A Scandalous Secret (8 page)

In the kitchen of the Shaw household, Laura gave her special chicken broth a final stir before taking out a stack of soup bowls from the cupboard. Richard wandered in, inhaling appreciatively. ‘Tim's upstairs, I take it,' he said, cocking a brow at the fourth place setting on the kitchen table.

‘They've been up there all afternoon,' Laura responded, starting to ladle the broth into bowls. ‘Probably getting Sonya's suitcase packed. Y'know, I'd have been so much happier if Tim had been going along too. The thought of two girls wandering around on their own in India worries me terribly …'

‘Wonder why he didn't offer,' Richard said, nibbling on a breadstick.

‘Tim? Oh, I don't think he was even given a chance. Sonya's reaction to that suggestion was even stronger than when I asked if you could go along. Remember how indignant she was then?'

‘Well, I could see why she didn't want me trailing after her and Stel, cramping their style. But Tim would have been a nice halfway compromise. Most girls
want
to go off on holiday with their boyfriends, don't they?' Richard's face wore a genuinely baffled expression.

Laura sighed, ‘I think we both know that our Sonya just isn't like “most girls”. Poor ol' Tim … from what I can tell, she's been giving him quite the brush-off lately.'

‘Oh?'

Laura smiled as she brought the tray to the table. Despite being one of the most sensitive souls she knew, Richard tended not to notice things until they were right under his nose or carefully pointed out to him. ‘It's a shame really,' she explained. ‘Tim's such a nice lad. But Sonya was saying the other day that she thinks she's outgrown him.
Outgrown
him – I ask you!'

Richard shook his head and took a steaming bowl off the tray that Laura was holding. ‘What is it with these kids? We never even imagined we had the option of outgrowing each other, did we, darling?'

Laura put the tray down and ruffled her husband's thinning hair, reaching out to pat the swell of his belly with her other hand. ‘Hmmm, maybe you outgrew me just a little bit around here, chuck,' she joked. Before he could think of a retort, she left the kitchen to call up the stairs. ‘Sonya, supper!'

Sonya's distant ‘Coming!' floated down as Laura returned to the table. ‘They're not like we were, today's kids,' Laura continued, sitting down. ‘So much more hard-nosed about everything.'

Richard, who always tended to be more forgiving in his opinions, responded in his usual mild fashion. ‘I don't know if I'd call it hard-nosed or being pragmatic. And that may not necessarily be a bad thing …'

They stopped talking as footsteps came thumping down the stairs and the subject of their conversation flounced in, boyfriend in tow. ‘Ah, come on in, you two, soup's going cold,' Richard welcomed them cheerily.

‘Tim's not staying,' Sonya said, sitting down and pulling a bowl towards herself.

‘Oh dear, whyever not? I've made plenty,' Laura cried.

Tim opened his mouth to respond but Sonya spoke first. ‘His mum wants him home for supper because she's going out and Chloe needs babysitting.' Tim nodded dolefully by way of confirmation while Sonya sprinkled garlic croutons from a packet into her soup.

‘Quick bowl of soup before you go, old chap?' Richard asked, ignoring the glare Sonya threw at him.

Tim shot a look at Sonya and then shuffled his feet around before responding hesitantly. ‘It's awfully kind of you, Mr Shaw. Oh, and Mrs Shaw, of course. I really do so enjoy your food. But I really have to be off. My mother will be waiting … she has aerobics classes on Thursday nights, you see …'

‘Ah, one can't be late for one's aerobics,' Richard said, getting up to fetch himself a second helping of soup from the tureen.

‘It's sweet of you, Tim, to be taking care of your baby sister,' Laura said, adding, ‘if I'd known you had to be home, I'd have served supper earlier. It would have been no effort …'

‘Well, he's already late and you'll make him even later if you don't let him go now,' Sonya said, blowing at the liquid in her soup spoon.

‘Yes, better be off,' Tim said, straightening up. He bowed in one direction and then the other as though in royal company while mumbling, ‘Good night, Mr Shaw, good night, Mrs Shaw … See ya, Sonya …' He threw a last pleading look at Sonya who waved vaguely in his direction before he ambled reluctantly out of the room.

Laura cocked her head at the door, frowning at Sonya. ‘Do go and see him off, darling,' she hissed.

Richard nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, it's the least you can do, sweetheart.'

