The Bollywood Breakup Agency Read online

  Familiar enough, Neela thought, warming to her newest client in spite of his arrogance.

  Last month, his mother decided she had had enough of his playing around. Even though it was never spoken of, she knew he was doing more than talking to girls. People were beginning to talk, so it was time for him to find a nice Indian wife and become a ‘good’ boy.

  Initially, Jai agreed to an arranged marriage because it was a way of finding a girl who would be properly devoted to him for life. If there was something a guy like Jai desired, it was a dedicated, untainted wife. At least he would know where she had been. A one night stand was a one night stand, but when it came to a wife, he needed to know that he was the only one she had been with. And as long as he was married, his mother would be content and then Jai would be free to go out and find sex elsewhere. The devoted wife would be too devoted to say anything, worried that his affair was her fault.

  Jai’s description of the ideal wife was borderline offensive, but Neela held her tongue. A thousand pounds, she reminded herself.

  The girl his parents eventually unearthed was called Rupali.

  ‘So far, so normal,’ Neela said. Why were grown adults of her generation, like V and Jai, so surprised at being set up, when they agreed to go along with the whole charade in the first place? She felt like starting a ‘Just Say No’ movement.

  ‘My parents took me to the houses of many ‘good Indian girls’.’

  ‘Like me,’ V said sadly.

  Jai looked her up and down and shrugged. ‘Most were a little thinner, but yes. Anyway, they all cooked, cleaned, served copious amounts to food to my family in good rooms with lots of plastic on the furniture. Not much to differentiate them.’

  ‘Until . . .’ Neela wished he’d get to the point.

  ‘Until we went to Rupali’s house.’

  ‘And . . . ‘

  ‘And she was gorgeous. Hot in the way that you are,’ Jai pointed at Neela. ‘Plus, she was a good girl, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Well, there’s a point of difference between her and Neela then,’ V murmured under her breath.

  Neela frowned. ‘Hey, I am hardly the Harrow bike, am I?’

  Jai’s phone rang but he ignored it and instead stared at Neela for an overly long time, licked his lips unattractively. ‘Demure, ready to be the devoted wife, and stunning to boot. I couldn’t have wanted anyone better. Plus, she grew up here, so wasn’t a total freshpot. I thought I was sorted.’

  God, if he didn’t get to the point soon, Neela would grab V and go. A thousand quid or not, Jai and his rambling story were sending her mental – a fact which would make Daadi-ji happy, at least, she mused, watching as Jai called for yet more drinks. They were going to have to catch a cab – V was definitely over the limit now.

  ‘She is the kind of girl who is Indian at home, but as soon as she goes out she puts on the shortest skirt known to man and parties. Rupali stands out; not just pretty – beautiful. Huge brown eyes with a hint of hazel, a body to die for.’

  ‘So what’s the problem here, Jai. Beautiful, devoted, slutty as required . . .’ V was clearly as impressed by Jai as Neela.

  ‘And a stalker.’

  ‘A what?’ Neela and V asked together.

  His phone rang again. He glanced at it and ignored it.

  ‘A what?’ Neela asked again.

  ‘You know, obsessed nutter, like all those Bollywood birds who fall in love in two minutes and think their man should jump across the continents to be with them.’

  That was always the part of Bollywood movies that confused Neela. You can’t jump continents without visas, can you? The movies never show the hero filling out a long and complicated form and then sitting in a crowded, sweaty embassy at 8:00 a.m., having to wait until the late afternoon to get his visa stamped.

  The girls looked at each other blankly, so Jai got on and fleshed out the rest of the tale.

  ‘After I agreed to the match, things began to get weird. It turns out that Rupali is nothing like the sweet innocent girl I’d imagined. Now that she has a wedding in the bag, all her feelings towards love, and me, began to pour out – she finally has a free pass to show interest, and boy does she know how to use it. It started off okay, she’d text me at the end of the day to see how work went, and there was the odd phone call between meetings. Then she would begin to call me all the time, at work, at home, about nothing in particular. And she never wants to get off the phone. Even when I’m on the tube and tell her I am about to go under tunnel, she pleads with me to keep talking. She doesn’t want me to go out with my friends or to stop talking to eat dinner. Sometimes I take the phone in the toilet with me. If I waited until I got her off the phone I’d have an accident.’

