Kunal just shrugged and we continued watching TV for a while. He snuggled over and got cosy, which I didn’t mind. We were just a couple of mates hanging out, weren’t we? A cuddle was OK. But then he slipped his hand into mine and entwined his fingers with mine. Still OK but I’m not totally stupid. I knew boys rarely did cuddles if they didn’t want more. Kunal started playing with my fingers, caressing them. It was definitely feeling like he wanted to be more than mates. He moved in, nuzzling my neck and beginning to kiss me.
I wasn’t sure what to do. To give in or push him off. But then I thought, JJ is probably snogging Shreya up at the Monsoon Palace right now. Yeah. Stuff him, I thought and I stopped resisting and kissed Kunal back.
He moved closer, pushed me back into the cushions and moved so that he was half on top of me. He gently traced my profile with his fingers. Actually, it felt nice. I hadn’t had that much experience with boys and it was interesting how different it felt being with him to being with JJ or Tom. His breathing began to get slightly faster and the hand that was tracing my face began to move lower. ‘I really like you, Jess,’ he whispered, as he nibbled my ear. His hand began to stray down to my chest. I moved it off. He moved it back. I moved it off. He sat back. ‘Aren’t you into this?’
‘I . . .’ I wasn’t sure how to react. As with the dope smoking, I didn’t want to be pressurised into anything that I didn’t want to do. ‘Yes. And I like you too, but we’ve just met. Can’t we slow things down a bit?’
Kunal sighed. ‘I guess. Just you’re so hot, Jess, and you’ll be going home soon.’ He snuggled in again. ‘See? I can’t resist you. You’re like a magnet to me.’
I laughed and he took it as a sign to start kissing me again. I kissed him back and once again, his hand began to stray. This time onto my leg and under my skirt. He was about to start moving it up my thigh when I pushed him off again. ‘I mean it, Kunal.’
He sat up again and sighed heavily. ‘But why not? We’re attracted to each other. What’s wrong?’
I wasn’t going to be argued into going further than I wanted. I felt confused and hot, and not hot in the way that Kunal meant. I was supposed to be with JJ on this trip, not with some strange boy I’d only just met, no matter how handsome or charming he was. Suddenly I had a great idea.
‘Hey, I know what we can do.’
‘What?’
‘You like massage?’
Kunal nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘I can do aruyvedic.’
Kunal raised an eyebrow. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. Take your shirt off, lie on the floor and I’ll massage you.’
‘Don’t we need oil?’
‘If you have some,’ I said.
Kunal quickly fetched some oil from the bathroom and a pile of fluffy towels which he laid out on the rug. I kept my face straight because I knew he thought he was in for a sensual, lovely time. He whipped his clothes off down to his boxers and lay face-down on the towels.
‘This is a great idea, Jess,’ he said as I dripped oil onto him then started gently massaging his shoulders. ‘Ooo,’ he groaned softly. ‘Hey, you’re good at this. Keep going, a bit lower.’
I began slapping, lightly at first, then stronger.
‘Hey! Ow!’ Kunal cried. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Ayurvedic. It’s good for the blood,’ I said. ‘Now relax, relax, you’re very tense.’
‘Are you sure it’s meant to hurt?’ asked Kunal.
‘Absolutely. I had a treatment myself this morning. Good for the circulation.’ I had to stop myself laughing out loud. If nothing else, it had cooled his ardour. I continued with the slapping when suddenly he pushed himself up onto his elbows. ‘Um. Maybe massage isn’t your thing after all, Jess. Can’t you go back to the nice, gentle part, like when you started?’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Lie back down. I’ll try another method.’ I remembered Mum having a shiatsu massage once and the therapist had used her elbows to give a good strong pressure. I knelt beside Kunal and stuck my elbow into his shoulder and leaned in on it.
‘Ye-OW!’ said Kunal. ‘That really hurt.’
I shook my head. ‘So much tension there, that’s why you have to breathe into it.’
Kunal sat up and pulled one of the towels around him. ‘I think I’ll leave it for now, thanks,’ he said, as the door opened and Pia, Alisha and Prasad came back in. They looked surprised to see Kunal half dressed on the floor.
‘What’s been going on here?’ asked Alisha.
‘Massage, aruyvedic style, and a bit of shiatsu,’ I said. ‘Sadly Kunal doesn’t like it.’
