All Aboard!, page 10
‘Thank you,’ Rhea said to him, ‘For getting my wallet back, and for taking me back to my cabin yesterday.’
‘You don’t need to thank me. I did what anyone would have.’
‘Well, not many men would escort a drunk woman to her cabin and not take advantage of the situation.’
‘How do know I didn’t take advantage of you?’ he said softly, his eyes fixing themselves on hers. His gaze, when she met it, was softly mocking. ‘You were so ready to be taken advantage of.’
She gasped. ‘You didn’t! I would have known if you had.’
‘I didn’t. But that is not to say I wasn’t sorely tempted to . . .’ She gasped again. He laughed.
‘Don’t you dare!’ she said, her cheeks flaming into a brilliant red, realizing the little boy perched on his shoulders was listening in to the conversation with curious ears. ‘I told you I’m not looking for a holiday fling.’
‘I remember,’ he replied, smiling down at her with a look that was both a promise and a caress. ‘And I remember replying that neither was I.’
Flustered, she moved away towards where Rina Maasi had entered a shop. ‘Rina Maasi,’ she called out to her aunt tiredly, ‘Maybe what you really need to buy is a huge suitcase to keep all that you have bought already. How on earth are you going to carry everything back on the flight?’
‘Don’t worry,’ she said in the imperious manner she had of one who was used to getting her way. ‘I’ll find a way.’ Rhea shook her head, dreading the haul back—she would have to manage the entire luggage on her own, through the airports, given Rina Maasi’s dodgy knee and arthritic hands.
Rhea wasn’t buying anything, she barely had enough money to see her through day-to-day, and she had already spent a lot on the wedding that didn’t happen. Moreover, she had let go quite a few projects assuming she would be busy with the wedding and honeymoon, and later in setting up her new home. So now she was confronted with the hapless task of drumming up work when she got back. It was terrifying, not having enough money in the bank. Her parents were around, but they lived on pensions which did not extend to lavish handouts to their daughter. The thought of moving back home was scary. Perhaps she could take in a roommate, she told herself. There was space for a bed and a cupboard in the room that she called bedroom, although she valued her privacy and the ability to be completely alone for days if she chose not to see another living being. But now that she was without a full-time job and no reliable source of income, plus a broken engagement, her father might just wash his hands off her.
Nonetheless, she walked along with Naina and Rina Maasi through the shops as they oohed and aahed over jewellery made from the volcanic lava of Mount Etna, the stoles, and artefacts, including the triskelion wall decorations. Triskelion was the symbol of Sicily and Rina Maasi bought quite a few such decorations to gift others back home.
‘The problem with going on a trip,’ she said as she painstakingly counted out the money after driving Rhea mad by asking her to convert the price into rupees, ‘is to bring back enough souvenirs to give away without offending anyone.’
Kamal kept the kids entertained by getting them to chase the errant pigeons fluttering down into the square. On a sugar high since they had consumed more than their mandated level of chocolates, the children were soon tired and bored. ‘She hit me’, ‘He’s looking at me, see Mom, see, he’s looking at me’, were being whined in accusatory tones on a loop.
‘I should’ve tied my tubes when I got married,’ Naina mock complained as she deftly fended off the warring factions and kept them close at hand. Kamal hoisted Jay on his shoulders and quelled the squall with that one simple gesture.
‘I tell you,’ Naina continued, shooting a look of pure gratitude to her brother, ‘When you get married, don’t have kids. I’m joking of course. Have kids. But space them. Or keep the tranquilizers handy to down with the vodka when it gets too much to handle.’
Her forehead was delicately creased and there were faint purplish dark circles under her eyes. She shushed Kiara who was busy sticking out her tongue at Jay who, in turn, was happily riding on his uncle’s shoulders and mocking her back.
‘Now kids, if you continue doing that, a bird will swoop down and pluck your tongues out,’ Kamal boomed in a valiant effort to restore good behaviour in public. The kids continued whining about perceived favouritism. ‘She got to sit at the window’, ‘He got one extra piece of cake for dessert last night’, and so on. They would probably whine about who was allowed to stay in uterus a day longer too, Rhea thought uncharitably, she being an only child and not familiar with this such sibling rivalry. ‘He gets to sit on your shoulders all the time,’ Kiara sulked.
