Cold Feet Read online

  What had I done wrong? I had thought I was playing by the book. I thought if you knew someone, they knew you. I thought the fact that I was me meant something to him. I thought that the fact that he held my hand in a particular way—cupping it instead of linking my fingers with his, meant something to him. And I thought I was done being this unhappy. How many times? Over and over and over I went over the same old story, maybe the break-ups varied a little bit, but ultimately, the story ended the same way. With me here, sleepless, unable to soothe the knot in my stomach, and him far away and probably enjoying himself now he no longer had me to deal with.

  By about four in the morning, I managed to doze off a little, and woke up at five to find my head in the old lady’s lap. She was sitting up now, gazing out of the window, and stroking my hair, and it made me want to cry, even if it was absent-minded stroking, the kind she would do for any young person, whose head she happened to find on her lap. I blinked up at her and she looked down at me. ‘Sleep, sleep,’ she said in Hindi, ‘it’s okay, you’ve been awake all night.’ I shook my head shyly, and sat up, rubbing the last of the sleep from my eyes. She cupped my face then, her palms were thin and rough; I could feel the fragility of her bones. ‘Let it go,’ she said, her blurry eyes fixed on mine, and I wanted to, oh, I wanted to! I wanted to weep into her soft lap that smelt of detergent and train, but I don’t tell my problems to strangers. I don’t tell my problems even to friends, so I smiled tightly and moved away so she thought I didn’t want to speak to her or anyone, when really it was the exact opposite and I wanted to tell her how grateful I was to her for being so kind. Before I could make any gesture, her family woke up, and then I was in my corner again, my playlist feeling like a red-wine-mouth in the morning. And before I knew it, we were pulling into Thivim, my stop, and I had to once more pull out my very impractical suitcase. I made my way out and turned to face them, raising one hand in thanks, but no one, except the toddlers, was looking at me. I waved at the little ones and they drooled at me. As I stepped off, I smelt the salty, humid air. My adventure was about to begin.

  I tried to have sex with him, when I thought he was slipping away. We hadn’t had sex for what? Three months? And when the sex stops like that, especially when you’ve only been dating for a year, you know something’s up. It’s not like we were constantly at each other, we weren’t complete horndogs, or rabbits or whichever animal you think has a lot of sex. But we used to enjoy each other’s bodies, we liked the sex, and we did it often. It was never three times a day, but it was daily. Then it became a couple of times a week, then once a week, and before we knew it, it happened right after my period, once a month, and then nothing. I thought men needed more sex than women, which made me a little embarrassed about how much I wanted it. I was convinced I was a nymphomaniac or something, because I’d make a move and he’d move away or deflect with like a kiss on my forehead or something, and then I’d be lying in bed, wondering why was I so horny and so turned on and so wanting him and he wasn’t. I’d listen to my female friends talk about how they made excuses to get out of sex, and everyone would laugh, ha-ha, the great secret of the sexes, how we had to endure it, and I’d be sitting there, laughing with the rest of them, but still wondering at the back of my head: What is wrong with me?

  To inspire him, I started doing things I thought he’d like, attempting to give him a random blow job while we were watching TV for instance, but then, he’d seem into it for five minutes, and then his penis would soften in my mouth and he’d push me away gently. ‘I’m just tired’ or ‘I’m stressed with work’ became a regular thing. Once I remember, during those three months, he reached for me, and I held my breath, even though I had a low, pounding headache and wasn’t, for once, in the mood. I waited while he touched me, perfunctorily, and then, after about five minutes of that, swung himself on top of me, and in about five more minutes, that was over too. He kissed my shoulder, in apology or acknowledgement, I’m not sure which, and then I waited for his breathing to get back to normal, but I guess I waited too long, because soon he was asleep. We didn’t talk through the whole episode. That was the last time he initiated it. I don’t know what I could have done differently.

  About a month ago, I bought some sexy lingerie, feeling like one of those middle-aged women trying to revive her husband’s interest in her, and here we were in our twenties! It would have been funny if it were happening to anyone else. On a Saturday night, when we were back at his house, after a long night of drinking, but not too many drinks—I had watched him, so he couldn’t have that excuse! I changed into what the salesgirl called a ‘teddy’, only there was nothing cute and furry about it. In fact, it was a rather intimidating garment, all black and lace and wired, and maybe that was my mistake? Once I put it on though, I felt gorgeous and attractive and if he turns me down in this, he’s got to be gay. And since it had been proven to me a number of times that he wasn’t, actually, gay, I saw no problem with my plan. I went outside, lit some candles in the bedroom, old ones that I had, and called out to where he was checking e-mail. He gave me a two minutes’ gesture and I remembered that some of my online reading had said men like women to take charge in the bedroom, which went completely against my usual way of seduction—completely passive—but I was getting desperate.

  I went up to him, took his phone from his hands and placed my breasts at eye level. He looked at them, ran his hands up my satin-covered body for a second and then looked at me. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked, but not in a ‘what-are-you-doing’ sense, more in an affectionate way, and I smiled and said, ‘What does it look like I’m doing?’ and bent down and kissed him hard and he stood up and I could feel him unfurling, responding, until he moved me away and said, ‘You know, when you put so much pressure on me, I really don’t feel like having sex.’

