Chapter 25 #3
Andrew had poured out a couple of glasses, something dark for himself.
I pulled on his tee, and he was bare-chested.
We were quiet to begin with, sipping our drinks. I was considering the day, the miles we had driven, Bhumika’s notes, all the people we had met and everything we had learnt.
Then Andrew spoke about his family. It was just little titbits he was dropping, about Hari Rao, the campaigning. He asked me if there was a physical resemblance. Alcohol had freed his tongue.
I told him there was nothing he had of his grandfather looks wise, but there was the other stuff, like their walk.
I mimicked Andrew’s walk and that of his biological grandfather, like some burlesque dancer, and ended up on the sofa, laughing.
I opened my eyes and tried to look around me. It was early. I tried to lift my head, but it hurt. It was like someone had filled it with boulders that shifted when I moved.
I was wasted. I had no idea how much I had tanked the previous evening. A whole bottle of Chardonnay, 750 ml? Maybe more? From where I lay, I could see a capless bottle, empty glasses, some nuts scattered on the table.
I was parched. I reached for a bottle of water and downed it before drifting off to sleep. My last thought was that I was in a water body. Swimming.
I woke up hours later, feeling marginally lighter. I managed to pull myself up. I was leaning against the four-poster cot. The sun had found gaps between the curtains and strayed into the room.
Yesterday had been a frustrating day. The steps we thought were taking us somewhere saw us arrive at crossroads without leads. My fitness app showed I had walked 12 kilometres, but in the only way it mattered, we hadn’t moved. We were on the road to nowhere.
We had walked up and down the barracks, roamed around Waterloo Road, we stopped at five different tea shops, a grocery store and a medical shop, looking for leads on the Velus and the Browns.
We had evening tea with an elderly receptionist from a guest house, but outside of the fresh cucumber sandwiches, that came to naught.
There was a schoolteacher in his eighties, called Dorai, who said he had known the Velus. He couldn’t recall any more than that the widower had lived in the area. He repeated that about 10 times over lunch. Andrew might’ve told him that actually.
We returned to the room late in the evening, sufficiently spent.
I couldn’t recall much of the evening expect that we poured out glasses and glasses of wine and the brown stuff. My guess is we didn’t say very much. Andrew was lost in his thoughts.
‘I didn’t think I would find all my answers in one trip,’ Andrew had said more than once in the last couple of days. Last evening, the conjunction followed. ‘But I expected something, anything.’
He wanted to hear it all – the whole truth, every last detail. It was his life. I wanted it for him, too.
My eyes strained in the direction of my watch on my bedside table. It was the same one Ravi had gifted me. It was almost noon. Andrew and I should’ve been on our way to Bengaluru by now.
I jumped out of bed, grabbed some clothes and rushed into the shower.
When I returned to the room, the bed was made, not neatly, but there was an order to it.
It wasn’t the service staff.
As I walked up to the kettle to get it ready, the door opened behind me. In the mirror to the right, I noticed Andrew walk in. He apologized for not asking to come in.
My smile, like the afternoon sun, was bright.
Andrew dropped a kiss on my cheek. My knees buckled. Andrew’s hand was on my elbow, steadying me.
His phone was beside the kettle. Both the phone and kettle lit up at the same time.
One gurgled, the other said: I miss you. Andrew had a message from Pooja. Thank you for letting me lean on you. The second line was punctuated with a red heart.
Andrew had turned to pick up the coffee mugs. He hadn’t seen the message.
My heart hit the floor of my stomach. It fell with a thud. I turned to look at Andrew. Had he heard the fall?
Andrew poured us the coffee and took quick sips. ‘Let’s not make it very late, Rai,’ he said, dropping a kiss on the top of my head.
The coffee wasn’t going down my throat. My eyes were moist.
‘Drink up,’ he said, patting my arms before reaching for my bags.
I went to the loo and poured the coffee into the sink. I was panicking. My legs were shaking, and my stomach felt like jelly. Sweat beads had formed on my forehand. I splashed water on my face and dabbed it off with a towel. I repeated it. Thrice.
When I returned to the room, I saw that Andrew had taken our luggage to the car. His phone was gone, too.
It was four hours later that we stopped for lunch. That was when Andrew saw Pooja’s messages.
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘this is why you are so quiet.’ He smiled as he showed me Pooja’s messages. ‘Please check the messages. There is nothing from me before this.’
My eyes flicked across his screen briefly. Clearly, only Pooja was messaging. I laughed. Hysterically.
‘I’m not responsible for this,’ Andrew said. His eyes were on me. ‘I haven’t encouraged this. She sends me random messages like this from time to time. It doesn’t mean anything.’
The sambhar was hot and spicy. I felt sick.
I turned away.
‘I just read it,’ he said.
He may not have engaged with Pooja, but they definitely shared something. No one talks to a wall, not even a 22-year-old.
‘She does this all the time.’ His eyes were dark. We were back in the car.
How can I trust you again? I didn’t ask that question, but it was my companion for the better part of that nearly eight-hour journey.