Care For Me: A tense and engrossing psychological thriller for fans of Clare Mackintosh

by Farah Cook

  ‘Promise,’ I say, sniffing at the flicks of his black hair that give off a soft smell of jasmine. The front door unlocks; keys rattle followed by the clack of heels.

  ‘Ami?’ I hear Amira call out. ‘Are you in?’

  We head out through the backdoor, giggling.

  ‘Hurry Nano,’ he whispers. ‘Or Mum will notice we’re going.’ Several steps ahead of me, he walks out the garden gate. I slip into my cardigan and twist the chador around my neck. A strong wind blows in from the east, shaking the trees. The gate swings wide open then shuts against the fence. I close the door and turn around. There’s no sign of Shafi.

  I fetch the door handle and suddenly it’s hot with curls of steam. I take a step back. I look back at the house and it is blackened and smouldering. It falls apart, the ashes turn to dust. I breathe in smoke. It fills my lungs. I can’t see. The smoke has blinded me. ‘Somebody help!’ I shout.

  ‘Ami?’ Amira opens the door. Her expression weary. ‘What are you doing outside? Who are you with?’

  She looks suspiciously over my shoulder. No one is there.

  ‘Were you doing that thing again?’

  Twitching irritably, she stands rooted in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest.

  ‘What thing?’ I push right past her.

  ‘Talking to yourself, having one of those moment where you go blank.’

  The door swings to a close with the shift of her foot.

  ‘What?’ Shafi wasn’t here? ‘Don’t be silly, I did not.’

  ‘Ami, you were talking to yourself.’ There’s a coldness to her voice. ‘Don’t deny it, just admit it.’

  ‘I wasn’t. I was . . .’ I look behind her. Every brick of the house sits in its place. My home is right there. It’s not gone.

  ‘What?’ she demands.

  I don’t think we’ve ever been this distant. We used to be mother and daughter. We used to laugh with Shafi.

  ‘Where is Shafi?’ I ask.

  ‘He doesn’t live with us,’ her words are curt. ‘Shafi lives with Haroon now.’

  ‘When did this happen?’ I’m oblivious of the black hole in my memory.

  ‘You saw him in Anaya, your favourite Indian restaurant. Don’t you recall? We celebrated your birthday.’

  She shows me the pictures on her phone. I am dressed in my finest shalwar kameez and am wearing gold earrings and bracelets. There’s a cake with lots of candles on it. I nod but don’t remember any of it.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Shafi is busy doing an internship over half term. He was sorry he couldn’t stay long. He came to give you this.’ She passes me a card.

  He’s written me a poem. I read it to myself in low voice. It’s about a boy and his grandmother going down to the lake for an afternoon picnic, and it’s beautiful.

  ‘I never knew what the two of you were up to,’ she says. ‘Sneaking out the back door, thinking I didn’t notice.’

  ‘You read it?’

  They all said Amira would have a girl when the edge of her kameez flared up revealing a protruding belly. But I knew when life began forming inside the dark cave of her womb what she was having. I miss his smile, his charming dimples like the marks left behind from fat fingers pressing into dough.

  ‘Shafi did, and it brought tears to your eyes.’

  ‘How old am I?’ Fifty-five, sixty? I’m a grandmother to a little boy.

  ‘You turned seventy-six, Ami.’

  I stare blankly at her. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Yes, you did. Ask Shafi if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he live with us?’

  ‘It doesn’t bother me that he’s decided not to live here anymore. He is thirteen – too old to share a room with me. It got cramped and the sofa was giving me backaches.’ Her expression turns dull, her shoulders heavy.

  ‘But you should have insisted he stayed.’

  ‘How could I keep him?’ She pushes back the tears rolling in the corners of her eyes. ‘You know how teenagers are. He’s far better off living with his father. Now, can we please stop talking about it?’ She stomps out of the kitchen mumbling, ‘I’m not a failed mother.’

  Thursday, 7 November 2019

  I take the newspaper. The fresh smell of ink uncurls from the pages when I open it. I can’t read the headlines. The words are blurry. ‘Mimi, have you seen my reading glasses?’

  ‘Why don’t you try your head?’ Her voice is charged.

  ‘Oh, I see.’ I pull down my glasses and my vision improves.

