Читать книгу Secrets and Lies - Jaishree Misra - Страница 9

LONDON, 2008

Despite the tumult of painful memories that had been sparked by the arrival of Miss Lamb’s letter, Sam managed to get through the rest of her day maintaining her normal placid demeanour. It was nearly two when she finally managed to speak to Bubbles, but her friend was uncharacteristically reticent about explaining why she hadn’t taken her calls. Bubbles too had received Miss Lamb’s letter, and Sam could tell, from what sounded like a blocked nose, that Bubbles had been crying. Not wanting to discuss it on the phone, Sam merely told Bubbles the time and place that had been agreed with Anita before hanging up.

Luckily it was time to collect Heer from school, and Sam left her house with relief, pulling on a cashmere cardigan as protection against the stubborn chilliness in the air. She looked up at the watery sun as she closed the gate behind her, trying to take pleasure in its rare appearance. What a dismal summer it had been so far, even the daffs that had struggled to emerge in the back garden a month ago had turned brown and soggy and collapsed within days. It was as if life itself was fighting to cope against all odds.

Sam turned as she heard a familiar voice hail her and saw her neighbour emerge from her driveway.

‘Hey, Franci,’ she said pleasantly, although she couldn’t help taking in the sight of Francesca’s trim legs beneath her summer dress with a rush of envy. Francesca had clearly worn such a short dress on a cold day only to show off her tan. She was maniacal about her fitness regime and had certainly earned every inch of her fabulous figure, but it was enviable to Sam, whose battle to curb her burgeoning weight was now taking on epic proportions.

Francesca took Sam’s arm in her usual friendly fashion and they walked down their leafy road together, meeting up with another pair of mums who were also school-bound.

‘Oh goodness, I’ve got to show you something,’ Francesca said as the group reached the school. She fished out her iPhone from a small Purdey shoulder bag. ‘Piccies from our half-term hols,’ she explained, giggling as she clicked through a few photographs. Francesca turned her phone around to show the one she had picked for Sam and the others to see. They peered at a picture of Francesca’s husband, Tom, normally an immaculately clad banker, wearing a pair of baggy swim-shorts and beaming inanely as he struck a ridiculous muscleman stance with a surfboard on a Mustique beach. The women fell about laughing but Francesca said, ‘That’s not the half of it. There’s a real corker here somewhere. Ah, this one.’ The next picture was of Tom standing in the kitchen of their villa, still bare-chested and this time holding a large gleaming cucumber up against the crotch of his swim-shorts. The droll expression on his face made everyone scream with merriment and Sam forced herself to join in, feeling something catch at her heart. How greedily she always gathered up particulars of the kind of relationship Francesca took so much for granted and that would never be hers to have. It wasn’t that Akbar was a bad husband, but they certainly seemed to have a lot less fun than couples like Francesca and Tom did. Sam could not, in fact, recall Akbar ever having done something absurd purely to make her laugh, and had put it down a long time ago to her own taut demeanour; to the fear that lurked deep inside her, always half-expecting things to go wrong if she enjoyed herself too much.

Fortunately the school bell was now ringing and everyone was distracted by the emerging children. Sam didn’t think she could bear looking at more of Francesca’s happy holiday pictures.

They walked back home together, nevertheless, chatting companionably and carrying their load of colourful jackets and bags, the children tumbling ahead of them.

‘Coffee?’ Francesca asked as they reached her gate.

Worrying at the prospect of having to look at more photographs of Francesca’s boisterous family having fun, Sam made a hasty excuse which, thankfully, wasn’t entirely untrue. ‘I’d have loved to, Franci, but I’m going into town a little later to meet a couple of old school friends for a drink.’

‘Those two mates of yours from your school in Delhi?’ Francesca asked, adding, ‘I remember them from Heer’s birthday party, they were the only women there who came without children!’

Sam laughed. ‘That’s them all right. Couldn’t keep them away if I tried! Anita doesn’t have her own kids yet so Heer’s a sort of surrogate daughter for her whenever she gets maternal or broody. Which doesn’t happen very often. And Bubbles’ two are now far too grown-up for kiddie birthday parties!’

‘I’ll tell you what I do remember about your mate Bubbles—the fabulous croc-skin clutch she was carrying. Just gorgeous! Bea Valdez, she said it was. It’s not like me, but I just couldn’t help asking.’

‘Oh, Bubs would never mind anyone asking her anything. Sometimes I wonder how she retains her niceness considering the kind of stratosphere her family moves in,’ Sam replied.

‘Golly, yes, you did say once that they were pally with the likes of Lakshmi Mittal and Tamara Mellon.’

Sam smiled. ‘Lakshmi Mittal’s a family friend of theirs, I think. But Bubbles’ only connection with Tamara Mellon is that their daughters go to the same school. Oh, and that she buys every other Jimmy Choo shoe ever produced!’

‘Seriously?’

‘Absolutely seriously. She must have at least fifty pairs at any one time, dear old Bubbles. I mean, the sales girl at the Chelsea store personally calls her whenever a new design comes in, for heaven’s sake! Oh, and you should see her shoe closet—to die for!’

‘Ohhh,’ Francesca breathed dreamily, opening her gate. ‘Some people do have such dream lives, don’t they?’

Sam recognised the irony of the situation. Here was Francesca—whom Sam had always envied slightly—madly envying Bubbles, who was, all things considered, really just the archetypal poor little rich girl, the fat pimply teenager she once was still lurking just beneath the surface. But Sam would not dream of gossiping with Francesca about Bubbles and so, as Heer was now pulling her away, eager to get home, Sam waved her neighbour a hasty goodbye.

Punching in the numbers to open her electronic gate, Sam allowed her daughter through first, following her down the steps that led to the kitchen door. She unloaded Heer’s schoolbag, jacket and ballet slippers onto the kitchen table before grabbing her daughter, whose hands were already raiding the biscuit jar, giving her a big kiss before she wriggled away. ‘I bought those for me from Konditor and Cook today! Well, no more than one, Heer, if you want to be the world’s best ballerina. And early dinner tonight, okay?’ she called out after the small figure that was already bounding up the stairs to her room brandishing a large wedge of chocolate-chip shortbread in one hand.

