Читать книгу Secrets and Sins - Jaishree Misra - Страница 11

Kaaya delved into her handbag for her BlackBerry, wondering how illicit love had been managed in the era before mobile telephony. Perhaps spouses just caught each other out more frequently in those bad old days, when lovers had no choice but to use home phones after work hours. Kaaya, of course, called on Joe’s home phone only if it was Susan she needed to speak to. Which wasn’t often, as Susan was really her sister Riva’s friend more than hers. Nevertheless, there had been the occasional call – to invite Susan and Joe to dinner or, more recently, to help organise Riva’s surprise birthday party. Kaaya would be the first to admit that there had been a curious thrill in speaking to Susan, knowing that Joe was probably listening in at the other end of their conversation, longing to grab the phone and shower kisses into it.

She glanced at the time on her phone. This was the best time to catch him, just as he would be finishing his daily workout. He was in fact probably just settling down before one of the computer terminals at his snazzy wi-fi enabled gym, from where he used his new secret email account to write her long and sentimental emails. Kaaya preferred telephone conversations to emails, writing being much more Riva’s thing than hers. Besides, tapping on a keyboard was murder on her delicately French-manicured nails.

She inspected their perfect pearly sheen now as she stretched out on her chaise longue, listening to the distant buzz of Joe’s phone. On her face was the smile that Riva used to describe as ‘Kaaya’s cat-smile’ when they were children. But Kaaya’s smile faded as the ringing tone continued and she realised that the answering service was going to kick in. Kaaya was accustomed to having men grab hurriedly at their phones to answer it without delay when her name flashed up on their screens. Still, she reckoned she could give Joe the benefit of the doubt this once. He had, after all, proven to be a most attentive lover this past month. Unsurprisingly, actually, given that she was his first (and, quite likely, would be his only) extramarital dalliance in the ten years he had been married to Susan. He had, in fact, all the gauche charm of the first-time adulterer, as eager as a puppy with his affections. Kaaya was familiar with the sort, and she found she enjoyed their attentions rather more than those of the more blasé seasoned cheats. The only problem with a lover as ardent as Joe was that there was every danger he would get too serious and start talking divorce and remarriage. And that was definitely territory Kaaya was not interested in. She already had a husband, for heaven’s sake, and a rather high calibre one too! No, Joe was merely a timely emotional prop to help her through this rather bleak time.

Kaaya’s thoughts stopped drifting when Joe’s phone stopped ringing. ‘This is the Vodaphone messaging service. Please leave a message after the tone.’

Kaaya kept it brief. ‘Hi, it’s me. Call when you can.’ She did not need to specify who she was and that she was alone. Joe already knew that Rohan was in Japan for a week and had vowed to see her every day in his absence. Or rather, every night after work. Except Tuesday, he had said, as it was his old classmate’s birthday. Kaaya glanced at the digital calendar on the wall. Of course – Tuesday, that’s where he was. The bloody birthday party!

Kaaya clapped her phone down on the coffee table, trying to quell her rising irritation, and used the tip of her forefinger to pick up a fleck of dust that was shining silver on the glass surface. It wasn’t like Manuela, her fanatically hard-working housekeeper, to miss even the tiniest smear or speck. Kaaya glanced around the room, forcing herself to take pleasure in its perfect designer chic – the Italian sofa in soft cream suede, the sweeping chrome down-lighters, the bunches of fresh yellow rosebuds arranged on the mantelpiece in small square glass vases. It was the perfect setting for an elegant woman like her. After all, Anton, Kaaya’s Parisian jeweller, had once explained how even the highest quality gold was just metal without the embellishment of a perfect stone. But what a waste to be looking as fabulous as she did tonight when there was no one around to appreciate it.

Kaaya got up, sighing as she walked into her bedroom. She peeled off her Chanel jacket and hurled it onto the floor. Manuela would put it on its upholstered hanger and return it to its rightful place in the walk-in wardrobe when she came in tomorrow morning. Divesting herself of the rest of her office clothes, Kaaya riffled through her vast collection of home outfits, wearing only her mauve lace lingerie and a towering pair of purple patent leather Jimmy Choos. Without too much ado, she chose one of her many Joseph silk kaftans and threw it onto the clothes horse. Then she slipped off her bra and panties and surveyed her curvy but gym-toned naked figure with momentary satisfaction before finally pulling the kaftan over her head. Kicking off her five-inch stilettos, Kaaya slipped her feet into a pair of gold chamois slippers and padded her way back across the pile carpet to fetch herself a drink from the cabinet. As she walked, she could feel the soft fabric of her kaftan brush rather pleasurably against her bare nipples. Oh, what a bloody waste to be feeling so sexy on a night when her lover was unavailable. If Kaaya had been a little more adventurous, there were numerous others she could have summoned with a click of her fingers – suave old Rodney Theobald from the art gallery, for instance, or Henry from the accounts department at work, the latter no doubt ready and willing for a quick bonk at five minutes’ notice! Henry had held a candle for her ever since she had joined Lumous PR a year ago and, last Christmas, he thought he had hit the jackpot when she snogged him in the broom closet and allowed him to slip one hot hand under her bra. But he – single, adoring, available – was far too easy for Kaaya. She generally preferred a chase to be more exciting, even when it was a new client she was wooing at work. Which was why affairs with seemingly happily married men were the bigger challenge. But they certainly came with some irritating constraints. Damn Joe and his friend’s birthday party! Kaaya considered calling him anyway, to make him sweat just a tiny bit under the scrutiny of his wife and friends…That would serve him right for leaving her in the lurch on a night like this, she thought, picking up her phone again.

