Custody (32 page)

The box was flung open, slices put on plates, and the hungry couple fell to. Such cosy domesticity made this a far more erotic moment for Ishita than any on the sofa.

It had never been like this with SK. Never just the two of them, because always the whole family had to be considered. They couldn’t order pizza, because the parents-in-law didn’t eat it, and to leave them out was unthinkable.

The last slice finished, the last gulp of Coke consumed, the vodka returned to the drinks cabinet and back to the sofa. It was now the smell of onions and tomato spices that mingled in their mouths as they kissed. The absence of servants made them less inhibited.

Should they or shouldn’t they? If they did, would it arouse commitment expectations? Raman knew the girl was traditional and he wanted to cause no unhappiness.

For Ishita, what were the implications? Perhaps he would not respect her afterwards, but equally it was time to filter such fears out of her head. Instinctively she knew he was not prepared to give much more than his body. She considered this – as dispassionately as two glasses of vodka would allow her – then turned to him, and this time she was the one who put out the light, she was the one who, a few minutes later, asked if a bed was available.

Two hours later Ishita returned home. Her mother was waiting.

‘Why did you take so long? It’s late.’

‘So what? I am thirty-two.’

‘So? That is still young.’

‘Mummy, please, leave me alone.’

That night Ishita couldn’t sleep. It had been five years since a man had touched her. Five years. She felt like a young girl. Her mother thought she should be careful, but for what? Had she not responded to Raman was there any guarantee that more happiness would come her way?

This had been her second man. It made her feel worldly and sophisticated. Even if the relationship were to end tonight she would still be the richer. Not to mention all the love she had received from Roohi. She thought of the little arms around her neck, her weight on her lap, the smell of her breath, the smooth pink lips glistening with a sliver of drool, the baby-white teeth. For those moments in the car she had allowed herself to feel she was the child’s mother, with an intimate connection to the man sitting next to her.

Well, everybody had to have their few moments in the sun. Those had been hers. She had given herself so easily to Raman to prolong the fantasy.

Being with him was like having a taste of what every woman she was ever jealous of had. A man and a child. People to look after and care for, people who loved you in return. Among her acquaintances she was the sole childless divorcee. Even her ex-husband was now the proud father of two boys.

She decided not to tell her mother. Though she would be pleased at the romantic turn her interaction with Raman had taken, she would immediately start fretting about marriage. Her mother didn’t understand courtship. Sex, romance, love had their place but only after the engagement had taken place and the wedding date fixed.

Raman too couldn’t sleep. He found himself feeling protective of Ishita in a way he never had with Shagun. Even after years of marriage he had always been the supplicant, worshipping at the altar of her beauty, never ceasing to be grateful that she was his.

How many hours had he spent trying to decipher his wife’s thoughts? Was she in a good mood, was she dissatisfied or happy? He had wanted to know her inside out, but she had remained an enigma. She had taken all his youth, his passion, what was there left to give another woman? Take tonight – he and Ishita had made love, whereupon he proceeded to obsess about his ex-wife.

Mrs Rajora also lay awake. She had recognised the withdrawn look on Ishita’s face, a look that suggested secrets. The nature of those had to be either romantic or sexual – both transgressive for a girl in Ishita’s position. If they continued to see each other, even with Roohi as ostensible chaperone, and it all came to nothing her daughter’s future would be ruined along with her reputation.

In a few years Ishita’s 5 lakhs would have doubled to 10. She could never think of this sum, unperturbedly increasing as the days passed, without a frisson of excitement. But 10 lakhs was nothing for a man in a multinational. Richer divorcees were prowling the field.

Her husband was no help; ‘I’m not asking anybody to take my girl. If the Kaushiks are keen they can come with a proposal.’

That meant he was relying on them to fall in love.

‘Always taking the easy way out,’ she muttered.

‘Well, you tell me, what would you like me to do?’ he countered.

‘I want you to be concerned about your daughter’s future.’

‘You have worried about her future these past five years, what good did it do?’

‘I have also prayed for five years and it has made a boy like Raman see Ishita’s qualities.’

