This Stolen Life

by This Stolen Life (retail) (epub)

  She stole a glance at Bim, who was listening to Sahan, his face impassive. She had seen that face before. It was Bim’s business face, the one he used when he was absorbing information, reserving judgement for later. He nodded at something and said, ‘I see.’

  Yamuna realised she’d missed the last few minutes of conversation. She hurriedly focused.

  ‘We’ll be married then, which will make all the difference,’ Sahan said, his attention on Bim.

  ‘If you were planning to elope, why are you telling us this?’ said Bim. ‘Why not just go?’

  ‘You guys are important to Soma. And to me.’ Sahan looked from one to the other. ‘And we didn’t want you to worry.’

  ‘Or call the police?’ said Yamuna.

  Sahan acknowledged that with a nod. ‘That too. But mainly, it would be nice to have you on our side. My parents are going to be angry, for a while…’

  ‘Angry? They’re going to be furious,’ said Yamuna. ‘With you and with me for letting you do it.’ She threw her hands up. ‘Surely, you can see this is madness? She’s poor, uneducated and just a nanny. How will you ever be able to take her for a meal at your parents’ table?’

  ‘I am not my parents,’ he said firmly. ‘All of what you’re saying is true, but I have thought about this and I’m sure.’ He raised his eyes to her. His jaw was set. Yamuna had never seen that look on his face before. This was not a whim. He really was serious.

  She looked across at Bim, who said, ‘Ask Soma to come in.’

  Sahan sprang to his feet and disappeared.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Yamuna, her voice low so that Sahan didn’t hear.

  ‘I think he’s serious,’ said Bim.

  ‘Can we stop them?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘The question is, should we?’

  Taken aback, she didn’t respond.

  ‘This means several things,’ said Bim. ‘Firstly, the man you thought she was seeing was Sahan, not the driver guy. This suggests that that man did attack Soma. Whatever he said or did to the poor girl must have been pretty horrific if she couldn’t tell us. Secondly, Sahan knows what happened. That must have been fairly difficult for him too, yet he’s here, telling us he wants to be with her, which means he must care for her – it’s not a casual affair.’

  Yamuna opened her mouth to argue, then shut it again. He had a point. If Sahan was unsure about how he felt, he would have had a good excuse to break things off when he was told that Soma was seeing someone else. The fact that he’d not jumped to any conclusions and given everything so much thought suggested that his feelings for Soma were genuine.

  ‘But how can we know she’s not using him? After all, she’s come from nowhere. She couldn’t hope to marry a boy like Sahan if she were back home.’

  Bim gave her a long look. ‘When I came to this country,’ he said. ‘I had very little. I cleared up glasses and washed up in pubs to make ends meet. I’m just an accounts clerk who has a good eye for investment. Perhaps we shouldn’t judge people by their beginnings.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Yamuna looked away. She had forgotten that Bim’s wealth was hard-won. Just because she’d been able to get a job in England after a few months of trying, she’d forgotten how hard it could be. Was she being too hard on Soma? Was she letting her insecurities colour her perception of the girl?

  There were footsteps and Sahan returned, towing Soma by the hand. The girl looked petrified, not triumphant. So perhaps she wasn’t a gold digger. Yamuna realised with a start that she’d never actually believed that of Soma. You lived with a person for so long and you learned something about them. She’d always felt that Soma’s meek subservience was because she was hiding something, but she had never thought that Soma was capable of malice. If what she had been hiding was falling in love with someone forbidden… then it all made sense.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Bim, kindly.

  Soma glanced at Yamuna, then perched nervously on edge of the chair. Sahan sat on the arm of the chair, his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Sahan tells me that you two have been seeing each other for some time now,’ said Bim, leaning forward, his attention focused on Soma.

  Soma nodded.

  ‘And you want to get married.’

  She nodded again. Her eyes shifted from Bim to Yamuna. ‘I’m really sorry, Madam. I don’t want to leave baby Louie, but…’ She turned to look up at Sahan, who smiled at her. Soma’s expression changed from one of fear to something Yamuna could only describe as lovesick. It lasted only for a second or so, but it was long enough for Yamuna to feel a pang of envy. She had never felt the need to look at anyone like that. Nor had anyone looked at her the way Sahan was looking at Soma.

