About Lata he felt completely optimistic. He did not know of any rivals. Perhaps the lunch had been too filling, he thought; she had looked a bit sleepy. But it had gone off as well as expected. As for his colour-blindness, she would have had to find out about it sooner or later. He was glad that he had not asked them to come back to his flat for paan — Kalpana Gaur had warned him in a letter that the Mehras did not approve of paan. He had grown to like Lata so much that he wished he had had more time to speak with her. But he knew that it was not she but her family — and especially Ma — who was the target of today’s exercise. ‘Make 1951 the deciding year of your life,’ he had written earlier in the year in one of his Action Points to himself. There were only three days to the new year. He decided to extend his deadline by a week or two, to the time when Lata would return to her studies in Brahmpur.
16.15
Savita had got into the front seat of the Austin; Arun was driving, and she wanted a word with him. Meenakshi sat at the back. The others went back to Calcutta in the Humber.
‘Arun Bhai,’ said the gentle Savita, ‘what did you mean by behaving like that?’
‘I don’t see what you mean. Don’t be a damned fool.’
Savita was the one person in the family who was not daunted by Arun’s bullying tactics. There was to be no summary closure of debate.
‘Why did you go out of your way to be unpleasant to Haresh?’
‘Perhaps you should ask him that question.’
‘I don’t think he was particularly nasty to you.’
‘Well, he certainly said that Praha was a household word in India and that the same couldn’t be said for Bentsen Pryce.’
‘It’s a fact.’
‘He had no call to say it even if it is.’
Savita laughed. ‘He only said it, Arun Bhai, because you had gone on and on about the Czechs and their crude ways. It was self-defence.’
‘I see you are determined to take his side.’
‘That’s not how I see it. Why couldn’t you at least be civil? Don’t you have any regard for Ma’s feelings — or Lata’s?’
‘I most certainly do,’ said Arun pompously. ‘That is precisely why I think this thing should be nipped in the bud. He is simply the wrong sort of man. A shoemaker in the family!’
Arun smiled. When, on the recommendation of a former colleague of his father’s, he had been asked to appear for an interview at Bentsen Pryce, they had had the wisdom instantly to perceive that he was the right sort of man. You either were or you weren’t, reflected Arun.
‘I don’t see what’s wrong with making shoes,’ said Savita mildly. ‘We’re certainly happy to use them.’
Arun grunted.
‘I think I have a bit of a headache,’ said Meenakshi.
‘Yes, yes,’ continued Arun. ‘I’m driving as fast as I can, considering I’m being distracted by my passenger. We’ll be home soon.’
Savita was quiet for a couple of miles.
‘Well, Arun Bhai, what do you have against him that you didn’t have against Pran? You didn’t have much to say about Pran’s accent either when you first met him.’
Arun knew that he was treading on dangerous ground here, and that Savita would take no nonsense about her husband.
‘Pran’s all right,’ conceded Arun. ‘He’s getting to know the ways of the family.’
‘He has always been all right,’ said Savita. ‘It’s just that the family has adjusted itself to him.’
‘Have it your way,’ said Arun. ‘Just let me drive in peace. Or would you like me to pull over and continue this argument? Meenakshi has a headache.’
‘Arun Bhai, this is not an argument. I’m sorry, Meenakshi, I have to have things out with him before he starts working on Ma,’ said Savita. ‘What is it you have against Haresh? That he isn’t “one of us”?’
‘Well, he certainly isn’t,’ said Arun. ‘He’s a dapper little man with co-respondent shoes, a grinning servant and a big head. I have rarely met anyone so arrogant, opinionated or self-satisfied — and with less cause to be.’
Savita merely smiled in reply. This irritated Arun even more than an answer.
‘I don’t know what you hope to achieve by this discussion,’ he said after a few moments of silence.
‘I just don’t want you to ruin Lata’s chances,’ said Savita seriously. ‘She isn’t too certain about things herself, you know, and I want her to make up her own mind, not to have Big Brother deciding everything for her and laying down the law as usual.’
Meenakshi laughed from the back: a silvery, slightly steely laugh.
A huge lorry came towards them from the other side, almost forcing them off the narrow road. Arun swerved and swore.
‘Do you mind if we continue this conference at home?’ he asked.
‘There are hundreds of people at home,’ said Savita. ‘It will be impossible to make you see sense with all the interruptions. Don’t you realize, Arun Bhai, that offers of marriage do not come raining down from the sky every day? Why are you determined to thwart this one?’
‘There are certainly others who are interested in Lata — Meenakshi’s brother for one.’
‘Amit? Do you really mean Amit?’
‘Yes, Amit. I do really mean Amit.’
Savita immediately thought that Amit would be most unsuitable, but did not say so. ‘Well, let Lata decide for herself,’ she said. ‘Leave it to her.’
‘With Ma fussing around her, she won’t be capable of making up her own mind anyway,’ said Arun. ‘And Ma, as anyone can see, has been well wooed by the foreman. He hardly had a minute for anyone else the whole afternoon. I noticed that he didn’t speak much to you, for example.’
‘I didn’t mind,’ said Savita. ‘I liked him. And I want you to behave decently on New Year’s Day.’
Arun shook his head at the thought of Ma’s sudden, unconsulted invitation to Haresh.
‘Please let me out at New Market,’ said Meenakshi suddenly. ‘I’ll join you later.’
‘But your headache, darling?’
‘It’s all right. I have to buy a few things. I’ll come home in a taxi.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘We haven’t upset you?’
‘No.’
When Meenakshi had got down, Arun turned to Savita:
‘You have quite needlessly upset my wife.’
‘Oh don’t be silly, Arun Bhai — and don’t refer to Meenakshi as “my wife”. I think she just can’t face going home to a dozen people. And I don’t blame her. There are too many of us in Sunny Park. Do you think Pran and Uma and I should take up the Chatterjis’ invitation?’
‘That’s another thing. What did he mean by talking about Bengalis in that manner?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Savita. ‘But you do it all the time.’
Arun was quiet. Something was troubling him.
‘Do you think she got down because she thought we were going to discuss Amit?’
Savita smiled at the thought of such unlikely delicacy on Meenakshi’s part but simply said, ‘No.’
‘Well,’ said Arun, still stung by the fact that Savita of all people was being so uncompromising in this matter of Haresh, and feeling a little uncertain as a result, ‘you’re getting quite a lot of courtroom practice out of me.’
‘Yes,’ said Savita, refusing to be jollied along. ‘Now promise me you’re not going to interfere.’
Arun laughed in an indulgent, elder-brotherly manner. ‘Well, we all have our opinions — you have yours, and I have mine. And Ma can take whichever she likes. And Lata too, of course. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?’