by S L Lewis
As he thought about it, he shook his head and replied, ‘I asked her for the proof and she couldn’t provide it.’
I didn’t want to push it any further, so I vowed to help him get mum back no matter how hard it might be and that I didn’t judge him for his past.
We tried to change the topic and attempted to finish the large courses my dad had ordered.
‘So, how is your new job going, Nita?’ my dad enquired as he beckoned the waiter for the cheque. ‘Really good thanks. It’s a bit more work but the money is good, the people are really nice and I get to network a bit more, so all in all I’m a happy bunny,’ I grinned.
‘That’s great hun, now all you need is a man in your life and I won’t have to worry about you as much anymore,’ he replied with a smile on his face.
I hated it when the conversation got to the, ‘relationship topic’!
I know our parents want the best for us but really does this topic always need to be shoved into a conversation if you’re single?
I tried my best not to look annoyed, especially as I was still a little raw about my Angus experience (no matter how much I protest otherwise), and with a shrug of the shoulders I replied, ‘dad, you know it’s not the 1950s and women can have a life without a man, right?’
Dad chuckled to himself as I always reminded him of mum, when I got my feminist stance on. He cupped my hands as he saw my cheeks going red, like I was going to have a tantrum in the middle of town, when I was a toddler and said gently, ‘I know you can survive by yourself Nita. You’re my strong little button but I want to see you happy with someone who can make you as happy as your mother makes me…that is why I mentioned you to Kumar. You remember him, right? We used to work together and then he went off to open his own restaurant?’
I didn’t like where this was going.
You see, my father always saw himself as, let’s say, a Cilla Black type of person, who believed every single man and woman should have a partner and he was the one to find them.
Now, after many disastrous dates for Renesh, tantrums from Gabrielle, I was usually quite safe…until now it seems!
I moved my hands away in preparation for the horror that he was about to show me.
He pulled a picture from his pocket, turned it over and handed it to me.
‘Before you look at it, I know your brother and sister have told you the tales of all the “horrific” dates they have been on from my meddling but I have learnt from these mistakes and I really think you will like Yatin,’ he pleaded as I turned the picture over slowly and held it under the light.
I was speechless.
He wasn’t what I was expecting at all.
He looked around 5”11, maybe 6”0, dark, short, styled hair, athletic body, which was encased in a designer grey suit, a smile that was created for a toothpaste advert and green eyes that could have me staring, dreamily into them for years.
‘He’s 32, works in stocks and shares but he’s a good boy cos he also helps out with the books at his father’s restaurant. Never married, no children, he has bought his own flat in Mill Hill, and he drives a nice car,’ my dad continued, trying his best to sell him to me.
I didn’t tell him I was already sold from the picture, so I tried to play it cool and managed to stammer, ‘he looks nice. I wouldn’t say no if he wanted to go for a drink,’ and with that we left the restaurant with determination in our eyes and goals of getting my mum and dad back together and improving my fading love life with this Bollywood prince, Yatin.
**********
The following month consisted of major celebrations and some delicate confessions!
At the end of the first month in my new role, Sarah gave me a huge presentation to do for one of the directors (luckily I wasn’t alone and was in a team of five who had a lot more experience in this department than I did) to help me be seen by all the important people and although I was now taking some work home with me, I didn’t mind as I felt like I was finally progressing in a career.
Gabrielle was being the ‘bride-to-be from hell’ and every suggestion we came up with for the engagement party was VETO’d as they weren’t ‘fabulous’ enough for her so along with many arguments and bottles of brandy we were all slightly frazzled in the flat.
After failing to win the contract from a major investor (my presentation was supposed to show the potential sponsor the benefits of investing in the company), I slipped into depression for a week, as some of the blame was subtly placed on my shoulders, and I remedied my self loathing by accepting one of Angus’s many propositions and spent the night with him. The next day, I realised my major mistake and vowed to pull myself together. My dad helped with this, by following through with his match-making plan.
He gave Yatin my number, a day after the meal, and I was pleasantly surprised that we got along. We exchanged emails once a day for the first two days, and then we were doing around 3 emails a day, along with phone calls at night, until I decided it was time to meet in person. We met at a little bistro in Central London a week later and it was fantastic! We had so much in common, he made me feel so comfortable, and it felt like we knew each other for years. We spoke about our likes and dislikes, our families and their traditions and ideals and what we wanted from the future.
Surprisingly, he was not daunted by my idea of wanting a family and to be married in the next few years as this was his plan too.
It seemed too good to be true but I vowed to go with the flow and try not to let my experiences with Angus cloud my optimism with Yatin.
We went on two more dates before I stayed over at his flat and we became an official couple.
It happened so fast but I wasn’t scared by it as it felt so natural, as though it was meant to be.
