she zapped the central-locking system, which responded with its familiar reassuring beep. Akbar usually did that while striding purposefully away from the car, without even glancing over his shoulder, but Sam preferred to be sure the locks were down and flashing their little red lights before she could walk away.
Shivering, she wrapped her stole around her bare shoulders and assessed the gaps in the traffic before darting across the road. Even a passing summer shower could instantly turn London back to a wintry grey, the city seeming to return with relief to being its favourite avatar. She looked at her watch as she quickened her steps for Bush House. She’d told Anita four o’clock and already it was a quarter past. Her super-efficient journalist friend often despaired over Sam’s rather scatty time-keeping abilities, recently joking: ‘Imagine if I were to open up the news bulletin with…It’s—oh crikey, so sorry everyone—just a couple of minutes past ten. But does it matter, for heavens sake, just a few minutes this way or that?’ Anita had mimicked Sam’s lazy drawl as she said that last sentence, eliciting a good-natured smile from Sam, who would have been the first to admit she had airily carried over the concept of ‘Indian time’ into her life here in England, unlike Anita. Constantly amazed by Anita’s brusque professionalism, Sam often found it hard to imagine that they’d managed to stay friends since they were seven.
She went through the tall doors of the BBC that were invariably surrounded by dripping scaffolding, and waved when she spotted Anita standing at the top of the stairs joshing with an elderly security guard. Anita would chat to anyone, and had once claimed that casual conversations were the sources of her best stories.
They hugged as Anita reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked Sam, who nodded. ‘Sorry I couldn’t speak when you called…’
‘Don’t worry, but I couldn’t get hold of Bubbles either and really needed to hear one of your voices.’
‘Is she coming?’
‘Of course, she said she’ll meet us at Heebah at five.’
‘Make that six then,’ Anita said wryly, pulling up the hood of her gilet as they stepped outside the building.
‘She won’t be late today. She just has to drop her mum-in-law somewhere before getting the car and driver to herself.’
Sam ignored Anita’s eye-roll. Anita was the only one of them who still travelled on the tube—which was fine until she started making a virtue of it. Occasionally, if she went on for long enough about carbon footprints and off-setting emissions, Sam would feel guilty enough to walk across the park or hop on a 98 bus to get into town. But that wasn’t really an option on a day as rainy as this, and for Bubbles to even dream of travelling anywhere but by car was ridiculous, given her millions. Well, her pa-in-law’s gazillions, to be more accurate.
Sam took her friend’s arm as they walked over the zebra crossing, hastening their footsteps for the politely waiting traffic. The drizzle was turning heavier and the café was still half a block away. As usual, she’d forgotten to carry a brolly and pulled her stole over her head. She was ruining another good pashmina, but Akbar had told her to get her hair done in honour of his boss’s visit yesterday and that hadn’t cost very much less.
A few minutes later they ducked with relief under the awning of the hookah café, squeezing their way past brass tables that had been placed on the pavement for smokers. Since the introduction of the smoking ban, Sam had taken to feeling sorry for all those smokers who had been relegated to muddy pavements as they bubbled into brass hookahs and stared moodily out at the rain. Sam had spent years going uncomplainingly to places like Heebah for the sake of her two best friends as, going by the law of averages, it had seemed altogether fairer that they should go to smoking rather than non-smoking establishments. She had tried not to think of it as a sacrifice anyway, having long ago got into the habit of taking shallow breaths when she was around her friends. Anita had been smoking since they were fifteen, claiming then that it helped her concentrate on cramming for their exams, although Bubbles had taken to it only after her marriage, citing her reason as stress induced by, alternately, her mother-in-law, father-in-law, children and husband.
The women were ushered to the table that Sam had sensibly thought to book earlier in the day, and settled onto a pair of commodious white leather banquettes. Sam noticed that all the Persian hookahs and filigreed marble ashtrays had gone, replaced by artful bowls filled with colourful glass beads. Anita ordered their drinks: a full-bodied Shiraz for Sam and a vodka tonic for herself. After their waiter had left, she said, ‘Well, let’s see Lamboo’s letter then’, and as she shrugged off her damp gilet she saw that Sam was already holding it out in her direction.
Bubbles looked fretfully out of the car window—they had left Belgravia at least half an hour ago, taken fifteen minutes to get to the art buyer’s office on Curzon Street, where her mother-in-law had disembarked, and were still only just approaching Grosvenor Square. The traffic snarl-up around the American Embassy wasn’t helped by the ghastly concrete road blocks that seemed to have become a permanent feature of the square. She could see a metal passageway with a makeshift placard saying ‘Visas’ that was occupying half the road and snaked all the way around the block. The passageway was empty of people, the embassy probably having shut at five, although a hulking guard with a jutting chin stood holding an impressive piece of weaponry while gazing at the passing traffic. He caught Bubbles’ eye briefly through the car window as she drifted past, but there wasn’t the usual flicker of interest on his impassive features. He had obviously not registered the fancy car and liveried chauffeur in the way most people did, sneaking unashamedly curious peeks at the occupants of the rear seat to catch a glimpse through smoked glass of such blessed beings that could afford to ride in a Maybach. They were hardly likely to know that she, Bubbles, rode in it only when accompanying her imperious mother-in-law like some kind of handmaiden. Nor would they know that there were things money and Maybachs couldn’t achieve, such as being able to get through the London traffic faster on a day like this. There was no point getting tetchy with the poor driver, as her mother-in-law had done a few minutes ago. He was doing his best with the bulky car that had purred again to a standstill. To distract herself, Bubbles delved into the magazine rack behind the seat and found copies of Tatler and American Vanity Fair. She leafed through the first and then the second, trying to absorb the gossip and the fashion tips. But her concentration was terrible today. She hadn’t been able to think straight since the arrival of Lamboo’s letter this morning, unable even to speak to Sam when she had seen her name flash repeatedly on the screen of her phone. Slapping the magazines down on the seat, Bubbles opened her bag and took out the envelope for the umpteenth time. She gently ran her fingers over its rough paper, in some inexplicable way relishing the painful tug she felt in her heart. Just when her psychotherapist had confirmed that she was finally learning to put futile memories away, this! Someone—it must have been Anita—had once said that people remembered happy things like their childhood days and first love and first taste of ice-cream in a cone only when they were unhappy. If that was so, then it was clear to Bubbles that she was condemned to be surrounded by her memories despite the best psychotherapy Harley Street had to offer. And how they had rushed back this morning, faces and voices emerging thick and fast from some kind of wintry mist, even the tiniest details etched with sudden frightening clarity before her eyes. Bubbles shoved the letter back into her Mulberry tote, nervously rubbing her other hand over the cold hardness of its metal studs, warming them against her palm as she looked out at the rain.
It had rained in Delhi too that morning long ago, complete with lightning flashes and thunderclaps, which was not so unusual for late December. The downpour had made the roses in Miss Lamb’s garden drop their petals all over the winter earth, like red spatters of blood. Or so Bubbles had thought, until she had actually seen what blood looked like after it had fallen on wet earth—virtually invisible to the eye. She shuddered. ‘Where are we now, Mottram?’ she asked in a high voice, for want of anything else to say.
‘Old Burlington Street, Madam,’ the chauffeur replied. ‘I’m trying all the back roads to get out of this mess. Not long now, hopefully.’
Bubbles recognised the shops of Regent Street as the car turned a corner and she saw shoppers burdened with raincoats