This Stolen Life

by This Stolen Life (retail) (epub)

  He left the restaurant through the back door and walked up the alleyway, the ‘ten-foot’ as the local guys called it, wanting nothing more than to go to bed.

  ‘Hey, Sahan.’ A shadow detached itself from the wall and Kemasiri stepped into the light. ‘Want a lift home? I’ve got the boss’s car parked around the corner.’

  Sahan shook his head. Kemasiri made him uneasy, there was something about him that grated. He reminded himself that everyone was equal in this country and said politely, ‘No thanks. I’ll catch the bus. It drops me off very close to my house.’

  Kemasiri fell into step beside him. ‘Why would you want to catch a bus when there’s a perfectly good lift available?’

  ‘Because… it’s late and I’m exhausted, okay. Maybe some other time.’ He glanced at his watch. Still on time for the bus.

  ‘Oh, I get it,’ said Kemasiri, sneering. ‘I bet you’re going to see a girl or something.’ He laughed, a dirty low chortle that set Sahan’s teeth on edge. ‘Don’t worry, son. I can keep a secret. I’ll drop you off.’

  ‘No.’ Again with the ‘son’. He would not rise to it. Kemasiri might get off on weird power games, but he, Sahan, was better than that.

  ‘Is she a white girl then? Someone you really want to keep secret from the family?’ Kemasiri pulled out a pack of cigarettes. ‘I see. I see. Can’t say I blame you. Must be very tempting being at university with all that…’ He paused to light his cigarette.

  Sahan picked up speed, but Kemasiri caught up with him again.

  ‘White girls,’ Kemasiri said. ‘Very pretty. And very accommodating, yes?’

  He thought of Tamsin. Nausea. He didn’t want to think about her. He most certainly didn’t want to talk to this creep.

  ‘We could go out one night, on the… what do they call it? On the pull?’ said Kemasiri, through a cloud of smoke.

  His breath was shortened. He had to get away before he threw up. ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Maybe some other night, eh? We should stick together, us Sri Lankan men. You know, get to know each other. What do you say?’ He clapped Sahan on the shoulder.

  The contact was too much. Sahan stopped and pushed the hand off. ‘Look. I am tired. I don’t want to chat. Leave. Me. Alone.’

  Kemasiri recoiled as though Sahan had struck him. His expression changed. His eyes narrowed, making him look more like a rat than ever. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Like that, is it? You think you’re too good to be friends with me too, fancy boy?’ He jabbed a finger at Sahan.

  ‘No. I—’

  ‘Just because you have a rich mummy and daddy?’ Kemasiri continued, his voice rising. ‘You think people like me who actually need to work for a living aren’t worth your notice?’

  ‘Look, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m—’ Over the other man’s shoulder, he spotted his bus. ‘I’m sorry, Kemasiri. It’s been a long night. My bus is here.’

  Kemasiri followed his gaze moved out of Sahan’s way. Relieved, Sahan strode past him and got on the bus. When he looked back, Kemasiri was still watching him. That guy really had a massive inferiority complex. Weirdo. Sahan shuddered and turned away.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Louie had a temperature. The thought drummed in Yamuna’s mind, over and over like a backing track. Louie has a temperature. Louie has a temperature. It nagged while she pipetted samples out of the fraction collector; while she put took readings from the spectrophotometer; while she checked her emails. Finally, when she’d read the same email three times and still failed to retain it, she gave in and phoned home.

  She had instructed Soma to answer the phone, just on that day, in case it was her. She tapped her finger on the desk, waiting for Soma to pick up. The phone rang and rang and went to answerphone. Yamuna scowled. Why didn’t the girl answer? She tried again. This time, Soma answered with a timid ‘Hello?’

  Yamuna didn’t bother introducing herself. ‘How is he?’ she said, in English. Then, remembering, she asked again in Sinhalese.

  ‘He’s sleeping, Madam,’ the girl said. ‘I gave him some medicine as you said and now he’s sleeping.’

  ‘What’s his temperature?’

  There was a pause. ‘It’s lower.’

  ‘How much lower? What number?’ She had checked that Soma knew how to use the forehead thermometer before she left.

