‘A very short trip?’ he asked, his voice sardonic. ‘I thought you’d moved here? Something to do with education if I’m not wrong?’
Damn—he’d overheard her earlier. Determined to brazen it out, Shefali lifted her chin. ‘I meant it’s a short trip to this place. It’s miles out of the city, and I’m not planning to come here again in a hurry.’
Neil shrugged. ‘Well, tough luck. I guess you’ll have to get here some other day if you’re really set on boating.’
‘Or you could let one of the boatmen take me across when you’re on a teabreak,’ she suggested, keeping her voice even. He seemed to be being difficult for no reason at all.
‘Or you could watch a film of the cliffs,’ he said.
Shefali glared at him, and Neil gave her an unapologetic grin. ‘It’s not about when you leave,’ he said. ‘It’s about when you come back. You could land up bang in the middle of a take and ruin it for us.’ He thought for a bit. ‘Look, the waterfall is on a different section of the river—maybe if you go there and come back in a few hours we’ll be done.’
‘All right,’ Shefali said, and turned to go. She had no intention of coming back—not while Neil was around at any rate.
Neil watched her leave with mixed feelings. There was something about the girl that got to him. Probably the air of privilege that surrounded her—she assumed that people around her would do what she wanted. And she’d been pretty dismissive at the airport when he’d only been trying to help her. In stark contrast to the way she behaved, though, was the look in her eyes, which was guarded and vulnerable at the same time.
‘You can take a boat out if you want,’ he said finally, just before she went out of earshot. ‘Only don’t wave wildly at the cameras or anything.’
Strongly tempted to tell him that she had no intention of looking at his precious cameras, Shefali nodded politely and waited while he beckoned one of the boatmen over and gave him a few quick instructions in Hindi. If he was expecting her to fall at his feet in gratitude, he had a long wait coming.
Once they were a few hundred metres from the bank, she turned to look at Neil. He was with the TV crew, busily arranging the next shot, and he seemed to have forgotten all about her. Frowning, Shefali turned back and tried to concentrate on the boatman who was giving her a long and, she suspected, almost completely fictional history of the region. The cliffs were impressive, though—not the pure white she’d expected, but pale grey and massive, looming over both sides of the river.
The boatman was still talking half an hour later, when the boat came back to the small wooden jetty they’d started from. Shefali stood up gingerly, almost losing her balance as the boat rocked under her.
‘Need a hand?’ an amused voice said, and she looked up to see Neil standing by the riverside.
They seemed to be done with the shoot—the camera had been packed up, and Neil looked far more relaxed than he had earlier.
Not wanting to fall over on her backside and make a fool of herself, she took Neil’s outstretched hand and allowed him to pull her out. Electricity zinged between them and Shefali felt her skin heat up. He seemed quite unaware of the effect he had on her, releasing her hand as soon as she was on dry ground.
‘Come on, I’ll introduce you to the crew,’ he said, and then smiled slightly. ‘It’d help if I knew your name first, though.’
‘Shefali,’ she said. ‘Shefali Khanna.’
‘Well, hello, Shefali Khanna,’ he said gravely. ‘Meet Rafiq, our director.’ He waved at the pudgy ponytailed man who had come to pick him up at the airport. ‘And this is Priti...’ The girl she’d spoken to earlier bobbed her head at Shefali with a quick smile. ‘And those scruffy guys over there are Animesh and Sohail.’ The cameraman and his assistant, who were both almost as well turned out as Neil, gave him indignant looks.
‘We’re the actual stars of the show,’ Animesh said. ‘This guy just hangs around and shoots his mouth off in front of the camera.’
Neil laughed. ‘Back in a minute,’ he said. ‘I need to pay the boatmen and figure out tomorrow’s schedule.’
Sohail followed him, and Shefali was left with Rafiq and Priti. ‘What’s the show about?’ she asked.
‘It’s called Soul of the City,’ Rafiq said. ‘We’re doing twelve episodes in twelve different cities. Here—take a look at some of the stuff we’ve done for one of the earlier episodes,’ he said, holding out an iPad to her. ‘This was in Vizag.’
‘It’s very rough,’ said Priti, the girl she’d spoken to earlier. ‘The final edit still needs to be done. But it gives you the feel of the thing.’
It certainly did. It cut between interviews with college students, politicians and housewives, with bits of local music interspersed with breathtaking footage of beaches and hills. And Neil was amazing—he looked even better on camera than he did in real life, and he managed to connect with each and every person he interviewed.
‘This is great stuff,’ Shefali said once the clip was over. ‘You guys are incredibly talented.’
Rafiq gave her a smug look. ‘Of course we are,’ he said. ‘And having Neil striding around and looking like God’s gift to womankind doesn’t harm our ratings either.’
‘Is this his first show?’ Shefali asked curiously.
Priti looked surprised. ‘You really don’t know who he is, do you?’ she said.
Shefali shook her head.
‘He’s pretty well known,’ Priti said. ‘Been with the channel for almost three years, and he’s had two very successful shows recently. Of course they’re on fairly serious themes, but he handled them brilliantly.’
She named the shows, but clearly she didn’t expect to Shefali to recognise them. Shefali wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or amused by Priti’s slightly patronising tone. She didn’t watch TV at all, except for the movie channels, and she had no idea if the shows Priti was talking about were big league or not. For all she knew they aired at ungodly hours, and only housewives who were very, very bored or very, very frustrated watched them.
Neil was standing next to her again. ‘Coffee, anyone?’ he asked.
Priti shook her head vigorously. ‘We need to wrap up some still shots of the river before the light goes. But we don’t need you for that—you and Shefali go ahead.’
‘Come on, then,’ Neil said. ‘Unless you’re in a hurry to get back?’
Shefali shook her head again. She hadn’t seen the waterfall yet, nor the temple with the sixty-four statues of dancing girls that Mrs Dubey had been raving about, but she’d have to come back some other day.
Probably it was the effect of the sun, but she was terribly conscious of the man next to her as she climbed the stairs leading to the main road. She surveyed him from under her lashes. He was quite amazingly good-looking, she decided, though his looks were unconventional. His hair was a rich brown, with a couple of gold streaks in it. It was an unusual colour—most Indian men had jet-black hair or, more rarely, sandy-brown. His skin was tanned a perfect golden brown, and he had a square jaw with a cleft chin, and uncompromising, steady blue-grey eyes.
Trying to distract herself, Shefali stopped a couple of times to look at the carved stone figurines being sold at the stalls lining the stairs. There was a little marble one of Ganesha, the elephant-headed god, which she picked up and looked at for a while before putting it back.
‘Don’t you want it?’ Neil asked.
‘My mum collects them,’ Shefali said. ‘But it’s going to be a while