And my heart breaks.
I take a shuddering breath and suddenly he is coming out of the lift. He walks up to me, takes me in his arms and kisses me as if he will die without me, his tongue finding its way into my mouth. Entangling with mine. Pulling mine into his mouth. Sucking my tongue.
When he pulls away I am trembling.
‘I’ll finish that when I come back,’ he says dragging his thumb along my lower lip.
I sigh and lay my head on his chest. I hear his heart beating. A steady fast rhythm. I will miss that.
‘See you later,’ I say.
‘Alligator,’ he says.
Then he walks into the lift and does not come out again.
I close the door and I go to sit at the kitchen table. I look at the breakfast things around me, the crumbs, the smeared jam, the knife slicked with butter, and my heart feels so heavy. I go into his study and I look around. Once I asked him why he lived in this apartment when he could afford something better. He said this was only a place to sleep in. He mostly lived in the country.
I sit at his desk and write him a letter. It is short. Goodbyes are best short. Besides, there is not much to say. Whatever it was, it’s over now. Our time has run out. Soon the wind will blow me away. There is nothing else I can do. I touch my finger to my lips and lay it on the letter. There is a photo album on one of the shelves. I take it down and I turn the pages. His family are all there. I smile to look at their happy faces. How lucky they are.
I come upon one where he is alone. It is a recent one. He is on a boat looking like a film star. His hair wind-tossed, his beautiful body is tanned and relaxed and I wonder who took the picture. Carefully I take the photo out and, without bending it, I slip it into my purse.
Then I go into the bedroom. With my heart weeping, I stand there, memorizing the lingering smell of us, the sun falling on our tangled sheets. I’ll dream of this little piece of heaven forever.
With a loud sob I run out of the apartment.
I take a taxi to my street and ask the driver to drop me off at the corner. Cautiously, I walk towards my apartment building. I look up at the windows and they are all shut, the curtains drawn close. Exactly how I left them. I cross the street and go into the building and up the stairs. The door opens behind me and I whirl around nervously, but it is only the woman from the floor above me. She nods and moves to the lift. I take the stairs.
The corridor is deserted.
I go to my door and listen. There is no sound inside. Very quietly I let myself in and stand for a moment. It is silent and still. Vellichor. Once I would have appreciated it. Now, I want nothing to do with it.
I walk into the middle of my apartment and look around at my scrupulously clean home. Everything in its place. Except for the smashed vase and the flowers scattered everywhere. So he has been here. And he is not happy.
I take a deep breath and steel myself.
Quickly, Snow.
Ignoring the mess, I hurry to the bedroom and unpick the mattress. I take out the money and stuff it into my bag. I don’t take anything else. I am already at the door when I hear my phone ringing. I walk to it.
Lenny.
While it is still ringing, I take a piece of notepaper from a drawer and write on it. I thank him for everything he has done for me, but I tell him I have to return to India, back to my family. I say goodbye and I end it by saying.
Please don’t ever try to contact me again.
I stand at the door and take one last look. The walls seem full of my grief. Other than that, there is nothing of me in here. Then I walk out of that place forever.
I take a taxi to Heathrow airport and buy the next trip to India, which is a noon Air India flight.
‘You have a stop in New Delhi,’ the woman tells me.
‘That’s fine,’ I tell her.
At the check-in counter, the staff appears surprised and almost suspicious that I have no luggage. But I guess I don’t look like a terrorist so they let me pass. I go through passport control and sit down on one of the seats. I feel numb.
On the flight I don’t sleep. I close my eyes and think of Shane. I imagine him coming home and finding me gone. I imagine him calling one of his other women. I imagine, I imagine, I imagine. When the air stewardess comes around with the food trolley I have a raging headache. She gives me a couple of painkillers.
I take them and lie back in terrible pain.
Thirty-three
SHANE
We have a bitter north-westerly wind coming off the sea today.
The cat is curled up and I’m about to do the same for the afternoon.
