With a few remarks about the impending General Elections in England (‘At Bentsen Pryce we consider it Hobson’s choice: Attlee is puerile and Churchill senile’) but none about the Indian elections, with a casual admonition to Mrs Rupa Mehra to mind her blood sugar, and to give his love to his sisters, and to assure everyone that Meenakshi was fine and had suffered no lasting harm, Arun signed off.
Mrs Rupa Mehra sat stunned, her heart beating dangerously fast. She was used to re-reading her letters a dozen times, examining for days from every possible angle some remark that someone had made to someone else about something that someone had thought that someone had almost done. So much news – and all so sudden and substantial – was too much to absorb at once. Meenakshi’s miscarriage, the Kakoli-Hans nexus, the threat of Amit, the non-mention of Haresh except in an unfavourable passing remark, the disturbing attitude of Varun – Mrs Rupa Mehra did not know whether to laugh or to weep, and immediately asked for a glass of nimbu pani.
And there was no news of her darling Aparna. Presumably she was all right. Mrs Rupa Mehra recalled a remark of hers, now family lore: ‘If another baby comes into this house, I will throw it straight into the waste-paper basket.’ Precocity appeared to be the fashion among children these days. She hoped that Uma would be as lovable as Aparna, but less trenchant.
Mrs Rupa Mehra was dying to show Savita her brother’s letter, but then decided that it would be far better to break the various bits of news to her one by one. It would be less disturbing to Savita, and more informative for herself. Without knowing either Arun’s strong opinions or Varun’s apparent indifference, where would Savita’s own judgment in the matter of Amit lie? So! thought Mrs Rupa Mehra grimly: this must have been behind his gift to Lata of his incomprehensible book of poems.
As for Lata – she had been taking an unnecessary interest in poetry these days, even attending an occasional meeting of the Brahmpur Literary Society. This did not bode well. It was true that she had also been writing to Haresh, but Mrs Rupa Mehra was not privy to the contents of those letters. Lata had become cruelly possessive of her privacy. ‘Am I your mother or not?’ Mrs Rupa Mehra had asked her once. ‘Oh, Ma, please!’ had been Lata’s heartless reply.
And poor Meenakshi! thought Mrs Rupa Mehra. She must write to her at once. She felt that a creamy cambric was called for, and, her eyes moist with sympathy, she went to get the writing paper from her bag. Meenakshi the cold-hearted medal-melter was replaced for a while with the image of Meenakshi the vulnerable, tender, broken vehicle for Mrs Rupa Mehra’s third grandchild, who she felt was bound to have been a boy.
If Mrs Rupa Mehra had known the truth about Meenakshi’s pregnancy or her miscarriage, she would doubtless have been less than sympathetic. Meenakshi, terrified that her baby might not be Arun’s – and, in milder counterpoint, concerned by what a second pregnancy would do to her figure and social life – had decided to take immediate action. After her doctor – the miracle-working Dr Evans – had refused to help her, she went for advice to her closest friends among the Shady Ladies, swearing them first to secrecy. She was certain that if Arun heard about her attempt to free herself from this unwanted child, he would be as unreasonably angry as he had been when she had liberated herself from one of his father’s medals.
How unfortunate, she thought desperately, that neither the jewellery theft nor Khandelwal’s dogs had shocked her foetus out of her.
Meenakshi had made herself quite sick with abortifacients, worry, conflicting advice and tortuous gymnastics when one afternoon, to her relief, she had the miscarriage of her dreams. She phoned Billy immediately, her voice unsteady on the line; when he asked anxiously if she was all right, she was able to reassure him. It had been sudden and painless, if alarming and, well, horribly messy. Billy sounded miserable for her sake.
And Arun, for his part, was so tender and protective of her for days afterwards that she began to feel that there might be at least something to be said for the whole sorry business.
15.2
HAD WISHES been horses, Mrs Rupa Mehra would have been riding at this very moment on the Calcutta Mail, and would soon have been questioning everyone she knew in Calcutta and Prahapore about all they had been doing or thinking or planning or professing. But, quite apart from the cost of the journey, there were compelling reasons for her to remain in Brahmpur. For one thing, baby Uma was still very little, and needed a grandmother’s care. Whereas Meenakshi had been by turns possessive of Aparna and perfectly happy to ignore her (treating her mother-in-law as a kind of super-ayah while she traipsed about Calcutta, socializing), Savita shared Uma with Mrs Rupa Mehra (and with Mrs Mahesh Kapoor when she visited) in a natural, daughterly way.