Secrets & Saris

Priti looked surprised. ‘You really don’t know who he is, do you?’ she said.

Shefali shook her head.

‘He’s pretty well known,’ Priti said. ‘Been with the channel for almost three years, and he’s had two very successful shows recently. Of course they’re on fairly serious themes, but he handled them brilliantly.’

She named the shows, but clearly she didn’t expect to Shefali to recognise them. Shefali wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or amused by Priti’s slightly patronising tone. She didn’t watch TV at all, except for the movie channels, and she had no idea if the shows Priti was talking about were big league or not. For all she knew they aired at ungodly hours, and only housewives who were very, very bored or very, very frustrated watched them.

Neil was standing next to her again. ‘Coffee, anyone?’ he asked.

Priti shook her head vigorously. ‘We need to wrap up some still shots of the river before the light goes. But we don’t need you for that—you and Shefali go ahead.’

‘Come on, then,’ Neil said. ‘Unless you’re in a hurry to get back?’

Shefali shook her head again. She hadn’t seen the waterfall yet, nor the temple with the sixty-four statues of dancing girls that Mrs Dubey had been raving about, but she’d have to come back some other day.

Probably it was the effect of the sun, but she was terribly conscious of the man next to her as she climbed the stairs leading to the main road. She surveyed him from under her lashes. He was quite amazingly good-looking, she decided, though his looks were unconventional. His hair was a rich brown, with a couple of gold streaks in it. It was an unusual colour—most Indian men had jet-black hair or, more rarely, sandy-brown. His skin was tanned a perfect golden brown, and he had a square jaw with a cleft chin, and uncompromising, steady blue-grey eyes.

Trying to distract herself, Shefali stopped a couple of times to look at the carved stone figurines being sold at the stalls lining the stairs. There was a little marble one of Ganesha, the elephant-headed god, which she picked up and looked at for a while before putting it back.

‘Don’t you want it?’ Neil asked.

‘My mum collects them,’ Shefali said. ‘But it’s going to be a while before I see her again, so there’s no point buying it now.’

‘Won’t she come and visit? Check on how you’re settling in and stuff like that?’

‘According to her, moving here is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life,’ Shefali said drily. ‘She’s planning to stay put in Delhi and wait for me to come to my senses.’

‘Ahh—like that, is it? Do you miss her?’

Shefali shook her head. ‘Not really. Oh, look at that!’ ‘That’ was an intricate carving of an elephant, displayed in the window of the next stall. It was pretty enough, but really she’d pointed to it only to distract Neil from the conversation.

He gave it a considering look. ‘Bit lopsided, if you ask me,’ he said. ‘And I’ve never seen an elephant with quite such beady eyes.’

Shefali laughed, and they climbed the last few steps to the road.

Neil looked around. ‘You know what, I don’t think there’s a single decent café around here,’ he said.

‘I’m OK with tea at one of those tapri stalls around the corner,’ Shefali said, but Neil shook his head. ‘Now who’s being a snob?’ Shefali asked teasingly.

‘That would be me,’ Neil said. ‘I’m a little fussy about the kind of tea I drink. Cold drink instead? Or, if you’re done here, we can head back to the city and grab a coffee there?’

‘Heading back to the city sounds like an idea,’ she replied. ‘Should I meet you there? I borrowed a friend’s car, so I’ll have to go back in that.’

Only the driver was nowhere to be found, though the car was still parked in the spot where Shefali had got out. After several attempts to locate the driver had proved fruitless Shefali left a note on the windscreen and gratefully accepted Neil’s offer of a lift.

‘I wonder where he could have got to?’ she fretted as she got into his dangerous-looking SUV. ‘He doesn’t have a mobile, and he told me he’d stay in the car.’

Neil shrugged. ‘Must have wandered off for a smoke. Message your friend and tell her you’re OK—I assume he’ll contact her when he does go back eventually.’

Shefali dutifully shot off a message to Mrs Dubey, and then leaned back in the passenger seat, yawning hugely. It had been a long day, and she was tired. The emotional strain of the last few weeks in Delhi was catching up with her, and she felt exhausted all the time.

‘Close your eyes and take a nap,’ Neil suggested, sounding amused. ‘It’s a long drive.’

It was dusk by the time they finally pulled up in the city centre, and Shefali’s eyes blinked open as the car came to a stop. Realising that she’d taken Neil at his word and slept blissfully all the way back, she jerked upright, feeling embarrassed and hoping she hadn’t snored or drooled all over the seats.

‘It’s past seven—coffee or an early dinner?’

‘Both,’ Shefali said. ‘I need to wake up.’

Looking back, she knew that was the moment she should have said she was tired and wanted to go to her hotel. But the thought didn’t cross her mind. The attentions of a man as attractive as Neil were flattering after what she’d been through, and besides, she couldn’t bear the thought of having to go back to her dreary hotel room.

The little café they went to was full of young couples—most of them looked like college students who’d sneaked off for a date without their parents knowing. Neil got them a table near a window and then went to fetch their coffees.

Shefali watched him as he stood at the counter. He was far and away the best-looking man in the place, and something like pride stirred in her chest as she watched several women give him the once-over and then glance across at her to see who he was with.

‘Here you go,’ Neil said, reaching across the table to set her cappuccino in front of her.

He settled into the sofa opposite her and Shefali couldn’t help but notice the breadth of his shoulders and the way his T-shirt strained across his muscles as he leaned back. She looked quickly at his hands. No rings. She definitely wasn’t in the market for anything serious—not for a long, long while—but some harmless flirting wouldn’t do her or her self-esteem any harm.

‘So, tell me more about what you do,’ Neil said. ‘College professor? Coaching sweatshop?’

Shefali shook her head, laughing.

‘All through college I wanted a teacher who looked like you—I never was lucky enough,’ he said.

‘I work with kids,’ Shefali said. ‘Who don’t care how I look. But I’m not really a teacher any more—it’s more administrative work.’

‘Do you like kids?’ Neil asked.

Shefali hesitated. All her life she’d made a point of saying the correct thing. It had been drilled into her so thoroughly that it had become a part of who she was. Maybe it was time to start saying what she actually thought for a change.

‘I hate that question,’ she said. ‘No one asks Do you like adults? do they? I love working with children, and I like most kids just the way I like most adults. But kids are human beings too, and there are some who’re perfectly obnoxious.’

Neil laughed. ‘Well, that’s honest, at any rate,’ he said. ‘And where are you working now?’

Shefali leaned forward. ‘Let’s not talk about work,’ she said. ‘It’s unlikely we’ll meet again—you’ll be out of here when your shoot is done, and I’m going to live here for a while—let’s talk about stuff we wouldn’t discuss with anyone otherwise.’

Neil raised his eyebrows. ‘Like...?’ he asked. He was always wary of women who tried to get too close too quickly. So far one of the main attractions Shefali had for him was that she wasn’t throwing herself at his head the way most women did.

Shefali picked up on his hesitation and said, ‘Don’t worry—I’m not talking about a Freudian psychoanalysis session. Just general stuff. Nothing personal. Like what I told you about not always liking kids.’

Neil relaxed a little. OK, not so dicey, then. She was just amusing herself. Just as well—he was beginning to find her quite disturbingly attractive, and the lighter they kept things the better.

‘You first or me?’ he asked.

‘You first,’ Shefali said. ‘One deep dark secret that you’ve never told anyone else.’

‘I’m petrified of dogs.’