  Night-time trouble caused by rebellious group of teenagers. I begin marking. There’s another headline. Growing concern over missing person with links to Inverness. There’s a picture of a handsome looking man in his thirties perhaps. No mention of the young girl. She’s been gone for too long now. Something bad happened to her. I know it did.

  Amira gets three different plastic bottles from the shelf. ‘Here, take your medicine.’ She places a pile of pills on the table in front of me along with a glass of water. Amira is emotionally detached. Lost in a world of her own.

  ‘What’s this for?’ I push the pills away.

  ‘Stop pretending you don’t know,’ she snaps. ‘I’m sick of telling you things over and over. What’s worse, you don’t appreciate anything I do.’ She snatches the newspaper.

  ‘Give it back, it’s mine! Give it back.’ My stomach drops. ‘I never ask you to do anything for me. You only do what you like.’ I take the paper out of her hand.

  ‘Sod it.’ She presses at the points of her temples. ‘What were you doing outside this morning? Tell me, were you attempting to drive off again? A little trip to the shop, perhaps?’ There’s a level of panic in her voice. ‘What if someone would have seen you or reported you again for strange activities. Ami, we can’t risk anything. Do you understand?’

  ‘What are you talking about? I was not trying to go anywhere. I’ve been in here. Locked up in this house FOR EVER.’

  Hands on hips, she takes a deep breath. ‘I had to get you because you were pestering the neighbours. Were you bothering Mrs Nesbit again? Because if you—’

  ‘Silly ladki, whatever you’re accusing me of it wasn’t me.’ I stick my tongue out.

  Amira is shouting. I cover my ears and face the other way so I don’t hear her.

  ‘Ami.’ She turns me around pulling my arm. ‘I am speaking to you!’

  ‘You are hurting me. Stop it, you’re not my mother.’

  ‘I feel like I am losing you.’ She releases her grip around my arm.

  Why is she so upset? Face all swollen like a balloon. The cat comes in. He curls his tail around my leg. ‘Are you hungry, stray cat?’

  ‘And stop feeding Mano. He is not a stray and gets sick from what you give him. I suggest you throw your breakfast out if you don’t want it.’ She looks at the untouched plate of food sitting on the table. Then moves her looks towards a bowl littered with fruit peels.

  ‘Who is Mano?’ She pretends not to hear me and turns away as if setting sail and slipping into a deep blue sea. I wish she wouldn’t go too far. I wish I could be her anchor.

  ‘Mimi?’ She doesn’t turn around and leaves the kitchen, banging the door shut behind her. The thud makes me shudder. Where did she go? Will she be back? I feel anxious and throw away the pills, not knowing what sickness it is I’m suppose to be curing myself from. I call out for my daughter several times. But there’s no answer. Then I hear heavy steps thump up the stairs and a door slam shut.

  I hear the clock on the wall. The dial makes a mechanical sound. Tick tock, tick tock. It’s three o’clock. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting at the kitchen table or what I’ve been doing all day. A table, four chairs and all sort of electronic appliances. A microwave, a gas cooker, a blender and a kettle. Everything arranged in its place. I glance at the gas cooker. It’s off and I want it to stay off.

  There’s no sun in sight, only clouds. It might rain soon. It often does in weather like this. Before it
starts pouring down, I should go out. Perhaps pay Nisha a visit. We both enjoy eating mithai and I could get a box with barfi and ladoo for us to share while having tea on the terrace overlooking the garden and the line of birch trees growing on black earth. Or perhaps they’re pinewood on brown soil? I don’t remember.

  It’s eerie where Nisha lives. The path from the house leads into the gloomy heart of the forest. The horizon, long and lonely, has dark shadows travelling over the quiet hills capped by mist. I could be imagining things, but I may have seen a red stag, majestic and broad shouldered with button-blue eyes roaming out there. Or I may have seen two or three, or more. Ten, twenty. A flock of hundreds.

  Nisha is the only friend I have. She said she doesn’t get many visits. Not from her daughter, especially. Her son shows up sometimes with his bundles of children wrapped in red and yellow striped scarfs, whatever trend that may be. The occasional postcard arrives from an exotic holiday that she hangs up on her wall among drawings of butterflies and sailboats with faded colours. She doesn’t have a board like mine that says Life Story Work or pictures of her family. Nisha says her memory is just fine. Except, sometimes she doesn’t know who I am. I wonder if she’s happier living in the new home? I wonder if she stopped feeling like a burden to her family?

