THE ONE YOU CANNOT HAVE

westland ltd

Apart from being a best-selling author, Preeti Shenoy is also an artist, specialising in portraits. She has given talks at many prestigious educational institutions, across the country, including IITs and IIMs. She is an avid blogger, poet, nature-lover and yoga buff. A few things that give her immense joy, apart from writing, are fitness, travelling to new places and spending time with her family and her dog.

Preeti Shenoy is currently based in Bangalore, India. To know more about her, go to preetishenoy.com. Follow her on twitter @preetishenoy

westland ltd

61 Silverline Building, 2nd Floor, Alapakkam Main Road, Maduravoyal, Chennai 6000 095

No. 38/10 (New No.5), Raghava Nagar, New Timber Yard Layout, Bangalore 560 026

93, 1st Floor, Sham Lal Road, New Delhi 110 002

First published by westland ltd 2013

First e-book edition: 2013

Copyright © Preeti Shenoy 2013

All rights reserved

ISBN:

Typeset by Ram Das Lal

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or
otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, circulated, and no reproduction in any

form, in whole or in part (except for brief quotations in critical articles
or reviews) may be made without written permission of the publishers.

For Satish, Atul and Purvi, as always.

And for Manu too.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

– Langston Hughes

Chapte
r
1

Aman

Uprooting oneself is never easy and now that the final moment has come, I find myself unprepared.

I don’t think Mark even realises the emptiness I feel inside me.

‘All set, Aman? You must be looking forward to moving back to India then?’ he says, as he sinks into the plush leather sofa and reaches for a can of beer.

I look at the bare walls where the Madhubhani paintings I had got from India had hung and I examine the holes left by the nails. Mark and I had hammered them into the wall, two years ago, when I had moved into this flat. The nails yanked out by Mark lie on the floor now.

‘You know, in India, we don’t have to do stuff like this,’ I reply, avoiding his question, concentrating instead on the task at hand. I take out the tube of wall-filler bought at Thorns, the best store in Norwich for all such things. I look at it. ‘Flexible filler decorator. For sealing and filling gaps and cracks before decorating,’ it reads. I squeeze out the required amount of the sealant carefully and fill the two holes in the wall. I add finishing touches to my repair work and stand back to admire it. Now it only needs a coat of paint.

‘That’s right. I know. And in India, you lead the life of a maharaja with four servants to do your bidding,’ replies Mark as he takes a swig of beer, resting his leg on the coffee table.

‘Well, not four servants. But at least we can afford to hire people to do our laundry and we don’t have clauses in our rental agreements which force one to fill holes like this,’ I reply.

Mark chuckles. ‘Filling holes ain’t so bad, eh?’ he drawls trying to do an Australian accent, but failing miserably and sounding very much English.

‘Depends on which ones,’ I retort and we both laugh, our laughter abating my feelings somewhat.

I clear up all the nails and sweep up the dust on the floor. Mark adds a second coat of paint to my patch-work on the wall.

‘It looks as good as new,’ I tell him. And it does.

‘Hmmm. You know, Aman, I was thinking of planning a trip to India once you’re settled there,’ he says.

‘You must, Mark. India is a fantastic place. It has beaches, mountains, hills, tons of culture—you name it,’ I reply.

‘If I come, will you introduce me to some nice Indian girls?’

‘I do not know any “nice” Indian girls, Mark,’ I say.

And then, almost immediately, I think of Anjali.

She has been emailing me a lot recently. I am not sure what she wants from me. After Shruti, I am wary of getting close to anybody. And the last thing I want is a long-distance relationship. Or any relationship for that matter. I am happy to be immersed in my work. I don’t want to give Anjali any false hope.

Women are funny that way—you respond politely to them and they presume you are interested. I have tried to be as casual as possible in my erratic replies to her. It is as much of a red flag as I can wave. But Anjali refuses to back down and though it bothers me a little, it doesn’t bother me enough to be overly concerned or worried about her advances, if they can be so termed.

‘No? Not even one? Really?’ Mark looks incredulous.

‘Just wait until Eva hears this. I will tell her about your secret agenda to visit India,’ I wink.

‘Don’t even joke about it. She will never let me visit you then,’ he says, his face instantly changing its expression and his grey-green eyes narrowing. He runs his hand through his blond hair worriedly.

I don’t want to mention Anjali to Mark. He would never understand.

Mark has only two goals when it comes to women.

