Chapter 21
I was anxious. I reached the coffee shop almost half an hour in advance. A first in our association.
I had decided to call it off with Ravi. I didn’t want to break his heart… Not that I had the power to do that.
The orphan boy… Was he even that? I had always wanted to ask him that question. It had slipped out of my mouth once, but Ravi chose not to answer it. I hoped at least he knew whose son he was. Was he the godson who became the grandson?
This is hard to believe, I know, coming from one who has made a living from posing them, but I hate questions.
Like Andrew, Ravi was a loner of sorts, too. He had some friends, fitness freaks like him, who met for a drink from time to time, but while he was good with the group, he kept them at arm’s length. It was his family ties, possibly, that made him wary, he had said.
That reserve didn’t extend to me; still, there were invisible walls I couldn’t scale, not for a lack of trying.
We were close and closed at the same time.
Ravi walked in some 10 minutes later, looking dapper in a khaki shirt. Our regular waiter was doing cartwheels around him.
‘Ma’am is already here, sir. She came very early, sir.’
I wished he’d shut up and make himself scarce, I had a headache already. But he was so bent on impressing Ravi that he sent a dessert plate crashing to the floor, and with it, a slice of the chocolate ganache cake he was carrying. Ravi was his gentle self, telling him to be careful the next time.
I wondered if Ravi had trained himself to be this way, as a quasi-public figure.
His actions a reaction to his status. Measured.
Hari Rao wouldn’t have entertained headlines like ‘Grandson in a Tiff’, ‘Drunk Grandson in the Gutter’, or like the tabloids might say, ‘GrandDope’.
He was so relaxed about most things, it was near impossible to get a reaction out of him.
Maybe that’s why I was on the edge. What I had to say could cause him to explode – that carefully cultivated image blowing up and falling around us.
‘So, how did the campaign trail go? Your first one, right?’
I nodded. I didn’t have an answer to the first part of the question. ‘How come you weren’t there?’ I asked.
‘Where?’ he asked, sitting back in his chair.
In Malavalli. In Mandya. In Maddur. In Mysuru. My query had surprised him.
‘Campaigning with your grandfather, rallying the troops,’ I said, not sure why I had chosen this moment to take it to him. ‘He’s old; he could’ve done with some help maybe.’ I couldn’t stop myself.
Our coffees arrived without us having ordered. They came with a large serving of orange and dark chocolate cookies that looked like bird droppings. I reached for one. I was hungry; I hadn’t eaten during whatever part of the day I had already seen.
‘If he wanted me there, he’d have told me.’
‘And you’d be there?’
‘To support him? Yeah, sure.’
So the only reason he wasn’t with his 70-something grandfather in the midst of an election campaign was because he hadn’t asked him to be there. I chewed on the cookie; it tasted better than it looked.
It bothered me that Ravi wasn’t with his grandfather in Mysuru.
I tried to brush it aside, but it found a way to surface.
Maybe it was because of what I shared with my parents, and now with my father.
I know all relationships are not the same and not everybody is as fortunate as I am with the DNA lottery, but caring is a choice.
‘How is he? All okay health-wise?’
‘Yeah.’ It was a dry response.
Andrew didn’t like talking about his family, and neither did Ravi. If the men I mingled with were to be categorized, it was guys with ambiguous ancestry.
‘Did you enjoy yourself?’ Ravi asked. ‘He drove? You went with him?’
That was a fair comeback. Caring or not, I had crossed lines.
But how did he know I had driven with Andrew? I had told him I was going with Andrew, but we may have taken an office car, more of our colleagues could’ve been around, even driven us.
‘My grandfather told me.’
Ravi had told me that he had spoken to his grandfather about us. He had shown him pictures, too, obviously. How much of Andrew and me had Hari Rao noticed?
This was pointless. It was not why I had asked Ravi to meet me today. I was playing for time I didn’t need.
‘Ravi,’ I said abruptly, ‘we need to talk about us.’ I was looking down at the tiles. I felt a chill in my bones.
‘My favourite topic,’ he said.
I took a sip from my cup. I held it for a bit. I was comforted by its warmth. ‘I want out.’ I heard my voice shake. My heart was hammering My pulse was exploding.
I could’ve said, ‘I love you, but I am not sure if I’m in love with you.’ Or, ‘I feel for you as a friend and not a boyfriend.’ Both of these were true, but I pulled out the scissor instead.
‘Want out?’ Ravi barked. His eyes were all over me, and his mouth was open.
‘Yeah,’ I said weakly.
‘Why?’ He exhaled.
I held his gaze.
‘You have developed feelings for this Andrew?’ His tone was stone cold.
