Someone to Love

by Ruchita Misra

Not once, however, did she let go of her phone.

  Hope, you wonderful, terrible thing.

  A few miles away, in posh Chelsea, a doctor sat up on his bed. He had woken up with a start, breathless and sweaty, and was staring blankly at the phone in his hands.

  He often got up like this in the middle of the night, scared out of his wits for her, desperate to speak to her but without any means of contacting her.

  Tonight was different. His phonebook contained a name and a number that he could dial right away.

  He stared at his phone for a few minutes, then shook his head, put down his phone and lay down.

  ‘Looks like he didn’t sleep a wink,’ the anaesthetist whispered to Dr Kimberly, gesturing towards Atharv.

  ‘This is a stressful ten-hour surgery – I didn’t sleep a wink either last night,’ Kimberly replied brightly, but her smile faded the moment the anaesthetist looked away. She didn’t need Atharv to tell her that the nightmares, which had drastically reduced in occurrence in the last year or so, were back with a vengeance.

  Oh, Atharv, she thought, her heart sinking.

  30

  Koyal flicked away an imaginary speck of dust from her carefully chosen white shift dress and willed herself not to get nervous.

  She was due to speak at a charity event for Women for Women, an NGO that provided emotional, financial and social support to women going through domestic abuse. Koyal took a deep breath, walked to the stage and began to speak.

  ‘You are told to believe only what you see. What about, then, the things that you can’t see? Things that can be invisible? Domestic abuse,’ she paused, her eyes scanning the audience. ‘The more invisible it is, the more painful it can be.’

  ‘Women facing domestic abuse often talk about a darkness in their lives that nothing can quite dispel, a darkness that sucks away life from them, a darkness they cannot fight. They are wrong simply because they don’t know the full magnitude of their own strength. They think they don’t deserve better, but they do.’

  As words, chosen carefully, tumbled out of her, Koyal looked at the audience again and spotted Surya Aunty. Radiant in a simple black sari, she sat, elegant and demure. She was looking at Koyal, spellbound, pride writ large on her face. That’s my girl, up there, her eyes said.

  ‘Sometimes you just have to take a blind leap of faith when the only thing you no longer have is faith,’ Koyal continued.

  Sitting next to Surya Aunty was Hema, listening open-mouthed.

  ‘While it may sound daunting, there is help. Our NGO actively seeks to help women who want to leave because…’

  Words froze at the tip of her tongue because she had just spotted someone – the one person whom she had deliberately not invited to this event. Sitting next to Hema, dressed in a formal suit, was Atharv. It was not only his presence that had Koyal fumbling on stage, but more so the expression on his face.

  Koyal had worked with Women for Women for a long time, camouflaging her deep personal interest in the NGO as something that had just happened to catch her fancy.

  No one, she was adamant, could ever get to know her shameful secret. Her secret had to remain just that, a secret.

  Only, she wasn’t sure that was the case any more.

  Atharv was staring as her, his eyes wide with surprise. Even from the distance Koyal knew that he was struggling. Koyal could see realization dawn upon him. Your marriage was worse than hell because he used to hit you, didn’t he? his stunned expression asked from across the rows of chairs, bringing out goosebumps all over her body.

  She stood unmoving on the stage, the words from the passionately written speech lost now, desperate to vanish into nothingness.

  Koyal would never quite know how she managed to get through the speech, but get through she did. And then she flew off the stage, somehow fiddled with her phone to call an Uber and ran to it as fast as her legs could carry her.

  ‘Destination address,’ asked the cab driver politely.

  ‘As far away from Atharv as possible,’ she said.

  ‘Madam?’

  ‘Let me give you my postcode,’ Koyal said hurriedly, red-faced.

  31

  It was Amit again. He was running towards her. He had a rope in his hands and he was screaming at her.

  Koyal got up, drenched in sweat, her heart thumping in her chest. Unsure whether she had just woken up from a dream or if Amit was indeed close by, she jumped out of bed and dashed out of the room and into the unlit kitchen. She smashed head first into a shelf. The utensils clattered on to the floor and Koyal tripped and fell on them, feeling something sharp cut through the skin at the nape of her neck.

