Charlie Next Door

by Debashish Irengbam

  ‘Why don’t we just call someone?’ asked Nimit.

  ‘I’ve already called someone. No one’s coming in this weather.’

  ‘Perhaps we could call Charlie.’

  ‘Why? Is he a mason?’

  ‘He fixed my ankle,’ suggested Misha.

  ‘Your ankle wasn’t leaking.’

  Deep in her heart, she cursed Facebook for strengthening the bond between Charlie and her kids in a way that was so effortless that it made her wonder if they weren’t all kindred spirits with links from a previous birth. The number of ‘likes’, smileys, thumbs-ups and LOLs that they shared between each other on a daily basis (thanks to Charlie’s lethal combo of humorous double-entendre status updates, impeccable photography and selfie-taking skills, and GoT – Game of Thrones – mania) seemed more than the sum total of real-life smiles she had received from both of them post-puberty. What further complicated the scenario was that she couldn’t even actively discourage her kids, as that would mean blowing her online cover. Charlie had kept his word to keep her secret. And, in any case, to the best of her knowledge, her kids barely interacted with him in real life.

  Anupama nudged the small mopping bucket aside, replaced it with a deep-bottomed saucepan, and moved the bucket below the new third leak, which had erupted in the five minutes they had spent staring at the ceiling. This had never happened before. She had spent fourteen years in this apartment, and not once did the climatic vagaries adversely affect any part of her home.

  ‘This is so depressing,’ said Misha. ‘I’m going to my room.’

  ‘Yes, because going to your room solves everything.’

  ‘What do you expect me to do then?’

  ‘Suggest a solution.’

  ‘Call Charlie.’

  ‘What is your obsession with Charlie?’ Anupama cried out at her children. ‘Weren’t our lives going on just fine before him? Why don’t you just ask him to adopt both of you until the monsoons get over?’

  Midway through her rant, she realized she was overreacting, but by then the momentum had built up and she couldn’t help but finish her tirade. Her children, as expected, gaped uncomprehendingly; the silence in the room interrupted only by the sad drip-drip of the leaking ceiling. Anupama steadied her breathing.

  ‘It’s just a question of one or two days,’ she said. ‘We can manage.’

  A loud bang made them all jump. She looked up to see the whirling ceiling fan emitting sparks in sporadic bursts of light and energy. The putrid smell of burnt plastic pervaded the air.

  ‘We are all going to die in this house,’ moaned Nimit.

  ‘Just turn off the fan.’

  He didn’t need to because, barely a second later, the fuse blew, plunging the three Aroras into a static semi-darkness. Plop-drip-plop went the drops, long-sufferingly in the background.

  ‘Now what?’ asked Nimit.

  ‘It’s just a question of one or two days,’ said Misha tonelessly. ‘We can manage.’

  Anupama parted the curtains, although it didn’t make very much of a difference thanks to the gloaming of the overcast weather outside. Behind her, the chorus of mutters and moans reached a new crescendo.

  ‘Are we seriously expected to live here without electricity?’

  ‘How will I charge my mobile and laptop?’

  ‘You know how humid it will get by afternoon?’

  ‘And there will be no WiFi!’

  ‘If you two just keep quiet for one second, I might be able to think of something,’ snapped Anupama.

  Three firm knocks resonated across the room at that moment, making them all glance at the door. Nimit ran over and opened it to reveal Charlie standing outside. Nimit leapt into his arms, enfolding him in a tight embrace.

  ‘Duuude!’

  ‘Heyy,’ said Charlie. ‘Sorry, I was just passing by when I heard a bang. I tried ringing your doorbell, but I don’t think it’s working.’

  ‘The electricity’s gone. And our roof’s leaking,’ said Misha.

  ‘It’s okay. We can manage,’ said Anupama.

  ‘I could have a quick look at your switchboard, if you like,’ offered Charlie. ‘I’ve fixed quite a few electrical snarls in my day.’

  ‘That’s really not necessary—’

  ‘Yes, it is. We don’t even know where the switchboard is,’ cried Nimit.

  Anupama pursed her lips and folded her arms. She locked eyes with Charlie and gave the tiniest of nods. Charlie turned on the flashlight on his mobile, located the switchboard cabinet on the wall behind the entrance door and opened its shutter. He started flipping through some of the switches.

