by Helen Harris
He didn’t pay Smita any particular attention which slightly surprised her. She would have thought that at some point they would have quietly had the Gujarati conversation; so where exactly is your family from and when did they leave and do you still have family over there and all that stuff. But maybe in the US people didn’t do that, maybe that was just a Leicester thing to do and probably Abi had moved so far away from that whole world that he wouldn’t dream of asking those questions. Maybe he didn’t want to seem to be favouring Smita either.
In London, Jeremy was having a difficult week and made no effort to spare Smita any of it. He had an awful cold, the washing machine was leaking and he sent her a stream of complaining text messages which irritated her no end. Did he not realise she had to focus on work while she was over here? Did he have to keep distracting her with his irritating petty little whinges? Who cared if the plumber had kept him waiting or if his cold was worse today than yesterday? Smita sent back a series of snappy unsympathetic replies.
On her last afternoon, Abi stopped at her desk and asked if she had plans for the evening.
She said, “Not really” which made him laugh.
“Do you or don’t you?” he insisted. “Because I was going to ask you to have dinner with me but if you’ve got other plans –”
“No,” Smita said, flustered. “No, nothing that can’t wait.”
“Seriously,” Abi said, “I don’t want to get in the way of any arrangements you have. I know I’ve left it really late to ask you.”
He waited and even though he was being so polite and so considerate, Smita started to feel unaccountably pressured.
“No,” she answered quickly. “It’s fine, really. I wasn’t planning to do anything which can’t wait till next time.”
“Sure?” Abi asked again, smiling and when Smita nodded and smiled back, he suggested a restaurant and a time and she agreed to that too.
She felt ridiculously apprehensive as she got dressed in her hotel room. She wasn’t even sure if she was dressing for a work dinner or a date. Of course, it would have been utterly uncool to blurt out, “You do know I’m married, don’t you?” when Abi invited her. The dinner was almost certainly a work thing and she would just have totally embarrassed both of them. Besides wasn’t there the beautiful Gujarati-American wife waiting for him in the suburbs? She was just fantasising because she was in New York and he was so good-looking.
The restaurant Abi had selected was miles away. It was in the Meatpacking district, a long taxi ride and, having no idea how long the ride would take or how heavy the traffic would be, Smita ended up arriving twenty-five minutes late.
Abi was waiting for her, on his Blackberry but enjoying a glass of wine.
“I’m so sorry,” she exclaimed as she rushed in but Abi couldn’t have been nicer.
“It’s my fault,” he said, “for not having told you how long to allow to get here. You seem so at home here; half the time I forget you’re from London.”
Smita felt flattered. She handed her coat to a waiter, sat down and ordered a drink. As she sipped it, she regained her composure. It was too late now for any calls or text messages from London to detract from her evening. It was obvious from the way Abi was acting – smooth, polite, slightly formal – that her fears had been misplaced, ridiculous. This was going to be a work dinner and she was going to perform absolutely the best she could.
Things stayed that way for most of the meal; they talked about work, about their strategy for the new clients and some training needs which Abi had identified in the London office. But afterwards, when Abi ordered coffee and Smita mint tea, unexpectedly everything changed.
“So,” Abi said – and naturally it would be he who took the lead – “enough about work. Tell me about yourself, Smita” and suddenly she didn’t know what to say.
“Well,” she began, hating sounding so conventional, “I’m married, I’ve been married for five years now and I’ve got a little boy who’s just two.”
“Two?” Abi said. “Phew, hard work.”
So he had children himself, Smita thought. “How about you?” she asked, she hoped casually.
Abi pulled a long face. “I’m divorced, I’m afraid,” he answered. “Got married too young, to the wrong girl, the usual story.”
Smita said, “I’m sorry” although actually she found the news rather exciting. “Do you have any children?”
Abi’s face brightened. “I’ve got a beautiful little girl called Alisha who just turned six. She lives with her mother of course but luckily I get to see her pretty often.”
Smita asked, “Does she live in New York?”
