Anjali's Red Scarf Ch. 12

Chapter 12: Change Is Bad

It took us several weeks to put the plan together. There were calls to make, flights to book, and certain other arrangements to make. I would have loved to involve Lucy in it all, but she'd made it very clear that that would be a bad idea, so I settled for smiling enigmatically during our lunches and telling her "you don't want to know". Meanwhile, until we were ready to act, Anjali carried the bugged phone around with her and acted as if nothing was wrong.

Then, early in October, she let her parents know that she'd be coming up to Sydney for Diwali, and could they please meet her at the airport on Saturday morning?

They drove up and waited in the pickup zone at the agreed time, but Anjali didn't show. They called her phone—it rang, but didn't answer—and texted. Ten minutes later, they received a reply:

Come meet me inside the airport.

There was no more information, no further reply to their messages. By that point, I expect Mr. Kapadia would have checked the tracker and confirmed that the phone was inside the airport. After parking the car they would have made their way into the Virgin terminal, following the tracker through the building until they reached the back corner of an airport cafe where a woman sat alone at a table.

That was when I looked up from Anjali's phone, smiled my very best smile at them, and said "Good morning. Anjali can't be here, but she asked me to tell you a few things. Please do sit down."

I had the advantage of surprise, and I did what I could with it. I explained that Anjali had taken her phone in for service, and that the technician had detected some unauthorised apps on it. (This was all true, though somewhat misleading; we'd seen no point in letting them know just how much we knew.) When Mr. Kapadia tried to bluster, I pointed out that he'd known just where to find me.

I told them that she was deeply hurt by this betrayal, and I waxed rhapsodic about her qualities as a friend: her kindness, her generosity, her trustworthiness. I reminded them that she was a grown adult, very nearly a doctor, and quite a sensible one who could perhaps be trusted to talk to boys now and then (another little piece of misdirection) without getting into trouble.

I told them that Anjali had asked me to convey her request that they not make any further attempts to contact her or surveil her, and that she would be in contact if and when she felt ready, and I suggested that if and when she did an apology on their part might be in order.

I did my best. I'd taken some days scripting what I had to say, and learning my script so I could move through it as fluently as if all this talk came naturally to me. I used everything I'd learned about them from our years of acquaintance; I leant on all the goodwill I'd ever earned with them.

When I was younger I used to believe that a good enough argument could win anybody over, if only I could find the right words. Nowadays I'm far less optimistic; life is not a video game and sometimes there isn't a winning strategy.

So it was, for all my best efforts. They heard me out, mostly because I didn't leave them room to get a word in. But when at last I stopped, the two of them replied, cold and angry. It was none of my business, and Anjali was their daughter, and she didn't know what was good for her, and I ought to know far better than to presume upon them like this. They said far more than that, moderated only by their desire to avoid a public spectacle in front of airport security, and I expect it would have hurt my feelings if I'd thought about their words closely.

Instead, I just marked time. I watched their mouths move, and I nodded or shook my head as the occasion required it, and now and then I seized on one of their remarks and argued it for a while without any real expectation of changing their minds.

Eventually, I held up my hand and told them, "I've said what I came here to say. It's up to you what you choose to do with that information. I'm afraid I can't stay and talk, because my flight is boarding soon. I wish you the very best, but now I have to leave."

Then I walked back through security screening, switched off the tracker phone, and flew back to Melbourne from the same gate I'd arrived at just a few hours earlier. I hadn't even left the airport.

At the other end of my flight I walked across to the Qantas terminal and settled myself down with a good book. I had just finished it when the screens announced the arrival of another Sydney-to-Melbourne flight, and I was standing at the gate to meet Anjali as she walked off with a spring in her step that I hadn't seen in some time.

"How'd it go?"

"As planned." She hugged me and we walked out towards the taxi stand. "And you?"

"I said my piece. Don't think they bought it though. Sorry, I tried."

"Not your fault. It's a pity, but I am not responsible for their choices, and neither are you." She sighed. "I shall keep on telling myself that until I start believing it. The important thing is that you took plenty of time saying it to them."