Over the next few weeks we became inseparable!
It was also nice to have somewhere else to stay as the flat was getting a little bit too hectic.
Gabrielle’s engagement party ideas were become grander by the second and when I walked in to see an example of the ice sculpture she could have at the party, in the shape of her and John kissing in an enchanted garden, I realised she had lost the plot!
Not only this, but if I wasn’t tripping over teddy bears declaring their love, huge, expensive bouquets of flowers saying, ‘I’m sorry’ from Geron and Dolph, I was listening to more work men designing, ‘Buckingham Palace’ upstairs for the ‘ever absent’ Tiziana.
The last time I saw her was when she came downstairs with a huge bottle of champagne for Gabrielle to congratulate her on the engagement, only to get a cold, ‘thank you’ and the door shut in her face from a frosty Gabby.
‘Ok, so I have the music ready, the dinner is keeping warm in the oven, the candle’s are ready to be lit and you have called both your parent’s, right?’ asked a flustered Yatin as I dragged him into my covert operation, aka ‘Get my Parents back together’.
I loved the fact that he understood my heartache and wanted to help in anyway he could and that’s when I knew that even though we hadn’t know each other long, I couldn’t stop myself, ‘I love you’.
And there is was!
Three words that could either make you feel like the happiest woman in the universe or make you want the ground to open up and swallow you whole that very second!
Luckily, it was the first for me.
‘I love you too,’ a stunned Yatin replied as he held me tight.
Unfortunately, the tender moment was over as we heard the first knock at the door.
We asked dad to come first and spaced out the invitations 30 minutes apart in case they ran into each other.
‘Who is it?’ I asked nervously. ‘It’s just dad,’ he responded cheerily as I opened the door to a beaming dad.
We ushered him inside quickly as though not to let anyone see him (did I mention we were very paranoid?) and got him a large glass of wine to settle his nerves.
After some small talk and predictions, on how we thought the night might pan out, there was a knock at the d
oor for a second time and we all sat bolt upright.
I didn’t want to answer it. I felt like I was putting mum on the spot and she hated it when people did that to her. I also felt she would think I was taking dad’s side but all I wanted was my parent’s to be happy and together again, now I knew the full story about Shampa.
I opened the door slowly.
Mum still looked beautiful but the stress of the situation was starting to show in her eyes as she started to look a little tired.
‘Hello darling, how are you? Looking forward to our girly evening. It seems like we haven’t done that for ages now your climbing the career ladder,’ she chuckled as she walked in and gave me a big hug.
I gave a nervous laugh and guided her to the dining room.
The door opened and there was a pause.
You could cut the tension in the air with a knife.
No one knew what to do.
We all waited for my mother’s response with fear in every inch of our bodies.
She walked towards dad, who was stood by the sofa and sat down.
‘So, are you boys going out then?’ she asked coolly as she glared at my father.
I wanted to run and hide but instead I just held my head down and mumbled, ‘mum, I think you and dad need to talk. It’s not what you think. Please give him the opportunity to explain, for me.’
It felt like an hour but there were a few seconds of silence as though she was thinking which one to kill first and then she calmly replied, ‘ok but I don’t think you can explain it any other way. You cheated and now we’re getting a divorce, simple.’
That word sent a chill down my spine!
‘There’s really no need to speak of divorce just yet, Niamh. You haven’t even heard my side of the story. Give me an hour to explain it all and if you still feel this way then I will have no problem granting you a divorce,’ my dad replied.
‘Why on earth was this word being used so casually?’ I thought but then I realised how angry my mother was and this was just a way to wind up my dad. He knew this and was not going to create an extra argument.
As much as I feared for my father when my mother was angry, I realised that I didn’t give him enough credit. She was the fire to his water (although he could be the air sometimes too) and they complimented each other in so many different ways, they could never separate or divorce.
With these thoughts racing around my mind, I knew I had to take charge.
I proceeded with caution but with authority. ‘Right, we are going for a few drinks and maybe a meal. There is a beautiful meal in the oven courtesy of Yatin’s mum, don’t let it go to waste and there’s a few bottles of white and red in the cupboard so don’t get too drunk and by the time we get back I hope you will have both sorted out this mess,’ I ordered as I grabbed Yatin and ran for the door.
Leaving them with shocked looks on their faces and grumbles of distain, I shouted, ‘oh and I will be taking the keys too so good luck and sort it out,’ and with that we ran through the door, putting our shoes on in the hallway.
Yatin tried so hard to take my mind off the carnage that was possibly happening at the flat now, but it was impossible.
‘Do you think we should call them?’ I asked nervously.
‘Baby, if they needed us, they would call you. Let’s give them space and try to enjoy ourselves,’ he replied as he kissed my hands and he ordered a double brandy and a large glass of white wine.
