I smiled. What else had he told them about me?
‘Did you live in the US, too?’ Ashish asked.
Was he confusing me with Meena?
Just then, the doorbell went off. I turned to look at Andrew, who was excusing himself again. Our eyes met andwe held the gaze for a few seconds before he signalled to me that the food had arrived.
He collected a gigantic hot box of mutton biryani and another modest-sized container of capsicum rice and headed to the kitchen, where Ashish and I joined him.
‘You don’t cook these days, bro?’ Ashish asked, telling me that Andrew made the best vindaloo he had ever eaten. He was a regular in the kitchen in college apparently.
‘Only occasionally. I have a lady coming in most evenings for the daily stuff,’ he said. ‘The hours in journalism are not very different from law, but they are more definite in the second half of the day, so I’d rather she’s here when I’m not.’
‘No one to cook for?’ Ashish asked, winking at me.
‘He’s really good,’ Neha said, joining us. ‘I’ve eaten plenty of his cooking,’ she continued, pointing at her generous frame.
Neha had settled herself on the counter and was filling her plate with the biryani. ‘Just checking to see if everything is pukka,’ she said, winking at her friend.
I headed to the dining room with table mats, leaving the friends to their banter.
My father was on the balcony with one of the older men. It was 11.30 p.m., well past his bedtime, and though he may not have been particularly hungry, it was better he ate something sooner than later.
The view from the seventh floor was exhilarating, the better part of Bengaluru at a time when she flowed easily. The skies, like the roads, had cleared. I could see my office even.
I stayed there for a few minutes after my father walked back to the party, promising to eat. When I turned to checkif he had helped himself, I saw him on the sofa with a sparsely filled plate. Neha had joined him.
Andrew walked across the long, rectangular room to me. ‘Do you like it?’ he asked. His eyes were bright with hope.
‘Like home,’ I said.
The old place, even in that shabby state, had possessed a living, breathing quality. A sagacity that comes with having seen life. It was dented, not bowed. Maybe it was the showcase or the bare walls or the trees on the grounds that hadn’t been uprooted. Andrew had managed to dispel the darkness but retain the essential character of the house he was born in.
‘I love it, too,’ he said.
We were both looking out, watching the gentle ebb and flow of a rain-soaked Bengaluru.
‘I had asked for the gulmohars to be retained,’ he said. We had spent many a Saturday afternoon on its fiery orange carpet. Not playing chess.
I nodded.
My father was walking towards us; we spotted him together.
‘It was a mistake,’ Andrew said. ‘My life’s biggest regret.’ Even in the dullness of the lighting, I could read the regret on that beautiful face. It was etched on the just-forming lines.
‘Andrew,’ my father said, patting him on his back. Andrew’s arms went around my father’s shoulders, it was halfway to a hug.
It was then that the question popped into my head.What exactly did Andrew Brown regret? His affair with Meena for what it had done to him or what it had cost us?
Chapter 24
I was marching, shoulders square, arms swinging, across the CBD, unconscious of its sweep and fall, high streets and winding alleys. I had been at it for over an hour. The sun was beating down, but I was in no mood to let the road outlast me. I was stampeding it, on my way to an Olympic record on block heels.
I was cogitating Andrew’sregret, the why of it.
It was I who had brought up Meena, not Andrew. Would he have told me about their relationship had I not found out?
Was the contrition courtesy the affair gone wrong, or was it because of what it cost us?