  A few minutes later, Koyal found herself sitting on the kitchen floor, holding some kitchen towels, already blood-soaked, against the cut. Suddenly, the tears started to flow.

  Tears, the truest sign of weakness, she thought grimly.

  Someone, anyone, she screamed silently, her face wet with tears, please, please please help me. Someone show me the way, please.

  In this new life, Koyal had made a success of herself by telling herself that she didn’t need anyone for anything, and so far it had worked spectacularly, but now, she could tell, the walls were crumbling. Just when everything seemed to be looking up, she had started to break.

  ‘Come in, Koyal,’ Kimberly said, rushing to her, concern apparent on her face.

  ‘Thanks, Kim,’ Koyal said, smiling weakly, looking around Kimberly’s office. Kim’s office, Koyal had noted as she had walked in, was right next to Atharv’s.

  ‘Show me the wound?’

  Koyal turned around and felt Kimberly unzip her dress a few inches so that she could get a better view.

  ‘I think I fell on a knife or something…’ said Koyal. At five that morning, Koyal had hesitatingly called up Kimberly to ask her what she should do about the cut. Her inhibitions proved baseless when Kimberly not only dismissed Koyal’s apologies for calling her at that hour but also insisted that she come directly to her as soon as she was ready to step out of the house.

  ‘This doesn’t look as bad as it sounded on the phone, to be honest,’ Kimberly was now saying, sounding relieved. ‘Just needs a nice little bandage. Why don’t you change into this gown and I’ll get the stuff I need?’

  Koyal was sitting in the flimsy hospital gown, waiting for Kimberly, when she heard the door open.

  ‘Is she here?’ came a voice from behind her and Koyal’s heart skipped a beat.

  ‘Yes, Atharv,’ said Kimberly, approaching Koyal carrying a million little things on weirdly shaped trays. ‘I’ve just inspected the wound and it’s not too bad. Do you want to do the dressing?’

  Koyal turned to look at him. Atharv was glowering at her, angry and worried.

  ‘Clearly, she trusts you more than me,’ Atharv said curtly, stepping away.

  Koyal looked away.

  You know how it is when you desperately don’t want to see someone because you desperately want to see them? Koyal had avoided Atharv since the NGO event. And now, feeling as vulnerable as she was, she had no wish to be around him because that would make her want to be in his arms – because just being wrapped in his arms would make things okay. It would make her wish things between them had been different.

  But they were not.

  And they were not going to change. And at the moment, she was too tired to think about all this.

  Kimberly was talking, both to Atharv and to her, as she bandaged the wound. Atharv maintained stony silence but, Koyal noted, did not leave. Despite trying very hard not to, Koyal turned around and gulped when she saw his expression. He was still and pale – he looked like he had seen a ghost.

  A few minutes later as Koyal was about to step into the changing room, she felt a strong hand clutch her arm.

  ‘Amit,’ her brain blurted, petrified. She let out a little scream.

  A hand clasped around her mouth to muffle a second scream and another pulled her inside a dark room. Koyal, scared senseless, was about
to start screaming in earnest when someone switched on the light in the room.

  She turned around sharply to see if it was indeed Amit who had grabbed her hand.

  Atharv. His eyes blazing fire.

  ‘What,’ he hissed, turning her around and roughly undoing the top knot of her gown, ‘is this?’

  For a moment Koyal stared at Atharv, not comprehending his question.

  She then felt Atharv’s fingers, red hot and ice cold at the same time, trace her back beginning from the top of her left shoulder blade.

  And then it hit her.

  A scar from when Amit had once hit her – the only scar that remained, really, the ugly red scar that wouldn’t go, no matter what she tried – ran from one shoulder blade to the other.

  It was this that she now felt Atharv’s fingers trace.