Rhea walked determinedly a few steps behind them, keenly aware of Kamal’s broad shoulders bearing Jay up in front of her, the sturdiness of the way he walked in his sandals and loose cotton trousers and shirt, the looseness doing nothing to conceal the measured perfection of his lean, muscular body.
‘Shall we have lunch? I’ve been surviving on too much gelato all day and my intestines are chilled to ice. I’m sure the kids must be starving too,’ Naina said. They were outside a lovely café on the main street with a great sea view and it seemed the most natural thing to do was to sit down, rest their weary feet and refuel. Naina and Rhea ordered some locally made almond wine and wood fire baked pizzas for all. Rina Maasi insisted on some pasta.
‘I’ve already eaten enough on this trip to double up as anchor if the ship loses hers,’ Naina confessed with a guilty laugh. There was no evidence of that on her slender frame, Rhea reassured her.
As they ate, Kamal played with the kids, keeping them chortling with laughter while Naina had her meal in peace. Jay went face first into his plate, shovelling in the nutrients with both his hands.
‘I finished everything,’ he said with pride after a frantic eating spree. ‘I can see that,’ Kamal replied, glancing at his plate that was clear and sparkling, with the exception of a careful pile of vegetables on one side. Jay then proceeded to chug down a glass of limoncello at breakneck speed.
In this charming restaurant, with the aroma of freshly cooked food thick in the air, she realized how she had actually enjoyed babysitting her younger cousins, she would create games for them to play, and how they waited for her to arrive so they could have a whale of a time. Where had that Rhea disappeared? As she watched Kamal play the mind-numbing game of Stone-Paper-Scissors for the umpteenth time, she wondered what kind of a father Kamal would make. What would it be like to have babies with him? To make babies with him? She squeezed her eyes shut.
Aaarggghhhh! No! She gulped swiftly from her glass. A couple of glasses of wine and she would successfully knock that thought out of her mind. But vague memories of the previous night came flooding back and she decided against more than one glass. She didn’t want to repeat her drunk act and have him think of her merely as a lush.
‘I wantu go to toilet,’ Kiara began whining, all the lemonade pressing on her bladder. Naina marched her firmly to the back of the restaurant and Rina Maasi decided to join them in the queue for the rest room. ‘It’s a long haul back to the ship and I will not be responsible for myself if I don’t get to a restroom immediately,’ she laughed.
‘Now I wantuhave ice cream,’ Jay announced firmly.
Kamal laughed. ‘Do you still have place in your stomach for ice cream?’ he asked the little fellow.
‘There’s always place in the stomach for ice cream,’ the tyke replied, jutting his chin out in defiance.
Kamal looked at Rhea. ‘Would you like some?’ he asked.
‘No, thanks,’ she shook her head to indicate a negative, ‘I’m good.’
‘Are you sure?’ he persisted.
‘I am.’
‘Then I will eat her share,’ Jay interjected.
His was a stubbornness that could not be denied.
‘Which flavour do you want,’ Kamal asked, and Jay unexpectedly stood up from his chair and groaned a little before heaving out all the contents of his hastily ingested lunch all over the floor.
‘And that,’ Kamal said as he sat him back on his chair and used a table napkin and a bottle of water to clean him up, ‘is what I was afraid of.’
The little fellow had the grace to look exceedingly sheepish and allowed himself to be cleaned up with a firm hand. Kamal looked up at Rhea and smiled, ‘I seem to be getting rather good at this.’
She blushed in mortification, but found herself admiring the calmness with which he handled the child.
‘Are you okay now, champ?’ asked the indulgent and concerned uncle once again. Jay nodded. ‘Now sit right here and no ice cream for you until your stomach settles down.’
‘Budwai, is nod fair, I finish vomiting now, I’m okay,’ Jay began protesting virulently, but was shushed down. ‘Because you just threw up all that you had eaten. If you eat anything more, you might bring it up again and we are a long way from the ship and have a long drive back. All I am going to allow you now are juices and water.’
He ruffled his nephew’s hair lovingly.
