Chapter 22 #2
I nodded. ‘He’s lucky in that he was allowed to grow into his own person,’ I said. ‘The lady he now calls his mother shifted from Koramangala to Kengeri less than a year after he went to live with her. That helped him establish a mental distance from that time in his life.’
She had gained employment as a housekeeper in a farmhouse, some 40 kilometres from where she first lived. It was a whole new environment for the boy.
‘Is he aware that his brother could be released from prison soon?’
I nodded, making a mental note to task the graphic artist with an imaginative sketch of the boy. We had file pictures of the parents.
‘Are you going to say he lives somewhere else in your story?’
‘I’ll make him a techie living in Kuala Lumpur maybe, out of the country for sure.’
‘Crime fiction!’
I laughed. No, I had snorted.
Silent tears flowed from my eyes. I didn’t want Andrew to know; I didn’t want anyone to know.
I clenched my hands tight and shut my eyes, willing the tears to stop. I forced myself to breathe quietly. It was at that moment Andrew turned on the radio. I couldn’t have been more grateful. I sank back in my seat, and this time, I closed my eyes and let the tears dry.
The volume of words coming at you for almost three hours, your mind taking in all that is being said and not being said, registering the reactions and deciphering content.
It’s intense and exhausting. This time, though, it was more than the experience of a couple of hours ago; it was the weight of the last couple of weeks.
I felt Andrew’s gaze on me. We had stopped at a signal maybe.
‘That was some show, Myraah Rai. You were doing such an amazing job in there, I wished I were you.’
When I opened my eyes and turned to him, we had already parked. My face was still moist, but he didn’t reach out to dry my tears.
I must’ve been bloody fucking good, I thought. Then I smiled a real smile.
It was Wednesday morning, five days after I had been to Parappana Agrahara.
I was missing my midweek coffee, where I’d have poured out the story to Ravi, repeating details, underlining them. Ravi let me run. He didn’t interrupt or ask me questions, but more than once, he had tried to talk me out of writing this series.
These meetings, listening to the recordings, the emotions that were stirred by recreating the crime, typing out nuances that weren’t in the recorder, were getting me into a state from which I took a while getting out of.
I had nightmares after some of these encounters, and in the less gruesome cases, a gloom settled on me in the days that followed.
I swung between talking non-stop and going into reclusive mode.
It took me a few days, a week even, to shake off the experience.
This time, I didn’t have an outlet. I spoke to my dad and Chhaya, but I wasn’t able to spill out as much as I would’ve with Ravi.
Chhaya attempted to steer the conversation to sunnier shores, trying to help me escape the despair.
My father was constantly interrupting, getting up to get something or the other.
Still, despite not having a significant conduit, I was more in control of the situation.
Maybe because Andrew had accompanied me for the assignment and I had unconsciously drawn comfort from the company.
Though my spirit was still sore and the air around me was heavy, I was able to get on with my day, live my life without constantly going back to that beastly greed that cost an innocent man his life, leaving his visually impaired wife to grieve.
I had finished writing the two stories, 5,000-odd words, including additional intel that could be used for graphics. I forwarded it to my editor, who decided we should jump the queue and carry the piece this week, ahead of some of the other pieces I had banked.
I needed an out. I would’ve loved to go for a run at that very moment. This office needed to invest in a gym. I considered telling Mr Kumar that but thought my time would be better served in getting a coffee.
I was headed in the direction of Perky Grace and was walking past another of the coffee chains when polka dots, black on mustard, caught my eye. It was her I saw before I spotted Andrew, and I wanted to giggle.
Andrew was on the edge of his seat, elbows resting on his knees, desperately trying to make a point.
She was wearing a dress only a little longer than a top. One of her hands was trying to hold the skirt down and the other was disciplining the hair. The wind was harsh, and they were a spectacle. An aesthetically enchanting one.
I had stopped walking and was openly gaping when Pooja let go of the skirt of her dress and reached for her coffee. The dress ballooned in the wind, and Andrew was all over himself trying to keep it down. If that wasn’t enough, Pooja turned the mug on herself.
Start walking, I told myself.
I had barely finished ordering my coffee when Andrew messaged. Make that two, Rai.
I considered spitting into the second one. That whole production to protect her modesty.
I watched Andrew saunter up Church Street. I love his walk; Beethoven was playing.
I wasn’t going to bring up the chaotic scenes I had just witnessed; it had been entertainment. Even though I felt a twinge when he lurched forward for her skirt.
Andrew settled into the opposite seat. Were his eyes on my lips? Honey drizzle on warm bread. I smiled.
‘I saw you,’ he said.
‘I know. I saw your message and ordered for you, too! Duh! You have a phone, check it!’
‘When I was with Pooja just now.’ Was that a blush?
The takeaway coffees arrived and so did my laughter. I just couldn’t stop. I wasn’t being mean; I was feeling bad for the kid. I promise.
Andrew picked up his coffee and leaned against the seat. He was waiting for me to finish.
When the hysteria finally subsided, I asked Andrew what that was all about.
‘She’s going through a difficult break-up, Myraah, and I’m just trying to help her.’
I stuck the steaming coffee to my lips. I could not laugh again, hysteria or not. I was on my feet.
I took a second sip of my coffee.
‘I was telling her I couldn’t see her much more because of the elections.’
