This Stolen Life

by This Stolen Life (retail) (epub)

  * * *

  Yamuna risked another glance at the girl. She seemed young and frightened, which wasn’t surprising given that she’d travelled halfway around the world. From what the agent had said, this girl had never ventured more than a few miles from her home town. Yamuna frowned as she negotiated a roundabout. The girl didn’t look like the black and white mugshot that she’d been sent. She looked, too young. Too rounded. Too… pretty.

  She had chosen the girl with care. Even though she couldn’t have specified a plain woman, preferably an old one, when she was looking for a nanny, she had done her best to choose one who had all the qualities she was looking for and was, frankly, not much to look at. This girl, who had appeared unremarkable in the photo, was quite gentle on the eye in real life. Not the sort of thing she wanted at all.

  Yamuna sighed. She couldn’t very well send her back because she was too attractive. What kind of a jealous, controlling harpy would that make her? Worse still, it made it look like she didn’t trust her husband. Bim was a good man. She didn’t really have a worry on that score. But why put temptation in his way?

  The girl’s mouth was hanging open while she stared at the street view outside. Yamuna felt a flash of empathy. She remembered all too well her own first sight of England, seen from the back of the taxi that she and her new husband had taken from Manchester airport. She had lived in India for a bit during her graduate studies, so she knew what it like to be in another country, but she too had looked out of the window and seen a strange world – familiar in sight and sound, but completely new in feel and smell. How long had it taken before the impossibly exotic became commonplace? A week? A year? Yamuna spotted the turnoff onto the motorway and effortlessly got into lane. Whatever the length of time had been, she felt at home in this country now. It was amazing how people adapted.

  As the buildings and streets outside gave way to dull motorways verges, the girl… Soma, must remember to use her name and not call her ‘girl’ like some insufferable upper class doyenne… Soma seemed to shrink back into her seat.

  ‘Your application said you speak English?’ Yamuna said, in English.

  Soma turned. There was a pause before she said, haltingly, ‘Yes Madam.’

  ‘How well?’

  A blank look. She repeated the question in Sinhalese.

  ‘A bit only, Madam. I will try and learn.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ said Yamuna. ‘I want you to speak to my son in Sinhalese, so that he learns the language. He’ll get plenty of English language practice at school.’ She paused. ‘I want him to know about his heritage.’ She and Bim would try, but they had been in England long enough that they spoke to each other in a mix of English and Sinhalese now. It actually took effort to remember to switch languages completely.

  Soma nodded vigorously. She seemed eager to please. Yamuna sighed again. She was going to have to make the most of it. ‘It’s a long drive to Hull,’ she said. ‘Try and get some sleep.’

  * * *

  Madam led her through a door at the end of the garage. Soma followed. The door opened into a kitchen. It was bright and clean. So clean. Everything in this country seemed so muted and quiet and clean. No one beeped their horn when they drove. There were no loud pavement hawkers. No music spilling out from shops. There was no heat, no dust, no animals. It was as though all that was real had been locked down. It seemed that England was made for people in hiding.

  The house was several storeys tall and smelled of cinnamon. When Mrs Gamage stopped to remove her shoes, Soma did the same. Even the shoes were put away immediately, rushed out of sight. She wriggled her toes into the soft carpet. It was very different from the hard floors at home. So soft.

  ‘I’ll show you where you’ll sleep.’ Mrs Gamage started up the stairs. ‘You can put your bags down and then I’ll show you the rest of the house.’

  Soma followed up the stairs, torn between curiosity and fear. This was where she would be from now on. She could put up with most things, she reminded herself. She would be okay so long as no one found out that she wasn’t really Soma.

  There was so much to take in. Mrs Gamage showed her the room. It was small, a bed and a chest of drawers squeezed in between four white walls, but to Soma it was the most beautiful place in the world. There was a bed. A bouncy soft bed with a fat mattress. The window had pale yellow curtains that matched the duvet. A door that she could shut. Heaven. She dropped her bags on the floor. She turned to find that Mrs Gamage was still talking.

  ‘I’m sorry, Madam,’ she said. ‘I didn’t hear.’