  Soma turned back to them. ‘I promise I’ll be a good wife to Sahan,’ she said. ‘I love him. Truly.’ She looked so earnest, Yamuna almost found it funny. Almost.

  Yamuna looked at Bim. A frown had appeared. What had worried him? He had been all set to shower good will on this couple a minute ago. She put a hand on his arm.

  Bim’s gaze flicked from Sahan to Soma and back again. ‘There’s something else?’ he said.

  Soma and Sahan exchanged glances. Sahan gave her an encouraging nod. She turned imploring eyes towards Bim. ‘I have a secret, I have to tell you.’ She lowered her eyes.

  Yamuna noticed Sahan squeeze her shoulder gently. Soma reached up and put her own hand over his and began to speak. In a quiet voice, with Sahan interjecting here and there to add details, she told her story.

  At first Yamuna was outraged, but before she could process how she was feeling, Soma told them her reason for running away. All anger was washed away in the flood of sorrow that followed. She didn’t need to look at Bim to know that he was affected too. The poor girl. No wonder she ran away. No wonder she took a chance to escape when she saw it, no matter the risk. Yamuna realised with sudden clarity why she’d had that feeling of discomfort about Soma. It was her subconscious telling her something was wrong. The girl looked different to the photograph she’d been sent and looked far too young to be twenty-five. Her rational mind had dismissed the thought – after all, the girl had passed two sets of passport checks, but the observation had stuck, giving her the sense of mistrust. If she had been her normal self, she would have worked that out, but being wrapped up in her own spiral of despair, she hadn’t pursued it, just as she hadn’t noticed all the telltale signs that Soma was suffering.

  Bim had said, ‘perhaps home has something she’d like to forget’. He hadn’t even touched the surface of it.

  ‘Will you help us?’ said Sahan.

  There was a tense silence. Yamuna stared at her fingers. Would she help them? Of course she would, but at what risk to her own family? What Soma had done was against the law. To help them was probably a crime too. This was not a decision she could make on her own.

  Finally, Bim said, ‘It’s a big thing you’ve just told us. We need a bit of time to think about it.’

  Sahan and Soma looked at each other. Soma bowed her head and stood up. As they reached the door, hand in hand, Yamuna said, ‘Wait in the kitchen.’

  When they had gone, she turned to Bim. ‘His parents are going to kill me,’ she said.

  ‘They need not know about all of it,’ said Bim. ‘In fact, if we tell them, we’d be putting them in a very awkward position.’

  ‘She took a huge risk telling us, she must really want to be with him... And he with her.’

  ‘When I look at them, I see a young couple in love. I may not know a lot of about love, but I recognize passion and determination when I see it. They are both determined to make this work. If they were a company, I’d invest in them.’

  Yamuna let this sink in. Bim, as always, saw the world in terms of his business sense. She tried to look at the situation objectively. If she didn’t have to answer to Sahan’s parents, if Soma wasn’t her employee, would she see the situation differently? Probably. ‘So you think we should help them?’

  ‘Just look at them!’ said
Bim. ‘The way they look at each other. They are in love.’

  She thought so too. Just because she herself had never been in love, didn’t mean she didn’t recognize it in other people. She thought of the times when Soma and Sahan had been in the same room. How had she not noticed? How had she been in the same room with that much intensity of feeling and not spotted it? The answer to her own question made her ashamed. She had assumed Soma was irrelevant, a face and a pair of hands with very little personality. She had known Soma was intelligent because of how fast she picked up reading to Louie in English, and she had been more than aware of Soma being pretty, yet she hadn’t seen anything between the girl and Sahan because it hadn’t occurred to her that to think about Soma the real person, she’d only seen Soma the idea. This knowledge made her ashamed. And being ashamed made her angry.

