Daughter of Kali- Awakening

by Shiulie Ghosh

  I glared at the Ganesh statue, at the photo of the Red Fort on the kitchen wall, at the remains of the incense sticks on the window sill. I hated that she held on to things that marked us out as different. The more Mum tried to stay Indian, the more I tried to be British.

  I thought briefly about telling her I'd seen the shadows again. About my hallucination. But I didn't. And by next morning, I'd all but forgotten them.

  Chapter 2

  I knew something was up as soon as Em asked if she could watch me play football. She wasn't a sports fan, and usually preferred to spend spare afternoons in the library or on the computer developing new programs. I raised an eyebrow at her.

  "You want to watch mixed soccer practice?"

  She blushed and shrugged, but didn't say anything. The reason became obvious when we got to the playing field, and her eyes lit up.

  "There he is! Look, that's the new boy." She pointed towards a figure dribbling the ball across the field. "He's so fit!"

  I gave him the once over. Tall, slim, but not scrawny. Longish brown hair with the front sticking up in spikes. I narrowed my eyes. He seemed to be pretty good at football too. He effortlessly took control of the ball, flipped it up behind him and then booted it into the net. He slapped palms with one or two of the other boys, then spotted Em. He came bounding over.

  "Hi Em, you came! I was hoping you would."

  His voice had a gentle lilt, maybe a touch of Irish, I thought. As he smiled at Em, I practically felt her melt.

  "Kaz, this is Ed Davies, he's the one I was telling you about." He turned his smile on me, his grin charmingly lopsided, his eyes greeny-blue and fringed with dark lashes. I started to smile back.

  "Hi Kaz. Are you here to watch someone play?"

  My smile froze. Watch someone play? Em felt me stiffen and jumped in.

  "Kaz plays for the under 17s. She's a bit of a sports star here!"

  "Is that right?" he asked with a grin. "I haven't met many girls who play footy. Not that are any good, anyway." I felt my hackles rising.

  "Well, I gather you've been living in the Middle East," I said shortly. "Women are thought of as equals here."

  He looked startled.

  "Oh, I didn't mean...." but I had already stalked off.

  I wasn't the only girl who played football at school, but I was the only one consistently picked for the A team. I had good pace, and no problems tackling lads twice my size. Our coach, Mr Naylor, called me aggressive but he meant it as a compliment. I was damned sure I could prove to Ed who was the better player.

  I was still fuming as we divided into five-a-side teams. I made sure Ed was on the opposite side - but just to make my day complete, Gobbo was on my team. Normally he toned down his racist rubbish during practice because none of his mates were there. But today, he obviously felt he had to look big in front of the newcomer. He waited till the coach was out of earshot.

  "Don't give her any corners, mate. She'll open a shop," he smirked as he walked past. Ed gave him a startled look.

  The whistle blew and he took off down the field, neatly controlling the ball. He was fast. But not fast enough. I stole the ball right out from under him, whipping it away and taking it in the opposite direction. I swept it gracefully to the player on my right. I ran flat out, pulling ahead and finding space between the defenders. I took the return pass. One touch. The ball bulleted into the net. One-nil.

  I shot Ed a look, trying not to look too smug. He stared at me for a second, then a slow grin spread across his face. He mouthed two words.

  Game on.

  From that moment, Ed cut me no quarter. He closed down every space I ran into, snagged passes meant for me and blocked almost every opportunity I had to shoot. And when he had possession, he passed it so skilfully, I had zero chance to take it from him. I scored another goal because one of his team mates fumbled a pass, but by the end of the game his side were five-two up, and he'd scored four of them. He even managed to shove Gobbo onto his backside a few times, which cheered me up a bit. I had to admit he was a brilliant player. Maybe better than I was. That was a stinging thought.

  "Great play, you two," said Mr Naylor as practice ended. "Welcome to the team, Ed. You have to watch Kaz though, she'll have your kneecaps out if you're not careful."

  I was sweaty and bit pissed off, and in no mood for compliments, but Ed surprised me.