She had flown up the night before and stayed in a hotel. In the morning she'd caught an Uber and waited down the road from her parents' house until she saw them both leave, then let herself in; in response to an entirely hypothetical question, Salwa had confirmed that it's not housebreaking if they've given you a key. Her father's password was still "tendulkar34357" and once logged on, she had no difficulty in finding the archive.

The next part was my idea. Anjali's thought had been simply to delete the archive, but we'd both recognised that that might do more harm than good. It would be a very obvious sign of tampering, and if Mr. Kapadia kept backups—which both Anjali and Mahesh had advised him to do, after the virus incident—we couldn't guarantee finding them. Far better to sabotage it.

We'd made a copy of the archive from Anjali's account, and then gone through it editing the incriminating parts. ("Like the school library," Anjali had said. "We had editions of Catullus and James Joyce with all the naughty bits bowdlerised.") Her "checklist, as discussed" was now a list of things to think about when planning a PhD thesis. We'd left the conversations about "Lily" mostly unedited, but changed the dates so that they no longer matched Anjali's visits to my place, and in some cases coincided with times when Anjali had an alibi.

Anjali had copied the doctored archive over the original, changed the "last modified" date to cover her traces, and run a script to check for any other copies on her father's computer. Satisfied that there were none, she'd cleaned up after herself and let herself out, texting me to let her know she was done. Even if there were still backups of the original version, her parents would have no reason to go look for them, and eventually they'd be overwritten with our edited version.

"How are you feeling?" I asked her.

"Sad. Relieved. I don't know. I've blocked their numbers and I've let Mahesh know the situation." I saw her shoulders slump. "I really was looking forward to his wedding. I don't suppose I'm going now."

"I'm sorry." I'd never been to a Hindu wedding, but Anjali had attended many during our acquaintance, and through her I'd picked up an idea of their significance. I also knew she'd been taking a keen interest in Mahesh's arrangements.

"Can't be helped." I felt her fingers slide into the crook of my elbow. "Is it okay if I stay over at yours for the weekend?" She didn't need to tell me why.

"Sure. Though, will you be right for clothes?" She'd packed light for Sydney, just an overnight bag with one change.

"I will be if I don't wear any." She laughed at my startled expression. "I'm full of nerves and I very much need a distraction. If you don't mind?"

"Not in the slightest."

* * * * *

"So, what did you have in mind?" I asked her, some hours later. I was on my sofa; she'd just returned from a post-travel shower, having thrown her clothes in the wash and now wearing nothing but a towel, and the red scarf woven into her hair.

"I don't know. It's so loud in my head. Half of me wants some serious pain so I can switch off, and the other half really wants comfort. I can't decide if I want you to spank me or cuddle me. And I'm sore."

"Hmm." I scratched my head. "You know, I might have an idea, but I'll need to call in some help."

"What do you have in mind?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Always."

"Wait and see." I looked through a directory, made a decision, picked up the phone. "Hello there? Yes, I was looking to make a booking for this evening. You do outcalls, right? Yes, I'd like to book the two-hour deluxe package, if it's not too late...it's not? Great." I gave the lady my card details and directions to my apartment. "See you soon!"

Anjali looked at me dubiously. "Did you just dial a dominatrix?"

"Wait and see," I told her.

"Ought I to dress for the occasion?"

I looked her over. "Underwear maybe. But don't hurry on my account."

However, it was a little chilly for just underwear, so she'd added an old bathrobe of mine by the time the buzzer sounded and I admitted a motherly-looking lady with a wheeled duffle bag.

"Hello, I'm Jean. Are you—"

"Yes, I'm Sarah, this is Anjali. You'll be doing her tonight."

"No problem." She wheeled her bag in and surveyed my lounge room.

"We can do it here, or there's a bed upstairs if you like?"

"Here is fine." She unzipped the bag and pulled out a contraption of padded surfaces and locking metal struts. I stole a glance at Anjali's face, and was gratified to see the sudden smile as she recognised it for what it was: a massage table.

A couple of minutes later and she was lying face down, wearing only her underpants. I'd dimmed the lights and put on something quiet while Jean got to work.

"Let me know if the pressure's too much," she told Anjali. I pulled up a chair near the table and took Anjali's outstretched hand in mine.

"Just let yourself go," I told her. "You don't have to think about anything for the next two hours."