  And that was that.

  I fell asleep in my lace–satin cage and woke up with the corset holes forming little circular patterns on my body, while he was stretched out, a foot away, sleeping like he had no problems in the entire world. He woke up, smiled at me, and patted my arm. Patted my arm. I resigned myself to a life without sex, because I loved him, and sex wasn’t, isn’t, everything. Besides, as a woman, it shouldn’t be that important to me anyway.

  A couple of foreigners stood by the prepaid booth asking for the price of a taxi to Anjuna beach, which is where I was heading to as well. I was relying on people being nice to me as part of my master travel plan. It wasn’t a great plan, I agree, but in my head I argued that it would be an interesting social experiment. Besides, not to be arrogant or anything, I’m young, I’m not unattractive, it’s not so hard for people to be nice to me. I’ve been told I usually have a helpless look on my face, which makes people, all sorts, not just men, want to fight my battles. It’s the lazy way out, but in this big, bad world you have to capitalize on whatever skills you’ve got. It’s not really my fault, it’s the way I was raised. Take my name for example. Ladli literally means ‘darling’, and is the name your parents give you as a baby when your ‘real’ name is considered too big and adult for an infant. It’s what your grandmother coos to you. It’s like being named ‘dear’, and having people call out ‘Dear!’ each time they want you, even if you’re at the principal’s office in school, and she’s ticking you off for something, but saying ‘darling’ before every sentence. It’s weird! It’s confusing! It makes you think the whole world wants to pamper and cosset you and you have an unreasonable sense of entitlement, and oh yes, I blame my parents for everything.

  4

  The Flat with the Frog Bidet

  If you had told her, this time, two years ago, that she’d be getting married within the next year, would meet the love of her life, she would’ve told you that you had been watching too many romantic movies. Marriage, Amisha had decided long ago, was not for a certain kind of woman. The kind of woman she ‘used to be’—such a glorious phrase! Used to be—the one in the centre of the only serious conversation at a party. She’d be the one
holding forth, on, oh, economic policy or something, with a couple of men around her, long-married men, who liked to debate at cocktail parties like these, before turning around to find their wives by their sides. And the wives would be there, clutching their bags, ‘Sweetie, shall we go home now?’ and it would be Amisha, and maybe one sad old bachelor who usually overstayed his welcome. She’d find herself in a situation where the sad old bachelor, another kind of SOB entirely than the ones she usually liked, would size her up, assume that she was more desperate than he was, and attempt to make a move. Without fail, these men were more confident in their chances than she ever was. Occasionally, there’d be a handsome man at these things, very rarely, because it seemed like the older she got, the less her friends tried to fix her up, giving her up as a hopeless cause, or even worse, as someone who’d be satisfied with the loneliest of their sad old bachelors.

  The handsome man would often be new to the city, and would drift towards her corner filled with scintillating conversation (her friends liked to invite her over because she made them all look smarter, in the way that people with good conversation often can). Having spotted the handsome man, her voice would rise, her repartee would get repartee-er, every bit of what she said would lurk and unfold in his direction, like the old-timey cartoons, her voice beckoning, trying to get him in, get him towards her. But inevitably, even if he did drift towards her knot of people, she’d be tongue-tied in a matter of moments, all interesting conversation would shatter like glass around her feet. Or worse, she’d be collared by the worst kind of long-married man, the one who is so confident that every word he utters is pure gold. He will not shut up, he will tell you everything he has noticed about everything since the world began. She blamed the wives of these married men—a few well-timed snubs could have kept them in their place. By this time, the handsome man would have lost interest, or started talking to someone else, and by the end of the evening, one of the other single women in the place—oh, her friends were loaded with single women—would be fluttering long eyelashes at him. He would be charmed. And there she would be, standing with the SOB, while her hosts gave her smiles and thumbs ups.

  Amisha’s eyes tracked Derek as he walked through the restaurant to meet her. This was their favourite meeting spot, a little coffee shop off the hustle and bustle of south Bombay, not a special occasion place, but a place where plans were made. This was where they made lists of things to do, guest lists for their wedding, met between meetings, snuck a quick coffee during their early dating days, before he went back to his finance job and she to her newspaper office.

  Today, their meeting was about the realtor who had been setting up houses for them to rent in Bandra. They had seen about ten over the last few days, but hadn’t had a chance to discuss them, and this would be their debrief, as Derek referred to it. She loved how structured he was, how methodical, she knew he had been taking photos and making notes on his tablet as they house browsed, and he’d have them all in order to go over with her today. She felt lucky, lucky and blessed, as she called to the waiter to bring their French press, the usual brew, and the biscotti.

