When my gaze met his, I saw a reflection of what had to be my own expression.
Andrew’s smile was lugubrious. ‘There’s some stuff I need to tell you,’ he said.
My back straightened, and I leaned forward. He wanted to talk about us!
‘Noelene had been in a relationship with a man above her station.’
I blinked.
‘She was 22, and he was 25, he couldn’t marry her, he was always honest about that. Noelene was sure she would get him to change his mind.’
In journalism, I was taught that every story came with an intro. ‘Who?’ I asked. I meant, what.
‘He married shortly after, and they continued to meet clandestinely. Noelene’s lover was generous with money, and initially, his time, too. Then Noelene becamepregnant,’ Andrew said, pausing briefly. ‘Their daughter, Sarah Ann, died 20 years later in childbirth.’
She was his mother! Sarah… Sarah something… Sarah Ann. Oh god! Andrew laid out the facts like it was the loose sketch of a film script.
He took a sip from his glass. I took a gulp.
I waited before asking, ‘Have you met him, your biological grandfather?’
Andrew shook his head before taking another sip and placing the glass on the table.
‘Does he still live in Bengaluru?’
Andrew shrugged before picking up the shakers.
Andrew had asked Noelene about his mother. She had told him that Sarah Ann had passed away when she was giving birth to him.
‘I didn’t like the sound of what I had heard. I remember that clearly,’ Andrew said. ‘I was just a boy, so I pressed. I asked if my father had been upset with me at the passing away of his wife.’
I was nodding, but I wanted to cry.
‘Noelene told me my father didn’t know that my mother was with a child,’ he said. ‘Much later, I understood that to mean that my mother didn’t know who exactly the father of her child was.’ There was a pause, a pronounced one, before he added, ‘Maybe she didn’t want to know, my mother was stubborn.’
‘So unlike you, Andrew!’
Andrew laughed out loud.
At that moment, it occurred to me that Andrew’s ‘rejection’ comment was linked to his roots.
I thought it was rejection that Andrew had told me on the evening he had caught me on my run.
‘I want you to read something,’ Andrew said, passing me his iPhone. He had been fiddling with it for a while.
I wondered briefly if it was the one Meena had bought him almost a decade ago.
I laughed. Sometimes, in the middle of a difficult discussion, I laugh. It’s a release.
‘What’s funny?’
I flicked my hand at the testy bloke beside me, telling him there was something on my mind. He didn’t ask me what it was but said, ‘I have no dates. It must’ve been the early forties.’
I reached for a glass of water before seizing his phone. I was looking at a photograph; it was a handwritten paragraph on parchment paper.
I looked up at Andrew.
‘This is a diary of a young girl. Her name is Bhumika Velu. I think she was a friend of my great-grandmother, Catherine.’
