Take One Arranged Marriage… (9 page)

And the guilt … Logically he knew he had no reason to feel guilty, but that didn’t change the fact that he did. There was a constant gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach—a whole squadron of ‘ifs’ hammering away inside his skull. If not for him his brother wouldn’t be dead. His mother wouldn’t have that constantly haunted look at the back of her eyes. His father wouldn’t go through life like a shell of his former self.

Vikram had had to break the news to his parents—he would never forget the look on his father’s face. A cheesy line from an old Hindi movie classic came back to him: ‘There is no burden on earth as heavy as the weight of a son’s coffin on his father’s shoulder.’ His dad looked nothing like the wrinkled white-haired actor who played the bereaved father in the movie, and he hadn’t broken down and sobbed when he’d learnt of his younger son’s death. He had squared his shoulders and put himself to the task of supporting and comforting his wife. But he’d been crushed all the same, greying
almost overnight so that he looked a good ten years older than his age.

Tara moved away from the D’Souzas as soon as she could, and went in search of Vikram.

‘He’s talking to Lisa downstairs,’ one of Vikram’s assistants volunteered.

‘I didn’t know Lisa was here,’ Tara said. She’d run into Lisa a couple of times since she’d moved to Bengaluru. Once at a party similar to this one, and once accidentally in a store. Both times Lisa had been polite, but not very warm.

‘I think she came with Kunal Wilson,’ the girl said. ‘They’re supposed to be dating.’

Tara nodded and headed downstairs. She spotted Vikram and Lisa almost immediately—they were in an alcove near the foot of the stairs, and were standing very close to each other.

‘I’d feel so much better if you agreed. I don’t even know what you think about the marriage,’ Lisa was saying, her voice low and very intense.

Vikram laughed, and the bitterness in the sound made Tara wince. ‘I have no rights over you. It doesn’t matter what I think.’

‘You know it matters,’ she replied. ‘It matters
more than what anyone else thinks—even my own mother.’

‘I have nothing against Kunal,’ Vikram said. ‘I’d probably be equally uncomfortable with the thought of you marrying anyone else, and I’m not going to lie about it to make you feel better.’

‘You
got married,’ Lisa said, her voice trembling. ‘I don’t see you pining away.’

‘You have no idea …’ Vikram began to say through his teeth. But Lisa was crying now, and Vikram turned quickly and put an arm around her. She clung to him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said roughly, and tilted her face up to kiss her on the forehead. ‘Don’t cry, Lisa.’

He looked up and saw Tara, who was still standing at the foot of the stairs as if rooted to the spot. It had been a very platonic kiss, but seeing another woman in his arms had been a shock to her all the same.

He took a snowy white handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to Lisa before disengaging himself from her embrace. ‘Tara, can you call Kunal, please?’ he said, his voice firm and not carrying a trace of the emotion that had filled it a few minutes back.

Tara ran up the stairs and came back with
Kunal, who went to Lisa’s side and put his arms around her.

Vikram took Tara’s arm and walked her up the stairs. ‘Sorry you had to see that,’ Vikram said briefly. ‘Lisa’s going through a bit of a bad patch.’

It had sounded more as if Vikram was going through a bad patch, Tara thought silently, but she didn’t say anything. She’d never been quite sure of the relationship between Lisa and Vikram—their body language didn’t suggest that they had ever been lovers, but there was something very strong between them all the same. Stronger than anything he’d ever felt for
her
, Tara thought, dismayed at how jealous she felt. She’d never seen Vikram display the level of emotion that he had in his altercation with Lisa, and she’d assumed that he wasn’t capable of showing strong feelings. Obviously she’d been very wrong.

The party broke up after another hour or so, and Tara was glad to leave. Her phone rang almost immediately as they got into the car—it was Vikram’s mum. A little surprised, because she’d told her earlier in the day that they’d be at the party all evening, she answered the call.

‘Have you reached home?’ Mrs Krishnan asked.

Tara told her that they were on their way.

‘Is Vikram driving?’ was her next question.

Tara said, no, the driver was.

‘Message me when you reach home, dear,’ Mrs Krishnan said.

‘But, Amma, it’ll take us another half an hour at least, and it’s already past twelve. Won’t you be asleep?’ Tara protested.

