by Farah Cook
The black gates remain shut. They’ve not opened since I’ve been on watch for Amira’s car to haul in. My eyes are getting sore from looking at the zigzagging road paved with dead leaves. I close them briefly and see her. She is five years old, tucked in tight and fast asleep. Every night she’d scoop in between us, saying she had a bad dream.
‘Spiders, Ami, they’re crawling in my bed.’ I let her sleep next to me. I liked having her close to my heart.
‘You still here?’ says Mrs Brown. ‘The visiting hours have passed. We allow guests, friends and family members to come between 9 and 11 a.m. on Sundays.’
I don’t pay attention. And I don’t move. I sit in the chair and continue to wait for my daughter to show up. Zahra said she was coming. She could be here anytime now.
It seems like I’ve been sitting out on the terrace for hours dressed in the green sari I found in my wardrobe. I even showered and wore the new cardigan Amira bought me.
‘Still no sign of her?’
‘Go away, Carol.’ I wave my hand at her. I feel tempted to call her a liar, a thief. But I don’t want to aggravate her. Who knows what she might do.
‘Why don’t you make me?’ She pulls up a chair, sits across from me. ‘Nice out here. Cold, but nice. We’re expecting snow anytime now and it’s going to be a white Christmas. Do you celebrate Christmas, Afrah? I bet you don’t where you are from. We are all preparing to go home over the holidays to visit our families. Even Nisha. I think you’ll be the only one left out here all alone.’
‘She will show up,’ I say. ‘Amira would never leave me hanging like this.’
‘Don’t be so sure.’ She keeps her face set in a smile. ‘I heard Myrtle tell everyone that your daughter stopped answering her phone. No one knows where she is. She’s gone, disappeared. Who does that? That’s just bizarre, isn’t it?’
I take several deep breaths, feeling my emotions break me, one by one. My head falls back, my eyes looking up towards the sky. Grey clouds scurry across the landscape and I know it’s going to rain soon. I get up and toss my chador around my shoulders and go back inside, kicking everything down that comes my way. Pots of plants, flowers in a vase.
I stop. The air falls short in my lungs. I don’t even realise I am screaming now.
‘My, oh my!’ says Carol. ‘She’s gone mad again. A complete nutter.’
Mrs Brown yanks me by the arm. ‘That’s enough, Afrah Bibi. Stop this instance. I said stop screaming.’ She slaps my wrist. I feel heat in my face.
‘What happened?’ I drop to the floor and hug my knees and begin to weep like a child.
‘This cannot go on,’ says Mrs Brown. ‘We do not accept aggressive behaviour.’
I look up at her and wipe the tears hanging in my eyes. ‘What are you talking about?’
The rain bashes hard against the windowpanes and I wish I was out there dancing, getting wet. But instead I am in bed with the duvet pulled tight on my sides. I can’t move my legs and I don’t know how long I’ve been lying here. The window blows open, hits against the wall. The wind fresh from the sea funnels into the room, a cold bite. Strands of my hair twist loose and I don’t remove them from my face. The water bottles begin to shake, glass clinking. I laugh. Zahra comes running in and shuts the window. She pulls back the hair from my face and puts my chador over my shoulders. I stop myself from laughing and stare at her.
‘She’s not coming, is she?’ My eyes fill with tears.
‘Oh Afrah, I’m so sorry. I tried to tell you but—’ She turns around and begins to fold my laundry.
‘Don’t be.’ I shift the pages of my diary searching for the blue bookmark. It’s not in there. I notice some of the sheets have been torn out. I notice that all the bookmarks are missing. I show her. ‘Look, do you see that?’
‘Bizarre,’ she says. ‘Who would do such a thing?’
I get out of bed and shuffle my feet into my slippers. I am going to speak with Nisha. I told her about my diary, about the bookmarks. ‘Nisha did it.’
‘Afrah, wait.’ She pulls me back by the shoulder. ‘Are these your missing pages? I just found them behind your pillow.’