Sam exchanged a smile with her maid, who was brewing up some fragrant masala tea. ‘Oh, a cup for me too, Masooma,’ she said, pulling off her trainers. ‘And then we can do the month’s accounts, yes?’ Not that the accounts needed doing as they weren’t into July yet, but Sam knew she had to stay busy and keep herself distracted until she was with Anita and Bubbles. Miss Lamb’s letter had been carefully put away in the bottom of her lingerie drawer where Akbar would never find it. She could never discuss it with him. Only Anita and Bubbles would understand her pain and guilt.

By evening there was a light drizzle falling. Sam pulled up at a parking meter as near to Anita’s Aldwych office as she could manage. The space was tight and it took a couple of shunts before the bulk of her Audi was comfortably contained in its slot. Odd how expertly she could do that, without Akbar’s presence in the car making parallel parking fraught with all kinds of perils. After turning the wipers off, she sat for a few minutes watching raindrops make their journey down the windscreen, some unhesitant and quite certain of their destination, others—like her, she couldn’t help thinking—tentatively stopping and starting before finally rolling reluctantly towards the bonnet. When the rain had eased a bit, Sam emerged from the car, pulling her handbag and pashmina from the back seat. Then she zapped the central-locking system, which responded with its familiar reassuring beep. Akbar usually did that while striding purposefully away from the car, without even glancing over his shoulder, but Sam preferred to be sure the locks were down and flashing their little red lights before she could walk away.

Shivering, she wrapped her stole around her bare shoulders and assessed the gaps in the traffic before darting across the road. Even a passing summer shower could instantly turn London back to a wintry grey, the city seeming to return with relief to being its favourite avatar. She looked at her watch as she quickened her steps for Bush House. She’d told Anita four o’clock and already it was a quarter past. Her super-efficient journalist friend often despaired over Sam’s rather scatty time-keeping abilities, recently joking: ‘Imagine if I were to open up the news bulletin with…It’s—oh crikey, so sorry everyone—just a couple of minutes past ten. But does it matter, for heavens sake, just a few minutes this way or that?’ Anita had mimicked Sam’s lazy drawl as she said that last sentence, eliciting a good-natured smile from Sam, who would have been the first to admit she had airily carried over the concept of ‘Indian time’ into her life here in England, unlike Anita. Constantly amazed by Anita’s brusque professionalism, Sam often found it hard to imagine that they’d managed to stay friends since they were seven.

She went through the tall doors of the BBC that were invariably surrounded by dripping scaffolding, and waved when she spotted Anita standing at the top of the stairs joshing with an elderly security guard. Anita would chat to anyone, and had once claimed that casual conversations were the sources of her best stories.

They hugged as Anita reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked Sam, who nodded. ‘Sorry I couldn’t speak when you called…’

‘Don’t worry, but I couldn’t get hold of Bubbles either and really needed to hear one of your voices.’

‘Is she coming?’

‘Of course, she said she’ll meet us at Heebah at five.’

‘Make that six then,’ Anita said wryly, pulling up the hood of her gilet as they stepped outside the building.

‘She won’t be late today. She just has to drop her mum-in-law somewhere before getting the car and driver to herself.’

Sam ignored Anita’s eye-roll. Anita was the only one of them who still travelled on the tube—which was fine until she started making a virtue of it. Occasionally, if she went on for long enough about carbon footprints and off-setting emissions, Sam would feel guilty enough to walk across the park or hop on a 98 bus to get into town. But that wasn’t really an option on a day as rainy as this, and for Bubbles to even dream of travelling anywhere but by car was ridiculous, given her millions. Well, her pa-in-law’s gazillions, to be more accurate.

Sam took her friend’s arm as they walked over the zebra crossing, hastening their footsteps for the politely waiting traffic. The drizzle was turning heavier and the café was still half a block away. As usual, she’d forgotten to carry a brolly and pulled her stole over her head. She was ruining another good pashmina, but Akbar had told her to get her hair done in honour of his boss’s visit yesterday and that hadn’t cost very much less.

A few minutes later they ducked with relief under the awning of the hookah café, squeezing their way past brass tables that had been placed on the pavement for smokers. Since the introduction of the smoking ban, Sam had taken to feeling sorry for all those smokers who had been relegated to muddy pavements as they bubbled into brass hookahs and stared moodily out at the rain. Sam had spent years going uncomplainingly to places like Heebah for the sake of her two best friends as, going by the law of averages, it had seemed altogether fairer that they should go to smoking rather than non-smoking establishments. She had tried not to think of it as a sacrifice anyway, having long ago got into the habit of taking shallow breaths when she was around her friends. Anita had been smoking since they were fifteen, claiming then that it helped her concentrate on cramming for their exams, although Bubbles had taken to it only after her marriage, citing her reason as stress induced by, alternately, her mother-in-law, father-in-law, children and husband.

The women were ushered to the table that Sam had sensibly thought to book earlier in the day, and settled onto a pair of commodious white leather banquettes. Sam noticed that all the Persian hookahs and filigreed marble ashtrays had gone, replaced by artful bowls filled with colourful glass beads. Anita ordered their drinks: a full-bodied Shiraz for Sam and a vodka tonic for herself. After their waiter had left, she said, ‘Well, let’s see Lamboo’s letter then’, and as she shrugged off her damp gilet she saw that Sam was already holding it out in her direction.