  ‘Hmm … seems fine … nope, definitely not an overload…’

  ‘Be careful,’ said Misha.

  He rose on tiptoe to peer closely at the tangle of wiring within and that was when Anupama noticed that he was barefooted, having left his shoes at the door.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be—’ she began, only to be interrupted by the clatter of his phone dropping to the floor. She waited for him to pick it up, but he didn’t. He just stayed there with his hand in the switchboard. It took her a moment to recognize the tremors passing through his frozen body.

  ‘Omigod, he’s being electrocuted!’ screamed Misha.

  Nimit let out a high-pitched howl, and leapt to his feet. He lunged at Charlie instinctively, but Anupama yanked him back and shoved him to safety. She hoisted the spindly-legged wooden side-table that stood by the door with the presence of mind provided by the surge of panic-triggered adrenaline. She swung it forward and struck Charlie hard in the abdomen, detaching him from the wall. He collapsed on to the floor and lay there unmoving, his eyes closed. Anupama, Misha and Nimit hovered anxiously over him.

  ‘Is … is he dead?’ asked Nimit in a quivering voice.

  Anupama checked his pulse. ‘Call doctor uncle from downstairs.’

  His vital signs were stable, thank goodness, and there seemed to be no damage to his body other than the bruise where she had struck him. Nevertheless, it would be advisable to have a thorough check-up done as soon as he regained consciousness, recommended Dr Patkar. The switchboard had been boarded up with rubber-gloved hands and black tape, to be examined only by a certified professional with life insurance. The kids had been packed off to a friend’s place for gadget-charging and other recreational activities with the guarantee that she would call them the moment he awoke. And now, with candles flickering about them in the semi-darkened room, Anupama sat beside Charlie, staring at his calm face as he dozed on Nimit’s bed.

  Now that his eyes were closed, she noticed that he had significantly long lashes for a man. What was it her mother had told her about men with long eyelashes? Oh yes, don’t trust them. Mole by the upper lip? Don’t trust them. Wide-toothed smile? Don’t trust them. Coloured eyes? Don’t trust them. Prominent Adam’s apple? Don’t trust them. Bell-bottomed pants? Don’t trust them. Heavily bearded? Don’t trust them. Clean-shaven? Don’t trust them. Gelled/oiled hair? Don’t trust them. The closer she approached puberty, the longer the list of untrustworthy characteristics became until she reckoned that, at this rate, the only people she could trust would be, well, women. And that was when her mother’s masterplan came to light. Thank God for Renu during her growing up years; otherwise, the closest she would have got to sex education was a clandestine viewing of Ram Teri Ganga Maili with her giggling cousins.

  Charlie stirred. Tiny beads of sweat were forming on his forehead and neck. She fervently hoped he wasn’t running a temperature. After a moment’s hesitation, she put her hand on his moist forehead. Somewhere in a dim corner of her mind, she registered the thought that this was the first proper physical contact between them, barring that one time he had saved her from tripping during the marathon. His temperature seemed fine. She felt his cheeks and neck too, just to double check, and then she felt his forehead again. His skin was surprisingly soft, like a child’s. Perhaps he was uncomfortably hot and therefore sweating. She considered removing the sheet that
covered him; but that would leave him quite exposed. In their clumsy, desperate struggle to carry him to the bed, most of the buttons on Charlie’s shirt had been ripped off, and the couple that remained had been undone by Dr Patkar in order to examine him. He lay there now with his shirt open, a crepe bandage wound around his midriff where the bruising had turned faintly purple.

  Charlie groaned softly. He did seem to be in discomfort. Perhaps she should remove the sheet. What difference would it make? They were both adults, and anyway, she was more like a … like a friend to him, wasn’t she? And it was getting dreadfully humid indoors. She would replace it when the kids returned, or when he woke up, whichever happened first. Taking a deep breath, she rose to her feet and gently lifted the sheet by the edge before sweeping it off in one swift move. Charlie stayed inert, much to her relief.

  There, that wasn’t so bad.

