Club You to Death by Anuja Chauhan (pdf e book reader .TXT) 📗

pours out glasses of water. Presently Roshni is sufficiently recovered to look Bhavani in the eye.

‘Say swear.’

‘Swear,’ he responds gravely, his hand rising to pinch his Adam’s apple. He then proceeds to share all the details, concluding smoothly with, ‘Do you have any idea who it could be?’

‘Mukki,’ says little Cookie Katoch, then hiccups loudly.

Midway through Bhavani’s narration, she had wandered off to the coffee table, helped herself to a large serving of the breakfast leftovers, and had been polishing them off with single-minded concentration. Her eyes widen when she feels everybody looking at her.

‘These are really very good,’ she says indistinctly through a mouth full of heart-shaped cutlet. ‘You should try some, Ro.’

‘You’re supposed to be off carbs, Cookie,’ bony Roshni reminds her pudgy friend. ‘You’re cheating!’

Cookie deposits another piece of cutlet into her mouth. ‘I’ve had a terrible shock,’ she says indistinctly, waving her fork about in a dreamy manner. ‘A terrible, terrible shock. My body … needs carbs, ACP Brownie.’

Bhavani looks at her just a little reproachfully.

Cookie is immediately apologetic. ‘I’m so sorry – but you do look so square, and chocolatey and walnutty and dense. I meant it in the nicest possible way!’

He smiles at her through the wafting scent of Bombay Sapphire. ‘Please take all the carbs you need, madam!’

‘Did you even hear what the ACP said?’ Roshni demands of her friend. ‘Leo’s accident wasn’t an accident – somebody murdered him!’

Cookie hiccups again. ‘Mukki.’

Roshni gives a little scream. ‘Stop saying that, Cookie!’

‘Ooopsies.’ Cookie covers her mouth. ‘Sorry.’

She reaches for the ketchup in a vague sort of way. Kashi takes it from her and uncaps it, then pours a generous amount onto her plate.

‘Why do you say that, auntie? That Mukki uncle did it?’

‘Well!’ She puts down her plate. ‘For one thing, yesterday, at the tambola, when Mukki said, “I don’t share. I’ve never shared anything”, Leo sort of sneered and replied – “That’s what you think!”’

‘And that meant?’ Kashi asks, being deliberately obtuse.

‘That meant that Leo had been sharing Mukki’s wife, of course!’ Roshni sounds cross at having to explain. ‘The implication’s obvious!’

Cookie picks up the narrative again. ‘And then Mukki gave a little scream and tried to hit Leo and missed, and Leo planted a big fat mukka on Mukki’s face and Mukki collapsed like a bouncy castle when the electricity goes.’

‘Very well explained, madam, very well explained.’ Bhavani re-enters the conversation. ‘Understood … and so these two people – your friend Urvashi, and the Zumba trainer – they were having an affair?’

Roshni licks her nude-lipstick-ed lips and giggles. ‘Everybody says so!’

Cookie pushes away her empty plate. ‘Well, I hope she is!’ she says staunchly. ‘She needs some fun in her life, poor Urvashi!’

Bhavani tilts his head slightly. ‘Why is she poor Urvashi?’ he enquires. ‘Is her poverty material – or spiritual?’

‘Ah!’ Roshni Aggarwal is surprised. ‘What an intelligent man you are!’

‘Thank you.’ He beams. ‘So, Urvashi is poor because …?’

Cookie holds up one clarifying hand. ‘Please don’t misunderstand. Urvashi Khurana is our hero. Years ago, we were all in the same boat – more or less newly married – dropping our kids off to the same playschool, struggling to lose our post-pregnancy fat and regain our looks, homesick for our mothers’ cooking and bitching about our mothers-in-law! We met for coffee and croissants every week and talked about starting our own businesses, and rising above being just Missus So-and-So, but Urvi was the only one who really managed to do it.’

‘That’s not true, Cooks,’ Roshni interjects loyally. ‘You have ShivBling!’ She turns to face Bhavani. ‘She’s an artist, inspector, she makes these glorious, anatomically-exact Shivlings out of stone, metal and glass!’

‘Her work’s amazing, ACP!’ Kashi chimes in. ‘I’ve seen it!’

Cookie blushes. ‘I think your parents won one of my pieces in the Diwali raffle draw a couple of years ago? I contribute one piece every year.’

Kashi nods enthusiastically and doesn’t mention that his father had been thoroughly appalled by the thing, dubbing it ‘a donkey’s phallus’ and draping it decorously in money plant before displaying it in the garden so that the modesty of Sector-44, Noida, would not be outraged.

‘Still, my work’s nothing compared to Chrysanthemum!’ Cookie says modestly. ‘Chrysanthemum is—’

‘The lifestyle store?’ Bhavani Singh is impressed. He is aware of Chrysanthemum – his wife has recently saved for three months to buy a bone china tea-for-two set from there to enliven the evening tea in their empty-nester home.

The ladies nod.

‘It’s a big success. She got a fifty-crore funding for it recently.’

‘So aunties, then why do you say poor Urvashi?’ Kashi endeavours to bring them back to the point.

‘Because she’s married to Mukki,’ Roshni responds bluntly. ‘The man’s boring, and charmless and ugly. And he’s passed on his ugly DNA to their two daughters, who, poor things, will never win a beauty pageant – what d’you say, young Dogra?’

‘I think beauty pageants objectify women,’ is his steady reply.

She dismisses him with a wave of her bony hand. ‘Your generation is too politically correct! And that’s why I say poor Urvashi. It was heartbreaking to see her valiantly trying to prettify those ugly girls – she might as well have wrapped Chantilly lace around two baby buffalos! Even now she keeps insisting they’re late bloomers … Arrey, they’re twenty-six and twenty-four! Aur kitna late bloom karengi?’

‘Ro, they’re quite namkeen-looking!’ Cookie objects. ‘You’re just being mean now!’

Roshni sniffs. ‘People always say namkeen when they mean ugly.’

‘Words can be ugly too.’ Kashi’s calm voice has a warning edge to it. ‘Don’t you think?’

There is a small pause.

Then Roshni shrugs and continues, ‘Anyway, the point is that Urvashi, so beautiful herself, and a great connoisseur of beauty and style, condemned to live with Mukki and her two bhains-like daughters, cannot be blamed for gravitating towards Leo Matthew, also so beautiful, but in a delightfully male way.’

Bhavani, himself a plain man married to an extremely attractive woman, is reeling slightly at these sweeping statements. However, he manages to nod in agreement and look meaningfully at Kashi, who wades