Your Truth or Mine?

by Trisha Sakhlecha

  ‘Natalie, please . . .’

  ‘Shut the fuck up! This is what you deserve,’ she says, her face contorting into an ugly scowl, and I have a moment of recognition. I can see my father in her.

  I am prepared for the panic to take over, for my life to flash before my eyes, but instead a strange calm takes over.

  It’s up to me now. No one is coming to save me.

  I hold her gaze and, with the smallest of movements, I reach for the cold tea sitting on the table. In one quick motion, I throw the murky liquid in her eyes and shove her hard. It’s not much but it buys me a few seconds. I push her again as she stumbles backwards, then grab my phone from the counter and run into the hallway and up the stairs. I’ve barely dialed 999 when I hear her behind me, pounding up the stairs. I run into the bathroom but before I can close the door, I feel a sharp pain in the back of my head. My knees buckle and before I know it, I am being dragged across the bathroom floor. My eyes search out my phone and just as she steps around me to kick it out of my reach, I grab both her ankles and pull her towards me. She lets out a scream as she lands on the floor and the gun gets knocked out of her hand. I lean on her with all my weight and press my knees into her back as she struggles underneath me. I push her shoulder down with my left hand and, with my right, I reach for the first thing I see. The jarred edges of a healing crystal dig into my palm as I swing it down on her with all the strength I can muster.

  The silence that follows chills me. I drop the pale pink crystal on the floor and reach for my phone. It slips out of my grasp. There’s blood on my fingers.

  ‘Hello? Hello?’ I pant into my phone when I finally manage to pick it up. I am hoping that the operator’s still on the line and that she’s somehow figured out what’s going on but real life is messier than the movies.

  I scramble up and run out of the bathroom and down the stairs, leaving Natalie on the floor, unsure if the blood on the floor is hers or mine.

  I dial 999 again and speak as quickly as I can while I rummage through Natalie’s console table for her front door keys. I practically scream with relief when the first one I try unlocks the bottom lock.

  I’m on the third lock when I hear her behind me.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

  I spin around. I set the phone down on the console table. Natalie is standing at the foot of the stairs. The gun is back in her hand.

  ‘The police are on their way,’ I say, slowly trying to wrestle some control back. ‘If you kill me, you’ll never get away with it.’

  She steps closer. ‘You think that’s what I care about? You think after all of this – strangling Emily, framing Roy, being your fucking therapist – you think I care about getting away? You killed my father!’

  Our father, I want to scream, but I force myself to stay calm. ‘Killing me won’t bring him back. But if you leave now, you can still have a life.’

  ‘You ruined any life I could ever have,’ she says, and I stare at her as she points the gun at me, the metal glinting where it catches the sun.

  I take a step back as I realize this is it, the end of the line. There is nothing left for me to try now.

  I hear the click as she unlocks the safety switch.

  We both hear the distant wail of sirens get closer.

  A loud crash.

  A frenzy of footsteps.

  A microsecond of distraction.

  I lunge at her. But it’s too late.

  I’m too late.

  The sound of the gunshots rings through the room while I lie on the floor trembling.

  ROY

  Monday, 21st December

  London

  I have been waiting all day. The cell door swings open and a guard escorts me to a different room. Save for the metal desk and chairs that take centre stage in this room, the cell is almost identical to the one I’ve been sitting in for the last few hours.

  It’s hard to believe that when this all started, all I was worried about was Mia finding out about the affair, or at worst the pregnancy. And yet here I am, less than a month later, sitting in a chair that’s bolted to the floor, waiting for my solicitor to come in and tell me just how much worse everything is about to get.

  Alistair comes in after a few minutes, looking flustered. I want to smack him. He doesn’t have the barrister he promised me with him, I note.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ he says, ‘but I wanted to come here when I knew what was happening.’

  I raise my eyebrows at him.

  He grins. ‘The charges against you have been retracted pending review.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The official line is that you’re no longer the chief suspect, but after a fuck-up this huge, I’d say it’s pretty unlikely that they’ll come after you again. There’s some paperwork to be completed, and you may still need to stay overnight, but as of four p.m. today, you are a free man.’

  He says something about discontinuance and section twenty-three, about the prosecution withdrawing charges based on new evidence, then places a massive folder on the table and starts flicking through it, talking me through procedure, timelines, everything. I sign wherever he asks me to but I’m not listening. I’m already somewhere else.

  I’m free.

  MIA

  Monday, 21st December

  I am shaking as I wait outside. Someone has wrapped me up in an oversized coat and I am thankful for the warmth that instantly envelops me. An officer escorts me to the back of an ambulance. Someone brings me a cup of tea. Another two officers are setting up a cordon, blue and white tape sealing me off from the rest of the world. I have never seen so many police officers in one place. They’re everywhere. Noises assault me from every direction: the whir of radios, sirens going off, medics screaming for backup, officers asking me question after question. I can see James across the street. He’s speaking to a large officer, gesturing emphatically.

  A woman approaches me and flashes her badge. CID.

  She tells me that Addi called them from India so when I rang 999 they were aware of a potentially risky situation in Dorset. By the time I called them the second time, a team was already on its way.

