‘What on earth for, Ma?’ said Lata. ‘I’m beginning to have a good time here. And why so suddenly?’
Mrs Rupa Mehra looked closely at her daughter.
‘And we have all those mangoes to eat still,’ laughed Lata. ‘And we have to make sure that Varun studies a little.’
Mrs Rupa Mehra looked severe. ‘Tell me –’ she began, then stopped. Surely Lata could not be pretending the innocence that was written so plainly on her face. And if she wasn’t, why put ideas into her head?
‘Yes, Ma?’
‘Tell me what you did today.’
This was more in the line of Mrs Rupa Mehra’s daily questioning, and Lata was relieved to see her mother behaving more in character. Lata had no intention of being torn away from Calcutta and the Chatterjis. When she thought how unhappy she had been when she had first come here, she felt grateful to that family – and most of all to the comfortable, cynical, considerate Amit – for the way they had absorbed her into their clan – almost as a third sister, she thought.
Meanwhile Mrs Rupa Mehra was also thinking about the Chatterjis, but in less charitable terms. Meenakshi’s remarks had made her panic.
I will go to Delhi, by myself if necessary, she was thinking. Kalpana Gaur will have to help me to find a suitable boy at once. Then I will summon Lata. Arun is completely useless. Ever since his marriage he has lost all feeling for his own family. He introduced Lata to this Bishwanath boy, and since then he has done nothing further. He has no sense of responsibility for his sister. I am all alone in the world now. Only my Aparna loves me. Meenakshi was sleeping, and Aparna was with the Toothless Crone. Mrs Rupa Mehra had her granddaughter transferred immediately to her own arms.
7.43
THE rain had delayed Arun as well. When he returned home he was in a black temper.
Without more than a grunt apiece for his mother, sister and daughter, he marched straight into the bedroom. ‘Damned swine, the whole lot of them,’ he announced. ‘And the driver too.’
Meenakshi surveyed him from the bed. She yawned:
‘Arun, darling, why such fury?
Have a chocolate made by Flury.’
‘Oh, stop that moronic Blabberji blather,’ shouted Arun, setting down his briefcase and laying his damp coat across the arm of a chair. ‘You’re my wife. You can at least pretend to be sympathetic.’
‘What happened, darling?’ said Meenakshi, composing her features into the required emotion. ‘Bad day at the office?’
Arun closed his eyes. He sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘Tell me,’ said Meenakshi, her long, elegant, red-nailed fingers slowly loosening his tie.
Arun sighed. ‘This bloody rickshaw-wallah asked me for three rupees to take me across the road to my car. Across the road,’ he repeated, shaking his head in disgust and disbelief.
Meenakshi’s fingers stopped. ‘No!’ she exclaimed, genuinely shocked. ‘I hope you didn’t agree to pay.’
‘What could I do?’ asked Arun. ‘I wasn’t going to wade knee-deep through water to get to my car – or risk the car crossing the flooded section of the road and stalling. He could see that – and he was smirking with the pleasure of having a sahib by the balls. “It’s your decision,” he said. “Three rupees.” Three rupees! When normally it would be two annas at the most. One anna would have been a fairer price – it was no more than twenty steps. But he could see there was no other rickshaw in sight and that I was getting wet. Bloody profiteering swine.’
Meenakshi glanced at the mirror from the bed and thought for a moment. ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘what does Bentsen Pryce do when there’s a temporary shortage of, oh, jute in the world market and the price goes up? Don’t they put up their prices to whatever level the market will bear? Or is that only a Marwari practice? I know that’s what goldsmiths and silversmiths do. And vegetable sellers. I suppose that was what the rickshaw-wallah was doing too. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been shocked after all. Or you.’
She had forgotten her intention to be sympathetic. Arun looked at her, injured, but saw, despite himself, the unpleasantly forceful logic of her words.
‘Would you like to do my job?’ he demanded.
‘Oh no, darling,’ said Meenakshi, refusing to take offence. ‘I couldn’t bear to wear a coat and tie. And I wouldn’t know how to dictate letters to your charming Miss Christie… Oh, by the way, some mangoes came from Brahmpur today. And a letter from Savita.’
‘Oh.’
‘And Ma, being Ma, has been glutting away at them without regard for her diabetes.’