The Midnight Rose

by Lucinda Riley

‘I didn’t. I knew you didn’t like them.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Ari countered, ‘if I remember rightly, when you said you were moving in with me, they told you never to darken their doorstep again. I thought you weren’t too keen on them either.’

  She stared at him, her huge dark eyes filling with tears. ‘They’re my parents, Ari. I have missed them and felt guilty every day for letting them down.’

  ‘Letting them down?’ Ari stared at her. ‘What do you mean? You took a decision they didn’t like, that’s all.’

  ‘I . . .’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘Ari, I think you are very different to me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now.’ She shrugged sadly. ‘I don’t want to fight.’

  ‘Lali, what is this all about? Come on, spit it out.’

  She paused, then took a deep breath in preparation. ‘I’m moving back in with my parents, Ari. I’m only here to collect my things.’

  ‘Right. Is this new arrangement for a night? A month? Or forever?’

  ‘Forever. I’m sorry.’

  ‘So, what you’re actually trying to say is that you’re leaving me?’ Ari confirmed, finally understanding.

  ‘Yes. I don’t want an argument or any discussion. I just want to collect my stuff and go.’

  Ari could see she was shaking with emotion. He nodded slowly. ‘Okay. Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?’

  ‘Yes. There’s nothing left to say. I’ll go and start packing.’

  He watched her as she turned away from him and left the room. He wasn’t too concerned; they’d been here before. However, the idea of her moving back in with her parents – who had never liked him – was not a satisfactory one. He got up from the table and followed her downstairs to the bedroom.

  ‘Lali, pyari, I can see you’re very upset, but I really think we should talk. As a matter of fact, I was going to suggest that you come with me to Europe. You’re right, we do need a break, some time together.’

  ‘There will be no time, Ari, there never is. You’ll spend your days in meetings and I will wait for you at the hotel. And when you come in, you’ll be too tired to do anything but sleep.’ Lali dragged a suitcase from the bottom of the wardrobe, heaved it onto the bed and went to the chest of drawers. She began throwing its contents into the case.

  ‘Lali.’ Ari moved towards her to hug her. ‘I—’

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ she cried as she dodged out of his embrace and went back to the wardrobe to remove her clothes from their hangers.

  ‘Lali, what is it you’re upset about? Please, tell me. I love you, you know I do, pyari, I don’t want you to go.’

  ‘No.’ She looked up at him then, her expression one of sadness. ‘I believe you. But I have to, for me.’ Lali lowered her head and her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘But why? I thought we were okay, and things have been good recently. I—’

  ‘I know you think they’ve been okay,’ she said as she zipped up the suitcase, then took a holdall and began putting the toiletries from her dressing table inside it. ‘Ari, this is not your fault. It’s just the way it is.’

  ‘You’re talking in riddles, sweetheart, and I don’t get what you’re trying to say. If it’s not my fault, then whose fault is it?’

  Lali paused and gave a long sigh, staring off into the distance. ‘We both want different things from our lives, that’s all. I want marriage, children and a husband who can find some time in his day to enjoy being with me.’ Her gaze moved towards him and she gave the ghost of a smile. ‘All you want is success and money. I hope it brings you the contentment you think it will. Now,’ Lali said as she closed the holdall and dragged the suitcase from the bed, ‘my father is waiting downstairs for me. I must go.’ She fished in the pocket of her jeans and brought out a key ring. ‘Here are the keys to the apartment and the car.’ Putting them on the dressing table, she looked at him. ‘Goodbye, Ari. I will always love you and wish for your happiness.’

  Ari stood, mesmerised, as Lali wheeled her bags out of the bedroom and dragged them up the stairs. He heard the front door close behind her before he was prompted into action. He ran out of the apartment and saw the lift doors closing on her.

  ‘Lali!’ He slammed his fist on the button to reopen them, but the lift had already begun its descent. Ari slowly walked back inside his apartment, closed the door behind him and leaned against it. Surely she didn’t mean it? Perhaps this was merely a ruse to finally get him to marry her. Well, if it was, he thought determinedly, it wouldn’t work. He didn’t respond to blackmail.

