said suddenly. ‘You should get them looked at.’

‘I am forty-four years old. I am not young any more, Giri. I will have veins,’ she snapped back.

He shrugged then and flicked the TV remote on. ‘They look terrible,’ he said.

In the days after he left, Meera relived that episode again and again. Was that why? Because she was beginning to age. Those little creeping lines on the top of her thighs and the flare of grey at her temples – could they have repelled him? Or, was it something else?

At the beauty salon, Maria drapes the plastic wrap around her shoulders. ‘The usual trim?’ she asks Meera in the mirror.

Meera holds her gaze for a moment. ‘No. Give me a new hairstyle. Short. I leave it to you.’

‘Are you sure?’ Maria’s eyes widen.

‘I am. I’ve had this same hairstyle for the last twenty-two years.’ Ever since Giri came into my life. And I didn’t want to change a thing. My hair, my home, my dreams, myself. I so wanted it to be what he wanted.

‘In that case, you certainly need a new look,’ Maria says, taking a swath of hair and clipping it on top of Meera’s head with a yellow butterfly clip. ‘It’ll make you feel like a new woman.’

Out of the mouth of a salon girl, Meera thinks. It’s time I became a new woman. Someone I would like to be.

As Meera walks to Jak’s house, she feels the breeze at the nape of her neck. It is strange to have her neck exposed and vulnerable.

Meera sees herself in a shop window and halts in surprise. She doesn’t recognize herself.

Maria had angled the mirror in different directions so she could admire herself. ‘What do you think?’ she asked. That she was pleased with her handwork was obvious.

‘It is good,’ Meera said, even though she felt a great wave of uncertainty rise. What had she done? What would the children say? What would Saro and Lily say?

Meera wanders into Smriti’s room to ask about Jak. She thinks of the expression on his face when he saw her a few nights ago at
the art gallery. She couldn’t fathom it. Was he displeased? Should she have mentioned to him that she was going?

Kala Chithi asks, ‘What happened? What made you cut your hair?’

Meera is fazed by the directness of the question. Kala Chithi seldom makes personal remarks of any sort.

Meera shrugs. ‘I suddenly felt I needed a new look.’

Kala Chithi waits for her to finish.

Meera peers into her mug of coffee and says, ‘Giri wants a divorce.’

Kala Chithi continues to look at her.

‘I keep wondering if there was something I did, or something I didn’t. What could have made Giri leave?’

‘Do you think he’ll come back?’ Kala Chithi asks. Meera’s circumstances have never been discussed, but Meera knows that Jak must have filled her in.

Meera shakes her head. ‘I don’t know.’

‘More importantly, do you want him back?’

Meera looks up abruptly. She had never even considered it. Could she live with Giri again? Go on as if nothing had happened?

‘You see, Meera, we are brought up to believe that our husband is our god. His wishes are ours, and without him we are nothing.

There is a saying,
Kal analum kanavan, pull analum purushan.
Whether he is hard as a rock or as worthless as a weed, a husband is a husband. Can you make a life without your husband?’

Meera places the mug on the table. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘All I keep thinking is, will he come back? I never asked myself, what if he does…’ Meera’s voice drops. ‘What would you do?’

‘I don’t know, Meera. I never had to ask myself that.’ Kala Chithi’s eyes are steady, her voice even.

‘But you left your husband!’

‘What is it you want to know from me, Meera? I don’t have any wisdom to offer you. My choices in life will not be yours. I had my reasons for choosing to leave my husband.’

‘Was it because you thought your husband had another woman?’

‘Another woman?’ Kala Chithi’s voice rises in surprise as does her hand. She touches her cropped head.

‘Why else did you leave him?’ Meera says, wanting to shatter the poise on the older woman’s face.

‘Why did you leave your husband?’ she asks again.

Kala Chithi leans back in her chair. ‘There wasn’t a specific reason. Not really. Would you believe me if I told you that I could no longer share a life with him? It just wasn’t possible any more. I had to leave.

