I feel Jenny’s eyes on me and I give her a quick smile before I start typing into an open document, fingers flying over the keyboard, typing out sentences that make little sense. When I look up a few minutes later, she’s no longer at her desk and I let out a quick breath. Though she’s only twenty-four, Jenny is one of the sharpest production managers in the company and I’ve sensed her watching me over the past few weeks. I consider slamming my laptop shut and walking out. It’s only midday, but I could quite easily say I have a lead I want to follow or that I’m meeting a source and no one in the office would think to question it. They all think I’ve been researching my next big project for the past two years. I’ve dropped hints along the way, used buzzwords that I know get the executive producers salivating – explosive, gut-wrenching, award season – yet allow me to keep the actual details shrouded in an air of secrecy. What none of them know is that the reason for the secrecy isn’t that I’m working on sensitive material, it’s that I have no material. There are no leads or sources, no explosive new ideas percolating in this film-maker’s brain. I might have won every award under the sun two years ago, but I have no idea what to work on next. I am a one-hit wonder.
I’ve just about decided to leave for the day when I hear a knock on the glass panel behind me. The office is open plan with sheets of glass fencing off sections. The architect that the partners employed called it a dynamic, Instagram-friendly workspace that is segmented but not divided, with open walls and an ergonomic flow.
Whatever that means.
‘Sabah.’
I wheel my chair around slowly. I tell myself the tightness between my shoulder blades has been there all morning. Andrew is leaning against the glass, his stocky figure an anomaly in the sleek office.
‘Yes?’
‘We need to talk.’
I slip into the chair opposite Andrew and set my notebook down on the conference table in front of me. The ‘huddle’ room is an airless cube on the mezzanine with black iron beams holding up panels of glass. The effect is oddly disconcerting, and sitting in the clear Perspex chair looking at Andrew across the glass table, I feel like I’m floating mid-air. I turn my gaze to the windows instead, letting the solidity of Tower Bridge and the murky waters of the Thames running beneath it ground me.
The hissing sound as Andrew twists open a bottle of sparkling water brings my attention back to him.
‘I wanted to see how you’re getting on,’ he says, pausing to take a sip. ‘We’re all very intrigued to see this new proposal.’
I force my lips into a smile. Andrew is one of the executive producers at Arch Films and though I work as a freelance contractor, he is, for all intents and purposes, my boss.
‘I’m nearly there,’ I say. ‘Just following up a few leads to make sure it all checks out.’
Andrew nods, the corners of his mouth twisting up into a smile. I wonder how much of it is a show. I find it impossible to believe that he can’t see right through me, which is not to say that I am a bad liar, rather that we’ve been through this rigmarole so many times over the past year, I can’t believe he is still willing to trust me when I say I’m nearly there.
‘Great,’ he says. ‘That’s great.’ He flicks open his Filofax, the old-fashioned planner remarkably out of place in a room that could function as the set for a sci-fi film. I watch as his fingers run through the week ahead. ‘I’ve got you pencilled in for ten thirty on Monday. Rachel will join in.’
Rachel is one of the partners and Andrew’s boss. She never attends pitch meetings. I try to work out if I can get away with asking for another extension, but judging by the expression on Andrew’s face, I doubt he will allow it. I swallow. Monday is five days away and I have nothing.
‘I really am excited to see what you’ve been working on.’ Andrew hesitates. He loosens the bottle top again, the water heckling with each bubble that escapes. ‘But you are nearing the end of your contract so just in case this pitch doesn’t work out either, we have put together an exit package for you.’
It takes me a second to process his words.
I don’t know why I am surprised. I should’ve seen this coming. Andrew had offered me a year-long development contract after the success of the Harriet Clarke film. Pretty much every major studio in London had made me an offer, but Andrew had given me my first break and even though his offer wasn’t the highest, I signed with him out of a sense of loyalty. In the two years since its release, the documentary has won more awards, but the money has long since run out and despite two six-month extensions, the groundbreaking follow-up I was expected to deliver hasn’t materialized. The exit package that he is talking about will be no more than two weeks’ pay, if the termination clause on the contract I’d so happily signed is anything to go by. I feel the tightness between my shoulder blades slither down my back as I think about the stack of unpaid credit card bills on my coffee table, the overdrawn bank account, the texts from my mother asking when I’ll be paying her back.
