#7 Jamie's Day Out
Curtains are raised. Truth is unmasked. The seventh and last chapter of ‘Beachhouse Diaries.’
‘K?’ Jenny did not care to attach the word ‘Madam.’ Her eyes were coated with a glistening awe and a dash of nostalgia and motherly affection. ‘You must be really beautiful then.’ She asked Kavya.
‘When?’ Kavya enquired with her fist underneath her chin.
‘When all this happened?’ Jenny began circling the rim of her glass and without looking up added, ‘ the boy story?’
‘No. Not at all.’ Alaya barged in unannounced.
‘He was way much cuter than her. His pink skin could put any girl of sixteen to shame. And the shoulders, those broad shoulders of years of swimming… she was nothing in front of him especially with those horrible glasses and no sense of style, at all.’ Her eyes shone in excitement. Then she turned towards Kavya, ‘I always wondered as to why he even fell for you?’ Kavya could not help smiling at her teenage query. Something in her always knew about it.
‘Who else then he should have fallen for in your view darling? I am really curious to know.’ Jenny chuckled and came and sat in front of Alaya. Straight up in front of her. Alaya pulled herself up. She looked around pursing her lips.
Kavya shook her head bemused at this wine induced drama and began pouring another glass for herself when a rugged voice trembled her hand.
‘That is why you ratted on him na?’
Kavya jumped away. Alaya was still. Frozen. Jenny was right across her face. Only breath could possibly pass between them. Kavya looked at Penny for a clue but she lay nonchalantly gazing at the whirring ceiling fan.
Kavya placed a hand on Alaya’s shoulder. Alaya bit her lip and threw her hand off and then herself.
‘What are you saying? I am not even in the picture. She got proposed,’ she pointed her finger at Kavya. ‘She shot the video’, the finger moved to Penny next, ‘and obviously one of them whosoever had the video, leaked it. Why am I being tortured here? May I know?’
‘K, you know everything, please handle her. And who the hell is she to make enquiries?’ She turned to Kavya and fumbled. ‘Bloody servant! Inko sar pe chadhana hi nahi chahiye!’
Alaya pushed her hand on the cushion and got up to leave. Kavya had to give her a hand. As she walked towards the door her feet suddenly froze. The rugged voice was reading something aloud. The words soaked in tears.
Dear Alaya,
I do not love you and I am sorry for that.
I know how it feels to be not loved back. I am going through the same pain. I can’t blame you solely as I have also shamed, embarrassed my unrequited love in desperation. And nothing can bely that.
I chose to forgive you. But that turned out to be the biggest blunder of my life.
I mistook your jealousy for your love, and your vengeance for a silly teen drama. I could have forgiven you for the day spent in jail. I could have forgiven you for the video you leaked, got it screened in front of the whole school, all of this just to make me come back to you.
But I can never forgive you for what I am doing today. I had a lots to do. I had to earn enough for my mother to stop going to other houses for work. I had to give my younger brother the life I wanted. And I had to love.
I would never do that to my love. I hope, you realize that every single night.
My only fault was that I was not rich. How many times did me and Mamma beg you and your Vijay Uncle?
May the both of you find all the riches but not a blink to sleep on.
Sorry Mamma.
K and only K’s Jamie.
Alaya suddenly began ruffling the neck of her t-shirt. She groped her neck back and front again and then stopped. She gasped keeping her gaze down. ‘Where is my pendant?’
‘A… are you okay?’ Kavya tried to go near her but much before Alaya slid towards Jenny and started groping behind her high frilled collar.
‘I knew you had an eye on it. You thief!’
Jenny, forcefully threw off Alaya’s hands on her. ‘I just read a letter Alaya, a plain letter, how does that make me a thief?’ A pall fell on Alaya’s face.
‘I don’t know what rubbish is she talking about.’ Alaya looked pleadingly at Kavya, avoiding Penny’s gaze. ‘I just want my pendant back’.
‘The pendant you couldn’t sleep without?’ Jenny strategically sought the clarification.
Alaya, who was struggling to breathe heaved and then the next moment pounced on Jenny again. But this time Jenny, alert enough, warded her off well before but not without an ugly exchange. Meanwhile, Kavya had managed to pick up the letter from Jenny’s hands to make sense of whatever was happening around.
‘A what is all this? And this letter?’ Unable to bear the ongoing mayhem Kavya shouted at her. And then at Penny. ‘When did all this happen?’
Penny did not look up. She did not even bother to pull herself up. Her eyes were still following the whirring fan above.
‘And, who the hell are you?’ Alaya disrupted the menacing silence which had ensued. Suddenly the whirr of the fan stopped.
‘My darling Jamie.’ Jenny unbothered to the query took back the letter from Kavya and began caressing it, caressing the words on it.’
‘When he used to play guitar in our village, all girls would swoon to his tunes and my eyes would go moist in pride. No Mamma, my choice is someone else, she is not one amongst them, and I am planning to tell her soon, in my own style.’