Mr Rajora looked at his wife with weariness. If Ishita married, at least he would be spared the drama he was treated to so often.

Her maternal antennae up, Mrs Rajora watched her daughter, watched the colour come into her face, watched the way the beauty parlour gave her a soft perm that added body and curl to her hair, watched the new clothes and the care taken over appearance.

A mother’s love will dig in the stoniest of soils. Mrs Rajora waited for Ishita to be at work before she began. She opened her cupboard, felt under the clothes, her bathroom shelf, her drawers, looking, looking for something that would give her a clue.

As she searched she wondered, where should her attention be focused? No birth control needed for her daughter, so none of that. Sexy underwear, that her daughter was too good to indulge in – presents from Raman – a possibility. Maybe some note, a letter? A diary?

No. Intimacy, imagined or otherwise, had not inspired the pen of either party.

She fumbled beneath a pile of woollens, when she touched something hard. Nestling at the very back was a big bottle of J’Adore perfume still in its white box. Christian Dior. Expensive.

Ishita could not afford to buy such things, therefore it had to be a present. A present without the ritual of showing, examining, assessing the price.

The girl appeared in the late afternoon. The mother let her have her lunch. Then she let her have her nap. Then she let her have her tea, in fact she brought it with her own faithful hands.

‘I found a bottle of perfume in your cupboard. Looked costly.’

‘Why were you looking in my cupboard?’

‘The dhobi came. I had to put your clothes away, didn’t I?’

‘The perfume was in the back, under my shawls. You would not have found it unless you were looking.’

‘Beta, never mind that. I only want to be sure that you are not doing anything to harm yourself. Once we were friends, since when have we become enemies?’

Ishita stirred the sugar in her tea.

‘Beta, say something. I have stood by you, suffered, and you keep secrets.’

‘Mummy, please. There is nothing to tell. I am not doing anything to ruin my life. I am thirty-two, Mummy,
please.’

Mrs Rajora looked wounded, while Ishita got up to leave as she always did in these circumstances. She made her way into the little park, to sit on a cement bench.

Around her were the long dark dried leaves of the amaltas tree; another week and the branches would be completely bare. There was still a slight chill in the evening air, but Holi was around the corner, and after that the long unrelenting months of summer. She could see men and women taking their evening walk, briskly round and round the many apartment blocks of the society complex.

How she hated every narrow-minded conservative individual around her. Swarg Nivas indeed, it was just hell, full of nosy people who made it their collective business to know what she was doing every day of her life.

Easy game. Careful, careful, divorcees were easy game. That’s what her parents thought – but in all these five years she had yet to come across anyone who thought she was any kind of game, easy or otherwise.

She stared at the tall buildings outlined against the never completely dark sky. She didn’t like the clandestine. It made her relationship seem insubstantial, more fraught. Yet, till Raman declared himself, what could she say to anybody? She just had to go on thinking that she had nothing to lose, that whatever romance she got was worth the risks she was taking. So far as love was concerned, she was a beggar, and beggars can’t be choosers.

In what way could she make her mother understand? For her she was still a princess, albeit a somewhat tarnished one.

XXVI

The summer of 2000.

It is time for the children to visit their mother.

Ishita knows some anxiety. With Roo gone, how much will they meet? Even though they are lovers now, she doesn’t want to presume.

‘I will miss Roo.’ She finds it easier to work through the girl.

‘I won’t,’ he replies.

‘You won’t?’

‘No, I need some time with you. The two of you are always clinging to each other.’

A bashful love gleams from Ishita’s face.

*

A week into the children’s departure and it was clear that Raman intended this to be playtime.

‘Did you ever assume a position besides the missionary with your husband?’ he asked.

She reddened and hung her head. He had found her wanting.

‘Tell me.’ He turned her face towards him. ‘Why are you feeling shy?’

‘Some things you don’t talk about.’

‘What? Where did you get that idea?’

Where? From her upbringing, of course. Everybody knew what decent girls should and shouldn’t do.

It was Raman’s task to remove these ideas from her head.