  "You are a freakin' brilliant player!" he said. "And I don't mean for a girl. For anyone!" He held out his hand. "I'm sorry I maligned your gender. I take it all back. Friends?"

  He gave me that crooked grin again. Hesitantly I shook his hand, and felt a reluctant smile breaking out on my face.

  "You're not so bad yourself, for a newbie. Are you in other school teams?"

  "Just the swimming. They tried to get me interested in athletics but it I prefer the water. Probably because I lived in the desert for so long. You?"

  "I'm a sprinter. One hundred meters."

  "Right." He gave me a sideways look. "Maybe I should join, just so I can beat you at that too."

  "You're kidding aren't you? You’d be behind me all the way."

  He waggled his eyebrows comically.

  "Ah, but think of the view I'd get!"

  Before I could come up with a suitable put-down, Em came running over to us.

  "Ed, you were great!" she said. "And you, of course, Kaz," she added loyally.

  "I think he handed me my arse," I said wryly. Ed nodded towards Gobbo, who was heading towards the showers.

  "What's his problem?" he asked.

  "Don't worry about it. I can handle it. Em, I'll meet you outside, just give me five minutes to shower. Bye, Ed."

  I trudged off, leaving Em to chat to Ed and praying she wouldn't ruin it by saying something geeky. Then I remembered he was a geek too.

  As I left the field, I caught something out of the corner of my eye. It looked like someone standing at the far end of the playing field. Watching me. But when I turned towards it, it was gone.

  ◆◆◆

  There was a time I'd been too ashamed to let Em come to my house. Not when we were little kids; when you're young you don't care about stuff like that. We played at each other's houses all the time. But when we started secondary school, I began to realise there was a vast difference between Em's life and mine.

  She lived in a big detached five-bedroom affair. I was in a cheap terrace on a council estate. Her home was all cool white walls and wooden floors. Mine was full of Asian batiks and rugs, and other things Mum had dragged with her from India. Like that Ganesh statue. Or worse, the huge painting of Kali in our living room.

  Kali was a dark-skinned goddess with four arms, one of them holding a severed head. I was embarrassed by all of it.

  As we strolled along the road, Em talked non-stop about Ed. I made non-committal noises in reply.

  "You do like him, don't you?" she asked suddenly, looking anxious. I remembered the way he'd smiled at me, his frank admiration of my football skills, and felt warm.

  "He's okay," I answered carefully.

  She chattered on, and I relaxed, enjoying the sunshine. For once, it was sunny and pleasant. The only blot on the landscape was the old wino who’d made his home outside the off-license. I say 'home' - I think he lived in a cardboard box. He'd been a harmless fixture in the neighbourhood for some time. Nobody knew what his real name was but all the locals called him 'Mumbler' on account of the fact that he was always muttering to himself.

  It was quite sad really, I thought as we took a wide berth around him. He was pretty old to be outside all day long. He must have been seventy at least, all wrinkles and white hair.

  Em smiled politely, as she always did when we saw him, but he was never polite back. As usual, he muttered and grumbled to himself as we walked past, before yelling a very loud and very distinct insult at us.

  "ABOMINATION!" Em jumped.

  "He's a real charmer, isn't he?" I grinned.

  "I just feel bad for him," said Em. W
e turned to watch him shuffle down the road to the waste bin, where he proceeded to root around. Em got her purse out.

  "Here, give him this." I took the coins and ran back to Mumbler.

  "UNCLEAN!" he yelled at me, taking the money out of my hand. A blast of rancid breath hit me in the face. I jogged back to Em, grimacing.

  "I think that was his way of saying thanks."

  Ten minutes later we turned into our cul-de-sac. There was a delivery truck outside one of the houses. Mrs Cutler's new TV had finally arrived then, I noted. She'd been boasting for weeks about the new fifty-inch giant her son was going to buy her.

  My neighbourhood may have been poor, but there were more massive TVs in this street than a branch of Argos. As we crossed the road towards my house, the truck began backing out of the road, the loud "beep beep" of its reversing sensor warning everyone that it was moving backwards.