  ‘I said,’ said Mrs Gamage. ‘That maybe you’d like to have a wash before my son gets back from baby group.’ She looked thoughtfully at Soma.

  Soma wondered what Mrs Gamage saw. A tired woman? An unclean one? An untrustworthy one? Was this some sort of test that she had to pass?

  ‘I will wash?’ she said. It came out more as a question than a statement.

  Mrs Gamage nodded. Soma went limp with relief that she’d said the right thing.

  ‘Come. I’ll show you where the bathroom is.’

  Soma followed in a daze as she was shown a small bathroom with a shower in it and given a towel and some shampoo. Mrs Gamage left her, then quickly returned and, as an afterthought, showed her how the shower worked, which was just as well because Soma was too tired to see straight, let alone work it out. She nodded her understanding and scratched her head.

  Mrs Gamage’s eyes snapped to her head in an instant. ‘Head lice?’ she said. ‘Sit down.’

  Soma sat on the floor, too surprised to hesitate. Mrs Gamage bent over her and peered at her scalp. ‘I thought this might happen,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘Stay there.’

  Soma stayed and shivered. Was she supposed to have been checked for head lice before she left? Had something on her head given her away?

  Mrs Gamage returned with a spray and a sheet, which she spread on the floor. She made Soma sit on the sheet and untie her plait, and sprayed some strange-smelling stuff on her head. After several sprays, Mrs Gamage clicked her tongue. ‘This is not going to work.’ She glowered at Soma. ‘It’ll have to come off.’ She left the room, leaving Soma kneeling on the floor.

  Mrs Gamage returned with a small machine, which she plugged into the wall. She hunkered down in front of Soma. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Your hair is crawling with nits and it’s so long, I can’t use the special shampoo to get rid of them. So, we’re going to have to cut your hair.’

  What? She wanted to cut off her hair? But why? No one had said anything about having to cut off her hair for this job. Confused, Soma shook her head violently.

  Mrs Gamage recoiled as a strand of hair flicked in her direction. ‘Yes,’ she insisted. ‘I must. Look, I’ve set it to the longest setting.’ She held out the device. Soma looked at it. There was a row of metal teeth behind a plastic guard. What was it?

  ‘It will be very short, but it will grow back,’ said Mrs Gamage, with exaggerated patience. A muscle in her jaw was twitching.

  ‘My hair?’ Finally, Soma understood. Mrs Gamage wanted to cut her hair. Short. Like they did with babies. To get rid of the nits and start again. Soma looked at the long black strands, tumbling over her shoulders, almost down to her waist. She loved her thick, long hair. She couldn’t be the girl in the shampoo commercial without it. But with short hair she would look completely different. Starting again. That would be a good thing. It was only hair. She nodded, slowly. ‘Yes, Madam.’ She bowed her head.

  Mrs Gamage gave a small sigh. ‘Good.’ She pressed a switch. The machine cricked and whirred.

  Soma screamed and scrambled backwards on the floor.

  Mrs Gamage said something in English and turned the machine off. ‘Look. It’s only a shaver. See. It will cut your hair. It will not hurt you.’ There was a hard edge to her voice now. She was annoyed. That wasn’t good.

  Soma didn’t want to annoy this person and be sent home. It was only her hair. That was all. She forced herself to brea
the. ‘I am sorry,’ she said. She lowered her head and whispered, ‘I am ready.’

  It didn’t take long to do. Mrs Gamage let the long strands fall onto the sheet. Soma watched them drop and cried. Tears dripped off her nose, but she didn’t make a sound. When Mrs Gamage was finally satisfied, Soma could feel the air, cold against her scalp.

  Mrs Gamage put her hands on Soma’s shoulders and studied her. Her face softened a little. ‘It was the best way,’ she said, quietly. ‘It will grow back soon.’

  Soma, her throat tight, said, ‘Yes Madam.’

  Mrs Gamage sprayed Soma’s head with the oily stuff again.