  ‘You don’t seem the type to put up with it. Just tell her no,’ Neela said.

  ‘I tried, it just made her worse. Thinks it’s a compliment or something. Mishears everything I say.’ He mimicked a high, whiney voice: “Oh, darling. You are so funny when you shout and call me names. We are so comfortable with each other, to be able to joke like this.”

  ‘Oh,’ said Neela. What else could she say? Rupali did indeed sound nuts.

  ‘And the wedding is getting closer and closer. I try to get rid of her. If she won’t put down the phone, I hang up on her. If she follows me and my friends, I try to lose her. But then she calls her parents, who call my parents, and they remind me that I wanted this, that I chose Rupali, and I’d better treat her well.’ Jai looked at the two girls, distressed. ‘I can see where this is going. You are looking at a man about to be hen-pecked to within an inch of his life. She is saying we need to have children right away, too. Can you imagine it? Children with her? She’ll be more of a hormonal freak than she is now.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t want a prince like him?’ V whispered sarcastically to Neela.

  Suddenly, his phone rang again. ‘Do you see what I mean? She’s called three times in less than ten minutes.’ He grabbed the sleek device. ‘Yes, what? Look, Rupali, I can’t talk. What? Out with mates. No, you can’t. Because I am busy. What, no. Don’t tell them. Calm down, I’ll call you back later. Yes, I promise. Yes, I know you love me. Of course. I do. Yes, later. Okay, bye.’

  He pushed the button on the phone down hard to end the call, a high-pitched voice on the other end still audible as he did so.

  Neela and V looked at him in silence, and Neela swallowed the urge to laugh. ‘Well, that was a rude way to talk to your wife-to-be.’

  ‘Shut up, you see what she’s like now.’ Jai looked Neela directly in the eye. ‘Can you help me, or not?’

  ‘Of course she can,’ V said.

  ‘Have you become my agent or something?’ Neela growled at her. She wasn’t completely sure she wanted another client – especially when she had no idea how to help the first. Particularly when Rupali seemed more than a little deranged.

  Then Neela’s own phone rang. Kiran. Against her better judgement she answered.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Once again, not even a hello from him.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Who’s the guy you and V are talking to?’

  Neela looked around self-consciously. ‘Are you spying on me?’

  ‘Some of my friends are there, sitting opposite you. They saw you cozing up to a known player, and asked if we had broken up.’

  ‘What. No, it’s a business thing. How dare your friends stalk me?’

  ‘Business? You? Come on Neela, you need to think of a better excuse than that.’

  ‘It’s not an excuse. Why would I lie to you?’

  ‘Clearly you don’t give a crap about me anymore, otherwise you would have spoken to your parents by now.’

  Great. They were back on that. ‘Things aren’t good at home right now. And I told you, it isn’t going to happen.’

  ‘And I told you, I’ll tell them myself, and–‘

  Neela took Jai’s lead and cut the call, holding in the scream that was building.

  �
��Okay?’ V asked, but Neela just shook her head. What kind of possessive freak does that? God, her head was spinning. How many had they drunk now?

  Jai was writing out a cheque. ‘Here, half as a down payment. The rest when you complete on the deal.’

  Holding the piece of paper, Neela asked how long before the wedding. ‘Two months, but the longer it goes on, the harder it will be to get out of it, so, as soon as possible, if you can.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she told him. ‘Give me your number and email and I’ll be in contact later in the week.’ After they exchanged details, during which time Jai’s mobile rang three more times, V told Neela she had work tomorrow.

  A minicab, handily staffed by a cousin of V’s, was standing outside, and they got in.

  ‘Who was on the phone?’ V asked.

  ‘Bloody Kiran threatening to tell all.’ She spoke in code, because of the cousin. The last thing she wanted was to add more fuel to the gossips’ bonfire.