‘She’s calling to check if we’re still alive,’ Vikram said after she’d put the phone down.

Tara looked over at him, startled by his tone.

‘She doesn’t sleep if she knows I’m on the road somewhere. And now that you’re with me she’s doubly paranoid. That’s why I don’t tell her half the time when I’m travelling.’

‘Your brother …?’ Tara said slowly.

‘Died in a bike accident,’ Vikram said. ‘He called her when he left home to say he’d call her again after class, and—well, he didn’t. That’s all.’

He sounded almost callous, but his jaw was clenched very tight and Tara didn’t know what to say. A conventional sympathetic response would be woefully inadequate, and he didn’t look as if he’d appreciate being touched right now. She stayed silent till they reached home, feeling very troubled.

‘I have to leave for the airport early tomorrow,
Satish,’ Vikram told the driver. ‘You’ll need to be here at five.’

She’d forgotten he was off again the next day. Tara glanced at her watch. It was late, and probably not the best time to start a serious discussion, but it couldn’t be helped.

‘Why was Lisa upset?’ she asked quietly once they were inside the house.

Vikram shrugged. ‘Something to do with marrying Kunal. Do you need anything from outside, or should I lock up?’

‘You can lock up,’ Tara said. ‘Why was she sobbing all over you, then?’ It came out sounding a little ruder than she’d intended, as if Lisa was a hysterical man-eater, and that wasn’t what she’d meant to imply. ‘I mean, I couldn’t help hearing part of what she said, and it sounded like she wanted your blessing on the marriage, or something of that sort.’

‘Something of that sort,’ Vikram agreed, his voice bland.

Tara gave him a long look. ‘If you think it’s none of my business you can say so, and I’ll shut up,’ she said. ‘This is turning into a session of
Twenty Questions.’

Vikram passed a hand over his face. He looked tired, Tara thought, a quick pang of guilt shooting through her. He was probably
still jet-lagged, and it was late, and he had to travel again the next day. What was she thinking, shooting questions at him like a police interrogator?

‘Lisa was engaged to Vijay,’ Vikram said finally. ‘Does that help explain matters?’

He wasn’t being sarcastic, but Tara felt her face heat up. God, she should have guessed it when she’d heard Vikram telling Lisa that he’d be uncomfortable with the thought of her marrying anyone, not just Kunal. And he’d also told her earlier that Vijay’s girlfriend hadn’t been Hindu. Lisa was a Christian, and she was very close to Vikram’s family. It was so obvious that only an utter dimwit would have missed it.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said miserably, not sure what she was apologising for. Not guessing, suspecting Vikram of having something going on with Lisa, or for her general lack of sensitivity and good sense. As usual her guilt glands had gone into overdrive, and she was beginning to feel single-handedly responsible for the evening’s debacle.

Vikram didn’t give any sign of having heard her as he moved around the hallway, putting his shoes into the shoe rack and fiddling with the complicated system of locks that they’d
installed after a recent theft in the neighbourhood. He wasn’t looking at her, and after hesitating at the foot of the stairs for a few minutes Tara quietly went up to their bedroom.

She was putting her jewellery away in the safe when Vikram came upstairs. ‘Do you need help packing?’ she asked over her shoulder by way of further apology—he normally did his packing himself.

He didn’t say anything, but came up behind her and, putting his arms around her, buried his face in her shoulder. She stood very still. He held her for a while, very tight, neither of them saying anything, and then he turned her around and sought her mouth with a kind of blind desperation.

They barely made it to the bed, and their lovemaking was wilder and more passionate than it had ever been before. For the first time since she’d married him Tara felt that Vikram actually needed her—needed her in a visceral way that had nothing to do with sex. It wasn’t a happy feeling, though—it was tied in too closely with the feeling that they didn’t really understand or connect with each other yet.

V
IKRAM
was gone by the time Tara woke up, and she decided to stay in bed a little longer and enjoy a lie-in. She didn’t have to go to the institute—there was a paper she needed to type up, but that could wait.

She was reliving the previous night in her mind when the doorbell rang.

Tara dragged herself out of bed and went to open the door. Lisa was standing on the doorstep, a tentative smile on her lips. Still half-asleep, Tara gaped at her, and stupidly said the first thing that came into her head. ‘Vikram isn’t home.’