  Looking down at my wrists, I notice they are bare. I can’t visit Nisha without wearing my bracelets. She’d tell me to get myself one of those big, broad bangles Indian women wear in the heaps of bridal magazines she keeps. Nisha likes to spend hours talking about jewellery. My days of grace and beauty are over. I was a bride long ago, and have passed most of what I had on to Amira. Along with the bracelets, necklaces and earrings, I gave her a large nose ring – no piercing; it’s strictly forbidden for Kashmiri women. Amira doesn’t respect the views I hold onto about our customs and says I didn’t used to be traditional. But she doesn’t understand that traditions keep our culture alive.

  Other traditions like food are rooted in our belief and customs. She doesn’t respect that either, and makes me cheese on toast even though I don’t like cheese on toast. When I was young, I’d have roti for lunch and rice for supper, wrapped up nice and cosy in my pashmina chador and blanket. I sneak in dried fruit when she isn’t around. Doesn’t make me fat. I’m still tall and slender, and even Nadeem wondered how I maintained my figure with a sweet tooth. He’s been gone for decades, but his name still echoes in my ears like in a Bollywood movie – nothing romantic or anything like that, just intimate and silent. Like a series of bookmarks, I want to go back and forth in time through the pages of my life. Be able to remember events. Some spindling memories are still waiting to be born, while others are buried in the graveyard of my recollections.

  The stray cat strides across the floor with an arched spine.

  ‘Poor slob, we still haven’t given you a name. How about Mano?’ He purrs. I think he likes it. I get up and open the breadbasket. I take one slice of toast out and pop it in the toaster. When it’s done, I spread it with butter and a slice of cheese and take a seat at the table. Mano quickly jumps into my lap, nestling with ease. He purrs along to the strokes from my fingers. I give him some toast and look at the gas hob. My heart starts pounding. I want to, I don’t want to. I shouldn’t attempt to cook. Things could catch fire. The cat glares at me and meows. ‘Are you hungry? Me too. I don’t think I’ve eaten anything today.’

  Chapter 9

  AMIRA

  Sunday, 10 November 2019

  Something wakes me, jerks me out of my dream. It is the sound of wind seeping through the open window. The pillow is damp, and I know I cried myself to sleep last night after pouring my heart out to Meena. I just can’t take it anymore. Mum’s getting worse. Sometimes, I wish . . . I erase my thoughts. I shouldn’t think that way. Meena calls it ‘immigrant daughter syndrome’. And she is right. I feel guilty. I could spend my entire life trying but I will never be able to repay Mum for all she’s given me. I’m her daughter, her carer. Mum needs me.

  Meena told me to rest and recover. ‘How will you care for your mother if you don’t look after yourself first?’ she said. And she’s right. I check my laptop for new messages. At midnight, she wrote: ‘Night, night Amira. Sweet dreams.’ I must have passed out right before.

  My eyes feel swollen and my head hurts. A fever, hot and tender, pulses through my body. With one hand, I push myself up from my bed and prop myself up on my elbow. I slept badly and dreamed of being with Haroon. He was lying beside me in bed, hand touching my growing belly, listening patiently as I complained for the hundredth time how many times I visited the bathroom in a day. I told him about my cravings for sour and spicy foods, foods with lots of ginger, lime and garlic. Feeling a kick, he pressed his hand firmer against my stomach and smiled, a glow in his eyes.

  ‘That’s one hard punch!’ he said. ‘Does it hurt?’ I shook my head and looked down at the sheets, where a solid streak of brownish blood signalled the birth of a new change to enter our lives.

  My dream isn’t just a dream, but also a vivid depiction of how my life used to be before Shafi was born. Down to the smallest detail, I still remember the studio flat we rented above a loud restaurant – the only place we could afford close to town. Cigarette smoke smudged the windows, and men in button-down shirts and straight pants chattered endlessly in Italian as if they were bored old women hanging about in an empty cold square, only their ‘square’ was the restaurant’s empty outdoor seating area above which I used to stare out. In winter, Christmas activities and festive decorations would light up the streets, which saw scarves and hats of all colours carried through it, the cobblestones icy with clattering steps.