  Everyone, that is, except for the motorcyclist who had pulled up behind the truck. He was straddling his bike with the engine idling in a low growl. Twin cords of a pair of ear-buds reached under his helmet, and he was fiddling with his phone. I don't know if he was making a call or listening to music, but whatever he was doing, he couldn't hear the reversing truck. Em saw what was about to happen and yelled a warning.

  "Hey, you! Watch out!"

  He didn't hear her. He was still looking at the phone when the truck hit him.

  For a moment, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I saw the lorry crunch into the bike, knocking it and its rider to the floor. I saw the mobile phone fly out of his hand and land further down the road. I saw the bike wheel buckle like a piece of plasticine. Then everything speeded up again.

  Em shrieked at the truck driver to stop. He must have felt the impact - he bobbed his head out of the window, his face white and shocked as he slammed his brakes on. The truck came to a shuddering halt on top of the rear wheel of the bike. The motorcyclist had been thrown forward but not far enough: his leg was pinned firmly under the bike engine. A dark puddle of blood started to seep out.

  And he was screaming. Even through his helmet you could hear the screams.

  Em and I were paralyzed. The truck driver shakily opened the door and climbed down to stand beside us.

  "Oh my god..." he moaned. "Oh my god....."

  And for a long moment that's all I could hear. The motorcyclist screaming, and the driver moaning.

  Then someone streaked past us, bare feet pounding, black hair flying. It took me a second to realise who it was.

  "Mum?"

  She yelled over her shoulder at us to ring 999 and told the truck driver to get his first aid kit. Galvanized, Em started digging for her phone while the driver raced back to the cab. I could see doors starting to open along the road, people peeking out to see what was happening.

  Mum squatted down by the back wheel next to the rider, trying to calm him. I could see the truck would have to be lifted off the bike before he could be freed. I felt nauseous as I saw the blood pooling on the road. The biker groaned in pain, and I heard Mum speak to him softly.

  "It's ok, I'm going to help you."

  The truck driver was still desperately rooting through his cab for the first aid kit, and Em was on the phone to the emergency services. Mum shouted over to us.

  "Kalpurna, Emma, go tell the driver to switch off his engine. We don't need fumes making things worse."

  Em ran to the front of the truck, and I opened my mouth to say the emergency services were on their way.

  The words died in my throat.

  Mum had her back to me, but for a split second I could see her face reflected in one of the bike's wing mirrors. Shock rippled down my spine. I felt like I was looking down a tunnel as my heartbeat sped up. Dark images curled like smoke at the edge of my vision, and the tattoo on her arm seemed to writhe. The world tilted around me.

  And then she braced one shoulder against the back of the truck, and lifted it off the ground.

  Chapter 3

  She raised the truck an inch or two, taking its weight in one hand, the movement so smooth it was barely perceptible. With her other hand she nudged the bike so it was no longer pressing on the man's leg. Then she let the truck down gently.

  The whole thing took less than three seconds, and from the front it would hardly seem as if the truck had moved at all. Especially as the engine juddered to a stop at the same moment.

  In the sudden silence, I blinked.

  No, you're seeing things, that's impossible! My vision cleared, and now everything seemed hyper-clear, almost unreal. Mum looked round at me.

  "Kalpurna, come here. I need your help."

  I knelt down next to her on rubbery legs. She grabbed my hands and pushed them against the biker's thigh.

  "Push here. Hard. I need you to slow the blood while I tie a tourniquet."

  The man's jeans were soaked in blood, and I could feel liquid warmth as I pressed down. I looked at the small strip of face visible where his helmet visor was open. He was deathly pale, his eyes closed. Em came over to us breathlessly with the first aid kit, the anxious truck driver close behind.

  "Here," she said, opening the kit. "The ambulance is on its way."

  Mum pulled out a bandage and started tying a tourniquet round the biker's thigh, just above the deep rip in his jeans leg. As she tightened the pressure, the blood flow eased. I took my hands away, grimacing at the sticky mess coating them to the wrist. Em held out a tissue.

  "Here, take this."