After spending half an hour in the bar, down the road from the flat, I checked my mobile phone and saw no messages or missed calls, so feeling more confident, I agreed to go for a meal.
Feeling more relaxed, from the amount of drinks we had at the bar, we tucked into a dripping garlic naan bread with gusto, mopping up the spicy curry juices, as we laughed about the plans for Gabrielle’s engagement party, giving each other our predictions on the possible outcomes of Amelia and Geron’s doomed relationship and wondering if we could do the same with Anya and Dolph as we did with my parents, to which we both agreed no - if we enjoyed living.
Feeling full and inebriated, I felt confident to go onto a club with Yatin, as I checked my phone and saw no threatening messages or stalking phone calls. So we finished our meal and made our way to our favourite club, to snog and cuddle our way through the night on the dance floor.
Looking at my phone and only seeing 2.30am, I started to panic.
There were still no phone calls or messages and I started to fret. ‘We need to go NOW, Yatin,’ I yelled as I grabbed his arm and ran from the club.
The cold night air hit our drunken faces and remembering why we had to leave the flat in the first place, we flagged a taxi and headed home with heavy hearts and dizzy heads.
We ran up the stairs, fumbled around to put the key in the lock and ran into a quiet front room.
‘Oh my God, she’s killed him,’ I thought as I scrabbled for the light switch.
Yatin’s pace agreed with my train of thought as he rushed behind me, only to trip over his shoes in the doorway and straight onto me, both landing on the floor with a thud!
‘Are you both ok down there?’ my mum asked as she popped her head up from the sofa.
The television was on low, the dinner had been eaten and the candles had gone out, but where was dad? And why was mum so calm?
‘We’re fine. Where’s dad?’ I asked in a panicked tone as I tried to get myself together, leaving Yatin grabbing at anything that could help him focus and get back up.
With blurred vision and my head spinning, I couldn’t rely on my eyes to give me the answers I needed.
‘Sorry darling but he’s crashed out on the sofa. Everything is fine honey and we’ve sorted everything out, so if you don’t mind can we leave him here and we’ll update you in the morning?’ she said pointing to a snoring dad.
Without managing to turn my head away from the perfect vision of mum in dad’s arm on the sofa, I didn’t feel Yatin at the side of me smiling.
‘You can’t sleep on the couch. Come on, sleep in the spare room, mum,’ he spurted out before he stumbled over and gave her a drunken hug.
Astonished at Yatin calling her ‘mum’ for the first time, she just nodded, open mouthed, woke dad up and directed him to the spare room where we said our goodnights and crashed out on our beds…hard!
Being shot out of my drunken stupor by a vibrating mobile phone at 8am was not the way I thought I’d be woken up, however, slowly turning my head to a snoring Yatin made me quickly realise the sexy, hangover, wake up call I was dreaming about was a distant dream as I read the text on my phone.
It was from Renesh!
Usually his texts are long and funny but this was completely the opposite and had tones of distress.
‘Hey sis, are you busy today? I really need to see you?’ he begged as I could still taste the indulgence of alcohol we had a few hours ago.
I shuffled my way out of bed and into the kitchen.
Smells, which should have delighted my nose (and empty stomach), engulfed the room to such an extent that my intoxicated body mustered the tiny bit of energy it was reserving for the engagement plans later, and bolted to the bathroom.
Moments later, I emerged to a concerned mum and dad.
‘Hun, are you ok? I made you both breakfast. Come and get it before it gets cold,’ mum ordered as she guided me to the food.
Yatin emerged from the bedroom and with the nose of a Blood Hound; he managed to find his way to the seductive smelling breakfast and was able to hold an hour long conversation before needing to spend some quality time with his head in the toilet.
‘Baby, we’re going now. I will call you later. Call me if you need me,’ I shouted to a groaning Yatin and with that the three of us left to see what the exceptionally sunny day had in store for us.
Going back to my parent’s house for a much needed afternoon nap, I was glad to see my room was exactly how I left it and had not been converted into a gym or ‘Carlos’ spare room when my mother was going thr
ough her ‘over dad’ stage.
Gabrielle roped mum into helping her look at venues for the engagement party. I was happy it wasn’t me as mum came back looking stressed, frazzled and headed straight to the alcohol cabinet!
After five missed calls from Renesh, I realised it must be serious and arranged to meet him for dinner in the evening but not before heading back to the flat, which now looked like a wedding war zone!
Dresses, shoes, half eaten take away boxes, wedding magazines sprawled across all available surfaces and empty bottles of wine in the most random places.
‘Oh hey Neets, you just caught me in the middle of tidying up,’ Amelia announced as she sat on the sofa wearing rubber gloves, reading one of the many wedding magazines in the room and watching TV (this was her idea of cleaning!).