  ‘I haven’t had a chance to get the thermometer, but he feels cooler.’

  Feels cooler? She had left instructions for his temperature to be recorded. Soma was supposed to call her if it got any higher.

  As though reading her thoughts, Soma said, ‘He’s been asleep on my lap. I didn’t want to disturb him. His temperature hasn’t gone up…’

  Excuses. She didn’t need to hear excuses. Still, the girl was looking after her son. She needed to keep her on side. Yamuna took a deep breath. ‘Okay. When he wakes up, can you please check his temperature? I’ll call back in an hour or so. ‘

  ‘Yes, Madam.’

  ‘When he wakes up, make sure he drinks some water.’

  ‘Yes Madam.’

  After she’d hung up, Yamuna stared at the phone. It should be her, at home with Louie. Not the nanny. She wondered where this emotion squeezing her insides came from. Was it guilt? It must be. And worry. If anything happened to Louie… she would never forgive herself. It was her job, as his mother, to love him and cherish him over everything else. The fact that she felt nothing towards him… that was not a good thing, but it was largely irrelevant. She was expected to look after him. It was her duty.

  She rubbed her eyes. She had tried. Really, she had, but when she thought about Louie, all she could think of was what a responsibility he was. She went about the daily business of looking after him, just as she would have done for any creature that depended on her, and waited for her endocrine system to realise she had become a mother. When weeks passed and that didn’t happen, she’d wondered if there was something amiss with Louie. He was so grumpy and cried so much. But the doctors told her that her son was perfectly healthy. And then Soma had turned up and he was as good as gold for her. So the problem wasn’t him. It had to be her.

  With Soma’s arrival, Yamuna had swapped nights disturbed by Louie’s every movement for nights where she stared into the darkness, wondering what was wrong with her. How had her body produced this baby when there was such a huge part of her maternal make-up missing? How was it possible to be ambivalent towards her son?

  She walked back into the lab, still thinking.

  ‘Louie alright?’ said her colleague, Jenny.

  Yamuna shook her head. ‘Still got a temperature.’

  Jenny looked around. ‘Do you need to go home? I can cover for you…’

  Did she want to go home? She supposed she should. But that meant leaving work early. She would have to take it as annual leave. She could do that.

  ‘You won’t be able to concentrate here anyway,’ Jenny continued. ‘I remember when my two were ill, I was useless. Couldn’t stop worrying about them.’ She smiled. ‘Go home Yamuna. When they’re ill, all they want is their mummy.’

  Not Louie. He would want Soma, not her. But Jenny had a point. She wasn’t concentrating. Besides, going home would be what a good mother did. She wasn’t a good mother, but she wasn’t about to let other people know that. ‘You’re right. I will go home.’

  ‘What do you need me to do for you? Anything?’

  She quickly ran through what she was doing. She dealt with what could be put on ice and gave Jenny a short list of instructions for the rest. Within an hour, she was on her way out. Pretty convincing, she thought as she headed out of the building. Anyone would think she was a proper mother.

  * * *

  Soma sat on a cushion on the floor, with a pillow resting on her shins. Little Louie lay on her legs, head on the pillow, legs falling limp either side of her knees. She rocked her legs gently whenever he stirred, keeping him asleep. Poor baby. She reached forward and put a hand against his forehead. Still warm, but not as hot as
before. She checked the bowl of water she had next to her. It was too cold to sponge his hands and feet down with now. She would need to move him to go and get some warm water. Carefully, she leaned forward and eased the pillow and baby off her legs onto the floor. Louie whimpered, but didn’t wake. Soma quietly eased away, crawling along the floor a few yards before standing up.

  She looked back at the sleeping baby. He seemed so lifeless, arms limp, knees flopped apart, but there was something about the way he was breathing that was better than before. This was proper sleep, not the fever-induced slumber she’d seen earlier. He was on the mend.