‘No!’ I wasn’t in love with Ravi. This wasn’t about Andrew; I was clear about that.
He shrugged. ‘The way he looked at you when we met. I am not sure if you noticed, but I did.’
‘How did he look at me?’ I heard myself exhale.
‘He was surprised when I said you were my girlfriend.’
‘He had no idea we were dating.’
Ravi shook his head. ‘He didn’t like that we were dating.’
I couldn’t refute that.
‘Sympathy, is it?’ Ravi asked.
What was he talking about? If I was feeling bad for Ravi, which I was, it’s not a crutch I would walk out on. Then I realized he was talking about Andrew and not himself.
‘Why would I be sympathetic towards him?’
‘My grandfather told me about Noelene. His grandmother and my grandfather had a relationship. There was a child from that, his mother.’
Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! There was a head-on collision in my upper storey. I felt it just as I did the coffee that had spilled on my white denims. The cup was sitting on my lap.
When I returned some 5, 10 or 15 minutes later, there was a dark stain on my trousers, but I was smiling.
‘That shocked you,’ Ravi said. ‘You’re always so correct, so careful, Myra. Everything in its place. Just like me. I’ve never seen you like this. You’re shocked.’ He was laughing now.
I’m effortlessly clumsy.
‘Sorry,’ I said slowly, settling into a clean chair.
‘I have to apologize. I shocked you.’
‘How do you know?’ I asked.
‘My grandfather told me. I thought you knew. That Andrew might’ve told you.’
I ignored the second part of the sentence. ‘Why did he tell you that?’ What kind of a question was that? Hari Rao’s reasons for telling Ravi about his biological grandson were obvious. I was blabbering even after I had the time to pull myself together.
Ravi smiled. ‘I guess he wanted me to know. Didn’t want me to be surprised by any revelations in case Andrew confronted me.’
I shrugged. Was Ravi testing waters with his Andrew might’ve told you line? How much of his family’s history had Andrew trusted me with?
‘We don’t know. We have to be prepared for everything,’ Ravi said.
However carefully the man may have worded his explanation, there was no escaping there was a child from that relationship. A child. Hari Rao had cheated on the grandmother Ravi worshipped, and he was powdering his nose.
When had Hari Rao dropped the bomb? I swallowed the question in the nick of time. My stomach felt bloated with all the questions I’d been swallowing.
‘This has nothing to do with Andrew, Ravi. This is about you and me. And again, it’s nothing to do with you; it’s me.’
Ravi moved forward in his seat and took my hands in his. He told me I was going through a lot, most of it work-related. He said I looked troubled and moody lately. He told me to chill, think it through and then decide.
I shook my head. However much this was going to hurt him or me, I wasn’t going back on it. I already felt lighter having told him about it.
We didn’t say a word to each other for another five to ten minutes, both of us staring in different directions.
‘Take your time,’ he urged again.
I shook my head.
‘So you want to end it right here? Just like that?’
‘Ah, ah.’ I nodded.
‘What’s the reason for this, Myra?’
‘It’s me, it’s my fault, Ravi. I think of you as a friend. I can’t think of you as more than a friend.’ I had tried, god knows.
‘So what? That’s where the best of love stories begin.’
I shook my head.
He sat back in his chair and wrapped his hands across his chest; he did that when he needed a moment to think. ‘You know, in your position, life is not easy. I can help you,’ he said, pausing before adding, ‘We’re good together. Everything else we can work out later.’
So this was what it was all about? The great rescue act. Myra Rai needed help. My eyes burned. So, all the times he’d said I was beautiful and strong and that he loved me inside out…
‘No,’ I said. I was fighting back tears. ‘It’s not enough, Ravi. You deserve love, for the woman you marry to be in love with you.’
He was looking down, at his hands or feet probably, for a while, and then suddenly, without a word, he picked up his car key and exited the restaurant.
I sat there for a few seconds, immobilized. Then I followed him out a little after settling the bill. This was the only time he hadn’t paid when we had gone out.
As I exited the coffee shop, I noticed a familiar frame. Her back was to me; she had just turned. Thank goodness. The last thing I needed at this moment was to run into Meena Iyer.
I walked back to office, a 10–12-minute trek, tears rolling down my cheeks. I was sad yet relieved.
This was a relationship that had steered me through my darkest days.
Ravi had facilitated bringing my mother home on her last journey; he had made it as painless as possible.
He was with me when I had no friends. He met me at short notice, filling in the blanks without realizing he was doing it.
He was there when I missed Mummy, he was there when Andrew was out of my life, he was there when I was just starting out as a professional.
Had he not thrown the power card at me today, it may have remained a cut that never healed.