Secrets and Lies. Jaishree Misra
the bowl. ‘Masooma and I, beti. But what on earth is it?’
‘Chocolate mousse!’
‘Oh dear, perhaps it needs a bit more chocolate then. What have you put in it?’
‘Two bars of Dairy Milk and some cocoa, an egg whipped up and…here, try some.’
‘Actually, Mamma’s eaten, sweetheart,’ Sam said hastily as Heer held out a spoonful, feeling bad at the disappointed moue her daughter’s mouth instantly formed. Even though she had only nibbled on some pita sticks and olives at Heebah, she did in fact feel rather ill and couldn’t face the thought of food. She turned to the maid and spoke in Urdu. ‘No dinner for me tonight, Masooma. Has Heer eaten?’
‘Yes, memsahib. I gave Heerbaby dinner at six. Daal meat with rice and salad, as memsahib said.’
Sam nodded. ‘Thank you, Masooma. Heer, darling, I’m going to get changed…’
‘Oh memsahib, there was a phone call from India. It was Zeba Khan madam. She wants you to call back. I have written phone number down here.’ Masooma could hardly contain her excitement. ‘Memsahib, it is Zeba Khan, film star, your old friend you told me, no? I know her voice so well I immediately recognised.’
Sam nodded blankly as her heart sank. So Zeba would have received Lamboo’s letter too. There had been no contact from her in months, and the only reason for a call out of the blue would be that letter. Sam felt quite sure she could not stand talking about the letter and reunion any more. Despite Anita’s conviction that they would all benefit from ‘laying old ghosts to rest’, as she put it, Sam now felt exhausted at the very thought. Reunions were for people who wanted to stay in touch, and she had done that with Bubbles and Anita because they had both been in London as long as she had, and because they were, after all, the closest thing she had to family here. Since that chance meeting at Heathrow, there had been the occasional email from Zeba who, for all her starry airs, had evidently never forgotten that she had to thank Sam for never revealing her affair with Mr Gomes, despite being class monitor and Lamboo’s favourite. But that had been the sum total of her old school friendships. And given everything that had happened, that was probably the best way to keep it.
Sam changed into a tracksuit and lay down for a few minutes, recalling all manner of things from her schooldays. Then, suddenly, she swung her legs off the bed, sitting up abruptly as she decided to pick up the phone and return Zeba’s call. Perhaps she would know more about exactly what Miss Lamb had in mind for them all.
The ringing tone on Zeba’s mobile was distant before she heard the click and Zeba’s famously husky voice, thick with sleep, mumble an indistinct ‘Hello’.
‘Oh goodness, how stupid of me, I’d completely forgotten about the time difference, Zeba, it must be past midnight there—sorry! Were you asleep? I only just got in and just wasn’t thinking…it’s Sam here.’
To Sam’s surprise, Zeba sounded relieved rather than annoyed. ‘Oh, that’s okay, Sam, no problem. I’m so glad you called. Wasn’t really sleeping as I’m totally jet-lagged.’
‘Been travelling?’ Sam asked, unsure whether to mention the letter until Zeba brought the subject up.
‘More than I’d like,’ Zeba replied. ‘You got Lamboo’s letter too?’ she asked in her habitual abrupt style. Luckily, there was no beating about the bush with Zeba. Sam recalled there never had been.
‘Yes, this morning, Zeba. What is she up to, do you know?’
‘I have absolutely no idea. But I must say I get a very bad feeling about it. As though it’s a…a plot’. Zeba tried to joke. ‘A plot in a really bad Hindi movie.’ But neither she nor Sam could bring themselves to laugh.
‘I’ve been feeling pretty spooked myself, to be honest,’ Sam replied.
‘What about Anita and Bubbles? Have they had letters too? Have you seen them?’
‘We just spent the evening together, to talk about it in fact. Anita wants to go. In fact, she wants us all to go. Brave it out, she says.’
‘She has a point. I’ll go if you guys are coming.’
Sam, trying not to sound too surprised, responded with a nervous laugh, ‘Safety in numbers, huh?’
‘Well, something like that…I hope you guys don’t think it too weird for me to join you out of the blue, but we had grown very close that year, remember? Us four, that is.’
‘Of course it’s not weird, Zeba, we’ve been classmates since we were tiny,’ Sam said, trying not to sound doubtful but quite uncertain of whether someone like Anita would care to have Zeba suddenly back in their inner circle.
‘Well, in that final year we were drawn together mostly by our common hatred of Lily.’
‘Oh, Zeba!’ Sam remonstrated mildly.
‘But it’s true, Sam, we might as well admit it. What on earth did I ever have in common with someone like Anita? Or Bubbles even?’
‘We may have grown apart now, Zeba, but back then we were all pretty much the same, weren’t we?’
‘Just a bunch of Delhi school kids, I suppose…’ Zeba’s voice suddenly sounded less crisp. After a small pause, she spoke again. ‘When do you think you’ll come to India, Sam?’
‘Mid December, when the schools here close, I expect. I’ll bring Heer, but I don’t know what Bubbles will do with her Bobby and Ruby. They’ll probably prefer going on one of their exotic holidays.’
‘I notice Lamboo’s suggesting the third weekend in December for this reunion, just like the Socials used to be.’
‘And the anniversary of Lily’s death,’ Sam pointed out.
‘Exactly what I was thinking. It’s so weird, Sam! As if she knew all along what we did that night and is now intent on reminding us of it.’
‘That wouldn’t be like old Lamboo. She wouldn’t hurt us, that I’m sure of. It could be some kind of memorial thing for Lily.’
‘After all these years? I don’t think so somehow.’ Zeba’s voice rose as a new thought occurred to her. ‘Do you think they might have found some new evidence, and they’re doing a kind of reconstruction thing?’
Sam couldn’t help a small laugh at that. ‘What, like they do on TV? Hoping someone will crack?’
‘Don’t laugh—what if someone does crack, as you put it, or remember something and it all comes out? Ugh, so macabre.’
Sam considered the possibility. It wasn’t entirely nonsensical and Zeba had a public reputation to consider. This was the kind of story those film rags would fall upon with relish, poor Zeba. Poor all of them—nobody needed something like this when life was already so complicated. ‘Murder will out,’ she said softly, remembering Miss Lamb explaining the nature of guilt in one of her Macbeth lessons.
‘Don’t! You’re really scaring me now,’ Zeba implored. ‘But, really, if you think about it, Sam, we’ll all be gathered together in almost exactly the same circumstances. It’s a well-known ploy used by the police the world over. Agatha Christie always did it.’
‘But why now? All these years on?’
‘Maybe she wants to see justice done before she dies, see the guilty brought to book once and for all’.
Sam, unable to keep up her casual tone any more, started to weep at that, lunging for her bedside tissues and pressing a wad against her mouth. Sam had always been one of Miss Lamb’s favourites, never achieving the top marks Anita achieved in Lamboo’s subjects of English and History, but unfailingly making class monitor year on year, simply because the principal had trusted her so implicitly. Now, with stinging recognition, she realised how grievously she had betrayed old Lamboo’s trust in those last few weeks at school. Worse, she had not even