  I got to my feet gratefully and wiped my hands. Mum felt along the biker's arms and body, making sure there were no other wounds. He still had his helmet on and at one point it rolled towards her and he said something to her. She looked down at him and smiled.

  "Hush. You'll be okay, don't worry."

  I could hear a siren in the distance growing louder. By now some of the neighbours had gathered behind me and Em, gaping at the bike with its back end crushed. There was general muttering about poor road safety, as they rubber-necked to see what was going on. One or two told the truck driver he ought to go to jail for his carelessness. Top prize for insensitivity went to Mrs Cutler, who was loudly thankful her new TV had been delivered before the accident. Some of the men shouted less-than-helpful instructions to Mum.

  "Raise his legs above his head, love!"

  "Nah nah, you wanna make sure 'e hasn't swallowed 'is tongue first!"

  Mum took no notice, absorbed in her task. She checked the tourniquet, and tightened it a little. The bleeding had all but stopped now.

  Had I really seen her lift the truck? A memory, long since buried, came bubbling to the surface.

  I was four, and I'd been playing in a big house. Whose house? I didn't know. But there was a shelf, crammed with books, going from floor to ceiling. In my mind's eye, it was standing next to a sweeping staircase. I don't know any houses with a sweeping staircase. Yet the memory of looking up at the towering shelf was clear in my head.

  I remember wanting to see if I could climb to the top and reach the ceiling. The grown-ups were talking behind me, and I was bored. I planted my little legs on the bottom shelf, and reached upwards. No-one took any notice. I wanted to climb to the top shelf and wave to them. But then the bookcase started tipping. I felt it swinging forward, books tumbling out around me, and I cried out. And suddenly the shelf had stopped moving. I looked down, and Mum was there, holding the shelf steady, pushing it back upright. How much did that shelf weigh?

  It was a memory I hadn't had for a long time. A memory of something that shouldn't have been possible.

  Suddenly aware of the intense scrutiny, Mum looked up at the crowd and smiled nervously.

  "He's going to be okay," she called out. "Luckily the bike took the brunt of it, otherwise he'd be a lot worse."

  There was a lot of judicious head-nodding among the neighbours at that point, as if they'd personally supervised the rescue.

  At that moment the ambulance turned into the road and two paramedics jumped out. Mu
m stood back to let them do their job. The truck driver had recovered some of his colour, but he paled once more when a police car drew up. Mum patted him on the shoulder.

  "He was parked right behind you. You couldn't have seen him," she said. "Just tell them the truth."

  The police officer getting out of the car gave Em a little smile - all the coppers knew the police chief's daughter. The truck driver straightened his shoulders and went off to speak to him. The motorcyclist was loaded onto the stretcher and carried into the back of the ambulance. One of the paramedics came over to Mum and thanked her for putting on the tourniquet.

  "If you hadn't done that, he would have bled out before we got here. Well done."

  Mum shrugged modestly, then smiled when the watching crowd spontaneously burst into applause.

  "Well done Mari," shouted one of the neighbours.

  Mum shook her head, and said anybody would have done the same if they'd got there first. I highly doubted that. Em turned to me.

  "You were great too," she said, then looked at me more closely. "Are you okay? You look pale." I shook my head, licking my dry lips.

  "It was just the blood. There was a lot of it."

  "What? You love blood and gore and stuff! Are you sure you're okay?"

  I thought about the shadows. I won't let it happen again, I thought fiercely. I'm normal now. I'm better.

  I smiled as brightly as I could at Em.

  "Real blood's a lot more disgusting. Come on, let's grab some food while Mum's busy. You know what her cooking's like."

  The neighbours started to disperse as the ambulance drove off. As we walked towards the house, I looked over at Mum still talking to the police officer. She was wearing her baggy tracksuit bottoms and had swapped her nose-stud for a ring. Normally I would have died with embarrassment but I was too preoccupied. She glanced over at me and for a second, I got that feeling again. The one I'd battled against as a child, when I was convinced Mum was someone else.

  You didn't see her lift a truck off the ground, I told myself. And you didn't see her eyes turn silver while she did it.