Bubbles looked fretfully out of the car window—they had left Belgravia at least half an hour ago, taken fifteen minutes to get to the art buyer’s office on Curzon Street, where her mother-in-law had disembarked, and were still only just approaching Grosvenor Square. The traffic snarl-up around the American Embassy wasn’t helped by the ghastly concrete road blocks that seemed to have become a permanent feature of the square. She could see a metal passageway with a makeshift placard saying ‘Visas’ that was occupying half the road and snaked all the way around the block. The passageway was empty of people, the embassy probably having shut at five, although a hulking guard with a jutting chin stood holding an impressive piece of weaponry while gazing at the passing traffic. He caught Bubbles’ eye briefly through the car window as she drifted past, but there wasn’t the usual flicker of interest on his impassive features. He had obviously not registered the fancy car and liveried chauffeur in the way most people did, sneaking unashamedly curious peeks at the occupants of the rear seat to catch a glimpse through smoked glass of such blessed beings that could afford to ride in a Maybach. They were hardly likely to know that she, Bubbles, rode in it only when accompanying her imperious mother-in-law like some kind of handmaiden. Nor would they know that there were things money and Maybachs couldn’t achieve, such as being able to get through the London traffic faster on a day like this. There was no point getting tetchy with the poor driver, as her mother-in-law had done a few minutes ago. He was doing his best with the bulky car that had purred again to a standstill. To distract herself, Bubbles delved into the magazine rack behind the seat and found copies of Tatler and American Vanity Fair. She leafed through the first and then the second, trying to absorb the gossip and the fashion tips. But her concentration was terrible today. She hadn’t been able to think straight since the arrival of Lamboo’s letter this morning, unable even to speak to Sam when she had seen her name flash repeatedly on the screen of her phone. Slapping the magazines down on the seat, Bubbles opened her bag and took out the envelope for the umpteenth time. She gently ran her fingers over its rough paper, in some inexplicable way relishing the painful tug she felt in her heart. Just when her psychotherapist had confirmed that she was finally learning to put futile memories away, this! Someone—it must have been Anita—had once said that people remembered happy things like their childhood days and first love and first taste of ice-cream in a cone only when they were unhappy. If that was so, then it was clear to Bubbles that she was condemned to be surrounded by her memories despite the best psychotherapy Harley Street had to offer. And how they had rushed back this morning, faces and voices emerging thick and fast from some kind of wintry mist, even the tiniest details etched with sudden frightening clarity before her eyes. Bubbles shoved the letter back into her Mulberry tote, nervously rubbing her other hand over the cold hardness of its metal studs, warming them against her palm as she looked out at the rain.

It had rained in Delhi too that morning long ago, complete with lightning flashes and thunderclaps, which was not so unusual for late December. The downpour had made the roses in Miss Lamb’s garden drop their petals all over the winter earth, like red spatters of blood. Or so Bubbles had thought, until she had actually seen what blood looked like after it had fallen on wet earth—virtually invisible to the eye. She shuddered. ‘Where are we now, Mottram?’ she asked in a high voice, for want of anything else to say.

‘Old Burlington Street, Madam,’ the chauffeur replied. ‘I’m trying all the back roads to get out of this mess. Not long now, hopefully.’

Bubbles recognised the shops of Regent Street as the car turned a corner and she saw shoppers burdened with raincoats and bags, crossing the road and waiting at bus stops, looking as though they carried the weight of the world on their shoulders. She wondered sometimes at the sorrows that might afflict other people, occasionally feeling pangs of guilt at her own rather pampered existence. The cafés were all brightly lit and buzzing with people taking shelter from the rain. She could see a couple kissing in the large window of Starbucks, a mug of shared coffee steaming in between them.

The car crawled over the lights at Piccadilly Circus. They weren’t far from Heebah now, thankfully. Suddenly Bubbles longed to see her two old schoolmates more than anyone else in the world. Anita could be such a pain sometimes, carping on about left-wing stuff and recently making her feel personally culpable when her in-laws’ company bought up an airline. As though those were things she had any control over at all. She’d tried sarcasm (‘I’m not exactly Binkie’s dad’s business advisor, y’know’) but nothing could stop Anita once she had mounted her soapbox. Sam was different, good old Sam. Unfailingly tactful and diplomatic, always playing peacemaker. In truth, though, Bubbles loved them both, even Anita, whose energy and intellect she could draw upon when required, which was frequently. Sometimes she wondered whether it was the combined presence in London of her two oldest friends that had kept her sane all these years. In that respect, at least, she had been lucky.

After the chauffeur had pulled up alongside the maroon and gold awning of Heebah, Bubbles stepped out gingerly, careful not to get her new Manolos wet. A couple of men gave the car, and then her, appreciative glances as she wended her way past the pavement tables into the restaurant, pushing her heavy mane of auburn hair back from her face. Her linen trouser-suit was probably crumpled, but she could tell from Heebah’s fawning mâitre d’ that she still looked expensive. She had never figured out how people uncannily smelt affluence emanating from her person, but they invariably did, even when she hadn’t bothered to dress up.

She made her way across the room as she spotted her two friends. They were deep in conversation and saw her only when she was ushered into her seat. After she had ordered a champagne cocktail for herself, she turned to them. There was none of the usual preamble about clothes and hair and weight today. Instead, she nodded at the letter that lay on the table between Sam and Anita and said sombrely, ‘What the hell do you think Lamboo’s doing?’

‘I was just saying that it’s amazing how she managed to track us all down,’ Anita observed, adding, ‘well, that’s assuming she has sent letters to everyone. I haven’t had mine yet.’

‘It must be waiting for you at your flat. She wouldn’t leave you out. Wonder whether she’s written to everyone, you know, the whole batch of ’93?’

‘Something tells me it’s just us, actually’

‘She must have met someone who knew our addresses,’ Bubbles suggested. ‘Or maybe the internet makes all this easy now. My Ruby was talking about some Facebook website thing where her school friends meet and chat or something…’ Bubbles stopped rambling. The last thing any of them wanted was to be chatting to their other school friends, their little circle having snapped firmly shut the minute they had left school.

‘It wouldn’t have been that difficult to trace us,’ Sam was replying in her usual pragmatic manner. ‘Why, Lamboo might just have called one or the other of our parents in Delhi. I think we’re worrying too much. Maybe it’s just as her letter says: she’s retiring from Jude’s and wants to see us before she “disappears into the deep hush of a convent”.’