  She picked up a magazine and began fanning herself with it. Then, she widened the arc of her fanning to include Charlie. A thin whistling sound came out of his nose as he exhaled. She giggled. How surreal was this situation? She could just about picture the expression on Mrs Govindikar’s face if she were to see her now, seated at the bedside of her comatose, shirtless neighbour.

  A mosquito hovered above his forehead and she shooed it away with the magazine. However, when the pesky insect persisted in buzzing over Charlie, with a swift swipe she grabbed it in mid-flight above his nose and squeezed it in her fist, all accomplished soundlessly. A moment later, she felt Charlie’s warm breath strike the underside of her wrist. An overwhelming ticklish sensation swept through her, followed by gooseflesh breaking out all over her body. She withdrew quickly and settled back in her seat. The humidity inside the room seemed to have suddenly risen because she was sweating now. She tried reading the magazine with which she was fanning herself, only to find her eyes straying from the page and onto the specimen now lying with his face turned towards her. There was a greyish hint of stubble on his cheeks and his hair was all sticky and mussed up. Even so, the whole tableau reminded her of those sensuous posters of men’s colognes, the kinds which were deemed too expensive to buy for one’s husband unless it was a silver jubilee anniversary or something of that magnitude. What had she got for Rajeev on their twenty-fifth anniversary? Was it a tie? It was a tie, wasn’t it?

  She sat up straight as Charlie turned towards her in his sleep. Her eyes involuntarily slid towards his waist where his jeans had receded slightly. That was when she noticed two tiny curved black lines above his left pelvic bone, disappearing into his underwear lapel. She looked at his face to ensure that he was still unconscious before moving closer to peer at the marks. What was it? A mole? Or a tattoo? From here, it resembled the antennae of some bug, or perhaps the antlers of an animal. Her face was only a couple of inches away from his—

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Her head snapped back so hard that her neck cricked. The pain, of course, was nothing compared to the excruciating embarrassment of seeing Charlie staring at her with a mixture of surprise and uncertainty.

  ‘You scared me!’ she cried.

  ‘I scared you?’

  He tugged up his jeans self-consciously.

  ‘I was just – checking something.’

  ‘Yes, I could see that.’

  ‘Charlie, please.’

  He glanced down at his bare torso. ‘What happened to my shirt?’

  ‘The buttons were ripped out.’

  He cast her another suspicious look.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, I saved your life,’ snapped Anupama.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t you remember? You were being electrocuted.’

  Slowly, realization dawned on his face, followed by a sheepish grin. ‘Oh…’

  ‘What?’ asked Anupama.

  ‘I wasn’t really … I thought you knew – I was just kidding.’

  Anupama stared at him, astounded. ‘What?’

  ‘How could I get electrocuted? There is no electricity in your house, remember?’

  ‘But you blacked out!’

  ‘Because you knocked me out!’

  Anupama shook her head in disbelief and anger. She had half a mind to knock him out again.

  Charlie tried to rise and winced with pain. ‘Could you help me up, please?’

  Anupama cradled his back as he levered himself upright. His pecs came to life, swelling up his chest and defining their contours clearly. Without even realizing it, her eyes remained fixated on this phenomenon until—

  ‘Seriously?’ cried Charlie.

  A cold trickle of sweat ran down her back.

  ‘My eyes are up here, Anupama.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘I’m just saying, you know, I’m not a piece of meat.’

  ‘I wasn’t—it’s not—’

  What happened next happened so fast that she wasn’t even sure it had happened – Charlie rose swiftly from the bed, his lips touched her lips for one lingering, surreal instant, before he slowly subsided back into the bed, his eyes riveted on hers. It took Anupama a couple of moments to realize she wasn’t breathing. She inhaled, exhaled, and then stared blindly at him. There was a twinge in the back of her head, but the rest of her body had gone numb. It was the closest she had come to an out-of-body experience.

  They both stayed like that, unmoving. A hint of a smile appeared briefly on Charlie’s lips, before fading away when it met with no response.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked, finally.

  Anupama didn’t reply. The expectant expression on Charlie’s face rapidly withered to an apprehensive one. ‘I … It just felt right, you know…’

  ‘You kissed me.’

  ‘More of a peck, actually.’

  ‘You kissed me.’