  This whole situation was about more than Soma, a girl who took a job and got a break. Even in the confused fug of her feelings, Yamuna had to recognize that the girl hadn’t had it easy. Soma had suffered so much at the hands of her stepfather and been effectively abandoned by her mother. She’d had the determination to make a new life for herself and now, with one phone call, someone, Yamuna, could take it all away from her again. No one deserved that. And everyone deserved a chance for happiness.

  And Sahan. This Sahan, who hovered protectively around the girl. Who looked at Soma with such intensity. Who was willing to stand up to the parents who had always controlled him. This Sahan was almost a different person to the boy she knew. He was stronger, more solid than before. He had lost that hunted look that he’d worn throughout his time at university. He had found someone to make him happy.

  ‘Everyone deserves a chance to be happy,’ she said.

  Bim smiled. A big, wide, open smile that made her smile back. ‘Exactly,’ he said.

  Yamuna nodded. ‘Okay.’ She frowned. ‘What she did was illegal. How can we fix it?’

  ‘We’re going to have to come up with a plan.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Yamuna took the stairs slowly. It had been two days since Soma and Sahan had come to talk to them and she was still digesting the implications of it all. She and Soma had been trying to carry on as normal, tiptoeing around each other carefully. Any anger at the enormity of Soma’s deception had shrunk to insignificance faced with the visceral instinct to protect someone so badly harmed. Above all, she felt ashamed. Where she had been looking for reasons to dislike Soma because something felt off, Bim, with his instinct for reading people, had spotted the vulnerability in her. Granted, he had only taken notice of Soma when he had been forced to, but when he did, he had looked at her with clear eyes and sympathy. How had Yamuna missed these signs? The crying out at night. The obsession with barring the door. The sleeping with the light on. The reluctance to go out. It all made sense now.

  At least her feeling that the girl was bright had held true. In the discussions that had followed, late into the night, Soma had shown a great deal of common sense, even when discussing things that clearly frightened her. She would be a good match for the less worldly-wise Sahan.

  Yamuna peered into the bathroom. Soma was kneeling on the floor next the bath, where Louis was happily splashing. Soma piled bubbles on the baby’s head. She was smiling, but her mouth was wobbling at the edges, as though she were fighting back tears.

  The mound of bubbles slid off and Louis laughed. Soma flicked water over him, making him giggle some more.

  Yamuna stepped into the bathroom. Soma looked up, fearful for a moment, until her impassive façade descended.

  ‘Soma.’ Yamuna knelt down beside her. The girl watched her. There was so much to say, but Yamuna didn’t know how to start. So she said, ‘I’ve booked you and Sahan a ticket to go to Sri Lanka in two weeks’ time. We can sort this thing out.’

  Soma opened her mouth and breathed in as though to speak. No words came out. She took her hand out of the bath, shaking the water off it. Yamuna pulled the towel off the rack beside her and passed it to her to dry her hands. Soma burst into tears.

  ‘Oh. Hey. Don’t cry.’ At a loss, Yamuna put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. ‘Don’t cry. It will be okay.’

  ‘You’re so kind to me,’ Soma sobbed. ‘So kind.’

  Yamuna knew she hadn’t been kind. She had been judgemental and narrow-minded and petty. This kindness was too little too late, but it was better than nothing. ‘It’s okay.’ She repeated.

  Louis, suddenly noticing Soma’s tears, gave a worried squawk. His lower lip trembled. ‘Oh, Louis,’ said Yamuna. ‘We’d better get you out of the bath.’

  Soma looked at Louis. She wiped her face with the heel of her hand. ‘Come baby,’ she said. She stood up, expertly scooped the baby out of the bath and wrapped him in the towel. She held him close as they walked back into his room.

  Yamuna noted that Soma’s hair had grown to a good length now, but it was an uneven mess. That would never do. If she was going to present herself to Sahan’s parents, she would need to look more polished than that. ‘You know what,’ she said. ‘Before we go anywhere, I think I need to take you to have your hair cut.’

  Soma gave her a look of surprise. ‘Yes, Madam.’

  ‘I told you, you don’t have to keep calling me Madam.’ She pulled Louie’s pyjamas out of the drawer and passed them to Soma.