  ‘That’s not good.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  As the beaten-up Mondeo roared around the back streets of North London, something suddenly occurred to Neela. ‘Maybe you should do that,’ she said quietly to V.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘What whathisname’s girl is doing to him.’

  ‘Jai? What do you mean?’

  ‘Become a bunny boiler.’

  ‘How the hell am I supposed to achieve bunny boiler status? Offer to bite his toenails for him?’

  Neela thought she was going to throw up at the thought. The drinks and the fast drive home weren’t helping matters, either. ‘No not that – just act like you are massively in love with him. Call him every five minutes. Bother him at work. Follow him around. Stalk him. If you need some tips, I am sure Kiran and his loser mates will oblige.’

  ‘I don’t think even Aishwarya Rai could pull that off. And at least she’s happily married. You haven’t seen him. And the sight of the toenail biting is seared into my memory. How can I pretend to like him when I want to run screaming in the opposite direction?’

  ‘It could work. Guys hate needy girls. Look at Jai. This Rupali is gorgeous, yet he can’t stand her, all because of the neediness. Pretend Girish is someone else if you have to. There is this really hot guy on PAL at the moment, Navin. Why not imagine sending texts and leaving phone messages for him?’

  ‘Um, because I have a life and don’t watch Indian soap operas.’

  The cab roared up in front of Neela’s house, almost crashing into her Mini. ‘Put it this way,’ she told V, as she got out. ‘Your life will be well and truly over if we don’t deal with Girish. Get him to drop you, and no harm, no foul. Not on you, anyway.’

  ‘I don’t know, Neela, acting isn’t my thing.’

  Thinking quickly, Neela said: ‘Isn’t there some birthday party coming up? For your cousin? Why don’t we help things along a little by giving you a makeover. You do the texting, phoning thing, then we’ll end it once and for all with a shocking revelation.’

  ‘Makeover? Revelation? What sort?’

  ‘The scary sort. Don’t worry, leave it to me. Once the new Vidya is revealed to the Toenail Biter, he is going to want out of this marriage faster than his dad wants the loo after a curry.’

  And with that delightful simile, Neela pecked her friend on the cheek and raced up the stairs to her house.

  Chapter Eleven

  IT WAS JUST BEFORE twelve at night and Neela supposed her parents were asleep. Occasionally, Daadi-ji was up gossiping on the phone, but Rishi and Soorbhi were the early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind. Placing the key in the brass lock, she tried to open the door quietly but it creaked unhappily at having to make the effort. Swearing, Neela took off her shoes, but stumbled slightly and one of last season’s Topshop Mary Janes clattered loudly on the tiling of the hallway.

  ‘Great,’ Neela mumbled, snatching the shoe back up. Suddenly, above her, a door opened and the heavy thump of footsteps could be heard overhead. Holding her breath, she paused until the footsteps subsided. Must have been Mum coming back from the bathroom.

  Sneaking towards the kitchen, Neela tiptoed into the huge room and snapped on the light.

  ‘Ahhhh!’

  There was her dad, arms crossed, sitting on a kitchen stool, waiting for her.

  ‘Daddy, what are you doing?’ She put a hand to her mouth as she spoke, checking her breath to see how visible any evidence of drink was. One word: ‘very’.

  ‘You greatly embarrassed me again at that engagement,’ Rishi sounded unusually calm. ‘We have done so much for you, given you chance after chance, and you ruin your cousin’s big day by starting a fight. You’re lucky we didn’t have to take your grandmother to the hospital. She was mortified.’

  Daadi-ji had seemed perfectly okay that morning, her watery eyes glued to PAL as usual, but Neela knew better than to contradict Rishi when he was in a mood.

  ‘What do you have to say for yourself?’

  ‘He was spreading lies about me,’ Neela said.

  ‘Those were not lies. He was informing everyone that you were so rude when he came to meet you. His son is a very important person in Mumbai.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘We don’t know. Except that he is wealthy. Isn’t that enough? Must you continue to–’

  ‘But Dad–‘

  ‘Don’t interrupt me!’

  Neela walked away to the front room and sat down on the sofa and put her head in her hands. ‘I can’t take this.’