  Soma tiptoed out and headed downstairs. Pausing to look at the clock, she noticed it was nearly the time when she and Louie went to the park. Sahan would be waiting for them. Except, Louie wasn’t in a fit state to go anywhere. She couldn’t take him out when he was so ill. Would Sahan wait for long? What if he thought she’d decided not to meet him? Soma sighed. If only there was a way for her to get in touch with him. She didn’t have a phone of her own and she didn’t dare make any calls on Madam’s phone. If Madam found out about her and Sahan, there would be hell to pay. Sahan would be fine, but she would be sent home. That could not happen.

  They had never spoken about the risk of Madam finding out, but it seemed they were both aware of how important it was to keep their friendship secret. Sahan had recently suggested that it would be good to be able to get in touch if he needed to tell her he couldn’t come to the park. He’d suggested a code where he would call, let it ring three times, then hang up and dial again. This would tell Soma it was him. She could pick up the second time he called. It was a sensible plan, but they’d not had to use it yet. He might use it today, when he got tired of waiting.

  If she was upstairs with Louie, she wouldn’t get to the phone in time. She knew that because it had taken her ages to get down when Madam called earlier. By the time she’d dislodged Louie and got downstairs, the phone had stopped ringing. Thankfully, Madam called back. By the time she’d spoken to her and got back upstairs, Louie had been keening.

  She took the cordless handset out of its cradle. May as well take it upstairs. Even if Sahan didn’t phone, Madam might call again and it would be good to answer it without upsetting Louie too much.

  She grabbed herself a banana and a glass of water and headed back upstairs to get a bowl of warm water. She knew from sitting with cousins that sponging down a child’s hands, feet and forehead was a good way to get a fever down. It wasn’t a problem in Sri Lanka, but here, the water was so cold, it was bound to wake him up if she tried it without making sure it was warm. She ran the tap for a while, dipping the inside of her wrist into the stream to test the heat. When it was finally warm enough, she collected some water into the bowl. Downstairs the front door thudded shut.

  She was almost at Louie’s room when Madam arrived at the top of the stairs. Madam glanced at the things she was clutching and frowned.

  ‘I was going to wipe baby’s forehead and hands down again,’ Soma explained.

  The frown cleared from Madam’s face. A slight nod. ‘That’s a good idea,’ she said. She followed Soma into the room. Soma headed for the little nest of pillows she’d made for herself and Louie on the floor and put down the things she was carrying next to it.

  ‘Why is my son on the floor?’ Madam demanded in a harsh whisper.

  Soma looked down. Louie lay on the floor next to the cot. His top half was on the pillow and his bottom half on the carpet. Why did Madam sound annoyed? It wasn’t like he was on a dusty floor. ‘I rocked him to sleep on my legs,’ she explained. ‘He was asleep and I didn’t want to move him too much.’

  Madam knelt next to Louie and picked up the temperature strip that she’d shown to Soma that morning. She pressed it firmly to Louie’s forehead. As if by magic the strip lit up a number, telling his temperature. Madam said ‘Hmm.’ Louie stirred and let out a thin wail. His eyes flew open, wide and unfocused.

  Without thinking, Soma leaned forward and laid a hand on his tummy. ‘Shh. Baba,’ she said. Louie whimpered again and closed his eyes.

  When Soma looked up from Louie, her gaze briefly connected with her employer’s and she caught a look of intense dislike. Madam looked away so fast that Soma wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it. Why would Madam dislike her? She did everything she was told. And she looked after Louie well, didn’t she? He seemed happy. What possible reason could there be for Madam to not like her?

  Could it be that Madam suspected something about Sahan? The thought made her catch her breath.

  Madam went over to the other side of the room and looked through the notes that Soma had made through the day. She wrote something in the notebook, probably the latest temperature. The woman was obsessed with note-taking. It was almost as though she didn’t believe in things unless they were written down. Perhaps she would take more notice of Louie himself when he learned to write. They could leave each other little notes.

  Madam looked up from the book. ‘He seems to be improving,’ she said.

  ‘He’s sleeping a bit better now,’ Soma volunteered. ‘He was really floppy before. Like he was unconscious.’

  Madam spun round. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

  Soma looked from the baby to his mother, confused. Madam had known the baby was ill. What good did it do to call her to say he was still ill? He wasn’t worse. And now he was better. For a second she wondered if Madam perhaps loved the boy more than she let on? Perhaps she was worried? But then, she could have rung earlier.