  She tells me I’m lucky and I stare at my right hand. I’m still not sure if the blood is Natalie’s or mine. I want to ask the policewoman but she has questions. So many questions.

  I just shake my head. Later, please, later. She nods, apologizes, and then asks me if I can accompany her to a station to give my statement. I nod absent-mindedly.

  I ask her about Roy, about what happens to him now, and she tells me that they heard enough on my second call, that in those three sentences Natalie confirmed everything Addi had told them. What they need from me now is context.

  The large officer speaks into a radio and James runs across the street, appearing next to me in less than a second, hugging me and talking all at once. He’s rambling and I tune him out.

  A medic turns up and starts asking me more questions, looking at my hand, checking my pulse, tightening a tourniquet around my arm.

  I’m fine, leave me alone, I want to scream but I don’t. I clench my fist and let him do his job. I am polite if nothing else.

  I am also numb.

  A flurry of activity to my left catches my eye. Two men in white suits carry a stretcher into the ambulance parked next to the one I’m in. I push myself forward and crane my neck to get a better view.

  I breathe easily for the first time in days. Tears prick my eyes.

  I can’t see her. It’s over.

  She never stood a chance once the armed officers barged in.

  She’s in a bag.

  PART THREE

  Two months later

  India

  MIA

  Friday, 26th February

  Haridwar

  Cold, grey water laps at my feet as I step in. Flames erupt on the far end of the bank and I stop to look at them. Smoke fills the air. I rub my eyes. They are raw, but not yet dry.

  Next to me, Addi has
also stopped in her tracks. She’s looking at the funeral pyre in the distance but her eyes are glazed. I take a step towards her and hold her hand. We descend further, following the priest down the steps till we are standing on either side of him, waist-deep in the Ganges. I adjust my dupatta over my head and nod to him.

  He stands erect, eyes closed, holding the clay urn out in front of him. The sun is going down, casting a pink glow over everything. He begins chanting and Addi and I release fistful after fistful of our mother’s ashes, watching the river carry her away, our sobs and the priest’s hymns drowned out by the sound of the Ganges rushing past.

  Mummy didn’t make it to the end of the six months the doctors had promised us. She went quickly, quietly, her death as unobtrusive as her life had been.

  ‘Aur kuch, madam?’ the waiter asks, placing my chai on the table and handing me a small leather dossier. I sign my name, thank him and give him thirty rupees. I take my tea and stand by the fence, looking at the river in front of me. It hurries past, the current hauling the water through. Across the river, devotees in saffron clothes are clustered in small groups. Their chants fill the early evening air, all of them performing the same holy ritual: bending down to cup the water in their hands, standing up and letting it fall through their fingers; offering roses and magnolias to the river; lighting diyas and placing them in the water; and then watching it all glide away.

  I wonder where she is now.

  My thoughts drift back to an evening less than a week before we had to rush her to the hospital. We had just come back from another round of tests. James was flying in for a few days and Addi had gone to the airport to pick him up. It was one of those rare occasions when Mum and I were alone.

  ‘Shall we go out?’ I asked after she’d taken her medicines. She had little stamina but being outside in the fresh air lifted her spirits so Addi and I tried to take her for a walk every evening.

  She nodded. ‘Perhaps we can go to the lake today?’

  I put on my jumper and draped a shawl around her shoulders. It was still light outside. The lake was less than a ten-minute walk away, but I took the car, parking right by the promenade. We walked for a few minutes then sat down on a bench facing the lake.

  ‘You’ll need to go back soon,’ Mum said, her eyes focused on all the activity in front of her.

  ‘There’s no rush.’

  In front of us, young couples strolled past, hand in hand, and wives haggled with the peddlers selling chana jor garam and masala corn-on-the-cobs while their husbands hung back and the children wailed for ice cream.

  ‘What was she like?’ she asked, after a few minutes.

  ‘Natalie?’

  She nodded.

  ‘She had his eyes, and the same sharp jawline.’

  ‘Your father had beautiful eyes,’ she said. ‘But always full of conflict.’ Mum smiled and leaned back. She looked so peaceful.

  ‘Did you still love him, despite everything?’ I asked.

  ‘I used to think so. I did in the beginning. Whenever he got angry, I would tell myself that it was just a little argument. I convinced myself it was normal. And in the beginning, it wasn’t much, a small push here, a shove there. But over the years, it got worse. Our arguments grew more frequent and every time it would end the same way. My injuries would be more severe each time and I was calling in sick so often, I lost my job, and with it, any shred of dignity I had left. I started believing him when he told me I deserved it. Things might have carried on like that but everything changed when he hit you. Up until then, he was hitting me, throwing verbal abuse at Addi, but not you. Never you. He adored you. He used you as proof that the problem wasn’t his temper; that Addi and I provoked him,’ she said, her gaze pointing downwards.

  I looked at my mother. How long had she suffered alone?

