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  KIRAN MANRAL

  ALL ABOARD!

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Penguin

  Copyright

  PENGUIN METRO READS

  ALL ABOARD!

  Kiran Manral was a journalist before she quit to be full-time mommy. She was a blogger–columnist on gender issues for Tehelka, and her blogs were among India’s top blogs. Her debut novel, The Reluctant Detective, was published by Westland in 2012, and her second novel, Once upon a Crush, was published by Leadstart in 2014. She is on the planning board of the Kumaon Literary Festival and on the advisory board of Literature Studio, Delhi.

  To Kirit—

  for being my ‘love at first sight’, ‘knight in shining armour’ and ‘happily ever after’. Thank you for being the man I thought existed only in romance novels.

  ONE

  Rhea stood with her nose pressed to the porthole. The huge cruise liner she was on had pulled out of the port at Civitavecchia, near Rome, cutting through the crystal blue waters with ease. The huge, multistorey liner was to be her home for the next few weeks. As evening fell, the setting sun slanted its rays off the sparkling waters, riding on the horizon. She should have been elated—she was on a Western Mediterranean cruise, something she could have only dreamt about. But all she could feel was panic and the overwhelming sense of depression. Visions of scenes from movies like Titanic, Poseidon and Life of Pi flashed in front of her eyes and she had to do some quick deep breathing in order to calm herself down. Everything is going to be fine!

  Boarding the ship that morning had been an experience grander than any film involving cruise liners and star-crossed lovers that Rhea had ever seen. She had remained open-mouthed ever since her first glimpse of the majestic liner docked modestly at the bustling port. As they entered the vessel up the ramp and took the elevator to the atrium, she was awestruck by the grandeur—curved staircases with gleaming wooden banisters, deep carpeted stairs and capsule elevators, tinkling crystal chandeliers and enveloping it all was the incredible buzz of thousands of people who were going to be together on this floating city for two weeks now. Almost fifteen-storeys high and with an army of staff bustling around to ensure that everything functioned the way it needed to, the Aqua Princess cut a swathe as it passed the smaller, more humble boats docked by the port as it headed out into clear sea.

  As they entered, they were relieved of their carry-on luggage by the crew, and happily posed for the ship’s photographer while drinking flutes of champagne served to them in welcome. Thereon they were directed to a lavish buffet until their luggage was delivered to their cabins.

  It was tough not to smile when the music was pumping, people were dancing, and the social hosts roaming the premises to ensure everyone was having a good time during the sail away party. But now that they were back in the cabin and had finished settling their things into the rather compact, yet convenient, wardrobes, it was difficult to keep her mind off Samir. She sighed deeply.

  ‘Rhea!’ the voice cut sharply through the fog of her moroseness.

  ‘Yes, Rina Maasi?’ she replied instinctively, putting on her dutiful niece face and erasing the Woe Is Me expression that had pretty much become her default face ever since the rat, Samir, had bailed out on her days before their wedding. Rhea winced at the memory of him leaving her behind to face the barrage of questions, and to deal with the dirty work of all the cancellations and refunds while he had hotfooted to Bali with someone he now claimed was the ‘true love’ of his life. Not to mention the non-refundables like the wedding trousseau that sat in her cupboard, mocking her. The gorgeous lehenga she had had custom-made in soft pink and silver . . . she had so looked forward to wearing it. Of course, after putting in all her savings—even if it was meagre—into buying her trousseau and into some of the wedding expenses, she was now also completely, totally, and absolutely broke.

  ‘Come on now child, smile. Let me see those pearly teeth of yours, given I have none of my original set to admire.’ Rhea laughed. When Rina Maasi commanded, you obeyed, even if you were her most preferred niece and could get away with disobeying her.

  Rina Maasi was Rhea’s mother’s youngest sister. The ‘eccentric one’ amongst all the five sisters, she was Rhea’s favourite aunt. The sisters had been known for their great beauty in their youth. From what Rhea had heard, it had led their father to apply for a pistol licence to chase off persistent admirers who had taken to loitering outside their residence.