‘Okay Kamal Maama. I sit here quietly and be a very good boy.’
‘That’s my rockstar. And when we get back on the ship, you can eat all the ice cream you want, that’s a promise,’ Kamal pinched his own throat with his thumb and forefinger in the earnest gesture of the truthful. ‘Mother promise.’
‘If you don’t gimme, Naani will die you know. Den you’ll have no mudder.’
Kamal nodded in all seriousness and re-pinched his throat in reiteration.
Rhea couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the incongruous gesture. ‘Ah, finally, we get some sound out of you. You have been terribly quiet all day,’ Rina Maasi announced her return to the table. Looking around she declared that she must shop some more before their free time was up. The Colonel, who was nose deep into his third pint of beer, rose gallantly, offering to escort her to the stores down the street despite the rather pronounced limp that was definitely the result of a sore leg stump from all the walking around they had done since morning.
‘Want to come along with us, Rhea?’ she asked, a mere formality, given she was already on her way, ‘I know you detest shopping, so don’t feel obliged to come just to make an old lady happy.’
Rhea shook her head. ‘I’ll just wait here for you, Rina Maasi, I really have nothing to shop for.’ Except, perhaps, that one ring, she had spotted, tried on and kept back because she really couldn’t allow herself that indulgence. Samir had given her an engagement ring that had a couple of small diamonds set on it. After the fiasco, she flushed it down the toilet in anger. Without thinking, her right hand went to the spot where the ring used to be and she circled its invisible shadow. The emptiness on that finger once again reminded Rhea that she was no longer part of a couple, that Samir, whom she had begun to consider as a solid presence in her life was no longer part of it, and that she was all alone. Her skin drained itself of colour.
Kamal cast a quizzical look at the mock twirling of a phantom ring on her left hand. ‘I hope you are well and not going to hurl out your lunch too?’
‘I’m fine,’ she replied, still embarrassed about the previous night. ‘Don’t worry about me.’
He raised an eyebrow and half-smiled. ‘I won’t,’ he replied and turned towards Jay who was now raring to get back to running around at warp speed and knocking down innocent bystanders who happened to get in his way. Naina bustled back to the scene with a grumpy Kiara who had obviously had an accident with a faucet or the wash basin because the front of her dress was soaking wet. ‘Just the day I forget to pack along a change of clothes, look what she goes and does,’ Naina grumbled to no one in particular. Kamal laughed. ‘Don’t bother, it will dry soon enough. And by the way, Jay just vomited all he ate.’
Naina gasped and hurried to the little fellow who had found himself a comfortable spot on a bench outside the restaurant. Dangling his legs merrily, he surveyed everything around like a king.
‘Are you alright? What happened? Are you feeling sick now?’ his mother enveloped him in her arms and in a pile of questions.
He brushed off the maternal concern with an airy wave of his hand, ‘I am okay now and I want ice cream.’
Rhea interrupted despite herself, ‘Give the boy his ice cream Kamal. At the worst, he’ll hurl it up again.’
Kamal turned slowly to look at her. His gaze burned a hole into her eyes but she couldn’t understand his expression. ‘If you insist, I will, but first young man, your mother has to tell me it is okay.’
‘Mamma,’ Jay whined, ‘Please can I have ice cream?’
The indulgent mother erred on the side of caution. ‘When we get back to the ship, perhaps, but I would like some, Kamal.’
As Kamal rose from his chair and took a step towards the gelato counter, Jay pulled him back by his trouser and beckoned him to bend down to his eye level.
‘Is this the aunty you are getting married to?’ Jay’s eyes were earnest and enquiring as his finger pointed with no sense of restraint at Rhea, who in turn felt her cheeks go ablaze with a furiously embarrassed blush.
‘No, of course not,’ Kamal said in a brusque, clipped tone. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
Jay cocked his head and continued unabashedly, ‘Because when she tole you to ged me ice cream, you agreed. You never lissen to mamma or naani.’
‘Well, you got that wrong, young man. I was just feeling sorry for you because you were sick. Now, don’t worry too much about who I am getting married to.’