‘So you see, Meera, you have to decide. I can’t do it for you. Do you still want to be Giri’s wife?’ Kala Chithi asks, rising from her chair.

Meera, looking beyond her, wonders: Do I?

‘H
ave I what?’ Meera asks over her shoulder.

‘Have you thought about what I asked?’

Meera turns to look at her daughter carefully. ‘What about, Nayantara?’

‘You know, that portfolio thing… I told you. Dad’s friend’s wife said I should get one done. She thought she could send it to the Elite people.’

Meera frowns. ‘I thought it was something you did for fun. I didn’t think you wanted to make a career of modelling. Besides, what about your studies? You are at the IIT. Do you know how few kids get in there? And you want to give up that…’

Nayantara makes a face. ‘What about Aishwarya Rai? She was a medical student.’

‘I don’t know what your father will say,’ Meera tries to hedge.

‘Daddy’s fine. But he said you are the one who ought to be fine with it.’

Thanks, Giri. Let me be the harridan who has to say no to your daughter’s silly dreams.

But hasn’t it always been thus? The thrusting and entrusting of parental responsibility onto her. In those early years, Meera had protested. ‘The children weren’t exactly born of immaculate conception. You have to take on your share.’

And Giri, who felt justified in his aggrievement, would say without a change of expression, ‘You were the one who wanted babies; I didn’t. You were the one who claimed that you wouldn’t be complete as a woman without a child.’

Meera, silenced by that need of hers, learnt to burden Giri less and less with the demands of fatherhood. The children were hers to worry about, while Giri was the one to laugh and frolic with. He knew how to be the tyrant father too, but mostly he played along with their dreams and desires. Fatherhood to Giri was how he had shaped it and not what it was meant to be, Meera thinks, trying not to let her bitterness spill over.

Meera takes the sari off its hanger. ‘I don’t like it. The casting couch isn’t a myth. You are too young to be exposed to that kind of a world.’

‘Are you saying it’s okay for someone to fuck me as long as I’m older?’

Meera blanches. ‘Quiet!’ she hisses. ‘Don’t talk rubbish. If you insist on behaving like a fractious three-year-old, I will have to treat you like one. You don’t leave me with much choice. I would suggest that you forget all this modelling nonsense. ’

Nayantara is shamefaced. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. But Daddy’s friend said…’ she begins but stops when she sees Meera’s face.

Nayantara watches Meera drape the sari. ‘I thought you said you were not sure about going,’ she says, opening and closing the lipstick tube.

‘Don’t. You’ll snap the lipstick,’ Meera says as she adjusts the pleats.

‘How can you go for a party? It’s just a few months since Daddy and you…’ Nayantara stares at her.

‘Your daddy left. He didn’t die,’ Meera snaps. ‘Besides, he just asked me for a divorce, remember?’

Seeing Nayantara flush, Meera is contrite. ‘It’s not just any party. It’s Vinnie’s. I couldn’t say no,’ Meera says quietly.

She peers at herself in the floor-length mirror. ‘Would you please pull down the sari at the back? It’s hiked up a bit.’

Nayantara sinks to her knees obediently and tugs at the sari. ‘But what will people think?’

‘Nayantara, don’t ever say that to me. I don’t care what people think. I won’t ever again.’

‘I know you don’t care what people think. Or would you go out with a man half your age?’

‘What?’ Meera yelps, turning in surprise. ‘Who told you that?’

‘So it is true! How can you, Mummy?’

‘Nayantara, you know nothing about it.’

‘So tell me…’ Nayantara hugs her knees. ‘You go on about the casting couch and the bad bad world waiting to pounce on me. But look at you! Do you know how it makes me feel when my friends want to know if Soman is my boyfriend? Am I to tell them that he is yours?’

‘He isn’t my boyfriend! He is just a friend.’

Nayantara makes a face as if she doesn’t believe her mother.

‘But tell me, if he was, would it be so bad?’ Meera says, pretending a nonchalance she doesn’t feel.