I know I should tell him the truth, beg him to give me a few more months to come up with something, but even though I seem to have lost my talent, I do still have some self-respect left. I’m thirty-one, broke, living alone in a flat I can’t afford, but at least I still have my pride. I draw my lips into what I hope is a relaxed smile and say the words we are both anxious to hear. ‘Don’t worry, you’re going to love what I have.’
I pop a ready meal into the oven and take my laptop and a large gin and tonic into the living room. Setting everything down on the coffee table, I sit cross-legged on the floor. I log in to the email account I’d set up exclusively for tips and scroll through the fifty or so unread emails, searching for something that might inspire a follow-through. Ever since the BAFTA award, I’ve been getting hundreds of tips every week. Pleas of help from victims’ families, clippings of cold cases, unsolicited pictures and offers to give me exclusive access to dead-end stories. I hear the ping of a new match on Tinder and flip my phone over without a glance.
The reason the Harriet Clarke documentary had worked so well was because I’d put something of myself into it. I was in film school when Harriet disappeared and like the rest of the world, I’d watched, horrified, as piece after piece of the story was laid out by the media. A nine-year-old girl snatched out of her grandparents’ house in the middle of the night. Where were the parents? Why did no one check on little Harriet till noon the next day? How had the kidnapper got into the house without so much as a broken window? And why were Harriet’s pyjamas found in a rubbish bin halfway across the country? In the absence of any real evidence, the police had tried to pin the blame on the family but no arrests were ever made and though the case had been reported widely, not once in the ten years since Harriet’s disappearance had the family spoken to a reporter.
When I first approached Harriet’s parents, they refused to speak to me. After the way they had been treated by the media, it was no surprise. But I had been obsessing over the case for years. I wanted to tell a story that was not just about a missing girl, but also about grief and guilt and the pain of living with the unknown and I needed the parents on board to do that. I kept at it and after weeks of emails and phone calls, they agreed to an interview. It was the raw emotion lurking beneath the facts that made the film as heart-wrenching, and as widely distributed, as it was. Three months after the release, a woman in Greece came forward with a tip and a month later, Harriet’s remains and her killer were found.
I force myself to take a deep breath and click on the next email.
I did it once. I can do it again.
I open up a new document, my fingers poised over the keyboard, yet the words fail to materialize. I think about all the abandoned ideas over the last year, all the false starts.
The winking cursor taunts me, mocking me for my inaptitude.
I spend a few minutes staring at the blank document before giving in. I open a webpage and type ‘Javed Qureshi’ into the search bar, just like I have done every night for the past t
hree weeks. I scroll through page after page of pictures and news clippings from the funeral, typing in a handful of words in different permutations and combinations. It’s futile and I know I should stop, but it’s like the old wound you scratch away at, subconsciously, bit by bit by bit, until it peels off and fresh blood oozes out.
Oh, the morbid satisfaction of it.
It’s all so different from Noor’s funeral, which had been clouded with shame, the family closing in around itself.
I go back to my emails. I know what I have to do. In some ways, it is the only thing I can do.
I navigate into the deepest recesses of my hard drive and find the folder I’m looking for. In the background, I can hear the oven beeping but I stay rooted to the spot, my finger hovering over the trackpad.
Everything I’ve done in the past fifteen years has been leading up to this point. Consciously or not, it’s why I went into investigative journalism, why I found myself drawn to Harriet Clarke and why I swore I’d do everything I can to help families find closure.
It’s also why I left India, why I’ve spent fifteen years systematically cutting myself off from everything that reminds me of my past and why I swore I’d never look back.
And yet the folder on my laptop tells a different story. It’s heaving with pictures, clippings, notes and documents, bits and pieces I’ve collected over more than a decade, relics that prove how desperate I am for answers even though the questions terrify me.
With one final shake of my head, I click on it and watch as the past I’ve spent so long hiding from opens up in front of me.