I snatch them out of her hand and rush out.
In the lounge, I hear Carol cackling. I climb down the stairs and see Nisha wearing an amused expression. What’s so funny? I ask. One of the patients holds up a bundle of papers. He is reading with a mocking voice. I recognise the words. My skin puckers with goosebumps. ‘Stop it,’ I say. No one is paying attention to me.
‘Listen to this part. It is oh, so scary! I push open the gate and enter a mossy track that leads me straight to the misty graveyard, where a tombstone sleeps beneath a yew tree with branches stretched out like claws. They reach for me with their hooks. Grab and pull me towards the open grave. I do not want to look and yet I do. A blackened corpse rises from the dirt, eyes hollow, hair thinned and flaring in the wind. It is rotten and has been dead for decades, but still comes to life most nights in my dreams. It looks at me and screams, saying the same thing over and over. Now look. Look what you did to me.’
‘You have no right,’ I push him away and grab the papers from him. ‘Give it back.’
Zahra is standing across from me, her eyes shining with tears that don’t fall.
‘We’re just having some fun,’ says Carol. ‘Don’t be such a bore.’
‘What’s going on?’ Mrs Brown glares at Zahra then back at me. ‘Afrah, are you causing trouble yet again? Because if you are—’ Her voice is shrill.
‘I haven’t done anything. They are mine.’ I show her the copies from my dairy. ‘My stolen dreams.’
‘What atrocity,’ says Mrs Brown looking around. ‘Who did this? I demand to know.’
The toothless man comes forward and says he found the copies of my diary entry in the library. He has no clue who put them there. Mrs Brown frowns, but I detect a smile as she tells everyone to clear the lounge.
I turn to Zahra. ‘Now do you believe me? I am not pagal.’
She nods, pats my arm and leads me back up the stairs.
Chapter 33
AMIRA
Monday, 23 December 2019
I peek through the curtains occasionally to see what’s going on outside. I am sure Mrs Nesbit saw the two policemen last night. She notices everything, and probably alerted the entire neighbourhood that they went into the house carrying suspicious looks and now this . . . the breaking news about the woman found dead in Caledonian Canal.
I draw back the curtain and switch the telly back on. My knees fidget and are perched against the coffee table, which begins to shake. It has gone viral. Every channel is about her and her identity is not yet revealed. I still worry it could be Meena. The police officers think I have something to do with what happened on the bridge. I trace my memory back: what did happen on the bridge? Nothing. What I saw was a brisk jogger and the illusion of a woman. She wasn’t real, she couldn’t have been.
I think of Mum, and her fixation with one particular story about a missing girl. She became obsessed with it, and I can see why it’s easy to get hooked. I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and somehow I’m getting involved with the death of an unknown woman. It makes me think, why was Mum so keen to read about the fourteen-year-old girl? Was her story a fact or fiction? Mum asked me every day to get the newspaper, which makes me speculate the incident of the missing girl may have happened a long time ago. What if Mum had something to do with it? Why else would she collect the newspaper clippings and still be looking for it?
The phone rings and I let it. Now somebody is leaving a voicemail, and it takes me a while to realise it’s Haroon’s raspy morning voice.
‘Hi Mira, it’s me. Are you there? You’re probably asleep, in which case I don’t want to disturb you. I’m going to drop off Nadia’s car. You won’t get yours back for a while from the garage, and I know you need one to get around. I’m worried about you and I want you to get some rest. Sorry if I was a little reserved yesterday, I w
as shocked, that’s all.’
Outside, a car pulls into my driveway. It’s Haroon, he’s come to give me the keys. I feel a spark of joy. He’s the one person I want to see, to speak to. A taxi waits at the kerb. My heart sinks into my stomach. Haroon drops the keys into my letterbox and slides into the backseat of the taxi and it drives off. I know he said he doesn’t want to bother me. He wants me to recover from the accident. But something tells me he’s had enough and doesn’t want to get involved in what’s going on. He must have heard the news. He knew I was at Caledonian Canal yesterday morning. He doesn’t want to see me. Doesn’t care if am well. I don’t blame him. After all, we are no longer married.