  Besides, he thought, it was doubtful that she would last two minutes at her parents’ shack. They didn’t even have running water, for God’s sake, and she’d have to share a room with her four younger siblings. After the life she’d been used to with him, she wasn’t going to like it at all.

  Anger was replacing shock now, as he thought of what he’d done for her. She had always said she didn’t care about material possessions. That if he’d been camping in an illegal shack on the beach selling fenugreek for a few rupees a day, it wouldn’t have mattered for it was him she loved.

  ‘Well,’ he said out loud to the silent apartment, ‘once she’s been at her parents’ for a while, we’ll see if that’s true.’

  With a new defiance, and realising that he was late, Ari picked up his car keys and left for the office.

  A week later, Ari wasn’t feeling quite so gung-ho. Lali had made no contact since she had left and he, despite having relished the thought of time spent uninterrupted on his computer catching up properly on work, had spent most of it staring out of his huge windows, watching the families on the crowded beach below screaming in delight as they entered the choppy sea.

  The truth was, he missed her. He missed her far more than he could ever have imagined. Numerous times he had picked up his cellphone and dialled her number, but then his pride had refused to let the number connect. She was the one who had left him, it told him. And it was Lali who must make contact first. He wouldn’t give her a hard time, he thought. He would listen to her apology, take her back without a word and then, in his own time, ask her to marry him. He’d let her win . . .

  But as the days had worn on, Ari’s resolve had started to weaken. He wished that night, as he sat alone in his large, empty apartment, that he could talk to someone about his dilemma, ask their advice. But try as he might, he could think of no one he was close enough to who might listen. He had been too busy in the past few years to make an effort to keep in contact with his childhood friends, and since he had refused to attend Anahita’s funeral ten years ago, his relationship with his parents and siblings had deteriorated. Nowadays, he would call home once a month at most, and speak to whoever answered, asking after their health and if there was any news. Even his mother, when it was she who picked up the call, sounded cool and distant. And none of his family ever called him spontaneously any more.

  They’ve given up on me, he thought with a sigh as he made his way downstairs to the big lonely bed. He climbed under the sheet and lay there with his hands behind his head, wondering how it was that before Lali had left, there never seemed to be enough time for anything. But now that she was no longer here, the evening hours dragged past like a slowly shifting fog.

  The following morning, facing a long, empty weekend, Ari made up his mind. He’d have to swallow his pride and go after her. Girding his loins, he dialled her cellphone number and, for the first time, waited for it to connect without ending the call. But instead of hearing Lali’s cheerful voice asking the caller to leave a message, there was a monotonous drone that indicated the number was no longer in use.

  For the first time since Lali had walked out, Ari felt a faint tingle of fear clutch at his heart. Up until now, he had been convinced that he was merely involved in a battle of wills which he’d been prepared to lose graciously. It had never struck him for an instant that Lali might actually be serious about ending their relationship. />
  Ari tried her cellphone again but received the same sound. As panic began to rise within him, he thought of how he might actually find her. He only knew that her parents lived somewhere in the labyrinthine streets of Dharavi – he’d been there once but would have no idea how to retrace his footsteps. Ari then racked his brains for friends of hers whom he knew. Lali had kept her female social life to herself, as many of the girls she had grown up with were from poor families, like herself. She’d understood that they were not the kind of sophisticated women one could make up a four with for dinner at the Indigo Café. Ari had absolutely no idea how to find any of them.

  He wondered how it was possible that he could have lived under the same roof as Lali for the past four years yet know almost nothing about her life beyond their front door. Was I responsible for that? he asked himself brutally as he paced back and forth on the sun-filled terrace.

  Of course he was, he admitted finally. Certainly, as far as her parents were concerned, he’d made it clear that he wasn’t interested in forming a relationship with them. And he’d made no effort to try to, even for her sake. They were not bad people . . . poor, yes, but hard-working and devout Hindus who had brought their children up with a strong set of moral values and fought to educate them to the best of their meagre resources.