Sonya rolled her eyes upwards and slurped her soup before yelling loudly, ‘Bye Tim, mind how you go!' But the sound of the front door closing indicated that Tim had already left without hearing her.

Laura sighed deeply. Sonya had been a lovely child and they had sailed through her adolescent years without any of the tantrums and rebellion Laura had heard terrifying tales of from various exhausted friends with teenage children. But something had got into Sonya lately and Laura couldn't help blaming the whole Adoption Register thing, and especially that Chelsea who had first told Sonya about it. It was too late to wish it away now, as Richard constantly reminded her, but Laura would have done anything to turn the hands of the clock back to before that horrid day on which Sonya had come back from a party talking about wanting to look for her birth mother.

Laura glanced now at her beautiful adopted daughter who was slurping down her soup apparently without a care in the world. What did she know of the pain that Laura and Richard had gone through, first with all the miscarriages they had suffered, and then at the hands of Social Services while they were being screened as potential adopters? Each step in that tortuous process had felt like a gargantuan hurdle, all that tedious form-filling and those interviews, people wandering about their home, sticking their noses into everything and asking awkward questions. From what Laura could remember, virtually every single social worker they had come in contact with had been insensitive to the point of rudeness during the years it
had taken them to be assessed. There had even been one who had suggested that Laura wanted to adopt a child only to satisfy her own emotional neediness! ‘Your need to be needed,' the smug cow had said, smirking! But everything – yes,
all
of that – had seemed worthwhile when they had finally got their dream child.

Laura still carried that first sight of Sonya close to her heart, like a precious faded photograph. She had been less than a month old when the Shaws were first told about her. Social Services had not considered them ideal at first, the child being of mixed race. But, as the right ethnic mix had not been on offer amongst the many waiting couples on the agency's adoption lists, Laura and Richard had eventually been offered Sonya, though only on a conditional basis at first. There were still many post-placement assessments to be conducted, they were warned. But, the minute Laura had been handed the tiny swaddled bundle, she had known without a doubt that this child had been meant all along to be hers. Laura had looked down at the most beautiful baby she had ever seen; blue eyes like enormous cornflowers in her tiny face and a shock of the blackest hair Laura had ever seen on a baby. The foster mother had handed her a small bottle of milk and Sonya, eagerly taking the teat into her rosebud mouth, had drunk deeply and trustingly, her little peachy cheeks working in and out as she sucked. Holding baby and bottle, Laura had felt a wellspring of emotion so deep it was as though her entire inner self was washed through with it, reviving her spirits and reorganizing her whole life in that one moment. And Sonya, as though sensing that love, had finished all the milk and then snuggled into the crook of her adoptive mother's arm with a little sigh before falling into a sound sleep.

Oh, how she and Richard had poured all they had into bringing Sonya up! Laura had swiftly given up her job as a classroom assistant (‘It never was going to be a proper career, was it?' she explained to anyone who asked) and Richard took to working twice as hard to climb the ladder in the Planning Department of Bromley Council so that their child would want for nothing. And that was exactly what they had done: given Sonya everything that was within their reach, stretching themselves to achieve ballet lessons and school trips and even horse riding when Sonya had read
Sea Biscuit
and briefly wanted to become an equestrienne. And now, that adored child was embarking on a search for the woman who had so heartlessly abandoned her. Going as far as India to seek her out! It was madness, in Laura's view; nothing less. Sonya's birth mother had even refused to breast-feed the child, from what the social worker had told them at the time. Given all that they knew, Sonya's decision to seek the woman out was confusing and hurtful and Laura, looking at Sonya and Richard josh around the soup tureen in her kitchen pretending to fight over the last dregs of soup, felt a sudden clutch of terror at what might lie ahead.

It was only when she was two hundred kilometres outside Delhi that Neha started to feel a bit calmer about her situation. Ananda never failed to dispel the worst case of the blues. Neha generally preferred going to the spa by train, but no tickets had been available at such short notice and so she had asked her chauffeur to take the new Fortuner which would not be required while Sharat was in Lucknow. The road up to Meerut had been fraught, as always, with manic drivers who seemed to have fingers glued to their horns. But after crossing into forest land, the drive turned all winding and leafy, and in the distance the foothills of the Himalayas were rising in soft green folds. Neha tried to relax, leaning back on the capacious seat and watching the last rays of sunshine dipping in and out between the trees.