‘No, I know he isn’t,’ Lisa said. ‘I came to see you, actually. Is this a bad time? I should have called, but I was passing by and decided to take a chance.’

‘That’s fine. Come on in,’ Tara said, wishing she’d got up on time. Her hair was a mess,
half in its braid and half out, and she hadn’t even brushed her teeth yet. Lisa was, as usual, perfectly turned out in a pink linen shirt and white Capri pants. Tara ushered her into the living room, and ran upstairs to freshen up.

‘I’m sorry about the scene yesterday,’ Lisa said when Tara re-entered the room. ‘I’m sure Vikram explained, but I wanted to apologise in person.’

Tara hesitated. It felt odd confessing to someone who was almost a stranger that her husband kept her in a state of perpetual cluelessness as far as his life was concerned. Only if Lisa was about to launch into a long explanation—which she seemed set on doing—it made sense to be upfront. ‘Vikram didn’t say much, actually.’

Lisa looked upset. ‘You must think I’m absolutely nuts, then!’ she said. ‘You know about me and Vijay, of course?’

Tara nodded.

‘I met him here—in this room, actually,’ Lisa said. ‘He had just moved here to do an MBA course when Vikram hired me to do up his house.’ She smiled briefly, her mind obviously elsewhere. ‘It was the first project I was handling completely on my own—I’d only been helping my mum till then. And then, of
course, I had to fall head over heels for my client’s little brother. We dated for some months, and then he asked me to marry him. He still had one semester to go before he completed his MBA, but he had several job offers in hand already, and he said he wanted to get married as soon as he graduated. And then, of course …’

Lisa’s voice trailed off, and Tara stayed silent as well.

‘It’s been three years now, and I still can’t talk about it without breaking down,’ Lisa said finally. ‘It was such a shock. He’d pestered Vikram to buy him a motorcycle for his birthday. He was riding it to college without a helmet when a truck hit him.’

Tara winced. Vikram had mentioned a bike accident, but not the details. It wasn’t surprising he’d refused to buy her a two-wheeler—though he’d lied about the reason.

Lisa said, ‘I’ve known Kunal for a while now, and a month ago he asked me to marry him. I still love Vijay, but I love Kunal, too. It’s different with Kunal. I don’t feel I’m being disloyal to Vijay—I won’t forget him ever.’

‘But Vikram doesn’t see it that way?’ Tara asked. It was an unreasonable attitude from her point of view—Lisa couldn’t be expected to mourn Vijay for the rest of her life.

‘He was OK with my marrying in theory. He actually said he thought it a good idea.’

Tara frowned—he hadn’t sounded OK the night before.

‘I think I was pushing my luck,’ Lisa said. ‘You see, if I’d married Vijay we’d probably have had a Hindu wedding, but Kunal’s Catholic, like me, and we’re getting married in church. My dad isn’t alive any more, and I don’t have a brother. I wanted Vikram to give me away at the wedding and he said no.’

That was understandable, Tara thought. Asking him to participate actively in the ceremony was not very fair.

Evidently Lisa had come around to that point of view as well. ‘I’m not going to pester him about it any more,’ she said. ‘It’s OK even if he decides to skip the wedding.’ Her voice faltered a little. ‘Though I really, really want both of you to be there.’ She took Tara’s hand between hers and pressed it gently. ‘I’m so happy Vikram married you. You’re just what he needs.’

Tara looked a little surprised. ‘You’re calm and sensible, and even though you’re so young you’re a lot more mature than people twice your age.’

There was that word
sensible
again, but it
didn’t sound so bad when someone was telling her that she was just what Vikram needed.

Tara grinned and asked, ‘Why do I get this feeling you’re comparing me to someone?’

Lisa laughed. ‘I am, actually. Poor Anjali. She was clingy and insecure, and she didn’t know how to handle Vikram at all.’ She got to her feet in one fluid movement. ‘I need to rush. I’m running late for a meeting.’ She hugged Tara impulsively. ‘Let’s catch up properly some time—just the two of us, a girls’ night out. And, thanks—you’ve been an absolute sweetheart. Vikram’s a lucky guy.’