  ‘What do you think I should wear this evening?’ Rina Maasi asked, drawing all the attention to herself. Rhea looked at her. She was a snappy dresser at the best of times and had outdone herself in honour of this cruise. They did have a dress code on board which aunt and niece had pored through before packing for the trip, so they had a few cocktail dresses, pant suits, skirts and smart blouses. The first evening on board hadn’t been decreed formal, but Rina Maasi, she knew, would settle for nothing less than formal wear every evening. Spread on her bed in the tiny cabin without a balcony was a soft chiffon sari in pink, an indigo salwar kameez resplendent with patches of embroidery possibly meant to double as reflectors in case the ship was ever in danger of sinking and a blazing red formal trouser suit which was the least visually offensive of the lot, but which could clash with Rina Maasi’s newly acquired copper hair colour.

  ‘Surely, Maasi, you have other options which aren’t as, err . . . as bright? What about the lovely dhakais and tussars you had in your wardrobe I last saw?’

  Rina Maasi bristled visibly and fixed a beady, glaring eye through her spectacles on Rhea. ‘I’m bored of them. I’ve decided to experiment with my look. I’m no longer a headmistress so I can stop dressing in muted colours and tasteful weaves now. Is there a rule that says once somebody crosses sixty she needs to drape her limbs in sack cloth and ashes?’

  Rhea was forced to laugh. Rina Maasi was the brightest, cockiest, and chirpiest senior citizen she had ever encountered. And with her newly coloured, flaming red hair and post-box-red lipstick, she was quite a looker as well. She was also the original free spirit, having divorced her husband merely two years into non-blissful matrimony in the days when divorce was a social stigma, offering her scandalized family no reason other than, ‘He bores me.’

  ‘Pick the red then,’ Rhea proffered generously. ‘You’ll make quite an impact.’

  Rina Maasi picked the festive garment in question and held it against herself, looking into the mirror. ‘Yes,’ she said, nodding her head. ‘This could be it. Not too sober for that cute silver-haired gentleman from two cabins down the passageway to think I’m an old fuddy-duddy who isn’t up to a bit of mischief!’

  Rhea rolled her eyes. They barely had twenty minutes to dress for dinner. She pulled out a slinky pewter dress that began off one shoulder and ended somewhere above her knees, bringing in the happy knowledge that she had legs which, as the cliché went, were never ending. It was a part of her trousseau. Or rather part of what would have been her trousseau had she married and been on her honeymoon right now. Not the kind of dress she normally preferred, being of the category who was more comfortable in denims and round-necked T-shirts, with the occasional jacket thrown on as a concession to formality when required. But she had a trousseau now and by Jove was she going to use it!

  How Rhea ended up on this huge liner escorting Rina Maasi on a Western Mediterranean cruise was the stuff Serendipity was
made of. It so happened that Rina Maasi had planned to go on a cruise after the wedding with her long time bridge partner, Sheela aunty. However, just days before they were to leave, Sheela aunty came down with a severe bout of dengue and was advised against travel and strain of any sort. When Rina Maasi wailed on and on about how she was going to be alone and how the cancellation charges would be like a double whammy, the family put their heads together and decided that Rhea, who needed a distraction from deep, dark, suicidal thoughts, would join her aunt on this cruise. Some swift string pulling later, a change of passenger details on the tickets and visas were procured by the travel agency head who was an old student of Maasi and had offered this cruise at a tempting discount.

  At first Rhea refused point blank. But her family persisted and she gave in. As she looked at herself in the mirror, she was glad that she changed her mind. A freelance content editor who worked on a project-to-project basis, Rhea could hardly afford extravagances like a vacation aboard a luxury cruise liner. Her parents were retired educationists with modest savings, so there wasn’t much to be passed on to their two children either, other than their love for the printed word and, of course, their DNA. As a person, Rhea could be persuaded easily and now that an opportunity of an all-expenses paid trip with a doting aunt presented itself, there was really no need for much pushing. They boarded the Air India flight out to Rome from the Indira Gandhi International Airport at Delhi and flew in companionable silence, while Rina Maasi caught up with her nap after downing a pill to help her deal with the inevitable panic attacks she dealt with while up in the air and Rhea contemplated life after being jilted practically at the saat pheras. It didn’t help that they hit some turbulence mid route, which had a rather sombre kid sitting up front with his mother ask loudly if they were all going to crash and die.