Dusk was falling by the time they got to Ananda. As the tall metal gates were opened up by a set of guards, Neha looked up at the old palace that was glowing orange in the light of the setting sun. It looked like the family who lived in the palace was not in residence; the windows were all shut and barred and only a couple of rooms on the ground floor were gleaming dimly with light. Neha was grateful as she would have been expected to make her
routine social call, had the Thakurs been around. Not that she normally minded – her parents had been friendly with the family for years and she was particularly fond of Urmila Rani, the ninety-year-old matriarch who had been her grandmother's classmate at Loreto Convent in Calcutta – but today Neha had come to Ananda with the specific purpose of shutting out the noise and confusion of everything around her. She really could not have coped with a social call.

‘Running away?' Jasmeet had enquired when Neha called her fifty kilometers outside Delhi, on suddenly remembering that she had forgotten to return Jasmeet's serving dishes before leaving in the morning.

‘Of course not! Why would I be running away? Sharat's in Lucknow,' Neha had responded hotly, lapsing into embarrassed silence when Jasmeet clarified what she had meant.

‘Running away from the heat, I meant, stupid. It's still thirty-eight degrees. And we are nearly into October, imagine! But, bloody hell – Ananda! You could have told me, I might have also wanted to come along, Neha!'

‘You mentioned this was a busy time for you …' Neha muttered before trailing off. Much as she adored her old schoolmate, the company of someone as boisterous as Jasmeet would have been unbearable at this time.

‘Busy is too right,
yaar
,' Jasmeet said. ‘God I'm so fucking busy it's not funny. Dinner party at the Swedish Embassy tonight, that bloody two
crore
Walia wedding next week. I think I'm going mad. And now you've got my best serving dishes, dammit!'

‘Oh, sorry, Jas!' Neha said. ‘Listen, I'll call Ram Singh straight away and ask him to have them sent with Sharat's driver. He should be free, seeing that Sharat's in Lucknow.'

‘Humph!' Jasmeet grumbled, adding, ‘What's gotten into you anyway? It's not at all like you to be forgetful.'

‘I know, I know. I'm so sorry. What can I say … it was just so inconsiderate of me, Jasmeet darling. Forgive me? Please?'

‘Oh okay, then. You are one of my best clients after all,' Jasmeet responded cheekily and before Neha could think of a retort, she hung up in typically abrupt fashion, with a grunt.

Neha's car was soon pulling into the vast colonnaded porch at the reception building. After she had disembarked, a pair of girls stepped forward with flower garlands and trays of sandalwood and vermilion. The
aarti
ceremony done, Neha walked into the hush of the dark cool building and sank into a sofa with a sigh. There was never a better place in which to get away from it all than Ananda, in her opinion. The very air up here, suffused with the fragrance of pine needles and herbs, was restorative. Merely breathing it in was part of the healing process, she believed. Over the years Neha had recommended the mountain spa to many friends who had turned to her in moments of crisis, but this was perhaps the first time she herself had needed to come here for reasons more compelling than the mere lure of massages. She counted on her fingers. This was probably her tenth visit, the first time being many years ago when Sharat and she had driven up from Delhi with a small group of friends. Neha smiled, remembering one conversation.

‘It's the bloody Gulag over here! Uniforms and set meal times and prison walls!'

‘Come on, Sharat, don't exaggerate!'

‘I'm not! It's incredible that people pay to be tortured in this way! And the yoga, that's the other thing – setting alarms
for five in the morning so that you can shiver on a mountain top while some torturer twists your body into impossible positions. I'm in agony everywhere today. Look, see here, even my shoulder blades are all tensed up!'

Sharat had roundly declared the experience not one he would ever want to repeat. But, for Neha on that occasion, it was as if she had reached paradise. Now a veteran of ten visits, she knew the routine well. She smiled at the girl who was bringing her the welcome drink of cold herb tea and downed it in one gulp.

‘Oh god, already seven pm!' she said, glancing at her watch as she got up. ‘I think I should have something light to eat and then get to bed early. Can't miss morning yoga! There's something so fabulous about watching the sun rise from behind the mountains while doing pranayama. How we Delhi wallahs ever try to practise yoga inside air-conditioned closed rooms, I don't know.'

The girl smiled. ‘Did you wish to see the schedule of treatments that have been lined up for your week, Mrs Chaturvedi? You may want to change something?'

‘No, I'll do all that tomorrow at the spa reception,' Neha replied, nodding at the two staff members before she left the building.