Pia cracked up. She knew exactly what I’d been up to because I’d told her all about my massage from hell earlier.
‘JJ texted that he’s coming over to join us,’ said Alisha. ‘He’ll be here in a sec.’
‘Just JJ?’ I asked.
Alisha glanced at Pia and gave her a sly smile. There was something going on. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He has someone with him.’
A knock alerted us to the arrival of JJ. He came in and looked startled to see Kunal just in his boxers and me kneeling next to him. Shreya came tripping in beside him. I turned towards Kunal and pretended to laugh at something he’d said, like it was the funniest thing ever. I glanced back at JJ. Hah. That showed him. He looked well annoyed.
‘Just a moment,’ said JJ. ‘I need to speak to Jess.’ He beckoned me outside so I got up and followed him out onto the veranda. ‘I’ve been texting you all day. You didn’t reply. And what’s been going on back there?’ He indicated the bungalow.
‘Oh, we were just hanging out with the boys,’ I said. I wasn’t sure what to say. I felt confused, and now that I was face to face with JJ, my game plan of using Kunal to make him feel jealous felt wrong. I made myself remember that he had been off somewhere with Shreya.
‘I left my phone at the hotel, but I got your messages earlier. You wanted to talk about Shreya? Someone said you’d been up to some palace in the mountains with her.’
Now it was JJ’s turn to be confused. ‘Mountains? What mountains?’
‘Kunal said he thought you’d gone to the Monsoon Palace with her.’
A flash of irritation crossed JJ’s face. ‘He did, did he? Well, I can tell you I wasn’t up a mountain with Shreya.’
‘So where were you?’
‘I was . . . Hey, Jess, what’s going on here? Did anything happen with you and Kunal in there? And are you OK after the other night?’
‘I . . . I’ve never been better,’ I said, and glanced back in the direction of the room where the others were. ‘Kunal’s been . . . er, very kind to me.’
JJ’s expression had turned to stone. ‘I bet he has,’ he said. ‘Jess, I really think we need to talk.’
I knew what that meant. Everyone does. After the ‘We need to talk’ line comes the ‘Can we still be friends?’ line. Basically meaning, it’s over. I was finding it hard to think straight. My whole plan had backfired. So not how I’d imagined it would be with him. ‘About Shreya. Listen, JJ, it’s fine. I mean it wasn’t but . . . I did some thinking and I don’t own you. And it’s not like we’ve been going out for ages, so fine. You go ahead with her. I . . . I’m cool.’
He reached out and grasped my hand. ‘Go ahead with Shreya? No! What are you talking about?’
Oh God, I have got this so totally wrong, I thought as I looked into his face. He looked as upset as I felt.
‘Last night, I . . . I heard you say on your phone that things weren’t working out and you wanted me off your hands, though I wish you’d told me yourself—’
‘Off my hands?’ He looked confused, then his expression changed, as though he’d suddenly realised something. ‘No! Not you. God. I would have explained everything if you hadn’t thrown up, then Mum wouldn’t let me in to see you and you haven’t been answering my texts. Listen—’
Shreya opened the door behind us. ‘Come on, JJ. Alexei wanted us to order food for him.’
‘Alexe
i?’
‘Hey, Jess,’ said a familiar voice.
It can’t be, I thought, as I turned around but there he was coming through the gardens towards us.
‘No way!’ I said and went over to give him a hug. ‘What are you doing here?’
Alexei flashed a look at JJ. ‘Man on a mission. JJ called, begging me to rescue him. Hasn’t he told you?’
‘Rescue him?’
‘I’ve been trying—’ JJ started.
‘Said he couldn’t get any time with you so needed me to take a certain somebody off his hands.’
I glanced at JJ. ‘Shreya?’
JJ nodded. ‘That’s what I meant by it wasn’t working with you. Not that it wasn’t working working – but that we could never get any time alone. Shreya did this whole number on my dad saying how lonely she was and how she needed friends and that she could really relate to me. Dad said that I had to keep Shreya sweet and keep her company, which meant you and I could never hang out. Also Dad didn’t want Shreya disappearing off to Goa in case there had to be any reshoots on the movie. I’d been getting all these texts from Alexei about how bored he was in Paris and how he was ready to fly over if he was welcome, so it gave me an idea – and it seems to be working. Shreya came with me to the airport, took one look at Alexei and—’
Alexei bowed. ‘Happy to help out,’ he said with a grin. ‘But I’m starving. Let’s eat!’