  ‘It—it could be a friendly kiss if you want. I mean—’

  ‘You kissed me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what—’

  His words were abruptly cut off by a stinging slap. Perhaps it was the perspiration on his cheeks or something, but the sound seemed to reverberate like thunder in the muggy stillness of the room, seeming much louder than the impact. Again, both of them froze. Anupama didn’t even know why she had reacted like that. She was feeling more shocked than outraged, and it just felt like the right thing to do – instinctively speaking. But now that she had done it, she couldn’t help but feel a rising sense of trepidation deep inside. Charlie was staring at her, his hand on his cheek.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured.

  ‘You should be.’

  And then, she kissed him.

  Or rather, lunged at him, devouring his lips in one go. She could feel him stiffen at first, too stunned to respond. Then, slowly, his lips parted and he wrapped his arms around her waist, drawing her close. She kissed him with a hunger she hadn’t even known existed within her. The stubble over his upper lip was pricking her a bit, adding to her ecstasy, for it was a sensation quite alien to her. Rajeev had always been clean-shaven, his cheeks and jaws as smooth as a baby’s. Why the hell was she thinking about Rajeev now?

  She pulled away, breathless.

  ‘What are we doing?’ she panted, her mind a complete blank and her heart a raging beast. ‘What are we doing?’

  ‘I … I don’t know—’

  And then, she pounced at him again.

  They were barely a few seconds into the kiss when three hard raps jarred the silence. Someone was at the front door.

  ‘Wait here,’ she gasped.

  ‘S—Sure,’ he panted back.

  Like a sleepwalker, Anupama detached herself from a stupefied Charlie and drifted to the door and opened it to see … Mrs Govindikar standing outside.

  The sight of her matronly figure, rigid and tight-lipped, was enough to punch her hormones back into harsh reality.

  ‘Good afternoon, Anupama.’

  ‘H-Hello, Mrs Govindikar.’

  ‘I heard about the power outage at your place. Do you need any help?’

  ‘No, n
o—’

  ‘Why are you sweating so much?’

  Before she could reply, Mrs Govindikar touched the side of her neck with a plump finger. ‘Your temperature’s high too. Do you have a fever?’

  Anupama shook her head, her pulse rate rising by the second. ‘No, it’s just really hot in here, you know.’ She fanned herself with her hand to justify her statement. Her other hand remained on the door knob, ready to slam it shut at the first opportunity, but Mrs Govindikar stayed firmly put. Her eyes probed inward.

  ‘Where is he?’

  Anupama’s throat went dry. ‘Who?’

  ‘Charlie. I heard he was accidentally electrocuted.’

  ‘He’s fine now. He’s resting.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Inside.’

  ‘In your bedroom?’ A hint of censure in her tone.

  ‘No, Nimit’s.’

  Mrs Govindikar’s gaze stayed locked on hers. Anupama felt like a novice drug dealer facing the head of the Narcotics Control Bureau. A fresh trail of sweat tracked down the side of her forehead. The seconds ticked by heavily, until finally, Mrs Govindikar blinked.

  ‘I’ll send my electrician over, just in case,’ she said in a leaden voice. ‘In the meantime, you can wait at my house. He’ll call you when he wakes up.’

  ‘Sure, I’ll be there in five minutes.’

  Mrs Govindikar turned on her heel, the nightmare on the verge of ending, when a crooning, folksy voice filled the air.

  O re khevaiya … paar laga more saiyaan ko…

  Charlie’s mobile.

  Anupama’s heart stopped, as did Mrs Govindikar’s feet. They both did an about-turn in time to catch sight of a sweaty, bare-chested Charlie rushing into the living room, his unbuttoned shirt flapping behind him.

  ‘I’ll take it, I’ll take it,’ he said, grabbing his cell phone and saying ‘hello’ as he casually returned to the bedroom. He shut the door behind him.

  The emotional rollercoaster of the past few minutes fused together to take its toll on Anupama. A nervous giggle escaped her lips, then another, and then another. She was far from amused, let alone happy. She was aware on some level that her social reputation, as she knew it, was history. Yet the inane chortling wouldn’t stop. It’s like someone was tickling her from the inside. What was this – some sort of defence mechanism? A glance at Mrs Govindikar’s outraged face and she burst into another gale of laughter.