Secrets and Lies. Jaishree Misra
as she concentrated on getting the second coat just right. It was only ten minutes later, when the maid carried the tea-tray in and tried to make room on the small stool crowded with bottles of varnish and thinner and balls of cotton wool, that the pack of unread mail fell to the floor and Bubbles spotted the plain white envelope. The sender’s address typed onto a label in the lower left-hand corner instantly caught her attention. How could it not? The nail-polish brush was hastily discarded as Bubbles reached down to pick up Miss Lamb’s letter. She did not notice until much later that a drop of varnish had fallen onto one of the cream silk cushions, forming a permanent testament to her guilt—a round red blotch that rather fittingly resembled a small splash of blood.
A little later that same morning, Samira Hussein also looked disbelievingly at the envelope in her hand. It had her Kensington address and postcode absolutely right, which in itself was surprising. Was it her imagination or had her fingers actually started trembling as she read the contents twice over? She looked at her reflection in the hall mirror and was startled by her own stricken expression. The cloying, sickening smell of the Gallica roses in their cut-glass vase suddenly filled her nostrils. She cast a baleful look at their perfect velvet folds. Sam never normally bought roses—there was good reason for that—but this bouquet had been given to her by Akbar’s boss who had been invited to dinner last night, and the maid must have thought she was being useful by replacing the more customary gladioli with them. Sam picked up the telephone. If there ever was a time to break the old pact of silence, it was this. She did a quick count on her fingers even though she already knew—fifteen years this winter. She waited, desperately willing Bubbles to answer the phone, but by the seventh ring Sam knew it was useless.
‘This is the Orange voicemail service. The number you are trying to reach is currently switched off. Please leave a message after the tone’.
Why did they always use such annoyingly nasal voices for automated messages, she thought illogically, and where on earth was Bubbles; she had usually risen by midday. Sam looked at her watch and guessed that her friend was either in the sauna or having a massage, or aromatherapy, or whatever she was on these days. Bubbles hardly ever turned her mobile phone off, the damn thing usually an ever-present appendage to her left hand or ear, but now Sam had no option but to call Anita. She was normally most reluctant to bother anyone who had an actual career on a weekday morning, but this was important.
‘Sam,’ she heard Anita’s habitually brisk voice a mere second after the phone rang, ‘can it wait, darling? It’s coming up to the hour and the bulletin…’
‘I know, I know, I wouldn’t have, but I just wanted to know if you’ve had the letter too.’
‘Letter?’
‘I’ve just had a letter from Lamboo.’
She heard the silence before Anita spoke, her voice incredulous.
‘Lamboo? After all these years! Whatever for?’
‘Oh God, I’m so sorry, Anita, I know I shouldn’t have rung when you have to be on air in…what is it, ten minutes? Shall I call back later?’
‘Yes…no…Sam, wait! Just quickly, what sort of letter is it?’
‘It’s an invitation to some kind of reunion at the school, I think. Doesn’t say very much…’
Anita let out a long breath. ‘Fuuuck,’ she whispered.
‘I know. I haven’t stopped shaking since opening it,’ Sam replied.
‘Look, shall I come around this evening? Or, if you can, would you pick me up from work? Five-ish? We’ll get a drink around here somewhere.’
‘Okay, I’ll get Bubbles too. Speak later…and don’t think about it if you can help it.’
She heard Anita emit a short laugh before hanging up. Sam marvelled when, ten minutes later, she heard her friend’s clipped and measured accent deliver the lunchtime news on her kitchen radio as though it were just another day.
At exactly three minutes past the hour, Anita Roy pulled down the faders on her newsroom console and clicked the button that would transfer listeners to the continuity announcer. Luckily she knew the routine so well that she no longer had to concentrate on what she was doing. She pushed her headphones off and they lay against her neck, crackling with the tinny faraway voice of the girl who did the programme trails as Anita sank her head into her hands. Fifteen years on and the memories still lacerated her on certain days. Not, oddly, when she’d had a bad day and was tired and tense, but the very reverse. It was invariably whenever something tremendous happened: a promotion, a new man, even the day she got the keys to her first flat. It was exactly in those brilliant, luminous moments, when life seemed filled with the sweetest prospects, that Lily unfailingly returned. Not just a passing memory of her, but the sight—as clear as anything—of her pale face and the way she had looked at her that night in the rose garden, moments before she had died.
MUMBAI, 2008
Miss Lamb’s letter to Zeba Khan had been delivered to the film star’s Juhu address the previous week, but it would be another few days before Zeba herself would see it. The letter had nearly got lost, nestled as it was alongside many others in the customary gunny bag. The local post office, accustomed to receiving fan mail addressed sometimes just to ‘Zeba, Bombay’, had taken to using a pair of large sacks to deliver her mail. That day’s load had been an exceptionally heavy one and Zeba Khan’s secretary, Gupta, had already spent an extra hour trying to clear it. He resisted the temptation to throw the last rubber-banded clutch into the bin so that he could finally leave to catch his train to Ghatkopar. It was his main task every day to wade through his employer’s fan mail, answering each one with a standard letter of appreciation, a photograph of the film star showing just a hint of her famed cleavage and a carefully forged signature. Gupta sometimes wondered about that signature of his, the carefully crafted Z, the flourish as the A ended in a small cross, musing over its many grateful recipients. One persistent correspondent had even written back to say that he kissed the signature every morning before leaving for work as a porter at Victoria Terminus, convinced that it gave him strength.
Gupta picked up the last letter, eyeing the cheap envelope and handwritten address, resisting once again the urge to hurl it into the trash can unopened. Madam received all sorts of invitation cards: premieres, parties, even weddings and baby-naming ceremonies, as though her fans really thought she was as sweet as her roles made her out to be, and very eager to drop by their family function if she happened to be passing. He knew, of course, better than anyone else, that Madam rarely stirred out of bed for anything less than five lakh rupees these days. He sighed deeply as he slit open the envelope. She had maintained an uncanny knack of finding out if he had shirked any of his tasks and, having no wish to receive one of her verbal lashings, he surveyed the letter before deciding how to respond. This was an unusual one, not the kind of thing Gupta had ever had to deal with before. Certainly not a request that could be fobbed off with a signed photograph showing some cleavage. He held the letter briefly in his hand, reading it again more carefully The address and postmark looked authentic, and this Miss Lamb apparently knew Zeba Madam well. He could not assume that Madam would not want to reply to the letter herself, or perhaps despatch a box of her trademark spray of orchids to its sender, for that was what she sometimes did when she wanted to turn someone down without making it too blatant they were being turned down.
It had become obvious to Gupta over the years that Madam was not in touch with anyone from her Delhi childhood, not even her family, so this was rather intriguing. And she was, in fact, due to be there in December for the annual Film Awards, for which they already knew she was receiving the Best Actress prize. This might be the kind of distraction from her routine that she would enjoy, it would perhaps even present some good PR and photo-shoot opportunities. Gupta remembered having once, in his early and more enthusiastic days, suggested to Zeba Madam that her fans would probably love to know more about the kind of school she had attended and people she had studied with, that being the kind of insignificant information that usually thrilled her silly admirers no end. But she had flown at him in a sudden rage, dismissing his idea as being ‘stupid’ and ‘thoughtless’. Gupta had never again