1983-Facts and Fiction

Extenuating circumstances: Part III

Maybe if he didn't idolize his father so much, he wouldn't have been so wounded with his words.

There were several things that were not looked upon kindly in the Amarnath household, and tears was the one topping the list.

So Jimmy would like to pretend he hadn't been lying awake and crying at all at three in the night when a clattering noise of something hitting his window came.

At first, he ignored it, figuring that you tended to imagine a lot of weird things when you were awake while the whole world was asleep. Also, he was too miserable, having thought over his dad's words over and over again all evening and night, and could not face the idea of leaving the meagre comfort of his bed.

Something hit the window again. And again.

And again.

I hope it's ghosts and they've come to take me away, since I'm such a disappointment to dad anyway, thought Jimmy (dramatically), finally forced to throw off the covers and stalk up to the window.

From his bird's eye point of view from the second floor, he saw that it wasn't ghosts at all, but something just as shocking—Kaps was waving up at him cheerfully, like it was the most normal thing in the world to be throwing stones or whatever it'd been that he'd been throwing at his window when he'd been supposed to be in England.

"Come down, Jim pa!" Kaps said in a dangerously carrying whisper.

Jimmy made a hasty gesture of shut up and sprinted down, quite forgetting to wipe his tears.

"When did you return to India?" he demanded, once he'd pulled Kaps into a safe part of the garden, far from the actual building.

"Just landed half an hour ago."

"And when's your connecting flight to Haryana?" asked Jimmy anxiously.

"Is your head all right?" Kaps asked at the same time, even more anxiously.

"What—of course my head is all right—" began Jimmy, thinking he meant the 'going mad' sort of head problem.

"It's a fracture, isn't it? You didn't need an operation, did you?"

"Oh—that," said Jimmy. "It's a fracture, but a minor one, it'll heal itself with time."

"You're really maddening at times, Jim pa," said Kapil, relief coursing through him. "You were passed out two days straight in the local hospital."

"I know—I mean, I heard...and you didn't tell me when your connecting flight home is, Kaps. Aren't you going to miss it?"

"Didn't book it," said Kaps breezily. "You'll let me live in your house for a day or two, won't you? Even if you don't, Lala ji would."

He noticed Jimmy's expression changing.

"What?" asked Kapil, frowning. "What happened?"

"Nothing," said Jimmy, in what seemed to Kapil like a reflex.

"Are you crying?" demanded Kapil.

"Of course I'm not crying."

"Have you been crying?"

"No," said Jimmy, a rather obvious lie since his face was still streaked with tears; Kapil wondered how he hadn't noticed them before. But anyway—

"What happened? Did Lala ji scold you for ducking and not playing a shot that ball?" he asked.

"Just the usual," said Jimmy off-handedly.

It was likely he would've gone on with his stance of not talking about it like he had done with his brothers, but then Kapil happened to do another thing not very popular in the Amarnath household—he hugged Jimmy.