  She sighed again looking at her dress. When she had bought the outfit, Rhea imagined Samir helping her zip it up. Or help her undo it. Perhaps rip it off in a moment of passion! Not that ripping clothes off her body was part of his style. He was more of ‘remove clothes carefully and hang them to air before getting down to nooky’ kind of person.

  But this was one of the things that she found attractive about him—he was always in control. A dull pain, like a blunt knife heated on a coal fire, stabbed her heart, again and again. This was perhaps the 300th time since the morning that she had thought of him. Samir Dasani. The man she had loved with all her heart and soul; the man she was going to marry and then sail into the sunset to live the happily ever after with. The man who was now so far away that he couldn’t have heard her heart cry even if he wanted to . . .

  Damn his perfect features. The soft curls that made themselves evident if he skipped a haircut, and his pink lips that got petulant at the smallest thing. His way of carrying himself into any room with the confidence of knowing that he would be one of the best looking men there. Damn the women who looked at him when she was with him, making her wonder if she had turned invisible for a moment! May he rot in a hell where they had no cricket on television! She cursed him in her head—may crab lice invade his pubes, may his intestines be infected with a particularly virulent strain of antibiotic resistant flesh eating bacteria. Tears welled up in her eyes again. What kind of person breaks up an engagement ten days before the wedding over email?

  It struck her that perhaps she was better off without him but the very next moment panic would start setting in. She would be thirty in a couple of years from now and there was a good chance that she would end up the proverbial old maid—crocheting tea cozies, living with an army of cats and having little boys ring her doorbell and hide just for the fun of hearing her froth at the mouth and stomp her foot when she opened the door.

  Rina Maasi noted the change in her expression and patted her matter-of-factly on the arm. ‘Don’t even begin the waterworks, girl. Just make sure you have the best time of your life on this cruise. That’s your best revenge on that infernal idiot!’ Maasi, God bless her, refused to refer to Samir in terms other than ‘that infernal idiot’. In fact, Rhea seriously suspected there was no ‘Suddenly Taken Ill with Dengue’ bridge partner who was to be on the cruise with her, and that this was all a strategy to get her out of the city. After all, in the extended family of grim aunts, uncles and busy cousins, Rina Maasi was the only one Rhea got along with like the proverbial house on fire. If anyone could cheer and distract her, she could.

  She wiped her eyes and got dressed under the watchful gaze of her aunt. Giving each other approving glances, they got out of the cabin and made their way towards the elevators. Suddenly a very tall, flustered man rushed past them, accidentally dashing into Rina Maasi with such force that she almost fell over. He seemed to be chasing a kid who had also brushed past them in great speed just seconds ago.

  ‘Watch where you’re going, young man!’ Maasi said sharply, her voice rising just a notch, but one that could instantly quell a classroom of rioting pre-teens. The man stopped for a moment, looked back apologetically, and turned ahead to keep up with the knee-high tall, fleeing child cutting through the dinner crowd emerging from the cabins into the passageway.

  He was, as Rhea noticed in one swift, all encompassing glance, rather handsome. An Asian, definitely, if not an Indian. It wasn’t often that Rhea needed to tilt her head up to look at someone, and this person came close to needing a head tilt despite the four inch stilettos that she was teetering precariously on. When she did, she caught her breath. He was the kind of handsome that made it to the covers of romance novels, usually with muscles on display, and holding onto a swooning damsel with ripped bodice.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, ma’am,’ he said in a voice that came from deep within the throat, looking disbelievingly at Rina Maasi who cut quite a dashing figure in tomato red, accentuated by a ferocious application of red lipstick, that could make those of a nervous disposition yelp and back away in fear. Rhea imagined she saw him wince as he took in the violent clashing hues of red that made up Maasi from head to toe. ‘I hope I didn’t hurt you. I need to chase down that little rascal before he gets into trouble or gets hurt.’

