Kayal Nights – Part 1: The Houseboat

Home from Dubai, he books her houseboat.

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The backwaters of Alappuzha were exactly as he remembered them. Coconut palms leaned over the water, their fronds shining in the morning light. Narrow canals opened into wide lagoons where herons stood on one leg and fishermen cast nets from wooden boats. The air smelled of wet earth and cardamom and the sharp, clean sweetness of the lake.

Joseph stood at the rail of the ferry with his suitcase at his feet and felt something loosen in his chest that he had not known was tight.

Six years in Dubai. Six years of glass towers, air-conditioned offices and a flat so cold he had stopped noticing the heat outside. He had sent money home every month. He had sent photographs at Christmas. He had sent nothing else.

He had not sent a letter to Anju.

He thought about it now, and his face warmed.

The houseboat company was small, with a hand-painted sign and a name he did not recognise: Kayal Pride. The booking form had asked for the name of the owner, and he had typed it without thinking, the way you say the name of a childhood street.

Anju Thomas.

The boat was waiting at the jetty. It was long and narrow, with a roof of woven palm and a deck of polished teak, and it was the same shade of green as the old family boat his father had sold the year Joseph left for the Gulf.

Someone was standing on the deck, arms folded, sunglasses pushed up into dark hair.

She had grown into her face. There was a stillness in her now, a steadiness, that had not been there at twenty-three. But the mouth was the same. So was the way she tilted her head when she was deciding whether to be amused.

"Joseph," Anju said. "You look like you've been eating cold food in a glass box for six years."

He laughed, and it came out unsteady. "Hello, Anju."

"You didn't write."

"I know."

"You didn't call. You didn't even send a message when my father died."

Joseph felt the words land like stones. He had heard about the funeral from his mother, weeks late, and he had sat in his Dubai flat with the phone in his hand for an hour before putting it down again.

"I'm sorry," he said. It was not enough. He knew it was not enough. "I thought you wouldn't want to hear from me."

Anju was quiet for a long moment. Then she stepped down onto the jetty, and the boat rocked gently under her weight.

"I wanted to hear from you every single day," she said. "For a year. Then I stopped wanting it."

She took his suitcase from his hand before he could argue.

"Your room is at the front," she said, her back to him. "The breeze is better there. And the cook is terrible, so you'll have to eat my mother's fish curry tonight, whether you like it or not."

Joseph followed her onto the boat, his heart pounding, and tried very hard not to notice how the sunlight caught on her hair.

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Next: Part 2, Backwater Evening. A long conversation under the stars, and the question that was never answered.