‘How would you feel if I took up with a man Daddy’s age?’ Nayantara stands up. ‘It’s embarrassing, Mummy. It’s gross!’

What about Daddy? Meera wants to demand. Isn’t it gross that his girlfriend is only a few years older than you? Or is that fine in your vision of the world? Then she sees Nayantara’s face.

‘Soman isn’t my boyfriend, please understand, darling. He is
just someone I know. That’s all there is to it. Promise!’ Meera tries to cajole her daughter into accepting her explanation.

‘Ok. If you say so,’ Nayantara says.

Her insides quail at the forlorn expression in her daughter’s eyes.

‘If you don’t want me to go to this party, I’ll stay back,’ Meera offers.

‘No, it’s fine,’ Nayantara says. ‘Do you want to borrow my stilettos?’

Meera smiles. Peace has been restored. ‘If you are sure,’ she says tentatively. As her share of the peace offering, she adds, ‘If you want a portfolio done, I could ask Akram. He’ll be able to pass it on to the right people. And I’d feel safe knowing it was him. But you can’t give up your course. You need to strike a balance between the two. It’s always best to have all your options open.’

And not end up like me with no plan B, Meera thinks.

‘Will you be late?’ Nayantara asks at the door. Nikhil and Lily are sprawled on the sofa watching a film. Saro is reading.

Meera holds her daughter to her. ‘Shall I send the car back?’ she asks again.

‘No, no, you must go. Have a good time.’ Nayantara waves her off.

Meera swallows. This role reversal is rather unsettling. ‘I won’t be too late,’ she calls out, rolling down the car window.

Vinnie has opened the French windows so that the room and terrace merge. Here they congregate: Vinnie’s friends and business associates. Vinnie’s lover. Vinnie’s husband. And Meera. A slightly forlorn Meera discovering what it is to be a single woman in a room full of couples.

She chews her lip thoughtfully. Has she made a mistake, she wonders, by accepting the invitation?

But Vinnie wouldn’t allow her a choice. ‘You have to be there,’ she insisted, sweeping away any excuse that Meera could come up with. ‘I’ll send the car for you. That takes care of transportation.
Why don’t you invite your Professor? Or is there someone else you would rather? Soman? What happened between the two of you? You hardly mention him any more.’

Vinnie threw her a sidelong glance. Meera turned her head away. For a fleeting moment, she had paused at the notion of Soman.

Meera wondered how good he was as an actor. Was his interest in her an act? Or was it for real? It must be the house. Like Giri, he too must see the house as the prize. Why else would he want to be with a woman fifteen years older than him?

No, she would go alone to Vinnie’s party.

‘No, there isn’t anyone I want to bring with me.’ Meera shook her head decisively.

‘That’s fine then.’ Vinnie smiled. ‘You don’t need an escort. No one makes much of these things any more. A woman by herself at a party is like a man by himself.’

Not really, Meera thinks, as she waits for someone to offer her a drink. For someone to steer her into a group and into a conversation. For someone to say hello.

Once, Giri was the one to do all of that: to fill up her glass. To introduce her to new people. To help say goodbyes. Meera feels something sag within her. Will it always be like this? Not knowing when she would be stricken by a debilitating helplessness? Wanting to scuttle into the shadows and stay resolutely there?

She still isn’t used to stepping out in public by herself. In the months after Giri left, the invitations had dwindled to almost none.

She knows who she reminds herself of. The teapot lid in her odds-and-ends shelf. You don’t know what to do with it. Some trace of sentiment makes you keep it instead of throwing it away, but each time you see it you wonder what you are going to do with it…

A woman alone is an awkward creature, or so it appears. A bedside
table missing its companion. A lone kitchen glove. You could make do, but it really isn’t seemly. Where do you seat her if it is a sit-down meal? If she has come with an escort, that’s all right then. But if she is alone, you alternate between having to watch out for her and watching her so that she doesn’t sink her predatory claws into your spouse. Pity is one thing. And yes, sisterhood is key. Women have to be there for women. So you have her over for a coffee morning or drinks… but for a whole evening, she is best avoided.