  ‘You could have seriously injured my aunt!’ Rhea said severely. ‘What if she had fallen over and broken a bone or something? I hope you know that bones don’t heal easily at this age. Just saying sorry wouldn’t heal it.’

  The man looked at her. His eyes were honey-brown and fringed with lashes so thick they needed to be outlawed in the masculine species. Rhea almost swooned.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ he said, looking at Rhea intensely. Their eyes locked and stayed for a few seconds, more than was the permissible limit for perfect strangers.

  Rina Maasi coughed. ‘Apology accepted, young man. Now be careful when running down corridors. I should have thought you’ve grown out of it by now.’

  ‘Soni ma’am!’ he gasped, calling Rina Maasi by the name her old students addressed her. Soni ma’am in turn cast a stern eye and examined him in detail from the top of his close cropped head to the soles of his very comfortable Tod’s loafers.

  ‘Kamal Shahani, headboy, from Earth house ma’am?’ He introduced himself with the slight gush that adults have whenever confronted with school teachers from a distant childhood.

  Rina Maasi threw a dramatic hand to her heart and cooed, ‘Oooh, Kamal! Haven’t you grown up! I couldn’t recognize you. Fancy running into an ex-student here of all places, in the middle of the Mediterranean sea!’

  Not such a surprise, perhaps, thought Rhea, given that an ex-student headed the travel agency that sold them this cruise and wrangled a fabulous discount, with freebies thrown in, for Rina Maasi from the operators. This he surely must have extended to this old boy from the school as well—not that this old boy looked like he needed any discount, going by the watch on his wrist, the loafers on his feet and the fine mother of pearl buttons on his loosely fitted linen shirt.

  ‘Rhea, meet Kamal, one of the best students I’ve ever had the pleasure of teaching, and one of the best football players o
ur school had ever produced. It was a pity he gave up sports for academia. The last I’d heard, you’d gone to an Ivy League university for your MBA?’

  He nodded politely at Rhea, their gaze interlocked and held for all of an indecent five seconds before she broke eye contact. If felt like a physical wrenching when she looked away.

  The person being investigated by Rhea’s smoky eyes extended a firm, square hand, with nicely manicured fingers. His handshake was impersonal, but the warmth of his touch seared her fingers to the bone. Rhea had never felt such a reaction from anyone’s touch. She felt herself melting to the bones.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Kamal said, looking straight into her eyes. For a second, just a second, she thought his pupils dilated. It could also be a trick of the light. It didn’t help that he looked like someone who’d just stepped off the fashion spread of a men’s magazine and was the kind of delicious that would have had another girl, who wasn’t mourning from being dumped at the altar, delighted to be making his acquaintance. Rhea was not accustomed to being in immediate proximity with attractive men. In fact she had an innate terror of them. She could feel her breath shortening and her tongue tripping on an appropriate, polite response, which resulted only in an impolite, amphibian sound emerging from her throat. ‘Hello,’ she croaked in reply, irate with herself for finding him so attractive.

  He turned his attention back to Rina Maasi. ‘Yes, ma’am, I founded a little start-up back in India. But . . . I need to excuse myself right now before that little rascal gets lost in the crowd. I will catch up with you the moment I get him back safely.’

  He cast an unambiguously appreciative look at Rhea, smiled, and then scooted off after the pint-sized in short pants.

  ‘You really need to watch your kid,’ Rhea yelled after him in unconcealed irritation. ‘He could hurt someone else before he hurts himself.’ She did have a rather low tolerance threshold when it came to parents who couldn’t make their children behave in public, and didn’t hesitate to display her annoyance loud and often.