  Koyal turned around abruptly to face him and his eyes, boring into her soul, only held anger. They searched hers for answers, for consolation, for something that would say to him that this wasn’t what he feared it was.

  All she could give him was a horrified stare.

  ‘Why did you let this happen?’ he spat out the angry words.

  ‘I need to go,’ she mumbled, biting her lips, desperate not to break into tears in front of this man.

  Who are you to ask that question?

  She batted away his hand, turned around and ran out of the room.

  Atharv rested his head against the cool wood of the door and sank to the floor, exhausted. What had this girl done to herself, he wondered, wanting desperately and not wanting equally desperately to know.

  ‘Atharv,’ came Kimberly’s voice, bringing him out of his reverie.

  Atharv looked up. One look at his face and Kimberly knew something was up. She sat down next to him, her shoulders touching his.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘What do you do,’ Atharv asked, ‘when you know – even though you don’t really?’

  Kimberly looked at Atharv for a few seconds, studying his face. Unslept and tired, he looked incredibly sexy, she thought, and then shushed her mind. Gently, she began to run her fingers through his hair.

  ‘The nightmares are back, aren’t they?’ she asked, massaging his temples, exactly the way she knew he liked it. ‘You didn’t get much sleep last night either?’ she asked gently.

  Atharv closed his eyes, feeling stress ooze out of his body as Kimberly’s long elegant fingers massaged his head.

  ‘Yes,’ he mumbled and then looked at her, surprised. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘When you know, even though you don’t really?’ Kimberly smiled.

  Atharv smiled and nodded.

  ‘You do what I just did. You help in whichever way you can,’ she said and Atharv could only stare at her.

  Sitting in the overground train heading home, Koyal closed her eyes. And immediately she was back in that little room, Atharv’s eyes boring into hers.

  He cares. He bloody well cares. He cares more about you than he cares about anyone else. He cares more for you than anyone else in your life does.

  No, I don’t need a man to care for me, she mumbled to herself. And I certainly do not need Atharv.

  Her phone rang – the NGO office was calling. ‘You won’t believe this,’ the director said in an excited voice.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We just got another donation.’

  ‘Okay…’ Koyal said slowly. ‘And?’

  ‘Of ten thousand quid.’

  ‘Sorry, how much?’ she asked and then laughed. ‘I thought I heard ten thousand.’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can you imagine, Koyal, what we can do with this kind of money? How far this will go in helping us provide support to women in abusive relationships?’

  ‘Wait a second, can you tell me who made the donation?’ Koyal asked, her heart thumping.

  ‘Let me check,’ the director said. ‘Uh … no, not really, it’s an anonymous donation. The only thing it says is that this donation is associated to the event you hosted which is why I called you. Do you know anyone who could have made such a huge donation?’

  Yes, I know.

  ‘No, I don’t know,’ she said out loud, aware of the lump in her throat.

  He knows, yes, but he also cares.

  Someone who cares – sometimes that is all that matters and all that you need…

  32

  An unknown number was flashing on the screen.

  ‘Hi, Koyal Raje speaking,’ she mumbled distractedly into her phone, typing away at her keyboard.

  Silence.

  ‘Hello?’ she tried again, about to cancel the call.

  ‘Koyal?’ came a voice Koyal had not heard in six years – yet, it made her hands grow ice cold in a matter of seconds.

  ‘Amit?’ she asked slowly. The nightmares. The waking up. The hours spent staring at the ceiling. The tears. The fear. Oh, the fear.

  ‘Yes … hi … I wanted to…’

  Koyal cancelled the call and switched off her phone. She rushed to the ladies and threw up twice in a matter of a few minutes. She stared at her reflection in the mirror.

  ‘You pride yourself on being strong? You?’ she spat out angrily. ‘Look at you now.’

  Koyal thought about how she had reacted when she had seen Atharv in Kent and gulped. She was a coward, a miserable coward.

  Family is not just people related to each other by blood. It is also the people you pick up in life and the people who pick you up in life. It is the people who give you roots and the people who give you wings. It is the people who give you a home away from home.