  Ari dropped in exhaustion onto a chair and leaned forward, his head in his hands. He realised that he had patronised not only them, but also what they stood for – the blind faith in their gods, humility and acceptance of their lot, was what he despised. They were the ‘old India’ – just as his parents were – whose servility had been engendered by over a hundred years of British rule.

  The older generation didn’t seem to understand that the power had transferred, that there was no longer any need for subservience. The race he had been born into was coming into its own, there was nothing holding them back any longer and the sky was the limit.

  He’d wanted to run away from all the old values, which he felt placed limitations on those who believed in them. Sitting there, staring into space, Ari realised he was angry. But why?

  Suddenly, he did something he had forbidden himself to do for years. He put his head in his hands and wept.

  Ari knew he wouldn’t forget the long dark hours of that weekend in a hurry, as he faced what he had become and why. Whether he was grieving over the loss of Lali, or for himself and the solitary, self-obsessed, angry person he had become, he wasn’t sure. As his pain poured out of him, he wondered whether he was having some form of breakdown, perhaps the result of fifteen years of pushing himself, day after day, without respite.

  Yes, he realised, he had gained a successful business, and the financial benefits that went with it. But in the process, he’d lost himself.

  He tried to work his way through the reasons for his anger and, more frighteningly, his dismissal of any emotion and compassion that had once been inside him. He thought back to his time at his boarding school in England, and the way the boys had looked down on him, simply because he was Indian. Independence may have come to India over sixty years before, but back then, the upper-class British had not surrendered their claim to empirical superiority.

  What had made it worse was that his parents had been so proud of him. Despite what he saw as the many terrible consequences of British rule for the Indian race, the culture and traditions of their masters had been indelibly imprinted upon them. To them, for an Indian boy to attend a British public school was still the ultimate jewel in the crown.

  However, Ari was aware that, even if his five years in England had contributed to his need to prove that he was as worthy and clever as any of the English boys there, the integral drive to succeed came from within himself. And he also realised that, by eschewing all the qualities that made his race unique, he had become as much an imperialist as those who had once ruled his country. He had lost his Indian soul.

  On Sunday evening, Ari walked out of his apartment block and asked the first person he met on Juhu Tara Road for directions to the nearest temple. Out of embarrassment, he explained that he was a stranger to Mumbai.

  Once inside the temple, he removed his shoes and went through the rituals of worship and prayer that years ago had been as instinctive to him as breathing but now felt strange and foreign. Ari made puja offerings, not as he had done on his rare visits in the past few years to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, but to Parvati, the goddess of love and to Vishnu, the all-powerful preserver and protector. He asked them for forgiveness, especially for the way he had exiled himself from his parents. And he pleaded for Lali to return to him.

  When he arrived home, calmer now, Ari immediately called his parents. And it was his mother who answered.

  ‘Hello, Ma. I—’

  ‘What is it, beta?’

  The fact that she had heard immediately that something was wrong brought the tears to his eyes again and he broke down. He begged forgiveness of her, his father and his brothers and sisters. ‘I’m so sorry, Ma, really,’ he wept.

  ‘My son, it breaks my heart to hear you. Is it Lali who has broken yours?’

  Ari paused. ‘How did you know, Ma?’

  ‘Did she not tell you that she came to see us two weeks ago?’

  ‘No, she didn’t.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘What did she say, Ma?’ he asked.

  ‘She said –’ Ari heard Samina sigh – ‘that she couldn’t wait any longer for you to commit to her. That she was sure now it was because you didn’t love her enough and that it was best she set you free. You know how much she wanted a family, pyara.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course I did. And I still do. Please believe me, Ma, I love her. I miss her . . . I want her to come home. If you know where she is, tell her that from me. I –’ Ari could not speak any more.

  ‘Oh, my son, I’m so sorry, but she won’t be coming home to you.’