  ‘Wait for ten minutes.’ Mrs Gamage left her sitting on the floor, surrounded by her ruined hair. She guessed that the stuff on her head was some sort of foreign nit shampoo. It seemed that Mrs Gamage really objected to nits, but didn’t have any other reason to be annoyed. Still, she didn’t dare stand up.

  There were knots either side of her shoulders, so tight she could feel them. Her mouth ached from trying to pretend she had an overbite. Her ears and throat still hurt from the flight. She was so tired. So tense. She drew up her knees, rested her arms on them and promptly fell asleep.

  Mrs Gamage shook her awake, not roughly, but firmly. She reminded her how the shower worked, scooped up the sheet, hair, nits and all, and carried it off. Once she was gone, Soma finally looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was only a fraction of an inch long. Without anything to frame it, her face looked thin and delicate. Her eyes looked too large. She barely recognized herself. She looked like a different person. Her lovely hair, the prettiest thing about her, was gone. Her eyes filled with tears.

  She let herself cry for a minute, watching the tears meander down the face that looked like a stranger’s. But that was good. Looking different was good. She didn’t want to be Jaya any more. This was a new life. She would grow new hair to match it.

  The shower was a wondrous thing. She knew what it was, of course, but she’d never actually been in one before. Warm water washed over her, washing away tension. She allowed herself a moment of triumph. She had made it this far. She was in England. She was in the house of her employer. No one had seen through her. No one had tried to stop her. She rubbed her limbs down vigorously, sloughing off all that was Jaya until it was only Soma who was left.

  * * *

  Yamuna checked the girl’s head for lice eggs again. She would have to get her a small hair dryer of her own, when her hair grew back. It wasn’t right to have to share one with the nanny. Another thing to add to the list. These were things no one ever told you about. Having a live-in nanny was all well and good, but getting one from rural Sri Lanka meant that you needed to look after them. She hadn’t realised quite how helpless the girl would be. She had arrived with only a handful of warm things. They would have to go to Primark and get her more jumpers. Yamuna had a moment of amusement when she wondered if the girl had worked in one of the factories that made clothes for places like Primark. Would she end up buying something she herself had made?

  She had got the room ready without thinking about the fact that everything would be strange to Soma. Until the girl was competent enough to go outside alone, she would need to be provided with everything. Toothpaste, soap and sanitary towels. Yamuna added things to a growing list on her phone. Again, she wondered what she’d let herself in for. Getting a maid from Sri Lanka had been her husband’s eminently sensible solution to her worries about going back to work. That was the trouble with Bim. He was sensible. All the time. If you told him that something was wrong, he worked out how to fix it. He was rarely emotional, but eminently practical.

  Their marriage had been one of those practical decisions. A sensible one for the time. Bimbisara Gamage was getting towards middle age. He felt he needed a wife in order to enter the next phase of his life. So he went out and found one.

  Her family had seen his ad in the marriage proposals section of the paper and got in touch with him. Despite being of lower caste, he was rich enough and Yamuna was old enough for them not to be choosy. She still wasn’t entirely sure why he’d picked her.

  Bim wasn’t a handsome man, but he had reasonably thick hair and good skin. On paper, the most attractive thing about him was his money. When Yamuna first met him, she was relieved to find that the ‘slightly too old, but reasonably rich’ potential groom was actually a softly spoken man who wasn’t objectionable in any way. Okay, he was a little colourless, but then, who was she to complain about that? All the men she had been introduced to until then had been either odd, cowed by their mothers or dismissive of the value she placed on her work. Her parents thought she was fussy, but thankfully, didn’t press her to accept any of them. Her first impression of Bim was that he seemed kind. The second was there was a quietness about him that reminded her of her own, slightly academic, father. He had asked her questions about her research topic and had seemed genuinely interested in her answers. The combination was enough to persuade her that life with him would be tolerable, maybe even enjoyable.

  Yamuna knew she’d married up. A woman with her dark complexion and plain moon face wasn’t likely to win a man who looked good and, as her mother had pointed out repeatedly, she was lucky Bim wasn’t looking for much of a dowry because they’d spent everything on her education. Marriage was about solidity, her mother had said. Not lust. Love? That would come later. When there was a child to bind them together. Yamuna sighed. Yeah. Her mother probably really believed that.