‘Mmm, I don’t know…typically poetic, but something tells me it’s more than that,’ Anita said dubiously. ‘It’s clear she’s holding something back…like here, where she says, “I have so much more to tell you girls before I go, but perhaps it is best to wait until you are all gathered here together as before”’. Anita tapped the letter with her forefinger. ‘How the fuck does that not indicate she really wants to say something else, huh? Would she really summon us 4000 miles just to say goodbye?’

It was Bubbles who first said the unsayable, uttering the name not mentioned between them in all these years. ‘Do you think they might have found some new leads in Lily’s case?’ she asked in a small voice.

‘Nonsense. After fifteen years?’ Anita scoffed, although she sounded more nervous than incredulous. ‘I can’t see the Delhi police being that efficient somehow.’

‘It’s possible she just suddenly got a bit maudlin or emotional or some such. After all, the date she’s suggested will be exactly fifteen years since Lily died,’ Sam offered before trailing off.

‘Lamboo emotional? Don’t think so somehow. It just isn’t part of the Brit psyche, stiff upper lip and all that.’

‘Oh God, it just doesn’t make sense,’ Bubbles said, picking up her champagne flute from the table and taking a long swallow. Sometimes the very act of thinking made her head hurt.

‘D’you know,’ Sam said, wrapping her shawl around her shoulders, ‘I met Aradhna Singh at a lunch party the other day. She was just back from her school reunion at St Jude’s. Makes a point of it to go every year, apparently. And she was saying that ours is the only batch that has never had one. A reunion, I mean…’

Anita thumped her glass down on the wooden table with some vehemence. ‘Well, that must’ve been a happy thought for Aradhna,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, don’t you recall how miffed she always was at us being the top dogs at school? Their batch, coming straight after ours, would never have matched up, I reckon.’

‘Her “crème de la crème”, Lamboo called us. Remember?’ Sam said softly.

‘Don’t think that meant anything particularly. She just picked the term up from the Brodie play we were doing that year.’

‘Oh that’s not true, Anita,’ Sam protested. ‘Lamboo just doted on us. She really did believe we would go on to do special things.’

‘Well, how the mighty have fallen then,’ said Anita.

‘Oh don’t say that,’ Bubbles cut in, trying to offer comfort. ‘At least you’re doing useful things and meeting interesting political types. Y’know, like Boris Johnson and all…’ She trailed off, knowing how unconvincing that sounded, before making another attempt. ‘I remembered that expression—crème de la crème—just the other day actually, when Binkie got an invite to the Gorbachev concert which said that London’s “crème de la crème” was being invited. Somehow it felt much more special when Lamboo used to say it…’

‘We were special to her…’ Sam insisted.

Anita leaned forward to pick up the menu. ‘Well, only until her precious crème de la crème took so violently against Lily D’Souza. That could never have been lost on someone as canny as old Lamboo, even though—to be fair—she never once did let on. But I was always sure it was the reason why she never had us back for a reunion. I mean…’ she paused, keeping her eyes on the menu, ‘surely it would have been anathema for someone as morally upright as Lamboo to jolly around with us after Lily’s death…’ Anita’s voice dropped as she kept her eyes down, unable to make eye contact with her two companions as she continued in a mumble, ‘…especially seeing how plainly we benefited from it.’

Anita had aimed the comment at herself, but in the silence that followed it slowly dawned on her that Sam and Bubbles might have misunderstood such a clumsy expression of remorse. Discomfited, she looked at her friends and saw appalled expressions on both their faces. Realising suddenly how wounding her words must have been, she leaned forward and clutched Sam’s knee, her expression now mortified. ‘Heyyy, Sam, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so sharp, nor be so terribly thoughtless. I’ve just been feeling so tetchy all day’

‘God, me too. Even my father-in-law noticed,’ Bubbles said, taking another long sip of her drink, the flute trembling slightly between her fingers.

Sam was looking into her own wine glass, now stained pink from the Shiraz. ‘I can’t deny…’ she whispered, her face suddenly full of lines and shadows. She took a deep breath before continuing, ‘You know, even today I can’t think of that year without my heart squeezing itself so hard in my chest, it’s as if I can’t breathe for a few minutes. I know we never speak of it but…Lily’s death on the night of our Social. I honestly don’t know how we ever…’ She turned back to Anita, but her friend could see that Sam’s dilated pupils were unable to focus on her own. A glass of wine was usually all it took to make Sam a little drunk, but this, Anita knew, was something else altogether. Poor Sam was clearly trying to gather herself together, her voice trembling as she continued speaking in a low voice, now seeming unable to stop her thoughts. ‘You know, it was only much, much later that it really sank in. The enormity of what we had done. I know I just wasn’t myself that winter…death seemed almost to be stalking me like some evil beast…but still…I shouldn’t try to find excuses for myself…’ Sam stopped abruptly and shivered. The women sat in silence for a few minutes before Sam squeezed Anita’s hand, which was still in hers, indicating forgiveness for her earlier remark.

‘Such a terrible time. I still dream of it sometimes. Not just think of it, but dream of it. There’s a difference, you know. My Emotional Freedom therapist once said so,’ Bubbles put in.

Normally, Bubbles’ array of therapists was meat and drink to Anita’s sarcastic sense of humour, but today she didn’t have the heart to rise to the bait. The friends fell quiet again and Anita looked away. Her stomach churned with guilt as she saw Sam press a tissue over her eyes and put an arm around Bubbles, who had also started to weep.