  Soma took them and said, ‘Thank you… Yamuna.’

  The words hung in the air between them, a change in their relative positions. For a moment neither of them was sure how to deal with it. Then Louie burped and, slowly, the two women smiled at each other.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Yamuna found a seat and pulled Louie’s pushchair to rest next to her. In front of them a complicated musical fountain played an erratic tune. Louie stared at it, utterly fascinated. It was two weeks after Soma and Sahan’s revelations and the Gamages were on a family day out, just the three of them. They were in the Eureka children’s museum. So far, most of the things they’d seen had been aimed at older children than Louie, but this interplay of water, light and sound seemed to have captivated her son. She leaned forward to watch his face as his eyes moved from one spot to another. Every so often a bell would strike and Louie’s whole body responded, applauding happily.

  She still felt weighed down by the responsibility of looking after him. But knowing that the depth of feeling was there, somewhere deep inside, ready to come out if she needed it, made her feel less trapped. She wasn’t broken, she was ill. Eventually, she would get better. In the meantime, she would continue to do her best with him.

  Bim, who had been reading the description board, came and sat beside her. He too looked at Louie and smiled. When he looked up, he raised his eyebrows at Yamuna and smiled as though to say, ‘our son. I’m so proud.’

  Yamuna returned his smile. She settled back to watch the fountain herself. It wasn’t that Bim had suddenly developed a romantic streak overnight, but something between them had changed. It was as though a wall of formality that had kept them apart was dissolving. They had always respected each other and had been courteous and solicitous of each other’s needs. There was even a sort of friendship, maybe. But genuine affection? That was another thing that she’d assumed would arrive automatically. When her mother had said ‘you’ll learn to love him’, she’d believed her. How naïve. They hardly knew each other. All they’d had in common was the right sort of social and cultural background and a desire to marry someone.

  Even after Louie was born, they had shared a mutual understanding – a shared interest in the boy… like they were business partners.

  But now, she felt something unwinding. A dormant desire to be with Bim. To get to know him. To make him happy. After a few moments, Bim moved slowly and, as though asking permission, put his arm around her. She looked up at him, surprised, but not displeased. His expression changed subtly, the smile tempered with a hint of worry. It was as though they were out on a first date. The ridiculousness of the situation made Yamuna smile.
She looked back to Louie and, just as deliberately, laid her head against her husband’s shoulder. They sat like that, gradually relaxing into this new familiarity.

  Anyone looking at them would have thought they were a typical family unit. Yamuna looked beyond the fountain at other families: children in various states of emotion; parents with that haunted look of people who really needed more sleep; tears, laughter, boredom. Perhaps they were all fighting the same battles she was. Perhaps this really was how it was done. No magic solutions. No instant family bonding, but small victories, carefully won.

  There was another chime from the fountain and Louie gave a squeal and the clapped his hands. Yamuna relaxed against the warmth of her husband. Perhaps this was as good as it got. Perhaps, she thought for the first time, this was enough.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The sea was a dazzling, sparkling blue under the bright sun. The road shimmered in the heat haze. Soma was sitting in the back of an air conditioned taxi, sunglasses on her head. Sahan was looking out of the window, watching the houses and shops pass by. They had been back in Sri Lanka less than a day. Going back to her mother’s house to find her birth certificate was the first job in a long list of things to do. On the way back, they were going to go and see Somavathi’s mother. It had all seemed so sensible when they’d discussed it sitting in Yamuna’s kitchen, but now, as the car turned off the trunk road into a secondary one, she wasn’t so sure.

  They passed the gates to the factory where she used to work. People trickled in and out of it. Lunchtime had started. Her village was only a few minutes away now. The cycle ride that had taken forever in the middle of the night, was nothing to a car.

  The car slowed right down once it turned off the tarmac surface. The uneven road made it bounce and jostle the passengers. Soma looked out of the window at the familiar trees and verges and her heart pounded. There was suddenly less air in the car. A hand reached across and closed over hers. She turned her head to look at Sahan.