Chapter 26

Merlyn opened her eyes and wished she hadn't. Because the first thing she saw was Hemant.

Not Hemant himself, but his photograph on the bedside table. The framed picture of the two of them laughing together at some forgotten joke.

It was taken while on their trip to Lakshwadeep, the time they'd gone scuba-diving with Prahlad and his gang. That was where they had met. Where they had fallen in love. And where they had made love for the first time.

Just looking at it now brought back memories. And like the cat in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that Hemant and she had seen together in London on another memorable trip, Merlyn felt as if some part of her had died alongwith those happy memories of her and Hemant and the time they had shared.

She brushed away the sudden moisture that stung her eyes, surprised at her own weakness. Get over it, woman, she told herself fiercely, rising and going about her morning toilet mechanically.

But perhaps 24 hours was a bit too soon to get over a relationship that had filled her life for close to three years.

She forced herself to think of something else. She also resolved to remove that bedside picture. Better still, she told herself, brushing her teeth angrily, don't just remove it. Replace it. Removing it would leave a blank spot on the table to match the blank space in her chest. She had to replace it with a picture of her with another man. Visualization, that was what it was all about. Forget the past, visualize the future. Me with a man who really cares, and who's worth my caring about him.

As she pulled on a pair of jeans and a comfortable tee shirt -- it was a Sunday after all -- she found herself thinking of the man she had met the last evening.

Arif Merchant.

What was his story? After she had impulsively given him a lift home in AP Singh's Volvo, he had behaved so weirdly. Lapsing into a zombie-like mood, muttering crazy things like, "Maybe I should kill her too."

Kill who? And why? She had wanted to ask him. But the next moment, he had suddenly asked to be let out of the car, had started trying to unlatch the door even while the Volvo was moving at 100 kmph.

Bobby, AP Singh's formidable Sikh driver, had pulled the car over at the junction of S.V. Road and Hill Road.

And Arif had leaped out like a caged beast and had walked away, without even a word.

Merlyn had sat still for a minute before realizing he was actually gone. By the time she reacted, it was too late.

She started to get out of the car, to stop him, ask him what the fuck was wrong? But when she emerged from the airconditioned heaven of the Volvo's interior into the muggy Mumbai night, she saw Arif sprinting down the deserted street in a loping run that resembled a wounded werewolf returning to its lair rather than a businessman going home.

So she had suppressed her irritation at Arif Merchant, told Bobby to drive on toward Juhu, towards home.

She knew she would probably never see Arif again. He had made that quite clear to her. "My office will contact you about the insurance," he had said earlier last evening, referring to the accident. And that was all their meeting had been. An accident from which they had both managed to walk away alive.

Despite this, she found herself thinking about him, and wondering what he had meant by those cryptic statements. Logic aside, she had a feeling that her path and Arif Merchant's path were destined to cross again.