Her quivering eyes moved to Kavya. ‘He was exceptionally happy that day. I could not resist and stole a look at the Valentines’ card hidden below his bedding. How happy I was! Such beautiful words he wrote, she let out a croaking chuckle, though I found the bikini photo too much but you looked a goddess, a goddess with the purest heart.’ The words created a loud thud in Kavya. After all, somewhere it all began with her.
‘J, I am sorry.’ That is all Kavya could let out of the wave of guilt inside her.
‘No, don’t be. It’s not your fault.’ Jenny gazed deep in to her eyes. ‘It was your right and I respect that. Even my son respected that for which I am so proud of him even today.’ She took in a deep breath and shut her eyes probably in a prayer.
‘But is not that exactly what she should have done?’ She opened her eyes the next moment and pointed her finger towards Alaya. Then with the same took out the pendant from behind the high frilled collar of her dress.
‘What did you think? Keeping his suicide letter, the only evidence of your crime, in this stolen pendant as guided by that stupid Guru of yours, would save you?’
She turned towards Kavya.
‘K, she threatened Jamie day and night saying she will leak his video if he did not accept her love. She even got him thrown in the jail for a night on a frivolous charge just to scare him. He begged but no. And then that happened and he could bear no more. I cried before Vijay Sir for days. He knew everything. But all of you were so rich and his favourite daughters.’ She howled. Kavya could see a teary young Jamie peering through the window.
‘Only if we were rich? And that was his dream. Where was he wrong?’
Kavya wanted to hold Jenny tight, to ease the tightness in her own chest. She wanted to hug her close to comfort and console her years of loss. Irreparable loss. But that also meant saying what could not be said before Kavya knew all and well. May be there was something which could save the girls from what was staring written on the wall. May be.
She walked towards Penny and kneeled down in front of her. ‘P?’
Penny did not raise her gaze. Instead, she removed the cushion behind her back and took out a brown leather-bound diary. From the exterior the leather had weathered, shreds were coming off but the pages inside stayed intact. Like those pearls that manage to retain their essence when hid inside the shells for long. The kinds you hesitate to touch, lest the divine be irked. Her hands prepared themselves in mind. But before she could open it Alaya snatched it from her and sat down ruffling the pages. The diary that belonged to Vijay Uncle. The one he always kept beneath his pillow and never allowed us to touch it.
Penny got up in despair. She could not believe her eyes. The three of them stood around encircling her as she sat listening to him. Kavya could still see little Jamie behind the curtain. She could feel the pressure of his held breath. After a while, one could hear only heaving breaths in the room. Breaths that had gheraoed the frantic furling of pages in the centre, interrupted by a random chuckle and a snort.
‘All these are lies. Hah! Just rants, stupid rants out of his guilt. See there is no name in it. It just says my girl, everywhere. And that is you.’ She pointed at Penny. ‘Conspiring with this old hag to trap me and get my money. I know whatever of a director you may be but they don’t pay you well. You were even planning to sell this beach house.’
‘And even if one accepts that he called all of us as his girls then it could be you also, K? Why not? Reasons could be many. May be there is a hidden plan. Getting your IPS husband a promotion by solving this case. May be. Madam super achiever. Don’t I know how jealous all of you are of my status and wealth? Yeah, now I get it, all of you are hand in glove.’ She howled and plonked down on the cushion. She was all alone there now. Her pointing fingers had pushed the girls towards the wall on the other side.
Both of you, mind you, you never returned my love, only used me. Always. Even him. Befriending me to get close to her. He very well deserved it.’ She shot a menacing look at Jenny. The words echoed across the walls of the room fiddling with its gloomy silence.
‘P you knew this all the while?’ Kavya turned towards Penny. Penny lowered her eyelids.
‘And I was such a fool.’ Kavya broke in to tears.
‘I realised much later. When I found this diary. The day Baba left. It was under his bed.’ Penny looked up. Her eyes were welled up with the words she had never uttered.
‘And about J?’
‘I saw her for the first time on the day of his cremation. Her eyes were red with lamentations. She was there every single morning. I could not manage to go to the grave after that.’
So, Alaya was right, someone was there when they had visited the cemetery a few days back. Kavya ’s scurrying mind threw up this thought.
Penny got up with a solemn and cradled Jenny’s hands.
‘J your culprit is before you. Please leave Vijay Uncle alone, let him be in peace now.’
‘What nonsense is this? Where is the proof?’ A rattled Alaya jumped up in despair.
‘All of you trapped me… I am going to kill myself. I have no choice when my own friends are ready to put my neck at stake.’ She was holding the neck of the bottle threatening to hurt herself.
Kavya tried to step forward when Penny held her hand and looked at Jenny.
‘P but she is our A. How can we let…’ Kavya mumbled.
‘How can’t we? And why should not we? Penny tightened her grip on Kavya’s wrist. ‘And remember you were the one to begin this quest. You knew what was coming?’
Jenny was staring at Alaya and smirking in wait. A similar smirk Kavya could hear from behind the curtain.
Alaya was breathless. Either from the continuous shouting or from the struggle to find something to say. She sat down with her head in her hands.
‘But I still don’t understand, what did he see in her?’ She stared at Jenny for an answer.