Oh my God, I thought as the penny dropped. Oh my God. I have been so stupid. And I let Kunal kiss me and I kissed him back. What if JJ finds out? It’s me who hasn’t been trustworthy, not JJ.
‘JJ, I’ve been such an idiot,’ I said. ‘I . . .’ I glanced in the direction of the bungalow.
‘Vot’s going on?’ asked Alexei.
‘Misunderstanding,’ I said. ‘Big misunderstanding.’ I turned to JJ. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you.’ He still had hold of my hand. I squeezed it. ‘Really sorry. I thought you wanted to be with Shreya.’
JJ laughed. ‘No way. Hence our man here. He’s been longing to join us and now here he is.’
Alexei rubbed his stomach. ‘Hey. Didn’t someone say something about food?’
JJ pointed at the door. ‘In there,’ he said and Alexei headed in to join the others.
I started to laugh.
‘What’s so funny?’ asked JJ.
‘Alexei,’ I said. ‘I prayed for a fairy godbrother and he turned up after all.’
‘So, are we OK?’ asked JJ.
I nodded. ‘Er . . . about Kunal . . .’
‘You like him?’
‘No way. It’s you I want to be with. And what about Shreya?’
JJ laughed. ‘A drama queen and a control freak. I don’t think so. She is so not my type. It’s you I want to be with.’
I still felt guilty about having kissed Kunal and wondered whether to tell JJ. I so didn’t want to blow it with him and was torn between being totally honest and a fear that if he knew about the kiss, he’d dump me. ‘I . . . I . . .’
‘We want to be with each other and no-one’s going to get in the way,’ said JJ, as if picking up on my thoughts. ‘So, let’s forget about Shreya and Kunal. Enough said about them. Deal?’
‘Deal,’ I agreed, heaving an inward sigh of relief.
Our remaining days were a blur of temples, palaces and beautiful hotels where we stopped for lunch or tea. JJ’s plan worked like a dream. Shreya totally fell for Alexei and when they weren’t out with us, they were off on their own somewhere comparing watches or the designer clothes and gadgets that they were both so into. It was a match made in heaven. At last JJ was free and his dad was happy that Shreya had company. The only trouble was that, as the week went on, and Alisha and Prasad got more loved up, and Alexei went off with Shreya, it became more and more evident that Pia was the only one not in a couple.
‘You can go out with JJ if you want,’ she said.
‘No way,’ I said. ‘Mates come first, always. Anyway, you know we can’t go too far unaccompanied. I can see JJ when we’re back in the UK.’ I meant it too. Now that I knew that JJ and I were OK with each other and that he wasn’t into Shreya, I didn’t mind so much that we were chaperoned on all the excursions we went on. I’d let go of my expectations and fantasies of being alone with him in romantic locations and had come to accept that for this trip, we were always going to be with other people. If not Mr and Mrs Lewis, then Vanya would be somewhere keeping an eye on us and if he wasn’t around, then Alisha, Pia and Prasad were. Since the night that Alexei arrived, Kunal had kept his distance. Alisha told me that Prasad had confided in her that on the night of the wrap party, Shreya had asked Kunal to keep me out of the way so that she could be with JJ. When I heard that, I was so glad I’d given him my version of an ayurvedic massage. I only wished I’d slapped him harder. I couldn’t stay mad for long, though. There was too much to see, too much to take in and enjoy. After the awe we’d felt at the A-list lifestyle at the beginning of the trip, Pia and I had taken to it like ducks to water and were loving every single second.
On the last day, for JJ’s birthday, our whole group – the Lewis family, Prasad, Vanya, Pia and I – travelled in three vintage Bentleys to the Deogarh Mahal, a hotel about an hour from Udaipur. It was a vast terracotta-coloured palace built in the seventeenth century and spread out on top of a hill. It looked like Disney meets Bollywood with its turrets, domes, terraces and balconies. I texted Charlie and told him to Google it so that he could see exactly where we were. He texted back half an hour later. Awesome. Looks like an amazing fort. Curry on, party girl. C U l8r. Chaz
Lunch was served up on a terrace on top of the palace from where it seemed like we could see the whole of India stretched out before us – a breath-taking panorama of hills, lakes and mountains in the distance. While we ate plates of fresh mango, we watched a beautiful young girl, in a red traditional dress, balance four wicker baskets on her head while she danced barefoot on broken glass. It didn’t seem to hurt but I did wonder about her life. She looked around the same age as me but our lives were so different.