‘But naani is always being worried about when you will marry to an aunty. And she said she hoped you weren’t thinking of marrying that snake. Why were you marrying a snake, Kamal Maama?’
‘I’m not marrying anyone, champ, snake or human,’ Kamal said patiently. ‘Let’s have a deal. You choose who I should get married to, okay?’
‘Okay, marry to this aunty, she is priddy and I like her,’ Jay replied in an instant.
Kamal laughed aloud before striding away briskly to get the gelato. Rhea stood rooted to the spot, embarrassed at the conversation that took place right in front of her.
Naina broke in apologetically. ‘I’m sorry about that. Kids, you know, they come up with the most random statements. Please don’t mind.’
‘Of course not,’ Rhea replied. She sighed and looked into the distance where Kamal was standing at a stall. He entered a small shop, the one she had visited along with Naina a short while ago.
‘He doesn’t discuss anything with us, neither with my mother, nor with me. He’s reserved that way,’ Naina continued about her brother. ‘But I know the girl Jay referred to as “snake”. She’s actually a family friend, a lovely girl, but I don’t know what went wrong between the two of them. Amid all that confusion, I returned home. My divorce came through and as you can imagine I really needed a break, to get away from everything for a while. So, here we are. Perhaps this is a getaway that he needed too.’ She stopped at this point and gave Rhea a quick and assessing gaze that made her go red all over again. ‘Please don’t let him know I discussed this with you, he will get mad with me. But I would hate to see him get into any casual relationship just as a rebound. He is a good guy. He deserves a good woman.’
Was that a warning to stay away from her brother, Rhea wondered. Was that Naina’s way of telling her to keep off?
‘I’m sure he does,’ she replied, non-committal, as the man being discussed strolled back with two ice creams in his hands.
The tour guide rounded them up. Rina Maasi clambered on the bus happily, carrying a bag packed with carefully wrapped ceramic masks that she had set her eyes on and telling everyone how she got a good deal and that no matter where in the world you were, you should never be ashamed to bargain. ‘I’ve kept the ugliest one for your mother and I will insist she puts it up in the living room,’ she laughed at the thought and then continued kindly, ‘So did you have a good time today?’ patting Rhea’s knee as she sat next to her on the bus.
‘Yes, I did Rina Maasi,’ Rhea replied dutifully, unwilling to tell her that her heart was still broken and that she had torn it apart some more by falling for this infuriatingly handsome man with a chiselled jaw and questioning eyes.
By the time they reached the ship, the sun was low on the horizon and it was time to cast off from the port they were anchored at. As they moved onto the vessel, their feet became weary, and the two children slept in the arms of their mother and uncle. Just then a cry, ‘Kamaaaal!’ rang through the air.
Kamal stopped in his tracks. Naina turned around slowly and so did Rhea. Running towards them was perhaps the most beautiful woman Rhea had ever seen in her life.
‘Sonia . . .’ Naina said, breaking the silence that descended on the company upon seeing this vision in their midst. ‘Fancy seeing you here!’
Sonia threw her head back and laughed merrily. ‘Yes, fancy seeing me here. It took some organizing but I could finally catch up with you and board the ship here.’
She looked familiar and Rhea could finally place her. Sonia Mehrotra, a well known face in the Mumbai society pages, a patron of the arts, an occasional fashion designer, and hailing from an old, wealthy family. Naina remembered her manners and did the introductions gracefully.
‘Soni Ma’am, Rhea, Colonel Singh, meet Sonia, Kamal’s girlfriend. Sonia, this is Soni Ma’am, Kamal’s school headmistress, her niece Rhea, and Colonel Singh from Chandigarh.’
They smiled politely at each other and Rhea managed to say her ‘Hello, pleased to meet you’ in a normal tone without revealing the sudden churning that was occurring in her intestines.
Kamal, having now transferred the sleeping Jay to his other arm, spoke looking directly at Rhea, ‘Actually, she’s now my ex-girlfriend.’
NINE
Rina Maasi entered the cabin and collapsed on her bed, exhausted and drained. ‘Can you imagine, Kamal has also gone through a break-up. This ship is full of young people with broken hearts,’ she sighed. Rhea made a face. She was glad when her aunt announced she was going to take a nap.