Neha took the familiar path down to the block that housed the rooms, going past the marble pergola where her yoga lessons were sometimes conducted, and cocked her head to listen out for the pretty sound of the running rill of water that lay behind it. The sun had long faded from the peaks of the surrounding mountains, which were now shrouded in a hazy purple mist. The spa too had shut down for the night, as had the swimming pool, which was now gently rippling, black and pristine. But the cluster of buildings that housed Ananda's accommodation was well
lit and Neha made for it, knowing that her suitcase would by now be unpacked, her things already neatly laid out in the cupboards.

She entered the room she was always given – twenty-seven – and caught her breath in the way she could never help whenever she saw the huge uncurtained window of the luxurious bathroom. All the windows on this side of the building overlooked the Rishikesh valley beneath, which, as evening fell, became a sparse sprinkling of lights. Without even going into the bedroom, Neha ran herself a warm bath using some of Ananda's famed bath salts. She would lie in it for an hour at least and admire the way the stars melded seamlessly into the lights scattering the valley below. She would try not to remember Sonya's letter. Or let it worry her, despite the veiled threat. For threat it certainly was, much as Neha wanted to imagine otherwise. The tone of the letter was unmistakably cold and purposeful. And who could blame the child, given what she had done to her? There had been no point even contemplating a reply … what could she possibly say that would not upset the girl even more?

Neha undressed, leaving a scattering of clothes on the floor as she climbed with relief into the fragrant bath water. What Sonya had not mentioned, Neha realized as she sank into the tub, was when exactly she was coming to India. The envelope had an English stamp and postmark but it was always possible that the sender had overtaken it on its journey and, in that case, perhaps she was already here in the country! Surely Sonya wouldn't have wanted to give her too much prior notice, Neha considered, for that would only allow her to escape. Exactly as she had done, in fact. It was with some relief that Neha realized that Sonya would not find her here in the mountains.

That was for sure. Ananda's privacy rules were stringent and, apart from Sharat, their parents and Jasmeet, no one else knew where she was this week. But what if … an awful thought suddenly came to Neha, making her shoot up into a sitting position in the bathtub … what if Sonya turned up at the Delhi house while she was here at Ananda! Sharat would be back from Lucknow by Tuesday and might well be at home if Sonya turned up there. That was the address the girl had used, after all. Neha sank back into the bath and allowed the soapy water to close over her head. How utterly devastating if Sharat were to find out everything by actually meeting Sonya. Neha simply could not bear the thought of his hurt. How betrayed he would feel to know that his adored wife had been lying consistently to him all throughout their marriage! Why, she had even refused to see an obstetrician to investigate their childlessness, for fear that medical tests would reveal a previous pregnancy.

 

‘We don't need to know what the reasons are, it will just cause tensions between us, Sharat.'

‘Why should it … perhaps one of these tests will reveal a problem that can be solved or treated, Neha …'

‘And, if it's something untreatable, won't it just lie there between us, forming silences and barriers? We just need to relax and enjoy each other and someday I'm sure I'll get pregnant, just like that.'

‘You could be right, darling, Raju Chacha and Asha Chachi were married years before Shashi was born. Even my parents had been married five years before I emerged. Maybe we're just a bit slow in my family!' Sharat had laughed.

‘And, you know, now that we've been married seven years,
there's a part of me that feels we're so happy we don't need children, Sharat. I'm contented merely to be married to you … please tell me it's the same for you?'

 

All those lies … how much lower could one fall? Neha came up from the water again, gasping for breath, as all those distant conversations ran furiously through her head. Tears pushed at the back of her eyes as she thought of how she would willingly drown herself right here in this bathtub if she only had the courage. That would solve her problem of facing Sharat, and facing the daughter she had given away. She wanted to retch, the thoughts racing through her head, churning her stomach. Perhaps she could slit her wrists. She had seen it in a movie recently … an American film about troubled teenagers, from what she could recall …
The Rules of Attraction
, that was it. Like that poor young girl in it, all she had to do was slice a blade over her wrists, lean back in the bathtub and allow the water to slowly bleed the life out of her. It was such a tempting thought … if only she could find a blade in her toilet kit … If she searched hard enough, perhaps she would find one belonging to Sharat …

Neha scrambled out of the bath and lunged for her toilet kit. Its contents scattered all over the floor and she fell to her knees, searching frantically among the bottles and brushes for a blade … something, anything, even a pair of nail scissors might do it …