‘Maybe she’s the Indian Lady Gaga,’ Pia commented.
After lunch, we meandered down the hill into the town of Deogarh, where Mr and Mrs Lewis browsed the stalls and bought bits and pieces from the stallholders. Mr Lewis kept his shades on but no-one appeared to recognise him and he seemed to relish moving about anonymously for a change. I was amazed at what I was able to buy with the money I had: pashminas for Gran and Aunt Maddie, silver bracelets for Flo and Meg, a small drum for Charlie, a painting of an elephant on silk for Dad’s office. Everything was so affordable and Pia was a dab hand at bargaining, something we soon found out was expected and part of the fun.
‘But what can I get for JJ?’ I asked Alisha as we looked at a stall selling silk paintings. I had to find something because we’d all agreed that we’d give him our gifts at the birthday dinner on the barge that evening.
‘I know. Difficult one,’ she said. ‘He’s got watches, clothes and he even got a car last year.’
I laughed. ‘A car’s a bit out of my budget. What have you got him?’
‘I usually get him fun stuff, you know, to make him laugh. Like a jokey book or a DVD. But from you, maybe something personal, like, can you draw or paint?’
‘Not brilliantly.’
‘Or write? Maybe you could write him a story or a poem. Something like that. I think that’s what he’d treasure. Something money can’t buy.’
‘Yes, but what?’
‘You’ll think of something,’ she said, then went to catch up with Prasad who had gone ahead and was looking at a stall selling old books.
I glanced at the stalls lined up ahead along the street and saw that a lot of them were selling bric-a-brac and antiques. Some of it was junk but there were some nice pieces, though nothing that seemed right for JJ. At one stall, I noticed that there was a box underneath the table full of old photos. ‘Can I look?’ I asked the stallholder.
He nodded. ‘Yes.
Look, look.’
I knelt down and flicked through the photos. They were very old. Most were black and white, some were sepia, some faded and a little torn around the edges. They showed various family groups sitting in palaces that looked very similar to some of the ones we’d visited. In one, the man of the family sat on a throne by a pillar. He had a big moustache, was dressed in a jewelled and embroidered tunic with a sash and had a silk turban on his head. He was looking down his nose at the camera, his expression wonderfully haughty. Behind him, two male servants in white traditional dress stood to attention, while at his feet sat a sulky teenage girl, her left hand pulling her sari over her hair and face as if she didn’t want to be photographed. Another photo showed a group of men sitting on the steps of what looked like the Deogarh Mahal. Some had long beards and wore tunics with sashes and cummerbunds and were holding weapons similar to the ones we’d seen in the Darber Hall in the City Palace. Everything about them, from their posture to their dress, was regal. Two women in the picture sat at their feet, frowning out from under their saris.
‘Where are these photos from?’ I asked the stallholder.
‘Royal houses. Palaces,’ he replied. ‘Royal family.’
Pia came over to join me and knelt down to see what I was looking at. I glanced to check that the others had gone on ahead then handed a couple to her.
‘I think I’ve found JJ’s birthday present,’ I said. ‘He told me one day when we were going around City Palace that he wished he could see what the people who lived there looked like. Not just paintings but their real faces. And here they are.’
‘Brilliant. Great idea. These are wonderful,’ said Pia as she looked at the photos. ‘And this one tells a story.’ She handed me a sepia photo of an Indian lady on a chair. She was dressed like Shreya had been for the part of the Maharaja’s daughter. She looked very majestic and she didn’t have the cowed look of the women sitting on the floor in the other photo. This lady was clearly somebody important. By her side stood a young boy of about six years old, his arm resting on her knee; he was dressed in Western safari clothes, even a small pith helmet. ‘It shows two eras in Indian history, doesn’t it? The lady in traditional dress representing old India, her son representing what was to come with the British raj.’
Golden Girl Page 12