MUMBAI, 2008

Night had fallen in its usual glittering manner over the pulsing city of Mumbai when Zeba Khan lay back in the claw-footed bathtub of her sumptuous designer bathroom. She took deep breaths of the Yves Rocher bath oil recently purchased from Zurich, sighing with relief and pleasure as her tiredness melted slowly into the tepid water. She had asked for all the Jo Malone scented candles to be lit, and now she half-opened her tawny brown eyes, seeing the flames flicker quietly, turning the cream Italian marble of the walls and floor to molten gold. It had been a long, long day. Despite her superstar status these past ten years, she knew better than to mess with up-and-coming directors like Rohit Mirchandani and had stayed the course, out in the midday sun with the rest of the crew, despite being desperately jet-lagged from her European trip. As the son of a legendary director, Rohit had no doubt enjoyed a head-start in the industry, but his last two films had both been massive hits and Zeba had heard about a new one due to start filming this winter. She had done her damnedest today to find out if the casting had been done but couldn’t get anything out of the canny young man, who was obviously enjoying the power he could suddenly wield over her.

Zeba felt a few tendrils of hair escape the luxuriant pile on the top of her head, and reached out for the silver seashell that housed an array of clips. She sighed as she slid a few more bobby pins into her hair and sank back into the water. Rohit had always secretly loathed her, having grown up with the knowledge of her decade-long liaison with his father and, as a result, immersed in his mother’s bitterness. It was to Rohit’s credit, though, that he had never advertised his abhorrence, careful to stay not just on his father’s right side but Zeba’s as well. It wouldn’t do for an up-and-coming director to upset Bollywood’s top actress. And so they continued to play this ridiculous cat-and-mouse game with each other, dodging and side-stepping but never confrontational, and always, always most carefully and deliberately civil to each other when they were on film sets. Was it any wonder she felt so exhausted today?

Zeba leaned back again, massaging her temples. Rohit was one of a whole new breed of directors that were changing the landscape of Bollywood unrecognisably these days. Now they were all American-educated and slick and media savvy. And, consequently, far less inclined to be worshipful of her own star status. The older boys had been so much easier to read and seduce, but they were all fading into obscurity in their hillside mansions, seemingly content to feebly hand the directorial reins over to the next generation while they totted up figures in ledgers and kept a tight hold on their purse strings. Half of the new crop of directors were gay too, and that didn’t help one bit.

Zeba knew the time had come to tread carefully. She was thirty-two this year, it was most unusual for a heroine in Bollywood to have stayed at the top for so long. At first people said that her popularity was because she looked equally sexy in both Indian and western clothes, but as she had got older and her attractiveness to audiences had not diminished, she was gradually acquiring the makings of a legend. Despite an astute unspoken self-awareness regarding her own meagre acting talent, Zeba could not help hoping she would become as iconic as Nargis or Madhubala someday. After all, like those two actresses, she was equally beloved to audiences whether playing mother, sister, lover or even prostitute. It was almost touching how her fans just couldn’t seem to get enough of her, and the only reason why producers and script-writers had kept running to her door these past ten years, trying to keep up with the demand and putting a steady supply of roles her way. Indeed, her popularity in India was of such a scale that she could quite safely turn up her nose at Hollywood, a place that—as journalists sometimes liked reminding her—had never shown any interest in her. Oddly, it was India’s great unwashed that particularly adored her—the market vendor, the paan-wallah, the coolie—doggedly spurning the new stick-thin, size-zero girls flooding the industry from modelling agencies in favour of her own more traditional curves. It was they—those sun-darkened, wizened figures that thronged the city’s streets and sometimes tapped piteously on the smoked-glass window of her Mercedes—who had made her what she was. She had never forgotten that—hence her recent idea of founding a charity for street children.

Zeba sighed, reaching out for the loofah. She scrubbed her elbows, thinking of what hard work it was constantly thinking up new ways to climb that very shaky pedestal marked ‘legend’. Firstly, there were a hundred others clawing at her ankles, trying to pull her down, upstart teenagers with bigger bust-lines and tighter butts and, of course, new top directors to be their godfathers. Sometimes in Bollywood the latter was the only attribute required to become a legend. Which, if she was to be honest, had worked out rather well for her. Old Shiv Mirchandani had, after all, been completely loyal to her all these years, both professionally and in a personal capacity, and despite being aware of her other occasional dalliances. He had even said something sentimental the other day about growing old together which had quite terrified her, given the ravages of age he already wore so cheerily on his cheese-grater face.

Zeba raised a long, shapely leg from the bath water and eyed it contemplatively as it shone wet and gleaming in the candlelight. Perhaps she should call for Najma to scrub and exfoliate her heels. Feet and hands were what first gave away a woman’s age, her Ammi had always said. Additionally, Zeba had spent all afternoon in an excruciatingly uncomfortable pair of stiletto heels, playing the role of a corporate boss in Dubai. But she had to be up again early tomorrow morning and was on the point of dropping off right here in the bath. She sat up in the water, her ample breasts glistening as they floated among the shiny bubbles. Perhaps she would treat herself to one of Sylvio’s famed pedicures at the Taj instead, after tomorrow’s shoot. They were wonderful there and always used their private suite at the back of the salon to assure her complete privacy. Zeba reached out for the bell by the bathtub to summon Najma who would help wipe her down and fetch a fresh silk nightie. She hoped that the hot bath and her familiar bed would dismiss jet-lag and aid a good night’s sleep.

After Zeba had been carefully patted dry by her maid and massaged with Crème de la Mer, another recent acquisition from Zurich, she padded her way through her dimly lit, cavernous bedroom. Someone—Gupta probably—had left a little stack of papers for her to go through under the bedside lamp. She picked up the rubber-banded bundle after she had climbed into her white leather water-bed and pulled a silk razai over her legs. Freeing the pack from their band, Zeba scowled, her sweeping eyebrows meeting in a furrow above her nose. The first letter was from a cousin, asking for a loan—that would have to be a ‘no’—it wasn’t as if she hadn’t helped him before and he would merely surface again after another few months with some new tale of hardship. She had much better things she could think of doing with her hard-earned money than passing it on to blood-sucking relatives. Her newly founded charity, for one.

