Page 38 of Someone to Love

Over the initial surprise, his eyes now clouded with poorly disguised anger. ‘How can I help you?’ he asked in a voice dripping with formality.

Oh, right, so he is the angry one?

However, even as he spat out the words, Koyal could sense that his eyes were now boring into her face, assessing if she was doing okay medically.

Part of her was angry at the way he had just spoken to her.

Another part of her was reluctantly thawing – he cared, that part of her being said, he genuinely cared.

And the rest of her was groaning. Why, even after all these years, was she still able to see the thoughts flitting through his head? Almost as though she still knew him like he belonged to her. Why was meeting him again so painful in this weird half happy, half mad way? Why, when she could run away, was she not running away? Why, when she could easily not have come here today, was she here? What did her heart want? What was the universe plotting for her?

‘I … I just came to…’ Koyal hated how words were now deserting her.

He stared at her.

Koyal wondered what he would say next.

‘One sec,’ Atharv said to her as his phone rang. He answered it, saying, ‘Mum, please can you wait?’

‘Yes?’ He looked again at Koyal trying, she knew, to look as thunderous as he had a few minutes back, but failing miserably. In another world, Koyal would have burst into peals of laughter.

‘Thank you. You saved my life.’

Again.

‘That’s…’ he began and then, as some squawks emanated from his phone, he turned to it. ‘No, Mum … Mum! Just someone … no … Mum.’

Silence for sometime as Atharv appeared to be listening to the person on the phone.

‘Yes, you recognized the voice correctly,’ he said into the phone, his voice resigned. ‘No, Mummy! No! Okay … okay, stop that, Mum! One second!’ he said exasperatedly into the phone and with a final ‘Okay, fine, one second,’ he handed the phone to Koyal.

‘Mum wants to speak with you,’ he said when she looked quizzically at him.

‘Surya Aunty?’ Koyal uttered the name, horrified.

‘That is my mum, yes,’ he said.

Koyal stared at the phone as if it was a dead man’s skull. She looked up at Atharv.

I don’t want to have anything more to do with you, his angry eyes seemed to say to Koyal.

Great, we continue to think alike, Koyal retorted silently.

‘I think you should speak to her,’ he said out loud, his voice formal and stiff, nudging the phone towards her.

For a few seconds Koyal stared at the phone, trying frantically to think of excuses but no inspiration came to her.

Damn.

She nodded and took the handset.

‘Hello,’ she said tentatively into phone, fearing the worst. The firebrand that Surya Aunty was, Koyal wondered if she would be screamed at for having disappeared without warning all those years ago. Or maybe a barrage of uncomfortable questions would be hurled at her? Or perhaps something more subtle but acidic? Koyal had been the reason the two families, once very close, had stopped talking. And in the process, Surya Aunty had lost a dear friend – Koyal’s mother.

At the back of her head, Koyal knew she deserved anything Surya Aunty hurled at her and she braced herself for it.

‘Koyal beta,’ a gentle soft voice, lathered with a mother’s love, reached Koyal and her shoulders sagged both with relief and despair.

Oh, Surya Aunty, her heart said. Koyal had forgotten how big a part of her childhood this voice had been, and it all came rushing to her now. This was a voice that reminded her of home-made mango ice creams she had shared with Atharv in the summer months. Of shopping sprees when Ma would link her arm with Surya Aunty’s and giggle like a schoolgirl. Of late-night gossip sessions between the women that would have her mother doubling up with laughter, something she never ever did with anyone else.