Jean began. She squirted a palmful of oil into her hand, and started to work it into Anjali's back and legs. It took a while for me to place the sweet smell, and I had to suppress a chuckle when I did: lilies. As Jean worked, I held Anjali's hand; I switched sides as needed to keep out of Jean's way; now and then I swept Anjali's hair out of the way. If Jean thought it was odd for me to be holding her client's hand, she said nothing about it.

Talking is hard but touch is magic. Through Anjali's grip I could feel her restlessness at first, the nervousness of being touched by a stranger, squeezing my hand now and then for the return-squeeze that says: I am here, I am protecting you, you are safe. Slowly she settled into it, became comfortable with Jean's touch, drifted into that zone of sensuality that lies just outside sexuality, and her grip on my hand steadied.

Then Jean began to work in earnest, probing the knotted spots in Anjali's body with fingertips, knuckles, elbows. I felt Anjali's body tense, breath held, until she had absorbed the pressure and accepted it, then she eased again. Over and over, tensing again with each new touch on muscles strained by worry and long hours at the computer, then opening herself to it, softening again, and each time sinking a little deeper into that peaceful empty space of acceptance. Her grip on my hand was light now, no longer seeking reassurance, just presence.

On impulse I leaned forward and rested my head against hers, closing my eyes. I hadn't realised how much I was still carrying from that morning—the argument with Anjali's parents, the uncertainty about whether she'd be able to carry out her mission, the awareness of all the myriad ways it could go wrong—but now, as I felt the tension ebb in Anjali's body, I could feel it ebbing also in mine.

I was very nearly asleep when I felt Jean's hands tapping quickly and lightly on Anjali's back, signalling that the end of the massage was drawing near. She ran a warm cloth over Anjali's back and limbs to clean up the oil—I very vaguely remembered her borrowing my sink—and then said very softly, "All done."

"Mmm." Anjali made no attempt to move until I whispered in her ear, "We need to give the nice lady her table back." Then she sat up groggily and eased herself off the table.

"How do you feel?" asked Jean.

"So good. Thank you," replied Anjali, as I handed her my bathrobe.

Jean packed up her gear as quickly as she'd unpacked it, and I led a happy and half-dazed Anjali up the stairs to bed.

* * * * *

In the morning we fooled around lazily in bed. I'd missed her these past weeks: the sex obviously, but also the warmth of her and the scent of her, the waking up half wrapped around one another. For a long time I nibbled at the nape of her neck—I could still smell the massage oil on her—and she squirmed in my embrace. Eventually we moved on to more carnal activities, culminating in several panting orgasms for her on my fingers and tongue before she returned the favour for me.

And yet, as good as it was, sometimes it felt as if her mind was elsewhere. I couldn't say I was completely surprised; yesterday had been a big day, and it still remained to be seen just how things would shake out.

"So are we resuming this," I asked, "or is today a one-off?"

"Just a one-off," she said. "I still have so much to do. Seven and a half chapters to write, and I'm not happy with the structure. And so much paperwork for postdoc applications. Be proud of me, Sarah, I have some backup applications in case the Bern thing falls through."

"Is that likely?"

"I hope not. But I'm trying not to put all my eggs in one basket. It's hard, though."

I gave her a gentle squeeze. "I hope they see how talented you are. I've been brushing up on my Schweitzerdeutsch."

She stiffened. Ever so slightly, but I knew her body like nobody else.

"Sarah..."

"Yes?" I said, though I had a sudden feeling I didn't want this conversation.

"Please don't make those plans. I am so grateful for what you've given me, and I hope you'll always be part of my life. But..."

"But," I echoed.

"I've been orbiting around my parents most of my life. If I hadn't met you...I'd probably still be living with them. God. I'd be driving myself mad trying to scrape through med and not even knowing what I was missing. But you have..." She paused. "I apologise for the metaphor, but you have quite a gravity well of your own. The longer we're together the more I feel myself spiralling into your orbit. I don't want to be anybody's satellite, not even yours. I want to be your friend, and that requires..."

I'm no astronomer, but I knew enough of celestial mechanics to see where this metaphor was going. "Distance."

