What?I didn’t ask.
‘No, not sell Noelene’s story. That was her truth to tell, but I wanted to know it, and I wanted to be able to tell you if you asked me.’
I wanted to say something, but my head drew a blank.
‘It’s hard to tell, I know, because it’s all happening in someone’s head. And for the most part, I could pass off as a perfectly well-adjusted character. The dents are not really significant, or not yet so.’
I nodded.
‘When I found the signature on the piece of notepaper at the bottom of the watch box, I passed out…’
‘Andrew,’ I breathed.
‘After the Coonoor trip, I must’ve read Bhumika’s notes at least a hundred times. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen what you had.’
I was smiling. It was weak.
Andrew’s hand was patting mine. ‘That’s not on you, baby; it was me, what I was going through.’
I wrapped my hands around his.
‘It started with Auntie’s funeral…’ He was breathing heavily. ‘I had lost her, too…’
It was my mother. She.
Andrew smiled. He knew what I was thinking.
‘That’s as far back as I could take it at therapy.’
Now that he was spelling it out, it was true that Andrew 2.0 was more open to talking about his family, at least with me. More than he did when we were in college, which wasn’t saying much, but there was a substantial shift in posture.
‘When we lost her, your mother, there was a kind of dread that had set in me. It was instant. I felt it right then; I still do sometimes, but I didn’t know at the time.’ He wasspeaking slowly, easily, but his face was changing colour. ‘Then, when you didn’t answer my calls or messages, I started panicking. Meena was a panic reaction… I was so scared, so alone, I just needed something, someone familiar.’
I could see where he was coming from.
‘I’m not making excuses. I’m taking responsibility,’ Andrew said. His eyes were as clear as a running stream. ‘Then, when you found out about Meena, I couldn’t get why it was such a big deal to you. In my head, it was all about me. It was I who had lost, I had no one, and this “grandfather”… he didn’t want the woman he had a child with or the child herself… Why would he want me? I just couldn’t get over my family, the choices they had made.’
I wanted to ask him why he hadn’t told me about this in Bengaluru last month.
Neha had made it known to Andrew during telephone conversations that he had a problem. She thought he was slipping into depression, and Google was telling me his lawyer pal wasn’t wrong.
‘That phone call after Neha returned to London wasn’t the first time she had brought it up with me,’ Andrew said. ‘Once, in New York, I hadn’t eaten the whole day and I hadn’t realized until my body reacted violently, late the following day. She said I had become a lot quieter than I was in college and that I would swing between checking out in the middle of conversations or make it all about myself. I became conscious around her, tried not to speak about myself, hiding the symptoms. I let go when they visited in November. Maybe it was that… you were to be engaged.’
I smiled. It was an empty smile.
‘Distraught was the word she had used.’
I could taste my tears. ‘That’s a nice compliment.’
Andrew laughed. ‘I was on the edge all the time. It was exhausting.’
Andrew 2.0 was angrier; that I could tell now.
‘Neha fixed me with this elderly lady, Mrs Mathew. She’s the aunt of someone she knew. She lives a couple of buildings from me.’
‘Do you need medication?’
‘She considered it briefly, but I have been doing some writing and meditation, and that’s helping. She says we caught it very early.’