She stopped short, deciding to call Riva first. The juicy tidbit of news she had for her sister could not wait any more. The din of a noisy restaurant was apparent in the background as Riva’s voice came down the line. She was shouting to be heard over the clamour. ‘Hello? Hello? Kaaya, that you?’

‘You sound like you’re in the middle of a railway station,’ Kaaya said, enjoying, as always, being rude about the kind of downmarket places her parsimonious sister tended to hang out in.

‘It’s a restaurant, actually, Kaaya dearest.’

‘Really? I don’t exactly detect the hush of discreet waiters and thick white linen in the background…or the tinkle of crystal, for that matter,’ Kaaya said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

‘What? Can’t hear…hang on, I think I need to walk towards the door,’ Riva said.

‘I said, it – sounds – too – noisy – to – be – a – restaurant. Oh, never mind.’ Kaaya sighed but Riva had heard her this time.

‘Well, I’m hardly one for shelling out six months’ worth of royalties on a minuscule platter of nouvelle cuisine, just because it’s got some jumped-up cheffy name attached to it, am I?’ she retorted, refusing to rise to her sister’s snobbishness.

‘Now, I can think of various responses to that, Riva darling, but I’ll spare you while you’re dining, lest you choke on your sausage and mash. Who’re you with anyway? Not that sad specimen you call a husband, by any chance? In which case, you must be dining at the finest greasy spoon. Or – I know – a greasy chopstick basement in cheapest Chinatown. Yes?’

Riva laughed. ‘Cheapest Arab Town, actually. Wassup, anyway?’

‘Okay, won’t keep you. Just that I have news for you. You’ll never guess whom I met this arvo.’

‘Who?’

‘A college mate of yours…said he remembered you…Care to wager a guess? Oh, I can’t bear this so I’m just going to tell you. It was Aman Khan, King of Bollywood, no less!’

There was a pause before Riva spoke again, her voice calm. ‘Aman Khan? Where on earth did you meet him?’

‘At my office, believe it or not. He came with a director – some oily bloke called Shah – to talk about getting a publicist for a forthcoming crossover film of his. Indrani down in reception recognised him from her regular diet of Bollywood. She was all aflutter, near fainting point, I can tell you. And I do have to say he’s really quite a looker in the flesh. You never said he was so dishy or I’d have taken more trouble keeping up with his films!’

‘How did my name come up?’ Riva asked.

‘Oh, we got chatting and I told him that my big sister was his classmate at Leeds Uni.’

‘I wish you hadn’t. He’s hardly likely to remember me, is he?’

‘That was the peculiar thing, Riva: he did! He suddenly got all animated too, telling me about how you cornered him on his first day on the campus to stick a placard in his hand. Typical of the shop-stewardy sort of thing you would do, come to think of it!’

‘How curious he remembers that!’

‘Or was the placard just a chat-up ruse on your part? Clever, if it was. He still remembers it anyway…’

‘Of course it wasn’t a chat-up line! There was some kind of protest on in uni when he joined, if I recall.’

‘Well, I told him you were still a bit of a trade unionist and rabble-rouser. Putting pamphlets through people’s doors and doing your soapbox thing down at Speaker’s Corner every Sunday morning.’

‘Kaaya, you didn’t!’

‘Sure did.’

‘Oh Kaaya!’

‘Course I didn’t!’ Kaaya cut through Riva’s wail. ‘What do you take me for? He wasn’t there to talk about you anyway so we swiftly moved on to other things.’ Her voice became smug. ‘Think I may have netted a big fish today, sis.’

‘Well done, you,’ Riva said quietly, not sure if Kaaya meant that she had netted a new client in Aman – or a new admirer. The latter was not an unlikely scenario, given the earthy sex appeal Kaaya oozed in such abundance. Surely Aman Khan, like most men, would not be impervious to Kaaya’s beauty? Riva wondered why the thought should make her suddenly feel so despondent.

But Kaaya was now ending the conversation in her usual abrupt manner. ‘Better let you get on with din-dins, then,’ she said, before adding a cheeky postscript. ‘Love to you but none to that crabby hubby of yours. Oh, and mind you don’t choke on a bit of cartilage, eating all that cheap meat.’