Discarding the letter onto the floor by the side of her bed, where it would be picked up and binned by the sweeper in the morning, she reminded herself to stop frowning so much and swiftly cleared her brow. Luckily, the next letter offered much pleasanter fare—a request from Vanity Fair to be cover girl on their inaugural Indian publication—a definite ‘yes’. The next was an invitation to a private party being thrown by liquor baron Ramsy Fernando on his Madh Island home—hmmm, probably a ‘yes’. At least there wouldn’t be much of the film crowd there, Ramsy was too much of a brown-sahib snob for all that. But…what was this? The unseemly scowl returned to Zeba’s beautiful face.

Zeba scanned the words quickly:…soon going to retire as principal of the school…needed to meet her girls…a reunion…a reunion?! Was this someone’s idea of a bloody joke? Zeba turned the letter over as though searching for clues. Gupta must have got rid of the envelope…there was nothing else but a suggested date in December and a small scratchy signature at the bottom. She ran her eyes again over the spidery writing that was both familiar and yet uncharacteristically weak, becoming virtually illegible in the last few lines. Goodness, it was crazy to think of St Jude’s old Princy still alive and kicking and rattling around in that cottage next door to the school. The woman was probably in her mid-seventies now. It was no surprise, of course, that the convent had not retired her yet; school principals like Miss Lamb were hard to come by these days—the archetypal English spinster, willing to dedicate her whole life to the school. Victoria Lamb. What was it they used to call her back then?…Lamboo! Lamboo, for her long, noodle-like appearance. But then girls were cruel creatures under those coy exteriors.

And that niece of Lamboo’s…Lily. ‘Doan’t be silly, Lily’, they had tittered behind her back on her first day at the school, quoting the villain in that ridiculous film. But they found out soon enough that Lily wasn’t silly at all. Not in the slightest. But that she was very, very manipulative and go-getting indeed. In fact she was clearly trying to become the star from Day One—not the best course of action in a girls’ school that was already full of stars like Zeba. This had always puzzled Zeba: that clever little Lily had not been clever enough to see how many enemies she had made in her short time at the school. She should have considered treading more carefully, but on the other hand she had seemed genuinely not to care about earning anyone’s approval. It was almost enviable, that kind of self-satisfaction.

Zeba put the mail away on her bedside table and smoothed her fingers gently over the middle of her forehead. She had recently noticed the deep furrows that her mother had between her eyes, a permanent record of the stresses she had suffered in bringing up three rambunctious children under the watchful eye of an autocratic husband. So far the skin on Zeba’s face had remained taut and unlined, but she did have to watch out for bad genes—letters from the past that set off dark thoughts weren’t likely to help. She slipped off her silk camisole and tucked her legs under the sheet, wiggling her toes and taking a few deep breaths.

Lily D’Souza, good God, what a chest-thumping blast from the past. Even though she hardly ever stopped to remember her old classmate, Zeba did have to admit that, over the years, she—the great film star Zeba Khan—had in fact taken a useful leaf out of Lily’s book when it came to developing a supreme nonchalance to one’s detractors. Enemies were an undeniable part of working in an industry like Bollywood; perhaps they were an undeniable part of life itself, particularly when one was beautiful and accomplished. So what was the point of treading around so carefully that you never got anywhere? Still, even though one never made any real friends in a place like this, it was at least worth knowing who your enemies were. Zeba pulled the sheet over her shoulders, feeling a sudden chill.

The world probably saw her as supremely controlled but, suddenly, Zeba could feel something inside her quail and shrink as an almost visceral memory tumbled back unbidden, reminding her of how deeply she had hated Lily, virtually from the very first moment the girl had set foot in the classroom. Zeba let her head sink into her pillow, trying to relax her shoulders. She felt a small shiver, born from either guilt or satisfaction as she realised that she was now all the things that Lily had probably imagined she would one day be—an acclaimed star, the adored darling of India’s teeming audiences. Heroine to millions of people willing to queue for hours outside those crummy tin-pot cinema halls in slum areas on the night of a Zeba Khan blockbuster release. Now that was the real thing, an ambition worth fighting for. Quite unlike a stupid, inconsequential little school play. But that was what all teenagers were like, surely, narcissistically allowing the silliest things to take on the kind of significance that was impossible to comprehend in later life. Zeba scrabbled around in her bedside drawer and, finding a phial of Valium, swallowed two tablets with a little water from the crystal flagon that was always kept on her bedside table.

Two hours later, Zeba awoke from a ragged sleep, sweating profusely. Either the air-conditioning had broken down or she was having one of those ghastly night-sweats one heard about. She lay on her bed, listening to the roar of the sea outside and the lapping inside her own water-bed. Even on quiet nights, the combined watery sounds drowned all else. It was strange how people were willing to pay so much extra for properties lining the Arabian Sea, never thinking that its crashing waves provided such great cover for the city’s stalkers and burglars. The alarm system Gupta had tried installing a few years ago had caused all sorts of problems, tripping and going off every time the voltage fluctuated even slightly, leaving Zeba to rely on the time-tested method of security guards. She employed a whole army of them, but remained unsure of how much she could really trust such dangerous looking men who undressed her so unashamedly with their eyes.

Something cracked loudly in the garden outside, making Zeba jump. She lay frozen for a few minutes and contemplated ringing her panic button for the servants. They were probably all sleeping the sleep of the dead (or the drunk, more likely) on a hot pre-monsoonal night such as this, the useless dolts. What did they think she paid them over the odds for? She turned over and tried to close her eyes but the clamouring in her head was too much. Perhaps she hadn’t taken enough Valium, although she had promised her doctor she would try to cut down. Tonight it was the fault of Lamboo’s bloody letter. What was Gupta thinking, leaving it on her bedside like that? Almost willing these nightmares on her. Would she even contemplate going to something so ridiculous—a school reunion, for heaven’s sake! Reunions were meant for ordinary people, not stars; for bored wives to enviously eye up each other’s husbands and empty-headed mums to compare notes about their little darlings’ teeth and teachers. Zeba knew she would have absolutely nothing to say to any of her old classmates now—although, tossing her sweating body around again, she suddenly recalled having bumped into Samira Hussain (now Samira Something-else, of course) at Heathrow a few years ago. They had exchanged phone numbers and said all the glib things old classmates did when they met, about how marvellous the old days had been and how they really must stay in touch. Neither of them had mentioned that traumatic final year at school, of course, and they had parted knowing that both of them had grown too far apart in their respective lifestyles and sensibilities to maintain all but the briefest of contact.