One, to get them to bed on the first date and two, to get them to bed on any date. Mark is about 6 ft 1’ and muscular to boot. He has the kind of body that can make it to the cover of a men’s fitness magazine. He works out thrice a week and plays football with the boys twice a week. He is very conscious of his appearance, and with his kind of looks and charm, he is popular with women.

In the three years that I have known him (I had known him before I moved to the UK as we had worked on some projects together), he has slept with at least eight women, even while having a steady relationship with Eva. Initially, I had found it very odd, my moral compass being at variance with Mark’s.

Friday nights are, by default, music night at a local pub. Mark and the others in my department (all English, I am the only Indian) have a routine they do on these pub visits. They call it ‘pulling’. This basically means attracting women and charming them enough to get them to go to bed with them. When they had first mentioned to me that they would be out at the pub ‘pulling’, I had asked ‘Pulling what?’ at which they had all burst into laughter.

Later I had learnt the subtle differences between the slang used by the British and the kind used back in India. In the UK, shagging meant having sex, while in India, it meant pleasuring yourself. They had other, amusing terms for that: ‘buffing the banana’, ‘applying the handbrake’, ‘teasing the weasel’ and the most hilarious one—‘rounding up the tadpoles’. It had taken me only a very brief while to get used to their accents, customs and usages and now, after two years, I feel right at home in Norwich with Mark and my other English friends.

‘So, let us do the final recce then, eh? Do you have the list?’ asks Mark.

I take out the rental agreement the real estate agent had given me when I had moved in. In the UK, unlike in India, they are very meticulous about property. The realtor had, along with me, examined each and every mark on the wall, noted each detail on the list that she had carried.

‘Crack on wall in foyer, small mark on wall facing the garden in the hall, dent on boiler,’ the list went on, making a precise note on the shape and condition of the property. At the time of handing back a property, the agent would compare it against this list. Any deviations would have to be taken care of by me. This was why I was so careful about repairing the holes left by nails. I do not want to shell out my hard-earned pounds towards damage to property. In the two years that I have worked here, I have saved up quite a bit and have a comfortable nest egg with which I intend buying an apartment in India. I don’t want anything, especially the cost of repair, to make a dent in my plans.

Mark and I compare everything that is on the list.

‘So, all done then. I think we are handing it back to them in a better shape than it was in when we rented it,’ comments Mark. And I realise it is true.

Habits formed in childhood die hard and I have been meticulous about housekeeping from an early age. Baba passed away when I was seven and since then my mother raised me singlehandedly. As a child, I would feel miserable seeing her struggle to make both ends meet, and to help her out, I would tidy up the home before she came back from work. I wanted to make her life a little easier. Ever since I have told her I am moving back, she is over the moon even though I am relocating to Bangalore, not Gwalior where she lives.

Mark carries my suitcases to his car and puts them in the boot. There are a few formalities to be taken care of at work before I move to India and I will be spending the last two days of my stay in the UK at a hotel close to office.

‘Let me shut down the heating and then we shall lock up and hand over the keys,’ I say, as I dash upstairs to the boiler room. All homes in the UK have a central heating system which comprises a huge metallic boiler housed in a ‘boiler room’. One can control the temperature, the settings and other things here. One would freeze to death without the heating.

When I turn off the boiler switch, I notice that the latch to the attic has come loose. The door, which is on the roof, has swung downwards and is open.

I am not tall enough to reach it without a ladder, so I call out to Mark.

‘Hey, Mark, just come and shut this attic door for me, will you?’ I peep out of the window on the first floor and call out to him.

Mark bounds up the stairs.

He reaches the door easily and pushes it back against the roof but finds something obstructing it.

He tries once more with the same result.

‘Get me something I can stand on. There seems to be something up there,’ he says.

‘I called you because I felt too lazy to go to the garage and get the ladder and now you want me to get it,’ I grumble.

‘It is up to you. Shall we just leave it then?’

‘No, wait, I’ll get it,’ I say. I rush downstairs to the garage, unlock it and carry the ladder up the stairs.

Mark climbs up and I hold the ladder steady.

From up there he says, ‘Hey, there seems to be a suitcase up here.’ As he takes it down, its clasp opens and the contents tumble out.

I freeze. I had forgotten all about this suitcase. I had shoved it up in the attic when I had first moved here.

It feels as though someone has punched me in the gut. I try to open my mouth but no words come out. My heart beats frantically. My hands go cold.

It is funny what memories can do to you. How they can grip you by the throat, choke you, strangle you. And just when you thought you had it all sorted, too.

Mark looks at me questioningly.

And finally I say, ‘Fuck,’ as I look at the contents of the suitcase now scattered on the floor.