Unmarriageable(88)

The girl got up, her smile shy but warm as she asked Alys to set the cake on the octagonal coffee table. Alys had seen the girl’s face before. But where? Dear God. She nearly dropped the cake. It was Jujeena Darsee. Not in a bathing suit in a Maldives resort pool with Bungles’s arm around her but towering over Alys in simple cotton culottes and kurti, her hair cut in waves that framed her square chin, her wide feet clad in plush Gucci mules. Jujeena Darsee in the flesh.

‘Do you have the receipt?’ Jujeena asked.

Alys crammed it into Jujeena’s hand. Was Darsee here? She needed to leave as soon as possible.

‘Let me get my wallet,’ Jujeena said.

‘Juju beta,’ Rani-ul-Nissa said, slipping on her chappals, ‘I think enough for today. Also, I was hoping to see your brother. I wanted to thank him again for his tremendous help towards my husband’s treatment and wheelchair purchase. The generosity has saved his life. A lot of people have money but do not have giving hearts. Your brother is a saint. God bless him.’

‘I’ll tell him,’ Juju said. ‘But you know he’ll only be embarrassed.’

‘I’ve yet to meet a man,’ Rani-ul-Nissa said, strapping on her motorbike helmet, ‘who’s been blessed with so much and yet is so humble.’

Alys was taken aback at this appraisal of Darsee. She tried to reconcile ‘Darsee’ and ‘humble’ in the same sentence. She couldn’t. Still, this praise was unsolicited and, she could tell, heartfelt. Alys watched Juju and the music teacher exit the room, and then she looked frantically for an escape route in case Darsee appeared. She wished Juju would hurry up with the payment.

Alys’s eyes flicked over the expensive rugs on the floor, the decadent black-crystal chandelier, the ebony-and-silver floor lamps flanking ivory sofas arranged in semicircles on either side of the room, the forest green silk cushions, and glass vases with white gladioli everywhere. She looked at the huge sepia watercolour of two young women gossiping in what looked like the Thar Desert, the only dashes of colour their ochre dupattas, and, on the opposite wall, the large abstract with swirls and shadows of coppers and russets suggesting a figure on a divan.

Jujeena returned with the remaining payment. Alys took it, sighing with relief that Darsee had not found her in his house. And then there he was, coming through the doors, dragging in a huge cardboard package.

‘Juju, guess—’ Darsee’s voice faded.

‘I didn’t know this was your house. I came to deliver the cake. Rose garden. Nona’s Nices. She’s my aunt. Nona is. I didn’t know this was your house. I’m leaving, though, so, bye, thank you.’

Alys was halfway to the car when she heard footsteps behind her.

‘Wait, Alys,’ Darsee called. ‘Come back. I’d like you to meet my sister.’

‘I can’t,’ Alys said. ‘My uncle and aunt are in the car and—’

‘Ask them to come in too,’ Darsee said, ‘please. You can’t come all the way here and then leave like this.’

Why not? Alys thought as she tapped on the car window and apprised Nona and Nisar of the situation. Suddenly there was Darsee next to her, inviting them in, using a tone of voice she’d never heard, a tone in direct opposition to the cold tone in which he’d spoken when he’d handed her his letter in the park. While the contents of the letter had certainly softened her assessment of him, Alys wondered what was causing him to so respectfully invite her family members inside for chai. It was always polite, of course, to offer guests, invited or uninvited, a cup of tea, but Darsee was insistent. He was holding open Nisar’s car door and leading him and Nona indoors and introducing them to Juju, who was putting away her sitar in a corner between two decorative tablas.

‘Juju,’ Darsee said, ‘this is Alys Binat and her uncle and aunt.’

‘Nona and Nisar Gardenaar,’ Alys said. ‘My uncle Nisar is my mother’s brother, the pulmonologist you may remember us mentioning when my sister twisted her ankle.’

Darsee’s blink was so rapid that no one save Alys noticed. And she only did because she was on the lookout for his disdain the second her mother and anyone related to her mother were mentioned. Instead, Darsee smiled at Nisar and Nona.

Alys was glad her aunt and uncle were doing her proud. They were not ones to be impressed by money and social status, and thus, instead of fawning over Darsee, they were treating him like an equal. Juju asked her to sit down. Alys sat down. Juju sat beside her and kept giving her shy glances.

Alys smiled at her. So this was the nervous young girl who’d been taken in by Wickaam and become pregnant and opted to have an abortion. Seeing Juju with her slumped shoulders and trusting smile and her gentle demeanour, Alys couldn’t help but feel protective. Shame on Wickaam for duping this girl. And shame on him for duping the maids who hadn’t even Juju’s privileges. But, then, Alys fully knew that the lure of a handsome face and flirtatious manners was one that could easily bridge class and prove equally irresistible to maid and mistress.

‘I love your kurti,’ Alys said to Juju. ‘The colour suits you.’

‘Really?’ Juju said. ‘Everyone always tells me that I look good in baby pink, so I wear it a lot. I like your T-shirt so much.’

Alys was wearing white linen trousers and a black T-shirt saying NOT YOUR AVERAGE AUNTY.