Meera knows the mind of a hostess. She has been one too. Choosing to forget the widow in Giri’s office when she hosted a dinner to celebrate his promotion. Ignoring the unspoken plea in a newly divorced Dina’s voice when they met at the beauty salon and Dina said, ‘I’ve heard so much about your dinner parties. You must have me over the next time…’

In the end it is Vinnie’s husband Kishore who rescues her. Meera suddenly has a drink in her hand, a chair to perch herself upon, a group to share her views with, and a man at her side. She wonders what she would have done if Kishore hadn’t taken pity on her.

She sneaks a glance at him. The very dignified, devastatingly handsome, utterly charming and totally removed Kishore. Vinnie and he share a home and a business. For the rest, they lead separate lives.

Meera had been unable to hide the reproof in her eyes when Vinnie explained the arrangement.

‘You don’t approve?’ Vinnie asked.

‘No. I don’t. You are turning marriage into a farce.’ Meera was unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. ‘Marriage is sacred. It is not just being joint owners of a home and a business.’

‘So you would have given Giri a divorce if he had asked for it, just like that?’ Vinnie’s voice was dipped in steel.

‘Mine is a different situation…’ Meera tried to prevaricate. Would she have? What if Giri had come to her and said he wanted out? Would she have let him go?

‘Ah Meera, don’t kid yourself. I don’t. We like what marriage means. Even if you knew Giri hated it, felt trapped, you would still have wanted your marriage… I do. Kishore does too, I think. It is the circle of security that has us enchanted. Not the house or the money, the sex or kids. Not even companionship.’

Meera was quiet. She knew what it was to be cast out of that enchanted place. She knew what it was to be alone.

She looks at Kishore again and thinks, how is it that both Vinnie and I, despite being who we are, women of the world, are still in our hearts made of the same mettle as Kala Chithi? What had she said:
Kal analum kanavan, pull analum purushan
.

In the weeks after Giri left home, Meera had wondered what she would do if she were invited to a party. Accept or refuse. Then it rankled that she wasn’t invited, given the choice to make up her mind.

But here she is, holding herself erect. Saro is right, she thinks. Posture is all. You may cringe within, not knowing the degrees of civility to affect. You may not know any of the rules of your new station in life. But if your back is erect and your shoulders square, you could get away with much. Including a spider plant as a gift for the hostess.

Here in Vinnie’s home, Meera feels none of the awkwardness that planted itself in her at the few parties she has been to minus Giri. There are no pauses in the conversation. No one trying to skirt around the subject of Giri and then not knowing what to talk about. Pretty much all that could be spoken in that circle was pivoted around Giri and her as Giri’s wife. At Vinnie’s party, Giri is entombed in a past no one has any inkling of or gives a toss about.

Someone comes to sit next to Meera. An older man. ‘How do you know Vinnie?’ he asks, smiling at her. ‘A business associate?’

‘No, a friend,’ Meera says. ‘I am Meera,’ she adds, stretching her hand.

‘Raj.’ He takes her hand in his. He holds her palm for a long
moment. Longer than necessary, Meera thinks, gently sliding her fingers out of his grasp.

Vinnie had warned her about him. ‘Most of the men are decent chaps. Raj is a bit of a smoothie. If he hits on you, walk away. He won’t be offended. He should be used to it by now. It’s like he can’t help himself. The one I feel sorry for is his wife.’ Smooth to the point of shininess, Meera tells herself as he chats her up.

‘So, are you married, Meera? Is there a husband somewhere?’ he tosses at her.

‘Single,’ Meera says. Then, with frost in her voice, she clarifies, ‘Single. And not available.’

Meera sees a nondescript woman shooting anxious looks their way. She narrows her eyes and says, ‘Is that your wife? I think she’s looking for you.’

Now that she has dealt with the wolf, Meera is confident enough to gambol with the lambs.

BOOK: The Lilac House

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