"Distance. Yes. I've never really had the chance to find out what sort of person I am when I'm on my own. Do I want to get married and settle down with somebody, or be a celibate astronomy professor, or—I don't know. I think I need to find that out. But as long as I'm with you it's much too easy just to fall into being what you need me to be."

She rolled over to face me, and I could see the anxiety in her face. "I don't know how to say this. I don't want to hurt you. But I can't be in your debt more than I already am. You'd be moving away from your home, your family, your friends. From Lucy. I can't replace all of them. I loved being your once-a-fortnight but I don't think I can be your everyday. We made a finite commitment and I want to keep it finite."

But this is less than what we agreed on, I wanted to say. It was supposed to be until you finished your doctorate, but we've been on hiatus since August. Wanted to say, but didn't, because occasionally I remember there's a difference between what's true and what's helpful, and because neither of us could have anticipated what a shit-show these last months would be.

After a long silence she added, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," I said reflexively. The part of me that was Miriam wanted her to be, wanted control, wanted dependency. But most of me was frozen in that long moment of shock that comes after an injury, before the pain has reached the brain. In lieu of an emotional response I couldn't yet marshal, I channelled the received wisdom of a hundred and one advice columns I'd read over the years. "It's...it's your choice to make."

Yes, that sounded like what a mature adult would say.

"I didn't want to have this discussion today." She sounded weary. "I was trying to work out when to tell you and how."

"It doesn't matter," I said. Did it? I couldn't tell.

Later, she said, "I think perhaps I should go now."

I didn't argue. I saw her out, telling her "I'll be okay", and then sat down trying to understand whether I actually was okay.

* * * * *

I was sad, and I wasn't sure why.

Obviously it was to do with Anjali, I'm not that obtuse. But I was having trouble unpacking it. I was still trying to figure it out a few days later when Trev tapped me on the shoulder, late one afternoon after my minions had gone home, and asked, "Talked to Lucy lately?"

"Uh, no." Come to think of it, I didn't recall seeing her since the previous week.

"Might be an idea." He was gone before I could ask more questions.

I took the hint and phoned her. The phone rang and rang, and I was about to hang up when she finally picked up.

"Yeah?"

"Hi, Lucy?"

"Yeah."

"It's Sarah."

"Yes, I know." A pause. "What's up?"

"Uh...are you okay?"

A longer pause. "Been better."

"Have you been sick? I'm sorry, I've been caught up in things the last few days, didn't—" I was about to say didn't even notice you weren't around but some instinct of caution suggested that maybe that wasn't the right thing. "Lucy, what's up?"

"I've been a bit...under the weather."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"No, I..." She trailed off, and I thought one of us had lost signal, before she spoke again. "Actually, you could come over. If you liked?"

"Is that...I don't quite understand. Are you asking me to come over?"

"Yes?"

She sounded small and sad, not the Lucy I was used to. When she opened the door to me an hour or so later she seemed somehow shrunken.

"Come in," she said. "Sorry about the mess." It wasn't that bad overall—a couple of mostly-empty take-away containers here, a coat on the floor there, several unopened newspapers on the table—but what I did notice was a lot of empty bottles, more than seemed healthy.

I wanted to ask "So what's up?" But I wasn't altogether sure if Lucy was ready to answer that question openly and I felt that by asking too soon I might push her into evasions that she couldn't back out of.

So I said nothing. I accepted her offer of a water, and sat down opposite her in the lounge room, and waited until she filled the silence.

"Problem with this place," she said eventually, "is that Vic and Jeremy keep the liquor cabinet rather too well stocked."

"Ah."

"I was doing so well, and then...bunch of stupid little things. Couldn't get to sleep, had a glass of red to take the edge off, and...here I am." She waved her hand at the empties.

"Oh dear. I'm sorry to hear it. If you need somebody to talk to, you're always welcome to ping me."

She gave me a hard stare, and said, "I did."

"What?"

"Friday night. I messaged you."

"Did you—" I looked at my phone. "Oh shit, you did. So sorry. There was a lot going on." I'd been going over last-minute stuff, preparing for my talk with the Kapadias. I faintly remembered seeing the message notification, thinking I'll check that later. I never had done.

"Yeah."

"I really am sorry. I was hyperfocusing on...stuff. Uh, stuff you asked me not to involve you in."