I open the door to Mum’s room and pull out the old boxes from her cupboard. They’re heavy and I empty everything onto the floor and scatter the mess around. I find black and white photographs of Mum when she lived in Lahore. Folders full of papers, letters and brown envelopes. Tons of newspaper clippings, circled, highlighted. Rubbish news.
There are several photos of Mum with a man I do not recognise. He reminds me of the man from my dreams. Long hair, juvenile features. He is well proportioned, with broad shoulders, and has a funny looking moustache which makes him look like a circus director.
There’s an album with pictures of a girl who looks very similar to me. She is wearing a school uniform that says QE, Queen Eleanor. I flip through. Mum is with the same man and the same girl. In some of the photos, she is wearing a sari and holding a baby. This makes no sense. Why wouldn’t she have shown me these photographs? And who are these people? Friends, relatives? Mum is captured in different places – London, Edinburgh, with this man and this girl. I recognise them from somewhere, perhaps from my vivid dream when I was ill.
I get an email from the care home. My heartbeat quickens. I’ve not been I touch with them to let them know why I couldn’t make the visit. I’ve been dreading telling Mum what’s happened. She would get worried.
Myrtle Brown is saying Mum has been causing a lot of trouble – there have been several disturbing incidents now, incidents that put their reputation at risk and are highly disruptive to the other patients. She is urging me to show up today, or else she will have no other choice but to put Mum away. She’s also written a reminder that from tomorrow, no one is expected to be at the Ravenswood Lodge. Most patients go home to either their families, relatives or close friends. They tend to close for two days over the holidays. Under rare circumstances, and should a carer agree to care, patients are left behind. But it’s never been done. All the patients have families they stay with.
Fuck! How could I have forgotten? I try not to panic. I need to go out there as soon as possible.
There’s an incoming call on my mobile. ‘Please can you come down to the police station? Miss Malik, it’s urgent that we speak with you.’
I try to breathe but cannot seem to catch my breath trapped in my lungs. Something awful has happened. I can feel it. My heart feels like it’s going to explode. ‘I’ll be on my way.’ The phone nearly drops from my grip so I prop it against my ear and shoulder. ‘I am not going to be long.’ I grab my bag and shoot out of the front door.
I meet the short police officer who brings me to a meeting room. He is joined by the tall one who places a file on the table and flicks through the pages. The short one glances over it and says the woman who died was identified as Meena Bashir. She worked as a carer in Glasgow for a while for a wealthy Pakistani family looking after a disabled mother. She left her position in what we believe was caused by an unresolved dispute between her and the family accusing her of theft. No charges were made, and she moved to Inverness early this year to care for another family looking after their young boy. We spoke to both families where she worked as a carer, who stated she was a frail and very nervous type. It turns out she had a medical history of mental health issues and suffered from depression and anxiety. We believe her death was by suicide. A letter was found inside her coat stating she was going to end her life. We’ve checked her laptop and can confirm she had an active account on the chat forum for carers as Thelonelymouse. This account was recently deleted.’ He shuts the file stares at me.
‘What about her father?’ I say. ‘Meena told me she cared for him.’
‘We don’t have information about that.’ says the tall one. ‘Miss Malik, did Miss Bashir ever talk to you about anything else? What she was afraid of? Why she suddenly wanted to meet with you?’
‘I don’t know. I had little information about her personal life. All she told me was that she looked after her father, also a dementia patient who recently died. She said she was then taking a live-in position with a family to care for their son in Inverness. That’s all I know.’
‘When was this?’
I shrug. ‘Just recently.’
‘The information you’ve given us doesn’t match with what we have on record of Miss Bashir. She had no relatives, no family. She moved to Scotland from Bangladesh to care for the family in Glasgow. She was with them for two years before she moved to Inverness to look after a young boy.’