  ‘The relationship you had with your father . . . it was so . . . pure, it made me believe we could still fix things. But after the barbecue at William’s, something changed. I’d never seen you that upset. You refused to speak to David for days . . . And then, when I found out about Laurel and their little girl, it all fell into place. It took me a long time but I knew I had to leave him, if not for myself, then for the two of you. One of my friends from Cambridge was a divorce lawyer and he started drawing up the paperwork. I should have left it at that but I don’t know why I felt like I had to warn them.’ She paused to wipe away the tears that had escaped her eyes. ‘I hadn’t been able to protect you and Addi, but I felt like if I could at least protect the other little girl, Laurel’s girl, I might be able to live with myself. I couldn’t bring myself to speak to her so I wrote to her.’ She looked up. ‘David found the letter.’

  ‘The night he left . . . that’s what you were arguing about?’

  She nodded. ‘He came in completely drunk. He was furious. He kept saying that I was just trying to manipulate Laurel with that letter; he would never hurt either of them. He said he only hit me because I drove him to the point of madness. When I told him I wanted him to leave, he started punching me. Addi saw us and ran upstairs. I couldn’t see you; I thought you must be upstairs as well. It was then that I heard you, under the stairs. I don’t know what you were doing there but—’

  ‘Hide and seek. We were playing hide and seek.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I wanted to reach you before he did. I had never seen him like that and I was scared. Terrified. But you kept crying out for him and he kept asking you to come to him. I wedged myself in between the two of you and yelled for Addi to come down. I pulled you out and she took you upstairs. He left when Addi threatened to call the police. I thought it was over, but then the next day . . .’

  ‘The next day, I called him back. I’m sorry, Mummy,’ I whispered, my tears blurring the world.

  Mum held me till the tears stopped.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, darling,’ she said. ‘We didn’t talk about these things back then, but I always knew your father was an alcoholic. And he had a terrible temper. That’s what caused his accident, not you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me what he was like? I punished you. I gave you so much grief about the house, about everything . . .’

  ‘By the end . . . I hated him, but he loved you. You were the only thing that was left of my marriage that was still pure, and I couldn’t bear to destroy that. I always thought I’d tell you everything when you were older, but after your father’s death, you became so withdrawn. You started having panic attacks. And then . . .’ She broke off, unable to continue.

  ‘Then the drugs started.’

  ‘You were already so vulnerable, I couldn’t forgive myself if anything happened to you, especially after your accident . . .’

  ‘I know.’ I paused, thinking back to that night when, in a way, it all started. ‘That’s when I first met Natalie, you know. At James’s party.’

  ‘She was there?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, that phase of my life painful even in its memories, but James’s fundraiser felt like it had been etched into my brain, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t rub it out. It was my nineteenth birthday, and I was celebrating the only way I knew how, dosed up on a cocktail of so many pills, all the doctors at that party could probably have treated a week’s worth of patients with just the drugs coursing through my body. James had carried me out kicking and screaming. I woke up the next evening in Addi’s flat. It had been swept clean. Not even an aspirin in sight. I managed to feign sleep for a few hours, and as soon as I knew Addi was asleep, I snuck out. I had no money, and no phone, but I knew I only had to get to the hospital nearby and I’d be able to get my hands on something, even if it was just hand sanitizer.

  I made it to the hospital, but via the scenic route. I got hit by a car on the corner of Addi’s street and ended up first in A&E, and then in rehab, where they kept me for the best part of the year. When I came out something had changed in me; the accident had scared me enough that I was off the pills, but I was more broken than ever. I met
Roy almost immediately after and he was just so charming, it felt like he was everything, like he could save me from myself. Thinking about the early days still brings a smile to my face.

  ‘Do you remember what it was like when I first met Roy? I was so happy, we both were.’

  ‘I remember, sweetie.’

  ‘And then our life together, we had everything. It was perfect. What if Natalie had never happened?’

  ‘But she did happen, Mia. And Natalie may have inched him along, but your father, Roy, men like that, they bully women so they can live with their own insecurities. You deserve so much better than that.’

  I nodded, even as a small voice inside me told me that without my marriage my life was over. It wasn’t as bad as I first thought. He hadn’t killed Emily. And the rest of it . . . we could work on it, couldn’t we?

  ‘Everyone always thought your father and I had the perfect marriage, Mia. But it wasn’t real. Don’t make the same mistakes I made, darling,’ Mummy said quietly.

  ‘Why didn’t you ever remarry?’ I asked her as we drove back.

  ‘It took me so long to stand up for us, I didn’t want to give that power away. I wanted to get to know myself again. And once I did, I realized I liked what I saw.’ She smiled. ‘I had both of you and that was all I ever wanted. I never saw us as a broken family, Mia. I saw us as an independent one.’

  MIA

  Wednesday, 30th March

  Udaipur

  I take my chai on the terrace and wave my cousins off as they climb into their car. A light breeze carries the smell of the season’s first mangoes from the garden. It will be too hot to sit outside in a few days.

  It’s been odd being back in India for such a long stretch, contradictory, almost like being reunited with an old lover. For the most part, this is where I grew up, where I went to school, had my first kiss, my first heartbreak and, yes, my first pill. But this is also the place we called home after Daddy died and for years, that simple fact tortured me. How could I allow myself to love anything that was a result of my father’s death?