Abi nodded. “Just outside. A train ride. It’s not a problem.” He drank his coffee. “So, what does your husband do?”
“He works for the BBC,” Smita said. That bit was easy.
Abi made an impressed sound. “Is he a journalist?”
“No,” Smita said, “no, he’s a producer.”
Abi said, “Uh-huh.” He seemed to lose concentration briefly and then he asked, “So tell me about your lives over there. I don’t know London that well. Where do you live? What do you like to do for relaxation? What does a cool young British Asian couple get up to on weekends?”
Smita said, “My husband’s not Asian by the way.” She had always called herself Smita Mehta at work, she had never really got used to being Mrs Garland so, it’s true; how would Abi know?
“Oh really?” Abi said. “Neither was my ex-wife.”
Smita wanted to ask, “Was that part of why you ended up getting divorced?” but she didn’t dare. Instead she asked neutrally, “What was she?”
“She’s American,” Abi answered. “I was exotic, she was the all-American girl, you know the script.”
He looked unhappy for a few moments and Smita wondered desperately what she could safely say.
“Your daughter’s got an Indian name,” she ventured.
Abi grinned ruefully. “Well, a name which works both ways; if you just heard it, it could be A-l-i-c-i-a. You know what, next time round, if there‘s a next time round, maybe I’ll take my mother’s advice for a change.”
“An arranged marriage?” Smita suggested jokingly.
Abi grinned. “Who knows? Anyways, listen, it’s getting late. You’re flying tomorrow. We should be on our way, I guess.”
He settled the bill, helped Smita on with her coat and saw her into a taxi. There was no physical contact between them, no kiss. Yet, as Smita rode back to the hotel, she felt the evening had ended ambiguously; she still wasn’t sure if it had been a work dinner or a date.
But sitting in the airport the next morning, waiting for her flight to be called, she felt unbelievably guilty, guilty out of all proportion to what she had actually done. In the context of a work trip, having dinner with your boss was, after all, a completely normal thing to do. But she knew perfectly well what she had done wrong. It was what Jeremy would no doubt call, in his prissy pompous way, “a sin of omission rather than commission”, repeating one of his mother’s silly sayings. When Abi had asked Smita, towards the end of the evening, if she and her English husband were happy together, instead of just snapping, “Yes,” she had only shrugged.
The nearer they got to the bus stop, the more of a fuss Anand made. It was true, the long double bus ride back to Jeremy’s new flat in Kilburn was a bore, especially for a four year old. But Anand didn’t usually make a fuss. He rather liked buses and, even though Sylvia found it quite a challenge nowadays to make it up to the top deck, provided they could sit upstairs, Anand was usually perfectly well-behaved. Something seemed to have got into him today. First he walked slower and slower, dragging his feet infuriatingly, scuffing his shoes. Then he made himself heavier and heavier, hanging from Sylvia’s aching arm rather than holding her hand until she was virtually dragging him along. “Oh for goodness sake Anand,” she scolded him eventually, “I’m going to end up with one arm much longer than the other if you carry on like this.” Finall
y, he set up the most aggravating repetitive whine, “I don’t want to go to Daddy’s, I don’t want to go to Daddy’s, I-don’t-want-to-go-to-Daddy’s.” They were within sight of the bus stop by now. As Sylvia automatically checked the numbers of the buses which stopped there, she happened to notice the number of a bus which went directly to Maida Vale and the perfect solution popped neatly into her head.
“I know what we’ll do,” she said brightly to Anand. “You don’t have nursery tomorrow morning, do you? You can come home with me.”
Anand’s scowl vanished to be replaced by a look of calculating suspicion which Sylvia didn’t like to see on the face of such a small child.
“To sleep over?” he asked warily. “I don’t have any pyjamas at your house.”
“Actually,” Sylvia said smugly, “you do. You just haven’t worn them yet.”
“What are they like?” Anand asked suspiciously. “They’re not flowery like yours, are they?”
“Of course not,” Sylvia said indignantly. “What d’you take me for? They’ve got frogs on them.”