  ‘Why not?’ Ari could hear that he sounded like a spoilt three-year-old child, asking why he couldn’t have his favourite toy to play with.

  ‘I’m sorry that it’s me who has to tell you this, but perhaps it’s best that you know. I’m sure you remember that her parents had arranged a marriage for her, which she refused to accept when she met you.’

  ‘Yes.’ Ari remembered it vaguely. ‘Some cousin near Kolkata, I seem to recall. He was a farmer and much older than she was. Lali said she loathed him on sight.’

  ‘Well, maybe she did and maybe she didn’t,’ Samina said, equivocating, ‘but she married him yesterday.’

  Ari was shocked into silence.

  ‘Ari, are you there?’

  ‘Yes.’ He managed to find his voice. ‘Why? I don’t understand –’

  ‘I do,’ replied his mother quietly. ‘Lali is almost thirty years old, Ari. She has no trade or profession by which to earn her own living, and her parents are too poor to provide a dowry. She said that at least she would be safe and secure financially with this older man for the rest of her life.’

  ‘What?!’ Ari could hardly believe the words his mother was saying. ‘But, Ma, she was safe and secure here, with me! I may not have given her enough time, but I gave her everything I could financially.’

  ‘Yes, but you neglected to give her the one thing she needed. That every woman would like, especially in India.’

  ‘You mean marriage?’ Ari groaned.

  ‘Of course. As Lali said herself, if you had tired of her, you could have thrown her onto the streets with nothing. She had no rights as your mistress, no status, no property . . . these are things that are deeply important, you must understand that.’

  ‘If only she’d spoken to me about it.’ Ari bit his lip.

  ‘I believe she had, many times, until she gave up.’ Samina sighed. ‘She said you didn’t hear her. All she had on her side was her youth and beauty. And time was running out.’

  ‘I . . . didn’t understand. Really, Ma, believe me.’

  ‘And of course, she was too proud to beg you.’

  �
�Ma, what do I do?’ he asked despairingly.

  ‘Start again?’ Samina suggested. ‘And perhaps learn a lesson too. But Lali has gone forever.’

  ‘I . . . need to go now, I have work to do.’

  ‘Keep in touch—’ he heard his mother say as, unable to hear any more, he pressed the button to end the call.

  For the first time in his life, Ari did not go to the office the following day. He called Dhiren, his new sales manager, and told him he was sick with a fever. For the next few days, he slept as though he was a hibernating animal. He left his bed only to eat, drink and go to the bathroom. His legendary energy seemed to have left him and when he saw his reflection in the mirror, he looked smaller somehow, and pale – as if part of him had been stripped away. Which, in some ways, he thought miserably, it had.

  In the rare moments he was awake, he lay staring at the ceiling, wondering how the spark of determination that had driven him on every day for the past fifteen years could have disappeared. When calls came through from the office, he didn’t answer them. He simply couldn’t face it.

  On Tuesday night, as he staggered out into the brightness on the terrace and hung over its railings looking down at the world continuing beneath him, he contemplated his own future. And there it hung ahead of him, gaping like an empty, dark void. He rested his head on his hands. ‘Lali, I’m so, so sorry,’ he sighed.

  From inside, he heard the intercom buzz. Running towards it, praying wildly that it might be her, he grabbed the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Beta, it’s me, your mother.’

  ‘Come up,’ he said, disappointment coursing through him that it wasn’t Lali. He was surprised, too; his parents lived a five-hour car journey away from Mumbai.

  ‘My son.’ Samina held out her loving arms to her boy as Ari opened the door to let her inside.

  In that moment, all the tension and bitterness of the past ten years dissolved and Ari stood, cradled in his mother’s embrace, sobbing like a child.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Ma, so very sorry.’

  ‘Ari –’ Samina pushed her son’s hair back from his eyes and smiled at him – ‘you are back with your family and that is all that matters. Now, how about making your old mother some tea? She’s had a long drive.’