I knew she was gone even before I got to the flat. I guess I knew from the moment she did not answer the phone. I open the door and the sound of silence is deafening. A pressing sensation of heaviness lodges itself in my chest. I walk to the kitchen table and there is a letter there. I leave it where it is and go out onto the balcony. I sit on a chair and, lifting my legs up, rest my crossed ankles on the railing.
I light a cigarette and take a long drag. Warm smoke fills my lungs. I blow the smoke out slowly. I don’t think. I just smoke. When I’m done, I kill the cigarette and go back into the kitchen.
I pick up her letter and read it. Her writing is delicate and neat. Just like her.
Hey Shane,
Before I go, I wanted to say it was fun while it lasted, and that I really enjoyed myself with you. You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever met.
I want to thank you for trying to help me, but more important than that, I want to thank you for bringing me back from the dead. If you had not come into my life … I don’t even want to think. You were like a lone star shining brightly on a dark night.
Anyway, I am returning to India today. In the end, that is my home. I will be safe there.
Take good care of yourself and thank you again, for everything. I’ll never forget what you did for me.
Best,
Snow
p.s.
Nothing was a lie. I meant every word I said to you. Every breathless word.
I let the letter flutter down to the table surface, and go into my bedroom. I sit on the bed and, taking her pillow, bury my face in it. I inhale deeply and let the smell of her hair fill my brain. I should have known last night that she was not asleep. I was too caught up in my plan.
How can she go to India? She has no money.
And then a reluctant smile comes to my lips. She had money put away. Good girl. And though it cuts like a knife that she has gone, I am glad that she is out of harm’s way. The best place for her at this moment is to be far away.
I put the pillow down and look at my watch. In three hours I have a meeting with Lenny. I’ll get her back. This is just temporary.
Whatever it takes.
Beware…
Beware…
Of my hunger
And my anger
- Mahmoud Darwish
Thirty-four
SHANE
He sits behind his desk, a cigarette between his lips, and squints at me. Cigarette smoke rises between us. His hand moves and the sickening gleam of white makes me think of him touching her body, and in a flash, before I can stop my thoughts, they have run on like stallions in heat. Him on top of her. Her on her hands and knees, and him pushing into her pussy. His ugly fingers digging into her little bottom as he slams into her. My gut twists with the kind of raw, tearing jealousy I have never experienced before. I want to fucking shatter the smug bastard’s jaw.
He looks at me expressionlessly. ‘What do you want, Eden?’
‘You already know what I want,’ I say coldly.
He laughs, a short bark of disbelief. ‘You’re one cocky cunt. You think you can come in here and ask for my woman and I’ll just hand her over to you? What do you think she is? A cheap bottle of whiskey that I can pass on to you? Huh?’
‘She’s not your woman,’ I say calmly.
‘If she’s not my woman, then what the fuck are you doing here askin
g for my blessing to keep on fucking her?’
‘I’m here because you’re a cunt, Lenny.’
His eyes flash, but his voice is polite. ‘You’re Jake’s kin so I’ll ignore that insult, but I suggest you stop right there. This is going to get ugly real soon and before you know it, it’ll be outright war.’
I push my chest out. ‘She doesn’t love you.’
‘My jacket doesn’t love me. But it’s mine and I use it whenever I please.’
His sneering tone and his choice of words are calculated to infuriate me. I unclench my hands. He will not get to me.
‘Well, she is not a jacket. She’s a woman, and she can decide who she wants to be with.’
‘Let me tell you why she belongs to me,’ he says conversationally, as if he is telling an amusing little anecdote. ‘When she crawled up to me and begged me to help her, her entire body was covered in bruises and bite marks. There were grip marks on her cheeks where they held her face and fucked her mouth. They had filled her belly with their semen. When she vomited I saw it. Globs of it.’
My face whitens and he sees it.