He gave her long lectures on pleasure, on the right to experiment with their bodies as they pleased – if there was anything she didn’t like, she only had to say. And by the way, just how incompetent had her husband been? Had he ever left his mother’s lap?

She blushed again and refused to answer. But though it was hard for him to get her to fantasise, or to take initiatives, she proved an adept pupil otherwise. When he hesitantly introduced her to oral sex, it was clear how willing she was to learn.

Once moved by passion, he was also moved to make a comparison between her and Shagun: ‘She was an ice queen compared to you. What a fool that SK of yours was. Don’t you think so? At least now?’

She nodded. Her present activities made her relationship with SK seem childlike. A child’s directness, a child’s lack of subtlety. How she had learned to be so uninhibited, she didn’t know, but she imagined it had to do with some deeply reassuring quality in Raman; whatever she did, he would never judge her.

*

Flicking channels one night in Raman’s house, they came across the Miss Everywhere beauty contest.

‘Lots of Indians are winning these things,’ remarked Ishita.

Raman looked at her: so?

‘I wonder what it is like to be really beautiful,’ she went on. ‘The most beautiful in the universe.’

‘It’s like nothing. It’s what’s inside that matters.’

‘That’s poor consolation. You watch. This woman will go on to become a film star, and all the world will run after her. They won’t think of what is inside, it’s only people like me who have to think that.’

‘It’s a company that runs these beauty pageants, they have a profit motive. I know how commerce works – lots of hype – some substance, sure, but it’s blown all out of proportion. She will have a string of affairs, essentially withhold herself, drive many men crazy, because it will be too constricting for her to be confined to one man.’

Was he talking about Miss Everywhere or the ex-wife?

‘And that is why you are more attractive. You don’t play games, you are what you seem, you have a heart and a soul.’

He bent to kiss her. The intensity of her response made him feel like a pasha. In the unexamined shadows of his heart, it pleased him she was so insecure.

Ishita’s lies at home grew more fluent. She was going to spend the night here, there, with this friend and that, unconvincing plans, but necessary as face-saving devices.

‘I wish my mother wouldn’t worry so much. It’s hard for her, I know, but I am thirty-two,’ said Ishita to Raman. ‘She knows I am lying, but still I have to do it.’

‘Does she mind a lot?’ asked Raman, shifting his weight so he didn’t press down on her too much.

Ishita rolled her eyes. ‘If only you knew. On and on she goes – neighbours, reputation, vulnerable position. At my age why should I bother about anybody?’

Raman glanced speculatively at his lover, plain-featured like him, the same sallow complexion, but with a smile that lit her whole face. If marriages were between soulmates, this woman whose body he was even now preparing to enter for the third time was more naturally his partner.

What would his children think if they got married? Roohi loved her, that he knew, but there was Arjun to consider. He was so close to his mother, he was not going to accept a replacement easily.

‘You also worry too much,’ said Ishita. She drew his tongue into her mouth, and wrapped her legs around his back. Raman groaned, shut his eyes, clung to her body, raking her skin with his nails, printing trophies which she would stare at in her bathroom mirror, reliving every moment spent acquiring them.

Mrs Hingorani marked the change in her.

‘Beti, you are looking happy.’

Ishita looked down and fiddled with her dupatta. Was her joy really so transparent?

A little later she did feel at liberty to treat Mrs Hingorani to a small panegyric on Raman’s virtues, followed by how adorable his daughter was. Of Arjun she said nothing.

Shortly afterwards, Raman suggested they go to Tanishq to pick a ring. He reached out and held her hand. ‘We both have a better chance of happiness this time round, don’t you think?’

She allowed herself a small nod, yes, she did think. For months he and Roo had been firmly lodged in her heart. As she confessed this she reddened; for a woman like Ishita, saying things was tantamount to feeling them less – emotions clothed in words lost something in the transaction.

Neither mentioned the word love, but in the days that followed Ishita’s sexual initiatives grew more abandoned, her passion more intense. He responded with ardour, and when they entered the shop in Connaught Place it was with an air of mutual self-satisfaction.