  The nice thing about being with someone who wasn’t from your country was learning all these new things. She had never really liked coffee much, but then Derek had pointed out to her that she was drinking awful stuff, and had gradually, without being patronizing at all, introduced her to different kinds of beans and flavours. And now she owned three coffee machines: a drip, a press and a cappuccino maker, which was an early wedding gift she had bought for Derek. When he was out of town, however, she had liked to drink tea, in bed, with their cats piled up next to her and a movie on her laptop. She also liked to make pickle toast, something she was shy about eating around people, but when she was alone, she fried the bread with great gusto, loaded up the pickle and had crumbs all over her face. You had to give up some of your slobbishness when you lived with someone else.

  Derek was so fastidious even at home; left to herself on weekends, she didn’t bathe all day, but he’d get out of bed, put the coffee on and go for a shower immediately. She would put it off by lying in bed longer than he did. Luckily she had a job that let her do that, but then it meant not seeing him at all till very late at night, so she learned to like 7 a.m., and made the coffee for him while he went in for a shower. Unlike Derek, she liked to wake up slowly in the morning, let her eyelids open, blink for a little while to gather her thoughts, while he was all go-go-go from the moment he opened his eyes with a snap and first reached over for his cell phone.

  ‘Meesh.’ His own private, peculiar nickname. She smiled happily at him as he bent down to kiss her cheek. Even though it was a particularly warm day, she wasn’t raising her arms because she was sure she had damp sweat circles. He looked groomed and posh and immaculate. This is really me, she thought, clocking the envious eyes of the two single girls in the corner. At least, she assumed they were envious. Who wouldn’t be? He was so handsome and so nice and so smart in his suit and tie, obviously someone who Went Places and Did Things.

  ‘Ah, great, the coffee’s here. I could really use it.’ He poured her a cup first, without her having to ask for it and passed it over. The first time they had had coffee together, she was about to add milk and sugar, but he had said, ‘Can you imagine that I met someone last week who added milk to this coffee? It would be like adding Coke to your wine!’ Amisha’s hand had paused halfway to the milk jug and she had laughed traitorously and said, ‘I know! Some people …’ And she had never added milk and sugar to her coffee again, unless she ordered a cappuccino, which she often did.

  She learned, too, to offer her friends the same black brew and raise her eyebrows at them when they asked for milk and sugar and explain kindly to them that that wasn’t the way this particular coffee was drunk, but if they wanted it (accompanied by a shrug) she’d go get the stuff now. Not many did, after that, except her friend Meera, who turned up her nose and said, ‘I don’t know how you can drink black coffee, it’s so bitter!’ And Derek, who had been there, had laughed and gotten up to get her the milk, but then he had sat on the arm of the chair Amisha was in and cupped the back of her neck, and she had glowed in that gesture.

  It was so them-against-the-world! Even though, okay, the world wasn’t really against them, she liked that they were a team. Amisha and Derek. If they were celebrities, they’d be Amrek or Derisha. She had told Meera that also, and Meera had rolled her eyes and said, ‘Why don’t you just call your kids that and get it over with?’ Amisha had thought that was a great idea, except later, alone, she wondered if Meera had been mocking her.

  Once, she used to be more aware when someone was being less than sincere, but now, with her Derek armour up and all around her, she had grown oblivious to other people’s meanings and tones. What did she need them for, anyway? She had grown spoilt on the honesty and forthrightness of her relationship—little things like not mentioning you were a fan of milky coffee didn’t count. If he asked her a question, she always answered honestly. Ish. He, on the other hand, never toned it down, something which she liked about him and something which made her not ask him too many questions when she didn’t feel equipped to hear the answer. Anything from ‘Where should we live?’ to ‘What do you think of this dress?’ met with the same serious consideration and the same well-thought-out answer. It was because he wasn’t afraid to lose her that he told her everything that was on his mind; and because she was too afraid that all this was illusory, that it would pass, that she’d wake up and find her life unchanged from two years ago, that she sometimes hid her whole truths.

  The two of them went through his compiled house listings, Derek stating the pros and cons as he went down the list and Amisha agreed with what he said. Only once did she pause, when he was swiping through an album and she spotted the bathroom that she had loved, with a stone bidet shaped like a frog. It also had an adorable balcony, she remembered, two of them, circular with that old stone work she liked so much, and awnings they could pull down dur
ing the monsoon. Most balconies in Bombay had sliding glass windows, if they existed at all, a balcony was a rare sight—they were almost always made into another room. This apartment, however, had been built by a man with a taste for the frivolous as opposed to the need to pack everything in, hence the bidet and the completely useless-as-bedrooms balconies. Also, completely useless was the little anteroom where the cupboard space was, with a built-in mirror and a stool you could pull out to sit in front of it. A real dressing room, but they wouldn’t have a study and a guest bedroom then. She had loved that apartment. ‘I want this one,’ she told Derek, making him stop at a close-up of the balcony. She could put a circular table there, when the weather was good, a wrought iron table and two chairs, painted white, which would distress naturally in the sun. They’d sit there on pleasant Sundays, drinking Bloody Marys or white wine, and reading. People would come over and admire them from a distance.

  ‘It’s impractical,’ said Derek. ‘There’s only a tiny second bedroom and no space for a study.’