‘Awww … I’ve upset the pretty boy. Well fuck you. Her anus was bleeding. She used to scream when she went to the toilet. Her cunt was so swollen she couldn’t walk straight for days. She was like a mute child for weeks. I took care of her. I ran the bath and fucking bathed her, asshole.’
He stops and tilts his face upwards.
‘She’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming and thrashing, reliving it all. Sometimes she didn’t recognize me. She was half mad. One day she ran down the street in the middle of winter stark naked. I ran out after her, tackled her to the ground, and brought her back. I won’t tell you the rest of the stuff I went through with her. She was a broken bird. Totally helpless. I could have done anything I wanted with her, but I never touched her for months. So don’t come here with all your youth and arrogance and pretend you know how to take better care of her just because you fucked her a few times. Because you fucking don’t. You don’t know what we’ve gone through together.’
He laughs bitterly.
‘For the first time in my life I felt pity for another creature. She moved something in me. They say that everyone, even the worst killer, has a divine spark in him. She touched that spark. She made me good.’
For some strange reason I actually believe he is telling the truth. That at some level he cares for her. ‘If you truly care for her then give her your blessing. Let her be happy.’
‘With you?’
‘Yes, with me.’
He leers. ‘Why? Because you like the taste of her pussy? Eh?’
My jaw clenches. ‘Don’t talk about her like that.’
‘Look at you. You think you’ve got it all figured out. You think it’s a fucking song taking care of her? Are you ready for the flashbacks? Are you ready to be sitting in the middle of a classy restaurant as she freezes up like a fucking statue, or worse for her to start screaming her head off for no goddamn reason? Are you ready to chase her naked body down the road in the dead winter? Are you ready for her to start sobbing while you’re fucking her?’
The desire to sock him one hard, so hard he’ll never be able to talk again, is so strong I have to clench my fists and force myself to stand still. I take a deep calming breath. I will not let him rile me. No matter what, I have one objective and I’m not going to let anything stand in the way.
‘I’m not here for relationship advice, Lenny.’
‘You’re a young punk. What do you know about relationships? Do you think I don’t know about you? Tell me, what’s the longest a relationship has lasted with you?’
‘She’s different. In exactly the same way she touched that spark in you, she touched something in me too.’
He laughs with suppressed fury. ‘Yeah, I’m sure you believe that too.’
‘It doesn’t matter what you think,’ I say quietly. ‘I’m not here to convince you of anything. I’m here for the videotapes.’
‘What videotapes?’ he asks, but I see the furtive gleam in his eyes that he is unable to hide fast enough.
‘The videotapes that show every occupant in the lift getting off on the second floor of your hotel.’
‘What makes you think such videotapes exists?’ he asks slyly.
I look at him steadily. ‘You forget we know the same people. Everybody knows you have surveillance in your lift.’
He looks at me calmly. ‘The tapes are my property. As is Snow.’
‘You should have handed those tapes over to the police. It’s an obstruction of justice.’
His eyes turn mean. ‘Are you threatening me, boy?’
‘No, I have less incentive to give the tapes over to the police than you have. I want those men.’
His eyes glitter. ‘Revenge. Yes, I thought about it. But it seemed like a wasted effort when I already had the bird in my hand. In a way I owed them thanks.’
‘Just give me the fucking tapes. You got no use for them.’
He shakes his head. ‘You have a lot of balls coming here asking for this, asking for that. Who the fuck do you think you are?’
I’m done playing with this fuck. There is only one way to deal with a psychopath. And it’s not by expecting empathy or giving it. The only way is to yank their greed chain. ‘You know the sweet deal you cut in Amsterdam?’
His eyes are suddenly sharp.
‘That’s my deal. You get any ideas about not playing along and I’ll pull the rug from under you. The Russians will be down by two million euros and guess who they’ll be coming after? How many breaths do you think you can take before they catch up?’
Lenny smiles tightly and nods. ‘Well played, boy. And you did all this for her.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you want my blessing?’