  ‘Don’t walk away from me when I’m talking to you,’ Rishi said as he followed her. ‘You are lucky to be even considered for Mr Trivedi’s family. We thought you would be grateful, given the son is someone special.‘

  ‘Special. I’ll bet.’

  ‘Stop this. How can we help you if you won’t cooperate?’

  ‘When will you listen? I don’t want an arranged marriage.’

  ‘What do you want then? You don’t work. You don’t do charity jobs. You drink and smoke shisha and run around with unsuitable people.‘

  ‘V isn’t unsuitable.’

  ‘Well, there is talk of other boys, Neela. Mr Trivedi and the others, they were all willing to overlook your faults. But there comes a point where being good looking isn’t enough. It’s time to decide. A job and pay us rent, get married, or move out. You can’t have it all your own way any longer.’

  Neela considered her father, looking carefully at the large moon face and portly belly; the result of a happy match to an excellent cook. Even he had been good looking in his day. So why would she start out with someone who was ugly to begin with. Like the Trivedi freak. Why should V be hitched to the hideous Girish? It was wrong.

  Rishi wasn’t going to give in, Neela was sure of that now. The argument had gone on too long now, augmented by the altercation with Mr Trivedi. So her choices were slim. The fifteen hundred quid she was getting from V and Jai wouldn’t last more than three months if she had to pay rent on top of everything else.

  But what to do?

  Hang on? Perhaps there was a way out of this? After all, if she was going to do this marriage breakup thing, perhaps some of the tricks would work on her own parents.

  Like telling them she already had a man she wanted to marry.

  Saying she was in love with him.

  That’s right, she’d drag that rat Kiran into this, and pretend she’d done what he wanted. Then she’d let her parents discover the horrible truth about the police cautions; the fighting - no way her dad would let Neela marry anyone he didn’t know without a background check. Once they insisted on breaking the proposed union up, the family would have to be gun-shy about introducing Neela to someone new. For a year or two, at least.

  Yes, it was a brilliant plan.

  Plus, it had the added benefit of finally shutting Kiran up, too. Proving to him their relationship was going nowhere.

  She looked her dad straight in the eyes. ‘I don’t want you to find someone for me, because I ha
ve someone. I love him and want to marry him.’

  A total lie, but whatever worked.

  That did the trick. Rishi was rendered speechless.

  ‘Who . . . what . . . why . . .’

  ‘His name is Kiran, he is working to be a chartered accountant, he takes care of me, and he’s good looking too. Of course, he is no Mr Trivedi . . .’

  ‘When will you listen? I hear the son is nothing like the father.’

  Neela pondered that comment. In her father’s world, it was probably code for even worse than the father. She’d marry Kiran in a heartbeat, rather than deal with that.

  Rishi, meanwhile, began a familiar line of questioning. ‘Is he from a good family?’

  ‘I haven’t met them.’

  ‘Why hide it, Neela?’

  Rishi was calming down. There was at least the prospect of some sort of marriage on the horizon. His daughter almost felt sorry for him, knowing he would never allow a match with someone who was almost a criminal.

  ‘I didn’t want to mess it all up with the usual rubbish about engagements and all of that, before I was ready.’

  ‘So you have a boyfriend? Do you have any idea what this is going to do me? What if people saw you, how do I explain that the daughter I am trying to marry off is having an affair?’

  ‘Oh come on, Dad. We’ve been together for ages.’

  A bold move to admit that, considering the conclusion her father would jump to.

  ‘Is this the kind of girl I have raised, to have boyfriends?’

  ‘No, I am just saying, since no one has noticed anything in the last two years, including you and Mum, then how can your reputation be ruined?’

  ‘TWO YEARS?’

  Oops. Hmm. Should she reveal the full extent of her relationship with Kiran? Better not. If Rishi thought that ship had sailed, he might not worry about those cautions for brawling.

  ‘Look, we like each other, and go out to dinner. Bowling, movies, that sort of thing. You know, normal stuff.’ This time she was implicitly telling him she was a good girl. A lie, but necessary; they hadn’t exactly been out playing minigolf every evening.