‘Was that when she poured the coffee on herself?’ Because she couldn’t see more of you.
‘It was the wind!’ He looked away; his eyes were on the cashier.
‘Of course!’
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked as we headed back to office.
‘Better now,’ I said with a smile. I was able to establish some kind of a distance between the jail visit and my emotions.
We were out on MG Road, and the sun was shining. Just like an old acquaintance.
Andrew wondered if the younger son knew more about his family’s misdeeds than he was letting on.
We conjectured if he would leave Bengaluru, whether it was actually safe for us to run the piece on Pradeep. What if his older sibling came after him?
Pradeep wanted his story out. It was his call. I had asked him why, and he said it was important to his mother. I didn’t need to ask which one.
‘Happy to chauffeur you every time, Rai,’ Andrew said. We had paused and were looking at each other.
My neck felt warm.
‘I don’t think I’m going to do the next one in a hurry. We have three or four pieces in the bank.’
‘Whenever you plan to do it.’
‘Why?’
We had stopped walking; we were in front of Chhaya’s office building, facing each other. Andrew was smiling.
‘It’s not because you’re a woman and you need protection in an environment like what we were in the other day. No one, man or woman, should do this alone.’
My mouth was salty again. I bit my teeth and stopped the tears.
‘Unless the adopted grandson has already offered?’
I smiled. I hadn’t told Andrew about Ravi yet. ‘You are better than that,’ I said.
He nodded. His gaze dropped to my lips before turning away hastily.
‘This is too dark a line for a reporter to pursue on their own in the regularity with which you do it. It’s literally your column now.
Editor Uncle doesn’t want anyone else to contribute, which is fair.
You own it. But don’t go on these assignments alone.
I’ll go with you every time I can. Let’s try and work the meetings at a time when it is convenient for me, too, to accompany you.
Let me know what you’re pursuing, how and when, and I’ll try and keep myself free around that time. ’
This was the Andrew I knew. Once my pillar.
‘And nobody needs to know about this arrangement, Myraah. It’s just between you and me.’
I shut my eyes, and for the first time that evening, I felt calm.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt this.’
I heard Chhaya’s voice from behind me; she was laughing. Andrew, who was generally alert in public spaces, had completely missed my friend, whom he was facing.
I hugged Chhaya and told her we had just picked up coffee.
‘Buy me tea,’ she asked Andrew.
Chhaya motioned to the security officer of her building and told him she’d be back for her car in 10 minutes. I corrected her and told him it would be an hour at least. She laughed and fell in step with us. This was the first time Chhaya was seeing Andrew since after school.
‘You’re looking wonderful,’ she said.
Andrew smiled. ‘You, too,’ he replied.
‘I don’t know how you guys haven’t run into each other all these months, given that our offices are so close.’
‘I think I saw you at a distance once. It was a little after I returned to Bengaluru,’ Andrew said. ‘You both were having coffee.’
His eyes shifted from Chhaya to me.
Like old friends, which they were not, Chhaya and Andrew quickly lost me, updating each other on their lives.
I interrupted only because they were dismissive of their respective successes.
I spelt them out. They returned to schooldays every now and then, recalling an incident or a teacher, but steered clear of Meena Iyer.
They were enjoying each other’s company so much that I asked them to sit down and went to collect Chhaya’s drink.
‘You, too?’ Andrew asked as I sat down.
I had no idea what they were talking about. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, looking at Chhaya and then at Andrew.
‘Apparently, everyone in school thought I was a snob.’
‘Ah, ah…’ I didn’t know; I couldn’t be sure. Did I think he was a snob? I had the hots for him.
I don’t remember much of Andrew in school, outside of the poster pinned in my head.
Maybe it was a time I had unconsciously blocked out after we started seeing each other in college.
I wanted to remember only our time together.
It might have something to do with Meena and his affection for her or the fact that I didn’t really know him back then. It was more an image I had of him.
‘Snob?’ I asked. The moment the question was out of my mouth, I realized that I wasn’t in with the talk in Bangalore Scottish. I wasn’t one of the StyleStahs. Maybe they had thought of Andrew that way.
‘Yeah, yeah, that was the general opinion,’ Chhaya said, filling me in on what I didn’t know.
He referred to me as ‘she’ and ‘her’, not by my name, like an old couple who didn’t need an address.
Was it that easy for him to give me up? I wondered even as I returned the sunny disposition to both of them.
What we shared was tossed aside for what?
Hot sex and an iPhone. I didn’t realize – but I don’t think anyone else at the table had either – I was shaking my head.
Maybe they hadn’t discussed me, Meena and Andrew.
She wouldn’t have wanted to bring me up for whatever reason, and Andrew was adroit at controlling his emotions.
‘Finished writing?’ Chhaya turned to me and asked about my ‘Crime 3.0’ piece.
I nodded.
‘And she’s done a darn good job of it,’ Andrew said.
Our eyes met, and I nodded before a smile took over my countenance.
Andrew and I walked back to drop Chhaya, and just before we entered Morning Herald’s premises, I patted Andrew’s arm. He was walking ahead of me.
‘Meena and you were a thing, I know.’
‘Myraahh!’
I turned on my heel and waded into MG Road, but before I walked away, I asked Andrew not to follow. The air was heavy, and the footpath was busy. The peanut vendor was working up an aroma. My tears were salty.