‘No, I don’t need your blessing, Lenny. I know what you are. You saw a broken bird and you didn’t take it to a vet so that it he could properly heal it, or even attempt to punish the sickos who hurt it. You just took it into your home and caged it, and hoped that it could never fly free again. And you made sure she had no friends so she had no support system outside of you. So don’t give me your bullshit about how much you loved her. You did nothing for her that was not totally selfish.’
‘She’ll be so easy to break.’
I walk up to his desk and plant my palms on the edge. I bend my body menacingly over him. ‘Try it,’ I say softly. ‘Just fucking try it and I’ll fucking burn down everything you ever built and see you in hell.’
His color changes, but he looks at me scornfully. ‘Do you imagine that I am afraid of you?’
‘You should be. I’ll tell you this just once: she’s mine now. You get in my way and I’ll break your damn neck with my own hands.’
He pushes his twisted face towards me. ‘You’re a fucking fool, Shane. You walk out of here and you’re a dead man.’
I stare at him cold-eyed. ‘From the moment I stop breathing, you become a walking time bomb. You want war, Lenny, I’ll give you war. Or you could simply give me the tapes and I’ll call us quits. You have your plum deal and I get my revenge.’
‘And the woman?’
‘Is mine,’ I state flatly.
‘And if I say no?’ His voice is calculating, probing.
‘Then it’s war and we both lose. I don’t get the girl. You don’t get your hands on those lovely millions and we both have some very pissed of Russians, but I figure they’ll be more pissed off with you than me.’
‘Get out of my office,’ he shouts angrily. A vein has popped into existence on his forehead.
‘I’m not leaving without the tapes.’
He flies up in temper and stomps over to his safe, opens it, and extracts two videotapes. They are held together with a rubber band. He deliberately chucks it on his desk in such a way that it slides on the surface and falls to the floor together with his pen. I bend down and pick both items up. Calmly, I return the pen to the surface of the table
.
I meet his furious eyes. ‘Obviously, my guys will be crosschecking with your staff about the records of all the occupants of that floor on that day, and they won’t be expecting a frosty reception.’
‘You got your tapes. Now fuck off,’ he snarls.
‘I’ll see you around,’ I say as I exit his office. Outside, his minders give me dirty looks.
Thirty-five
SNOW
Fifteen hours later, I arrive in Calcutta.
With a heavy heart, I change some money and walk out of the gleaming new Chandra Bose airport. Outside, I get into a taxi. The driver is a smiling, jolly man.
‘No bags?’ he asks in English.
‘No,’ I tell him. ‘No bags.’
I give him my address and he starts the car. He tries to engage me in conversation with inquisitive questions, but I give him monosyllabic answers, and after a while he gets the message and begins to sing to himself.
I stare out of the window at the dusty billboards, the trees I have missed, the throngs of people, and the vehicles that honk for no good reason at all, and I remember my mother’s unkind comment while I was growing up.
She said that Calcutta is like a giant mechanic’s shop. A grimy and greasy place where there is no such thing as pure white. And maybe she is right. I can see that there is no building or anyone dressed in brilliant white, but perhaps white is overrated. The heart of this city beats as strongly, or even more strongly than London.
The taxi driver stops his noisy car outside the gates of my family home, and I pay him before getting out of the cab. He drives away and I walk up to the gates. They are locked.
I stand there, my fingers gripping the metal bars as I look into the compound. The year I have been away is like a fantasy I created in my head. Nothing has really changed. What happened in the hotel room was just a nightmare. Lenny is part of that nightmare. And Shane, he is just an impossible dream.
Of course, I could never have a man like him. I just conjured him up.
I look at the green, perfectly manicured lawn, the perfectly straight flowerbeds, and as I am standing there blankly, Kupu, the gardener, comes into the garden with a hose pipe. At first he doesn’t see me. Then he looks up and does a double take. His jaw drops open in surprise and then he starts running towards me.
You Don't Own Me: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (The Russian Don Book 1) Page 33