  Weak and tired, I try to swing my legs over the bedframe, but they don’t budge from their stubborn position. I call out for Mum, but there’s no answer. The house is quiet, she tends to sleep in on Sundays. I adjust the pillow, letting my head sink back into its warmth. I throw a glance at the clock against the wall. The minute hand is stuck on twelve, tick-tocking back and forth. Haroon used to be the one to fix things in our flat. He changed batteries, set the clocks back and forth twice a year. Since I’ve been back living with Mum, I do everything.

  My heart flounders from the dreams and memories stirred by my fever. Haroon busy with his finals, me sitting first-year exams when unexpectedly one day two pink streaks lined the blank spot of the pregnancy test I bought from the pharmacy, certain that no one would recognise me. Impatiently, I went into the nearest coffee shop I could find to use their loo. I was shaking while peeing on the stick and still shaking as I left with it clutched between my fingers. It was a coincidence that Auntie Nazia ran into me on my way home.

  ‘How are you, beti? Everything OK with Mum?’ The test slipped and she bent down at the same time as I did to hand it over. ‘How’s studying going? You done giving exams?’ I could tell by the way she was stalling the conversation that her gaze was fixed on the two pink lines. The whole time Auntie Nazia threw her questions at me, she wasn’t actually looking at me, but at the positive pregnancy test. I told her I had to leave. By the time I got home Mum stood waiting for me in the hallway. Eyes puffy, tears running wild down her face.

  Gossip travelled fast among Mum’s friends. Of course Auntie Nazia rang her straight away to inform her how worried she was on seeing me today. By the colour of my face, a sickly yellow, she knew that I was sick, as in, pregnant sick.

  I remember how hysterical Mum was.

  ‘Who is he, what is his family background?’ she demanded to know.

  I didn’t bother clarifying any of the questions and told her I didn’t know and didn’t really care. She tugged my shoulder back the moment I tried to walk past her.

  ‘Is he Kashmiri? What caste is he from?’ Mum’s words rang in my ears.

  Then, I was screaming.

  ‘Why is that so important?!’

  These things didn’t used to matter to her, but suddenly they had started to, and I couldn’t wrap my head around why that was. I once read in
a psychology book that immigrants can feel guilty for leaving their country. When they grow old, they tend to go back to their old traditions as atonement. Mum never raised me to care much for our culture. Not in the way she does now.

  ‘Amira Malik, answer me.’ Mum demanded how long it had been going on for. ‘Has it been months or years? How long?’

  She felt betrayed.

  ‘Why do you care? ’I didn’t have to put up with her and talk about my personal life. What did she really know about me, about what I wanted? I grew up listening to her ideas of life as she dumped them on me and suffocated my needs.

  ‘Mimi, I care. Now, tell me, how long have you been dating this boy for?’

  I shrugged. Was I dating Haroon? It felt more like a foolish crush on a boy who’d shown interest in me and asked me to meet him down by the lake one evening.

  ‘Do you plan to marry him?’ The last sentence knocked the wind out of me. I had just started my nursing degree after a dramatic argument with Mum who couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to become a doctor or a lawyer. She accepted I wasn’t going to rise to her expectations. And I was determined not to let her criticism doom me to fail.

  There was no time for a wedding, not even a small ceremony. Haroon’s fingers shook as he filled in the marriage notice. Without thinking twice, I went straight to the local registrar and said we were in a rush to tie the knot. That hasty moment in time, I remember in slow motion. Haroon standing in the registration office in a beige collarless shirt and blue jeans. Black locks, cut short, he looked nothing like a happy groom. His look was fixed on my tummy, soon to become an illustrious bump.

  Mum wanted me to go back to finish my degree after Shafi was born. ‘Don’t you worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll look after him. Concentrate on finishing what you started. Go back to university. You will be grateful that you did.’

  It was a difficult choice to leave my newborn baby at home pretending he was a mistake. I didn’t want to carry that feeling, or the feeling of being a failed mother. I refused to run away from what was my responsibility and told her that I wouldn’t leave him in her care. Shafi needed me. I will look after him myself, I told her. She turned her back on me, didn’t speak to me for days.