Sam had, with typical dependability, attempted the occasional phone call after that meeting, and Zeba had tried her best to reciprocate, but they had lately drifted once again into sending each other only an occasional card or email, many of which Zeba, rather guiltily, got Gupta to deal with anyway. Even back in school, Sam had been the antithesis of Zeba, one of those annoying good girls who never got into scrapes of any sort and whom all the teachers adored. But at least she had not been the tattling sort, Zeba recalled, and so an unlikely bond had formed between them as they had travelled together from kindergarten to high school. However, from the short conversation inside the first-class lounge at Heathrow, it had seemed to Zeba that Sam had grown dull and vapid with age. Perhaps it was just the mumsiness that some women took on so earnestly with the acquisition of husbands and children, but Zeba could tell that even the little they’d had in common as schoolmates had now shrunk to virtually nothing. Sam had provided news of some of their other classmates, though: Anita, predictably still single, working with the BBC in London and, oh God, who didn’t know that Bubbles was married to the son of international textile tycoon Dinesh Raheja. Zeba had once seen Bubbles in the pages of Verve magazine, attending a flash corporate party at the Grand Maratha and clinging to the arm of a thin, nattily-dressed man. ‘Binkie and Bubbles Raheja, golden couple from London, gracing Bombay’s shores’ the accompanying caption gushed, going on to divulge that Mr Raheja’s suit was Armani while Mrs Raheja was in Zac Posen, a Boucheron piece around her neck. Zeba had pored over the picture, examining Bubbles’ clothes and shoes, or whatever she could make of them in the grainy photograph. She sure looked good, Zeba couldn’t help noting with a twinge, although she had not been able to put her finger on whether her envy was over the rich husband and private jet that had been mentioned in the small accompanying article, or the ease with which wealth had come to the woman. Bubbles Raheja had almost certainly not had to do a day’s work in her life, and probably didn’t even know the meaning of the word ‘schedule’. But who’d have thought that the spotty fat kid at school was the one who’d end up snaring a millionaire. She wasn’t even from a big business family herself—a chain of sari shops was all her parents had, as Zeba had seen when Bubbles had got married and the whole class had attended her wedding. There was nothing interesting to say either about how she’d done it: snag the millionaire, move to London and transform herself from plump and pimply teenager into an international jetsetter. It was all, in the end, just a matter of luck and timing; Zeba knew that better than most.

Well, if that lot were going to attend Lamboo’s planned reunion, it might actually not be a bad idea to go along, Zeba thought suddenly, surprising herself. She climbed out of her bed, now wide awake, and padded barefoot across her collection of antique Persian rugs to the large bay windows that ringed her room. Drawing the heavy tussar curtains aside, she looked out at the Arabian Sea, calm and black and lapping gently against the white sands at the bottom of her vast garden. Sometimes fans of hers managed to get to the beach and loiter, hoping to catch a glimpse of her until chased away by one of the guards. But tonight there were surely neither fans nor burglars prowling around those neat shrubs and flowerbeds lying peacefully in the moonlight below her bedroom window. Through the trees Zeba could see light in the guard’s gate-house shining dimly and she pulled the curtains shut, feeling a bit better. She smiled suddenly. It might actually be fun to spend an evening with old classmates exclaiming over how well she’d done for herself. Minus a husband too!

Her gaze fell on the stack of film magazines that Gupta had placed on her replica Louis XIV desk. Every page that carried a photograph or news piece about her would be obediently marked with a Post-It note, and Zeba could see the usual profusion of yellow bits of paper sticking out from the pages even in the faint glow of the night-light. She turned on the table lamp and sat before the pile of magazines, drawing them towards her with satisfaction. Leafing her way to the first marked page in Cineblitz, she thought of how her old schoolmates must pore over her pictures in the society pages of magazines and newspapers, admiring the rocks she wore on her hands and her chain of male escorts, with as much envy as she had felt when she’d read about Bubbles’ private Learjet.

Zeba opened the drawer of her dressing table, searching for her old BlackBerry. She remembered having keyed Sam’s details in there. Even if she couldn’t find it, Gupta would probably be able to fish it out for her in the morning from one of his dusty old diaries. Zeba squinted at the small green screen. There it was: Samira Hussain, and a London phone number. She reached out for her telephone.

LONDON, 2008

While Zeba sat sleepless on that hot Mumbai night, telephone held to her ear, night was falling on the other side of the world, turning London’s rainy skies to a cold slate-grey. The three girlfriends had been drinking steadily for the past two hours and Bubbles was by now quite drunk. As was usual, the third Kir Royale had plummeted her into the most abject depths of despair, and she was now weeping in such earnest that she had even managed to scare off their fervent Lithuanian waiter to the far end of the restaurant.

The letter had started it off, of course, bringing back memories with a force so powerful that each of the three women had, at different times in the evening, looked into their glasses of alcohol and felt a little sick. They had obviously never forgotten anything, even though their old pact had forbidden speaking of it. Bubbles had, predictably, allowed the collective reminiscing to plunge her back into dwelling on her more immediate territory of grievances against Binkie and his parents. Anita, slumped on her pouffe, was only half-listening as she knocked back the vodka tonics in an attempt to recover from her 5 a.m. start. Luckily, she could rely on Sam to pay attention to Bubbles, and saw through her drunken haze that their ever-reliable friend was nodding sympathetically and occasionally passing Bubbles scented tissues from her handbag.