ALIA
Fifteen years ago
‘. . . and that’s when she slit her wrists. Apparently, the day before, her mother had told her if she so much as spoke to him again, she would get her transferred to a Catholic girls’ school.’
Sabah and I were sprawled out on the bed. I’d just painted her nails – baby pink with flecks of multi-coloured glitter. We were waiting for the topcoat to dry so she could do mine.
‘She obviously did it to get him back,’ Noor said. She was sitting on the window seat, playing Snake on Sabah’s new phone. Her parents had bought it for her last week and since then, all three of us had been taking turns on it, trying to beat each other’s scores. So far, Sabah was in the lead.
‘Or she wanted sympathy,’ I said, rolling over onto my stomach and running my hands over the bedspread. It was velvety soft and quilted with little love hearts.
‘Same difference. She pulls these stunts so she can hold on to him. There are easier ways,’ Noor grinned. ‘And quicker, you know, considering she walks around in a swimsuit half the time.’
‘Eeeww. Remember that trip in eighth grade?’ Sabah giggled.
As if on cue, the phone emitted a series of beeps and Noor groaned in frustration, tossing the phone aside.
‘Would you ever do it?’ I asked, refusing to take the bait. Noor and Sabah had a long history and they never failed to remind me of it.
‘What – slash my wrists? For a boy? Never!’ Noor jumped up and climbed onto the bed, sitting cross-legged next to Sabah and me.
‘I’m dry,’ Sabah said, tapping her nails one by one. I sat up and handed her the pot of nail varnish. ‘It’s such a cop-out. If you’re going to try to kill yourself, at least pick a more respectable way to do it.’
‘I’d use a gun, go out with a bang,’ I said, resting the tips of my fingers on Sabah’s outstretched palm.
Back then, I was obsessed with the idea of dying young and I’d fantasized about it enough times to have a plan, a back-up plan and a back-up for my back-up plan. There was something incredibly romantic about it, about being so young, so beautiful and so, so messed up that ordinary life simply wasn’t enough. There’s a reason why no one ever wrote an opera about being content, why all the greatest stories are tragedies, and the greatest heroines broken beyond repair. Happiness was boring. I wanted love, drama, darkness and, yes, heartbreak. We all did.
Sabah rolled her eyes. ‘Too basic. I’d jump off a cliff.’ She paused to think. ‘In Scotland.’
‘Why Scotland?’ I asked.
‘Sounds cool,’ she said, wistfully. ‘Astonishingly beautiful girl jumps to tragic death, leaves heartbroken boyfriend behind.’
‘You’re both crazy,’ Noor said. ‘Have you paid the deposit for the Oxbridge trip?’
‘Yes, Mum,’ Sabah retorted.
‘Whatever. There are only six spots and this trip is going to be epic,’ she declared. ‘Alia?’
‘Yeah, done,’ I said. I held my hand out and wiggled my fingers to inspect Sabah’s handiwork. The glitter sparkled like the sequins on one of my mother’s velvet cushions.
I’d pooled all my birthday and Diwali money and scraped together just about enough to cover the hefty 10 per cent deposit, but I had no idea where I was going to get the rest. My grandparents couldn’t afford it, and my parents . . . they were clearly not an option. I was too far down on their list of priorities, if all the unanswered phone calls were anything to go by.
‘Anyway, guess who else has paid up?’ Sabah asked.
Noor raised an eyebrow. ‘Who?’
‘Ankit.’
‘No way!’ Noor said. ‘What is the matter with him?’
Sabah fake-swooned. ‘He’s in love.’
My eyes darted from Noor to Sabah, but neither bothered to elaborate.
‘Who’s Ankit?’ I asked, giving in.
Sabah grinned. ‘Noor’s stalker,’ she said, conspiratorially.
Noor had her own guild of loyal admirers, but a stalker? At sixteen! I couldn’t help but be impressed. ‘Really?’
‘She’s exaggerating,’ Noor said, acting annoyed, but obviously enjoying the attention. ‘He’s just—’
‘I am not,’ Sabah cut her off. ‘Noor invited him to a birthday party, when we were – what, nine? – and he’s followed her around ever since.’ She turned back to Noor. ‘Didn’t he write you a love letter for Valentine’s Day? And there was that whole phase last year when he would wait for you at the school gates and follow you to the bus.’