‘What was the family called, in Glasgow?’
They exchange glances. ‘I’m sorry, that’s confidential information.’
‘If you come to think of anything else she may have—’
‘I already told you everything. Can I please leave now?’
‘Can we check the messages again that you exchanged with her?’
I pull out my phone and give it to them. He looks sceptical. Says there’s no way of knowing if these messages really are from Meena Bashir. They could be fabricated.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s a log of messages sent to you at 9.30 a.m.: “I am at the Bridge of Oich. You are not here. Where are you?’ And again, at 9.40: “Amira, are you OK? Where are you?” 9.45: “I really needed to see you. I needed a friend I can trust.” 9.50: “I am sorry. I am sorry for everything. Don’t hate me.” How can we even be sure Meena Bashir wrote these messages? For all we know they could have been from anyone. We have no way of tracing the phone number.’
‘Are you suggesting I am lying?’
He looks at his partner, his expression worried. I ask to leave and he gestures towards the door. I depart from the building as fast as I can. Inside Nadia’s car I drop my head between my knees and feel the tears fill my eyes. Somebody is knocking on the car window. The tall police officer is looking in, and I roll down the window.
‘Have I forgotten something?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘But I thought you might want to know that a search on Meena Bashir’s laptop showed she had looked up Ravenswood Lodge. Isn’t that the care home where your mother, Afrah Malik, was placed recently?’
‘I mentioned during our chat that Mum was there.’
‘When?’
‘I don’t know, couple of weeks ago.’
‘Miss Malik, Meena Bashir had applied for a position there earlier this year. What our records also show is that she made contact via email to the social services several times under the name of a Silvia Nesbit. She wrote complaints about Afrah Malik of 22 Denver Street. Requesting to have her removed. That’s your home address, correct?’
I nod. I feel the ugly lump on my head pounding, the pain swelling.
‘Why would she file a complaint under a different name? Doesn’t it seem odd to you?’
‘I don’t know, but I may have . . .’ I pause and control my voice from trembling. ‘I may have given Meena the information. Silvia Nesbit is my neighbour.’
‘Why did she have a keen interest in having your mother removed?’
‘I’m not sure—’ Meena must have tried to sympathise with me. She must have thought it was what I wanted. The only logical explanation I can come up with is that she was trying to help me.
‘You have no idea why she would give your mother to social services, and at the same time, apply for jobs at the care home in which your mother was later placed into?’
‘The family she worked for in Inverness gave us no reason to believe she was in any serious difficulty. She wrote to you asking for help. Before you could meet, you had an accident, and then she died. Something is missing, doesn’t seem right. We were hoping you could help us explain a few things as you were the last person who spoke to her.’
‘I really wouldn’t know. I am as confused as you are.’ My head is heavy spinning with questions. Meena knew of Ravenswood Lodge. Why wouldn’t she tell me she had applied for a job with them after I mentioned Mum had moved in there? ‘It makes no sense what you told me. I really must go,’ I give him an urgent look. ‘Please, can I?’
He nods approvingly. ‘Miss Malik if there’s anything you come to think of get in touch with us as soon as you can.’
‘But what does all this mean? Meena’s death, was it—?’
‘Her history of mental health proves she wasn’t stable. We know her GP had prescribed her with antidepressants. She may have had a hard time. Stress, pressure and long working hours living with a family as carer. It all adds up.’
‘But why would she lie to me? Why not tell me the truth—?’ I thought we were close.
‘People forge identities online all the time Miss Malik. It’s easy to be anonymous, fabricate lies. Dual personalities, psychotic behaviours. The list goes on. The fact she befriended you online and lied to you, shows how unstable she was. She may have been lonely, and her attempt to speak to you was perhaps her final cry for help.’
And I failed her. I didn’t make it in time to speak to her. Now I will never know what she desperately needed to tell me. Why did she contact the social services using Silvia Nesbit’s name?