Not objecting to her husband being cried over in public was evidently a big plus point in her favour, Tara thought wryly as she shut the door behind Lisa. As was being calm and sensible. She felt anything but calm and sensible now—she’d found out a lot about her husband in the last fifteen minutes and she wished he’d been more open with her.

After Lisa left Tara felt way too restless to work on her report. She’d given the housekeeper a day off, and for a while she puttered around the house, rearranging the spice jars on the kitchen shelves and making a list of groceries that needed to be ordered. Halfway through
scrubbing out the refrigerator she threw her mop down in exasperation.

‘I’m turning into my mum,’ she muttered, standing up and slamming the refrigerator door shut. ‘I have a day to myself, and all I can think of doing is cleaning.’

She went upstairs and changed into jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, shaking her abundant hair out of its plait to comb it. She looked at her reflection in dissatisfaction. There was still something very schoolgirlish about her face, she thought.
‘You’re so young,’
Lisa’s voice came back to her. Time to do something about it.

‘Are you sure you want to cut it?’ the stylist in the neighbourhood beauty salon asked ten minutes later, weighing her hair in one hand and looking at her quizzically in the mirror. ‘It’ll take years to grow it to this length again.’

‘I’m not planning to grow it again,’ Tara said briefly. A little pang went through her as she remembered Vikram running his fingers through her hair, wrapping it round his hand and tugging gently to bring her closer to him. She dispelled the image firmly. Vikram didn’t have to spend hours every week shampooing
and conditioning and drying—and, anyway, what did it matter what
he
thought?

An hour later her hair reached just below her shoulders, curling into natural ringlets at the ends. It still felt a little odd—she was so used to the weight—but she felt lighter and freer somehow. And there was no doubt it looked fabulous. Even the stylist looked impressed as he tweaked the last few curls into place.

‘You’re lucky,’ he said. ‘This style suits you a lot better than long hair did.’

‘I told you, didn’t I?’ Tara said with a cheeky little grin as she pressed a tip into his hand. ‘You wanted me to go around looking like Rapunzel for the rest of my life.’

The man grinned back, pocketing the tip and wishing all his customers were as pretty and as easy to please.

Vikram came back two weeks later, having firmly resolved not to travel any more for the next few months. He told himself that it was because he needed to concentrate on things in office for a while, and because it wasn’t fair to Tara, leaving her alone for such long stretches of time. He’d even been away during the Tamil New Year. The first New Year after a wedding was supposed to be a big deal, and his mother
was still grousing about his not having been around.

He owed it to Tara to hang around for a while, he told himself. But the truth was he couldn’t wait to get back to his wife. He’d even started dreaming about her, and reaching out for her in the middle of the night before waking with a start when he realised the bed was empty. It was just the sex that he missed, he told himself. And, of course, she was an engaging companion—sharp-witted, with a keen sense of the ridiculous. That was it, he told himself firmly. He’d made a pact with himself some years ago, after he’d split up with Anjali, that he’d never con himself into believing that he loved a woman again. He wasn’t capable of managing a relationship that involved the word
love
, and no one deserved having their life messed up because of him, specially not Tara.

He’d taken an early afternoon flight, and the house was empty when he got there. The housekeeper had left, and Tara was still at the institute. He contemplated calling her and suggesting he pick her up and take her out for dinner, but that smacked a little of desperation. Instead he pulled out some files that were long overdue for attention and got down to work.

It was almost dark when the door clicked open and Tara came in, carrying her laptop and a bag of books, her hair swinging jauntily around her shoulders.

Vikram stared at her for a while, his expression blank. ‘You’ve cut your hair,’ he said finally.

Tara looked at him uncertainly. He looked shaken, as if she’d grown a moustache or dyed her eyebrows purple instead of having had a simple haircut.

‘This is a lot more convenient,’ she said. ‘All that hair used to give me headaches, but my parents never let me trim it.’

‘Right,’ he said, but he couldn’t stop himself staring. Her long, waist-length hair had been one of the things he’d found most attractive about Tara. Of course she was still the same person with her hair shorter, but he felt an absurd sense of loss. ‘You didn’t tell me you were going to cut it,’ he said without thinking. ‘I loved your hair.’