‘Okay, yeah, maybe he’s a bit obsessed,’ Noor said, giggling.
‘Only because you lead him on,’ Sabah said. ‘The poor thing. He actually thinks he has a shot.’
‘Imagine that.’ Noor shuddered. ‘Anyway, what’s happening with Vineet?’
School broke for the summer in less than ten days and nothing was without the element of urgency.
‘We’re going to go see a film tomorrow,’ Sabah said, eyes twinkling.
‘Let me guess, matinee?’ Noor said.
‘Yeah,’ Sabah said, dragging the word out.
‘You know what that means. Empty cinema, romantic film, your hand on his thigh . . .’
‘You are so gross,’ Sabah shrieked, shoving Noor so she landed flat on the bed, the mattress bouncing in retaliation.
‘Does that mean you’ve never . . .?’ I asked Sabah after we’d stopped giggling.
‘Of course not,’ Sabah said, a touch indignant. ‘He’s not even my boyfriend. Yet.’
‘Have you?’ she asked me after a moment. ‘With Chris?’
‘Or someone else?’ Noor grinned. ‘We don’t judge.’ Then, looking at Sabah’s stricken expression, she added, ‘I don’t judge.’
‘I’ve fooled around,’ I lied, ‘but not, you know . . .’
‘Sex?’ Noor prompted.
‘Yeah, no, not that.’ I wondered if my face looked as red as it felt.
‘You can say it, you know,’ Noor said, smirking. ‘You have to actually have sex to get pregnant.’
‘Shut up!’
‘Well, now that Sabah’s all set, I can get to work on you,’ Noor said, wiggling her eyebrows up and down. ‘Not that you need it. You and Dhruv looked very cosy.’
To my relief, a knock at the door distracted Noor. A plain-looking girl, dressed almost exactly like Noor, stepped in.
In fact, I was pretty sure she was dressed in
Noor’s clothes.
‘Didi, khana,’ she mumbled, her words barely audible.
‘Who’s that?’ I whispered to Sabah as we followed her down the stairs and into the hall.
‘Who?’
‘That girl,’ I said, pointing to the girl just as she disappeared into the kitchen.
‘One of the servants. Why?’
‘She’s wearing Noor’s clothes.’
Sabah looked at me as if I had lost it. ‘What do you do with your old clothes?’
I tried to imagine her reaction if I told her about the system my mother had established when I was eight. Every spring, anything old or faded was given a new lease of life by dyeing it in the bathtub or embroidering it with multi-coloured thread, holes and tears darned over, and once they’d lived through their resurrection, my clothes got one final shot at life as nightwear. It was only when things were falling apart at the seams that I was allowed to discard them, and even then, they usually ended up being used as rags around the house.
Yeah, I wasn’t about to tell her that.
‘Refugee camps, usually,’ I said instead, injecting my words with enough indignation for them to sound sincere. ‘Or orphanages.’
Sabah nodded as we entered the dining room.
‘Aadab, Uncle, Aunty,’ Sabah said to Noor’s parents before sitting down at the table.
‘This is my friend, Alia. She’s just moved from London,’ Noor announced.
‘Hi,’ I said, sitting down next to the tall boy who I assumed was Noor’s brother. I had heard enough about Faraz over the past few weeks to form a mental picture and the reality felt somewhat jarring. The overbearing, insufferable brother who Noor couldn’t stop bitching about seemed kind and, with his fair skin and the deep dimples that appeared in both his cheeks when he smiled, insanely good-looking.
‘It’s lovely to meet you, Alia,’ Noor’s father said.
Noor’s mother smiled hello. ‘Biryani okay for you, beta?’
‘It’s perfect, Aunty,’ I said as the maid started bringing in the food. I looked at the family gathered around me. Lively banter passed around the table as easily as the dishes heaped with biryani, salan and raita. I was amazed at how quickly and easily they had welcomed me in. I smiled as I unfurled my napkin and spooned some raita onto my plate.
Can You See Me Now? Page 5