  Restless and agitated, Koyal gravitated towards the only home she knew in London. Surya Aunty. She called her to find out if she could spend some time with Mansha, convinced that it would help her take her mind off things.

  ‘Of course, Mansha would love to meet you,’ Surya Aunty gushed.

  ‘Is … ummm … Atharv home?’ she asked hesitatingly, not sure what reply she was hoping for.

  ‘No, no,’ Surya Aunty replied, ‘it will be just us tonight. He is away at the hospital.’

  Later in the night, when they had exhausted themselves playing Monopoly and Mansha had been put to bed, Koyal and Surya Aunty were sitting down for a quiet dinner when the doorbell rang.

  ‘Who can that be?’ Surya Aunty said, looking at the clock which had just struck nine and hurried to the door. ‘Atharv won’t be in till tomorrow afternoon…’

  ‘Atharv!’ Koyal heard Surya Aunty exclaim. The two slowly appeared at the doorway.

  ‘Yes,’ Atharv said. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mansha okay?’

  ‘Yes … of course, why do you ask?’

  Atharv looked quizzically at his mother.

  ‘I … don’t really know … I just felt like I should be home … like somone, something…’ He stilled as his eyes fell on Koyal, who was watching this little scene and his face cleared.

  She looked away, still angry at what he had done in the hospital and deeply embarrassed at what he had seen. But, if she were to be really honest, no longer quite as angry or embarrassed. For the first time since she had heard Amit’s voice that afternoon, it was only now, on seeing Atharv, that she felt her toes begin to uncurl. With him around, she breathed easier.

  When Atharv joined them for dinner, Koyal watched in silence as mother and son chatted in the gentle way only a mother and child can converse in, thinking of and missing her own mother, and finding odd comfort in their banter. Koyal had mostly kept her phone switched off for the better part of the day. On the few occasions she had switched it on, a deluge of voice mails from Amit had hit her. The same thing in every one of them – Meet me, Koyal, just one time, please.

  Atharv did not say anything to Koyal. When she got up to put her plate, the food almost untouched, in the kitchen, he looked pointedly at it but said nothing. At ten, when Koyal decided to leave, he asked her politely if he could drop her home
or to the station.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked, his eyes searching her face when she declined his offer.

  ‘I feel like a walk,’ she said looking around the cheerful house, already dreading the thoughts and the nightmares that awaited her in her own.

  The biggest battles, Koyal thought to herself as the District line train pulled into the platform, are the ones we fight with ourselves.

  No matter how strong a person is, being alone with just unhappy thoughts can be tough.

  And sometimes one more lonely night is all that it takes for everything to fall apart.

  He was at it again, more ferocious, angrier, scarier than ever before. She was running as fast as her legs could carry her, but she wasn’t fast enough. She was never fast enough.

  He was closing in on her, any moment now … now … oh god!

  And with that she woke up – again.

  Drenched in sweat.

  Breathing rapidly.

  Her heart beating thunderously.

  Koyal sat up on her bed, wrapped her arms around herself and rocked to and fro. She was, she thought, failing herself repeatedly each night. Yet she knew that something about tonight was different. No matter what she tried to do, her heart would not stop thumping. She felt the vein in her forehead begin to throb and breathing became laboured – never a good sign for her. The whole world felt like a rough rope, braided tight, in a noose around her neck.

  She wondered how much longer she could go on like this, scared and fearful and with absolutely no one to reach out to.

  Her phone, lying a few feet away from her, rang and utter dread enveloped her.

  Amit. In the middle of the night. Just like all those years ago.

  Unimaginable fear began to tighten its grip around her throat. Flashes, in dark angry colours, came rushing to her in a powerful wave she could do nothing to stop.

  The phone stopped ringing and Koyal slumped with relief.

  And then, just as she was about to start breathing again, the phone began to ring again and in response, her body began to shake.

  ‘No,’ she hissed savagely to herself, ‘I will not let this happen. I will NOT be scared. I will NOT be scared.’ She reached out for the phone.