  The girl, Soma, emerged, looking cleaner and tidier and altogether different. Much better. She was less pretty too, with her shorn head; although the effect would only be temporary. Yamuna wondered once again what she was going to do with an attractive girl when she’d wanted a plain one. She had no reason to think that Bim had a roving eye, but she wanted this marriage to work, so why put temptation in his path? Yamuna sighed. They’d got the girl to come all this way, they may as well test her out and see what she was made of.

  She was in the middle of explaining some house rules to Soma when angry wails announced that her son was back from baby and toddler group.

  ‘Come and meet him,’ she said, rushing downstairs.

  Hilary, the cocky English girl from the babysitting service was still unwinding her scarf while the baby screamed himself purple in the pushchair. Yamuna leaned over and freed him from the straps that held him in. He didn’t stop screaming.

  ‘Has he had his milk?’ she asked.

  Hilary shook her head. ‘He fell asleep before I could give it to him.’ She pulled the bottle out of the changing bag. ‘See.’

  ‘Well, perhaps you could heat it up a bit and give it to him?’ It took a lot not to snap. Yamuna jiggled her son on her shoulder and wished he would stop bawling. For once.

  When Hilary returned, shaking a hastily microwaved bottle, Yamuna turned to Soma, who was cowering behind her like a terrified rabbit. ‘Give the baby his bottle.’

  She pointed to a chair that was placed in a corner of the kitchen. Soma took the bottle and reached for the baby. Yamuna handed him over. The girl’s CV had said she had looked after babies before. Well, it was time to see if that was true.

  Soma sat awkwardly in the chair at first, then settled little Louie against her and slotted the bottle into his mouth. As he drank, the baby relaxed and, little by little, so did Soma.

  Hilary was fiddling with her phone. Yamuna watched her son finish his milk. Soma rubbed his back and gently burped him. The baby studied this new person, his face serious, making him look even more like Bim. Soma made a silly noise at him. Suddenly, Louie’s face changed and one of his rare smiles appeared.

  Soma responded with more cooing and ahhing. As Yamuna watched, her grumpy, weepy baby who didn’t much like anything, sat giggling on the lap of a skinny bald girl who had travelled all the way around the world to be with him. Whatever doubts she might have had about Soma, there was really only one person who needed to like her. That was Louie. It was one test that Soma had passed
with flying colours.

  It looked like she was stuck with her.

  Chapter Three

  Sahan stood by the barbecue with his best friend Nate, baking in front and freezing at the back. Nate, as chief burger-watcher, was closest to the heat and wore a t-shirt and jeans. Sahan, who was threading pepper chunks onto skewers, was still in a woolly jumper. Inside, the girls were making salads. Music, turned up to deafening levels in the kitchen, trickled out of the open window. It was completely ridiculous to be cooking outside in the middle of winter, but two consecutive days of sunshine and Nate had declared he’d had enough of the gloom and decided they were having a barbecue.

  ‘How about next weekend?’ Nate said. ‘I’m free, so is Cara. We could rent a cottage really cheap and go hang out in the Lakes.’

  ‘It’ll still be freezing cold.’ Sahan pointed out. He passed a couple of skewers across and Nate arranged them on the spaces between the burgers. ‘I really don’t see the point of going on to a holiday cottage to freeze to death when I can do it right here for free.’

  ‘Tsch, you’re such a lightweight, man,’ said Nate. ‘Just ‘cause you get to go back home to tropical sunshine.’

  Sahan said nothing. This was his third year in England and going home to a bit of tropical sunshine would be welcome right now. He was tired of the low British sky. Tired of the interminable drizzle. It had been winter for so long he was starting to think that summer was a figment of his imagination. He looked at his hands. Underneath the vivid tomato and coriander marinade splashes, his skin was grey. Not brown, not even black, like Nate’s. Grey. As though the drizzle had washed all of the colour out of them.

  He looked up at the sky. The morning had been more or less clear, but now it looked like it was going to rain again. ‘Might have to go get the umbrella,’ he said, eyeing a dark cloud.