The Lilac House by Anita Nair Page B

troubling you can be resolved.’
    ‘I am Meera,’ the woman offers shyly. ‘Thanks, Vinnie. Thanks for…’ She pauses, unsure of how to describe the situation she has been found in.

II
    ‘S o this is my situation. Perhaps I should consider becoming a whore! What else am I trained for?’ Meera finishes, feeling her lips tremble, her hands shake. It has been a relief to talk to someone, this perfect stranger, of how her life changed; of not knowing; of the questions and answers that hovered over her, every waking moment and in her sleep.

    The trembling will not stop. Vinnie notices how Meera’s hands shake but she pretends not to see and takes her up on what she has just said.
    ‘A whore!’ Vinnie throws her head back and laughs. ‘I can just see it. What do you think you will be doing? Offering your clients tea and biscuits and a lesson or two in etiquette? Meera, Meera, what is wrong with you?’
    Then Vinnie stops abruptly. Meera, she sees, isn’t smiling. She doesn’t even look sheepish at having touted such a preposterous idea. Instead, she is nibbling her lip as if that is the only way she can prevent her face from crumpling into a wail.
    ‘Meera.’ Vinnie touches her arm. ‘What are you thinking of? I don’t even know what to say.’
    Meera squares her shoulders and says, ‘What else can I do? This job I have applied for – I don’t even know if I will get it. And if I do, it doesn’t pay very much.’
     
    Meera opens her handbag, an expensive Coach, Vinnie sees, and takes out a pocket book. She flips a page and pushes it towards Vinnie.
    ‘Look at this. This is how much money I need every month. Expenses. I have economized as much as I can. My family, my grandmother and mother and my children, why even the maid, all of them are so careful, it breaks my heart to see them like this. But even this tightening of purse strings, it isn’t enough, Vinnie. If I don’t find a job soon, we will be in serious trouble.’
    Vinnie sees the columns of figures in Meera’s neat hand. Each item carefully written, every i dotted, each t crossed. How desperate does a woman have to be to consider selling her body?
     
    ‘But didn’t you have any sense of what was coming? Some deep rooted discomfort at what was happening between the two of you?’ Vinnie asks.
    Meera watches Vinnie as she tears open a packet of sugar and
empties the contents in the saucer, her hand carefully trailing the circumference of the cup. Then Vinnie stirs her sugarless coffee.
    ‘Why do you do that?’
    ‘Do what?’ Vinnie frowns. She looks at the empty sugar sachet.
    ‘Oh, this.’ She smiles sheepishly. ‘It’s silly but some part of me, the sugar craving me, is quite appeased by this. And I don’t have to worry about the empty white calories coming to live on my hips!’
    Vinnie takes a sip and asks again, ‘Did you really have no idea that everything wasn’t well between the two of you?’
    Meera stares at the middle distance. ‘We squabbled. Which couple doesn’t? But I didn’t think there would be another woman or it would lead to him leaving…no, walking out on us.’
    Meera sits up abruptly, stricken by a memory.
     
    The night before Giri left, he drank steadily. He seldom drank more than his one shot of whisky but that night, he had already had two drinks. He came into the bedroom clinking the ice in his drink. Meera looked up from where she was sorting her clothes for the next day’s brunch and smiled at him.
    He walked to the dressing table where her few articles of make-up and her bottle of perfume resided. He picked up the perfume and sniffed at it. ‘You ought to try a new one. A Dolce Gabbana or an Armani. It’s time you had a new fragrance!’
    Meera looked up, surprised. ‘I thought you said this one was me. I thought you liked it. Which is why I never buy anything else.’
    He took a sip of his drink. ‘The problem with you, Meera, is that you want everything to stay as it is. You have to allow room