Bubbles’ life had never seemed that dreadful to Anita. Her dear friend had a dire mother-in-law, without a doubt, and the father-in-law, Dinesh Raheja, was a horrendously unethical capitalist who couldn’t give a toss about the environment: the kind of person Anita normally reserved her deepest bile for. However, Anita had found it hard to dislike Dinesh Raheja from the day he’d uncomplainingly turned up at short notice for a BBC interview at her request, for which, as a rookie news-room journalist, she’d received a rare pat on the back from her editor. The funny thing was that it had not been at all difficult to get the old man to come to Bush House. Like many self-made men, Dinesh Raheja wore his success rather like a matador would use his cape, probably petrified that everyone would forget how hard-won it had been. So despite his predilection for strutting, his inability to tone down the Punjabi accent he had carried over from India and his rough-edged manners made his millions seem somehow more deserving.

His son Binkie, married to Bubbles, was another matter altogether. Having made his first million while Binkie was still in high school, Dinesh Raheja had been proud to send his only child to England when he turned fourteen—to Harrow or Eton, Anita could never remember which. But, having had a relatively late start at the whole business of becoming staunchly Anglophile, Binkie had taken to it with alarming relish, changing his name by the time he got to university from the admittedly dull Rajesh to the positively preposterous Binkie, speaking in a strange faux-Wodehousian tongue, and buying himself a metallic mauve Bentley Continental GT as soon as he was old enough to drive. From what Anita could tell, he seemed to be worsening as he approached his forties, getting his battery of butlers and valets to perform the most ridiculous tasks, such as ironing the morning papers and trimming their edges so that the pages were perfectly aligned before he would deign to glance at the day’s news with his eight-minute egg (not seven or nine minutes, but exactly and precisely eight). His only concessions to Indian-ness lay in the kind of things that apparently made life hell for Bubbles. These boiled down to two main things: an utter and complete devotion on Binkie’s part to his dragon of a mother, and maintaining the promise she had extracted from him that, despite all their money, he would always and only stay in the same house as her. Some house it was too, in the heart of Belgravia and with miles of corridors and multiple floors, each square inch of which would be worth thousands of pounds according to Anita’s calculations. Raheja Mansion had in fact been formed by knocking together two palatial town-houses that had belonged to a pair of Kuwaiti brothers, which explained why the pool house looked like something out of the sets of Caligula, complete with Piedmont urns, artificial palms and bare-breasted marble nymphs with golden nipples. But, unsatisfied with such largesse, Mrs Raheja had even bought the lower ground floor flat next door to the main house and installed the kitchen in there so that there was no risk at all of Binkie’s delicate nostrils being assailed with the smell of curry. Then there were the houses in Paris and Cape Cod, the country pile in Bucks and the baronial manor in Scotland…but it was almost laughable that, despite such a profusion of global real estate, poor Bubbles had nowhere to call her own, nor any place where she could really get away from her mother-in-law.

‘It’s like I’m married to her rather than him, Sam!’ Bubbles was wailing again, taking another slug from her flute, whose edge was now encrusted with almost as much lipstick as was left on her mouth.

‘I know, I know, darling,’ Sam consoled, ‘but couldn’t you persuade Binkie to take you to the Paris flat when the schools close next month? The children will be going up to their summer camp in Switzerland as usual, won’t they?’

‘Bobby will be at camp in Montana, although Ruby’s still trying to make her mind up. But, you see, Ma’s already arranged for me to be in the Bahamas with her and Auntie Poppy and Poonam Maasi…I told you about that cruise for Papa’s sixty-fifth. She’s hired a 300-foot yacht and is taking her whole family, and obviously I have to be there.’

‘Oh yes, of course, you did say,’ Sam said, subsiding back into silence, remembering how they had dissolved in giggles at the thought of a bunch of Punjabi matriarchs sunning themselves in voluminous one-pieces when Bubbles had first mentioned it.

‘How about we go somewhere together after the summer then? Just us girls,’ Anita offered, rousing herself briefly. ‘We’ve only ever talked of it so far, and now that both your kids are old enough to be left with their nannies, it should be fine, shouldn’t it?’

Sam’s face wore a doubtful expression. ‘I don’t know…Akbar doesn’t much like the concept of girlie holidays…’

‘Oh, fuck Akbar,’ Anita replied crisply, ‘about time you told him where to stick those fine concepts of his.’

‘I’m not sure Binkie would like it either—you know how he seems to think my main role in life is to keep his mother company. Unless…’ Bubbles’ face was starting to clear. ‘The only place I can get away to without any of them in tow is my parents’ house.’

‘Delhi,’ Anita exclaimed, ‘now there’s a plan.’

‘No one can stop us from going to see our parents, I guess,’ Sam said slowly.

‘Be too bloody hot till November though.’

‘You weren’t thinking of December, were you? I mean…Lamboo’s invitation…?’

The three women looked at the letter, still lying on the table before them, and then at each other in the candlelight. Bubbles’ eyes suddenly looked like hollows in her head, and Sam, wrapped in her cream pashmina, was a sad and portly ghost. Anita shuddered, feeling uncharacteristically nervy. She was dying for a cigarette. ‘I’ve never been back there since we left school,’ she muttered.

‘Nor me,’ Sam said softly after a pause.

‘I’ve been past those gates, oh, I don’t know, at least a hundred times,’ Bubbles said. ‘Every time I go to Papa’s Connaught Place shop, in fact. And, you know, it’s like a bad habit, but I still cross my heart and mutter “Our Father” when I see the school church. But I’ve never once stepped through those gates since we left. I’m not sure I’ll be able to take it, actually’

‘Look,’ Anita cut in, sitting up and trying to sound more brisk, ‘I know there’s good reason for us never having gone back. But I’m not sure it’s really helped, y’know. Sometimes things just seem to get worse the longer you leave them.’

Her two friends were silent for a few seconds before Bubbles spoke up. ‘My therapist sometimes says I’ll only make real progress when those old issues are resolved…’

‘It’s more than that for me,’ Sam said. ‘More like…atonement.’

‘Well, if we don’t do it now, we never will,’ Anita said, taking Sam’s hands in hers. ‘I get some leave around Christmas, so shall we try to go together by, say, mid December? Let’s see what it is that Lamboo wants. We owe her that much. Time to try and lay some of those ghosts to rest.’