Secrets and Sins. Jaishree Misra
was the only person who could possibly help sort this tangle out.
The phone started to ring just as Riva jabbed with relief on the full-stop key. Chapter Nine done, hallelujah. More importantly, her main character had reached the crossroads she had spent five chapters propelling him towards and had finally decided which way to go. The rest of the book would be a freewheeling exercise downhill, Riva knew. With one successful book under her belt, she was starting to get familiar with the routine.
Her mind still miles away in a fictional town in the Peak District, Riva said ‘Hello?’ absently into her phone, her eyes still scanning the screen of her laptop. Instead of an answer, she got a strange muffled snuffling at the other end of the line. Just as she was contemplating hanging up, she heard the sound of Susan’s voice suddenly emerge, not bubbling with laughter as usual, but drowning in a flood of tears.
‘Sooz?’ Riva called out in alarm. ‘Is that you?’
The snuffling gave way to a horrible low wail. ‘It’s me, Riva. The most terrible thing’s happened,’ Susan said, her voice suffused with tears. ‘Joe…he’s…oh Riva!’
‘What is it, Susan? What’s happened to Joe, for God’s sake?’
How many conflicting possibilities was it possible to have racing simultaneously through the mind in the space of a few seconds? Riva’s brain collected them all: accident, heart attack, cerebral thrombosis, serious domestic spat…until it stopped short at the one possibility that Susan was now blurting out through distraught tears.
‘Affair…Riva, he’s having an affair!’
‘What?’
‘I said, Joe’s having an affair.’
‘Joe! An affair?’ Riva asked, unable to match up those two words, even have them occupy the same sentence. Nevertheless, she repeated the words slowly and blankly, trying to digest them. ‘Joe’s having an affair.’
Perhaps her reaction wasn’t so obtuse. Of all the people in Riva’s very wide circle of friends and acquaintances, the one person who seemed furthest removed from the possibility of an extramarital dalliance was Joe. Goodnatured, serious, contented old Joe, who had loved no one but Susan since day one at uni, who had steered a steady course through their years of separation when he was at med school, and who had married his college sweetheart the moment he had started earning a pittance as a junior doctor because he had said he could wait no longer.
‘Susan, are you sure?’ Riva asked, knowing it was a stupid question but waiting, biting her lip, hoping that Susan was only joking. Not that Susan was given to puerile pranks, so it really was a very stupid hope. While her friend noisily blew her nose, Riva enquired more gently, ‘Where are you, Sooz? I just realised it’s a weekday – are you at school? Are you able to talk from where you are?’
Susan had recovered herself a bit by now. ‘Yes…I’m at school but I can talk for a bit. I desperately needed to speak to you, Riva.’
‘Okay, so tell me what happened.’ Riva tried to sound calm while quelling her own growing panic.
‘Oh, Riva, I’m as sure as I can be about it. The suspicion’s been growing for days now but I hadn’t mentioned it before because I wasn’t sure. But yesterday…yesterday I overheard Joe on the phone to someone, Riva. I wasn’t imagining it.’
‘What did you hear?’
‘Not a lot. But he had sneaked away from the crowd and he addressed her as “darling”…’ Susan broke off again in sobs.
‘Was that it?’ Riva asked, relief flooding through her.
‘What do you mean, was that it? Isn’t that enough? Pretty much confirmed it for me, I can tell you,’ Susan replied, reverting momentarily to her more spirited self.
‘Hang on,’ Riva replied. ‘People often get away from crowds to take calls, Susan. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re sneaking off…’
‘Yeah, right. In a freezing garden and without a coat. That’s why I followed him, actually, to tell him off for being outdoors without a coat…’ Susan’s voice was edging into tears again.
For want of anything else to say, Riva tried another tack. ‘Besides, addressing someone as “darling” means nothing in most circles, right?’
‘Joe doesn’t address anyone as darling, Riv, not even me!’ Susan was now sounding quite indignant.
‘His mum?’ Rev asked, clutching at straws.
‘Christ, no! How many men do you know who call their mums “darling”, Riva? For God’s sake!’
‘I don’t know…maybe I was thinking of Indian men and their mums…’ Riva trailed off. Then she added, ‘Where were you when you overheard him, Sooz?’
‘At the River Café. David’s birthday party. And it wasn’t just the fact that I’d overheard Joe, Riva. It was his reaction to seeing me appear suddenly behind him. He was guilty as hell. It was written all over his face.’
‘What did he do? Did he say anything?’
‘That was the other thing, Riv,’ Susan said, weeping again at the memory. ‘He lied…he…he…he looked me in the face and lied so idiotically. Said something about a patient who needed medical advice, for God’s sake. As if he would have ever given his private phone number out to a patient and as if they’d ever call him close to midnight. That was the really grubby bit, Riva, that he actually thought I’d be thick enough to buy such a fucking unlikely story.’
‘Oh, Susan,’ Riva whispered, recoiling at Susan’s uncharacteristic use of strong language. The import of what Susan was saying was only just starting to permeate her consciousness. ‘Did you tell him, Sooz? Tell him you didn’t believe his fib, that is?’
There was a small pause before Susan replied, ‘No I didn’t, Riva. And, before you ask me why not, it was because…because I just couldn’t bear to hear the truth. I…I preferred to have Joe stand there and lie through his teeth to me, rather than have him be honest and tell me he’s having an affair with someone.’
Riva felt her chest squeeze painfully as she heard her friend’s voice dissolve in tears again. In her confusion, she offered another stupid alternative. ‘Maybe he isn’t…sleeping with her, Sooz. I mean, maybe it’s not that sort of an affair but some kind of friendship thing…’ Riva trailed off, realising that an emotional attachment was perhaps worse than a physical affair.
‘For God’s sake, Riv!’ Susan cried. ‘Even if he isn’t fucking her now, he obviously wants to, doesn’t he? I mean, why the fuck would a man sneak away from his wife and call another woman and address her as “darling”? Why the fuck, if it isn’t to shag her…’
Riva nodded, her head reeling from Susan’s uncustomary flurry of f-words. Even ‘shag’ seemed too strong for someone so well brought up. The strongest language Susan normally used went no further than ‘damn’ and ‘bloody’. Riva gathered her thoughts together again, trying to stay calm for Susan’s sake. ‘Have you any idea who he might have been talking to, Sooz?’
‘You know, I haven’t even got as far as that, Riva. Because what I still can’t cope with is that Joe’s been lying to me. It’s almost as if it doesn’t matter who she is. You know?’ Before Riva could respond, Susan added angrily,’But when I do find out who she is, I swear I’ll kill her.’
Kaaya eased herself into the leather seat of her Lotus Elise and, after turning on the ignition, pressed the electronic buzzer for the garage doors to open. Usually the deep throb of the engine filled her with a sense of well-being but this morning Kaaya was in a bad, bad mood. Bloody