“Really?” Anand asked. “Frog pyjamas?”
“Yes,” Sylvia said. “Really. And there are frog slippers to go with them too.” Anand considered. “What would I have for my supper?”
Sylvia thought her way quickly round her rather empty fridge. “Soft boiled egg with bread and butter soldiers,” she answered, “and one of Grandma’s special treats for after.”
“And,” Anand asked, “would I get a bedtime story?”
Again, Sylvia was indignant. “Of course you’d get a bedtime story, Anand. Don’t you always?”
“Not always. Not if Mummy’s busy or Daddy’s tired. Sometimes I just get a conversation.”
“Well,” Sylvia said firmly, “at my house, you’d most definitely have a bedtime story, several even.”
Anand asked, “How many?”
If the bus hadn’t come along so quickly, Sylvia might have got cold feet. What she was doing was, after all, obviously wrong. But the bus to Maida Vale came almost the minute they reached the bus stop. Anand yelped with excitement and Sylvia didn’t really have time to think about the consequences of her impulsive act.
They clambered aboard. Anand touched Sylvia’s Oyster card to the reader and then ran eagerly upstairs. Sylvia followed him with difficulty; had the steps of the stairs always been this high? When she finally hauled herself up to the top deck and stood there panting, scanning the rows for an empty seat, Anand had completely disappeared. For a second, Sylvia was panic-stricken until she realised that he had found a pair of empty seats near the back of the bus and sat down and promptly become invisible. His small black head bobbed up and he waved and called cheerily, “Here, Grandma, here” and several passengers smiled indulgently. Proudly, Sylvia took her seat next to him. She didn’t tell him off for having run ahead because after all, on a bus, it was hardly a risk, was it?
Anand had the seat by the window, Sylvia had the aisle. Secretly, Sylvia hoped that the bus would get so crowded she would have to take Anand on her lap but it didn’t happen. They sat companionably side by side, Anand keeping up a steady running commentary on what he could see from the window and Sylvia regaining her breath after the stairs. She would have to call Jeremy and confess what she had done pretty soon after they got back. Jeremy almost always got home by six on the afternoons she spent with Anand so she must make sure to phone him soon after that so he wouldn’t worry. She felt apprehensive and guilty. Yet, on the other hand, what had she actually done wrong? A doting grandmother taking her grandson home with her for the night; what could be more natural than that?
Anand seemed perfectly happy as they made their way back along Sutherland Avenue. The front doors all looked exactly the same and he kept asking playfully, “Is this one your door Grandma? Is this one?”
They let themselves into Sylvia’s normally deathly quiet apartment and straight away it became lively and noisy. Even the dull rooms seemed suddenly brighter. Anand was excited to see his frog pyjamas and his frog slippers and then he wanted to have his bath straight away, before supper, so he could put them on. Suddenly, Sylvia noticed it was nearly seven o’clock and she still hadn’t got round to ringing Jeremy. Leaving Anand playing happily in the bath with the family of inflatable turtles, she went hunting for her mobile phone to see if Jeremy had left her any messages. Oh blow, she hadn’t remembered to switch it on.
Full of dire foreboding, she rang him on her home phone. She couldn’t be bothered to switch on the wretched mobile, to tap in her code – which she could never seem to get right – and wait for that silly little electronic fanfare which told you it was ready. Since when had machines started to trumpet the fact that they were ready to work? It was nothing to be proud of; they were machines.
Jeremy picked up straight away. He was livid. “Where the hell are you? I was worried sick.”
“Why on earth should you worry?” Sylvia asked evenly. “You knew Anand was perfectly safe with me.”
“I didn’t know anything,” Jeremy answered angrily. “I couldn’t get through to you on your phone. I kept ringing and ringing. It was incredibly worrying; anything could have happened.”
“Well, all’s well that ends well,” Sylvia said soothingly. “We’re both absolutely hunky-dory. I’m just sorry I forgot to turn my phone on and you got yourself into such a state. Silly me.”