‘You didn’t tell me when
you
got a haircut,’ she retorted. He had used the word ‘loved’ for her
hair
, of all things! That stung—especially since he’d said it unconsciously. ‘Maybe next time I’ll send you an e-mail, asking for your permission.’

Vikram shook himself. ‘Sorry,’ he said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘You’re right. I’ve no business complaining. How’ve you been? Did you miss me?’

‘Terribly,’ Tara said, keeping her voice light. It wouldn’t do to let him see quite how much. ‘Especially the sound of your phone pinging every ten seconds.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you trying to tell me something?’

‘Maybe I am.’ She turned away and began fiddling with her bag. ‘I hardly get to see you, do I? Even when you’re in town.’

It was the first time she’d even come close to complaining, and Vikram found that instead of feeling annoyed he felt a fierce and unexpected sense of pleasure.

‘I mean, I know what your work’s like,’ she added quickly. ‘It’d be nice to see you around more, that’s all.’ Vikram was looking at her almost tenderly, and she felt her heartbeat quicken.

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that he’d decided to cut down on travelling, but he held back. ‘You’d probably get tired of me if I was in town all the time,’ he said instead, deciding to see how things went before he committed to something that might
end up worsening things between them in the long run.

Tara shrugged. ‘Perhaps. We might run out of things to say to each other.’ She felt terribly let down. For a second she’d actually thought he was going to admit to being more than casually fond of her. Evidently not. She caught his eyes wandering towards her hair again, and rapped out angrily, ‘Stop. Staring. At. My. Hair.’

Vikram laughed. ‘I’m trying to get used to it. Come here.’ He held a hand out to her and she came unwillingly.

‘Everyone else says it looks good,’ she muttered as he pulled her close. ‘Not that they’d have to “get used to it”.’

‘Everyone else isn’t married to you,’ Vikram said, nuzzling her neck. ‘Who’s everyone else, anyway? I thought you’d been buried away in the institute?’

‘There are other human beings there, you know,’ Tara said, breaking away from him. She still felt annoyed, and a little tearful, and she didn’t want to get close to him until she’d regained control over herself.

‘Ah, really?’ Vikram said, teasing her now, his lips twitching slightly. ‘Like the sixty-year-old professors you told me about?’

‘Not all of them are sixty,’ Tara said. ‘And it’s the other research students I hang out with, not the professors.’

Vikram frowned. It was logical, really, that there’d be other students her age, but most of Tara’s conversation about the institute was centred around the near-mythical figure of Dr Shanta, her research supervisor. He hadn’t really thought of her having friends there.

‘Why don’t you invite them over some time?’ he asked. ‘These guys you hang around with?’

‘Not posh enough for you,’ Tara said briefly. ‘You’d find them nerdy and boring, and they’d be scared stiff of you.’

‘I’m sure I wouldn’t,’ Vikram protested. She was making him out to be some kind of control freak snob. ‘If they’re your friends I’ll get along with them fine. Go on—invite them over.’

‘They’re just guys I work with,’ Tara muttered. She thought of Ritu. ‘My real friends are back home. But if you really want to meet this bunch, Dr Shanta’s invited us over to her Holi party this Saturday. I said no, because I didn’t think you’d be interested.’ She looked up just in time to catch the appalled expression on his face and began to laugh. ‘Oh, dear.
Obviously Holi parties aren’t your thing. Let’s just leave it, shall we?’

‘No, we’ll go,’ Vikram said. She was right—he hated the festival. But he didn’t want to back down now. Noise, people rubbing colour into each other’s faces, kids running around with water guns … It was his idea of a first-class nightmare.

‘You don’t have to,’ Tara said, coming closer to him and putting both hands on his chest, sliding them up slowly to meet at the back of his neck. ‘I’ll even admit you’re not as much of a snob as you look.’ She stood on tiptoe slightly, reaching up to touch her lips to his and run her tongue seductively along his lower lip.

‘We’ll go,’ Vikram said and, picking her up bodily, carried her across to the nearest flat surface—which happened to be a sofa. Carefully, he deposited her there, and started removing her clothes one by one as she struggled and laughed. Then, when every stitch of clothing was gone, he covered her body with his, absorbing her moans into his very skin.