  Madam looked like she was about to say something else, but was interrupted by the phone ringing. Soma stared at it. Madam was here. So there was only one other person who would phone at this time. Sahan would have been waiting for her in the park for about twenty minutes now. It had to be him.

  Another ring.

  She couldn’t speak to him with Madam here. If Madam picked up… would he have the presence of mind to pretend he’d dialled here by mistake?

  A third ring. Louie cried.

  Madam strode over to the phone. It stopped ringing. Soma picked up Louie and rocked him, using him to shield her face. It was Sahan. That was the signal. He would call back again and Madam would answer it. This was awful. Soma turned away, gently rocking Louie against her. She didn’t want to be sent back. She liked it here. She loved Louie. And Sahan. She would never see Sahan again. Tears pressed on her eyes. She blinked them back and laid her cheek against Louie’s hot little head.

  ‘Strange,’ said Madam. ‘I wonder who—’ The phone rang in her hand and she answered it. ‘Hello.’

  Soma risked a glance over her shoulder and saw that Madam was watching her through narrowed eyes. Oh no. She suspected.

  ‘Hello? Hello?’ Madam took the phone away from her ear and clicked it off. ‘Very strange,’ she said. ‘They hung up.’ She looked back at Soma. ‘Does this often happen? Are there phone calls during the day that get cut off?’

  ‘No Madam.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, if it happens again, note down the time. I’ll keep a record and see if I can find out who’s making the calls.’

  ‘Yes Madam.’

  Madam stared at her for a few seconds longer, then sighed and rubbed a hand over her eyes. ‘When baby settles, put him back in the cot, please. I don’t like him being on the floor.’ With that, she left the room.

  Soma rocked Louie and hummed to him gently until he fell asleep again. Madam definitely suspected something. It would be another day or two before Louie was fit to go out, and then it was the weekend. She really hoped Sahan didn’t give up on her in the meantime.

  * * *

  Sahan was sitting on the floor of his bedroom, documents and textbooks strewn in a semicircle around him. Soma had failed to show up again, but he knew from when he’d called Yamuna on the pretext of ‘catching up’ that Louie was unwell. It was the first time that Soma’s job had got in the way of her meeting him. It brought home to him the fact that she had a job. She was only there, wheeling his n
ephew around, because she was employed by his cousin. Not because she was a friend or family. Suddenly the gulf between their situations seemed wider than ever.

  He looked at the neat pile of letters and brochures that lay at the far end of the room. He was applying for jobs in earnest, not many of which were local. Soma was interested and supportive. He wondered how she felt about the fact that he might be leaving soon. Perhaps she didn’t mind. What bothered him was how much he cared. He had spent weeks convincing himself that his interest in Soma was entirely platonic. He was homesick and wanted to hear someone say his name properly. He was teaching her to read. When his course came to an end, he would leave and forget about her. Who was he trying to kid? He could never forget her.

  His thoughts were interrupted by someone rapping a rhythm on the door. There was only one person who knocked like that.

  ‘Come on in, Nate.’ He put the textbook down on his lap.

  Nate wasn’t alone. Cara followed him into the room. ‘Bex told us what happened. What the fuck, Sahan? I thought you liked her.’

  Ah. He had been expecting this conversation to happen a lot earlier. Perhaps Bex had kept it quiet for a while. ‘Is she really upset?’

  ‘Well, she’s understandably a little annoyed.’ Cara stood in the doorway, with her hands on her hips. ‘No one likes to be rejected.’ Nate put a hand on her arm and led her across to the bed, where they both sat down. ‘Sahan, mate. We talked about this. You said you were ready to move on.’

  ‘But I have exams and—’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap.’ Cara leaned forward. ‘We all know what this is about. It’s been two years, Sahan. What Tamsin did was wrong, but it’s not going to happen again.’ She gave him a look full of sympathy. ‘You can’t carry on like this, Sahan. You can’t let her have this hold over you.’

  He didn’t bother looking up. Since he’d met Soma, he thought of Tamsin less and less often. Why did Cara have to mention her now? Even the sound of her name made him feel sick.