“But where are you?” Jeremy demanded. “When are you intending to get back?”
“Well,” Sylvia said, “actually we’re at my flat.”
Jeremy nearly shouted. “What?”
“There’s no need to shout Jeremy,” Sylvia said reprovingly. “We’re at my flat. Anand’s going to spend the night here, if that’s alright with you?”
“Are you mad?” Jeremy shouted. “Anand has to spend the night here with me. It’s in the access arrangements. You can’t just ride roughshod over a legal agreement. What’s got into you?”
Sylvia couldn’t make head or tail of what Jeremy was talking about. Defensively, she said, “I don’t understand why you’re making such a fuss, Jeremy. Anand wanted to come and spend the night here.” Meanly, she added, “He kept saying, “I don’t want to go to Daddy’s.”
There was a hurt silence at the other end. Then Jeremy said, with an obvious effort, “It’s very hard on him, all this to-ing and fro-ing and compartmentalization: Mummy’s place, Daddy’s place.”
Sylvia wanted to say sharply, “Well, shouldn’t you both have thought about that before splitting up?” but she feared the consequences. Instead, she said brightly, “So it’s probably the perfect solution for him to come to me from time to time. He’s certainly having a whale of a time.”
“Don’t you understand?” Jeremy burst out. “He can’t stay the night with you. In the access arrangements, he spends one night midweek and every other weekend with me. And that’s where he has to be. Otherwise the whole thing breaks down and it’ll have to be renegotiated – which, I hardly need to tell you, will be a nightmare. I’m afraid you’re going to have to bring him back.”
“But I can’t,” Sylvia cried out. “He’s having such a lovely time Jeremy. I’ve got new frog pyjamas for him and we’ve got a special supper planned and then dozens of bedtime stories. I can’t just bring him back. He’ll be devastated.”
“Listen,” Jeremy said furiously. “If Anand spends the night at your flat and Smita gets to hear about it which she certainly will – we can hardly ask a four year old to keep secrets from his mother – then she will probably go straight to her solicitor and want to change the access arrangements and that will delay the divorce even further and basically you will have screwed everything up for everybody. So please, however much of a fuss he kicks up, you need to bring him back here now. You know what, put him on the phone.”
“I can’t,” Sylvia said triumphantly. “He’s in the bath.”
“In the bath?” Jeremy yelled. “For Christ’s sake! He’s been in the bath the whole time we’v
e been talking and you haven’t gone to check on him once? Is he ok? Go and have a look.”
“Oh honestly Jeremy,” Sylvia tutted. “There’s really no need to make such a fuss. He’s four, not a tiny baby.” Still she called down the corridor, “Everything alright Anand dear?”
There was absolute silence.
“Did he answer?” Jeremy panicked. “Did he answer? Is he alright?”
“For goodness sake Jeremy,” Sylvia said condescendingly. “Do stop making such a dreadful fuss. I’ll go and look in on him if it makes you happy.”
She virtually ran down the corridor. Anand was absorbed in an extremely splashy game which involved the smallest turtle swimming at high speed from his Mummy at one end of the bath to his Daddy at the other. The bath had obviously overflowed a number of times already.
She went back to the phone. “He’s fine,” she reported, hoping Jeremy wouldn’t notice the catch in her voice.
“So get him out of the bath,” Jeremy said tersely, “and bring him back here.”
“But Jeremy,” Sylvia said reproachfully, “what are you thinking of? Are you seriously suggesting I bring him in his pyjamas on the bus? Or put him back into his dirty clothes after his bath? And what about his supper? It’s already late for him to be eating.”
“Look,” Jeremy said. “I can see you’ve created a pretty problematic situation – and not for the first time, needless to say. But unless you want to totally mess up everyone’s plans for the foreseeable future, you’re going to have to stick to the access arrangements which have been agreed with the solicitors just like everybody else. Anand has to spend tonight with me.”
The bathroom door was thrown open and Anand emerged, naked, golden and dripping wet.
“Who’re you talking to?” he asked suspiciously.
