‘That sounds . . . fun?’
‘Oh, it’s super glamorous, if you like two a.m. wake-up calls and smelly nappies,’ she says, laughing. ‘How are you, though? I’m so sorry I never replied to your email.’
I shrug it off, glad that she brought it up herself. ‘It sounds like you’ve had your hands full.’
‘I’ll do it, of course.’ Addi slants her head, her gaze sliding off me. ‘I keep thinking about that last night, after the party. I could see how drunk Noor was when she was walking into the house. It was obvious that she needed help but I just . . . I should have got out of the car. Maybe if I’d gone inside with her, we’d both have gone to bed, she wouldn’t have—’
‘Sorry, what?’ The words spill out before I can clamp down on them. ‘You saw her go into her house?’
‘Yes,’ Addi says, looking confused. ‘Why?’
‘I thought Vineet drove her home.’
‘He did. I was in the car behind him,’ she pauses. ‘With Mohit.’
‘Mohit?’
Addi looks at me as if debating whether or not she should continue this conversation. She had always been thoughtful and considered in her responses, never one to be hurried into an answer. I adjust my face, urging her on silently.
She sighs and pushes the loose strands of hair away from her face.
‘I’m not proud of this . . . Mohit and I had been fooling around at the party and, well, he was going back to Vineet’s and he asked me along.’ She shrugs but I can see the colour rising to her cheeks. ‘Anyway, Vineet said he had to drop Noor off first, so Mohit and I followed them. I saw her get out of his car and stumble through those massive gates.’ Addi pauses to look at me, her brows knotted together, regret underpinning every word. ‘She couldn’t even walk straight. I should have got out to help her.’
My stomach clenches without my permission.
‘Did you make any stops on the way?’
‘I wouldn’t call them stops, but yeah, we pulled over a few times so she could throw up. She was a mess, Sabah. Why?’
Out of all of us, Addi had always been the one with the strict moral compass. She wouldn’t lie, not about this.
‘Did you tell someone? Noor’s parents? The police?’
‘I told her father at the funeral and he said he would contact me if the police needed a statement but I never heard back,’ she says. ‘But I guess it wasn’t relevant anyway.’
‘Right.’ I take a sip of my drink as I try to slot this new information in.
‘Anyway,’ Addi says, ‘Have you seen—’
I cut her off. ‘What happened afterwards?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘After you went to Vineet’s? I mean, could he have gone back to Noor’s afterwards, or maybe you mixed up what you saw . . .’
‘What are you really asking me, Sabah?’ Addi’s tone is light but her eyes don’t leave my face.
I get straight to the point.
‘Is it possible that Vineet went back to Noor’s later?’
‘And what, shot her?’ The incredulity in her voice is genuine. ‘Are you serious?’
I flinch at the bluntness of her words.
She sighs. ‘I was too drunk to do anything, and anyway, seeing Noor like that – it sort of killed the mood. Mohit, Vineet and I stayed up all night watching movies. I was there when he got the call.’
I don’t say anything. I can’t.
Addi places a hand on my arm, her eyes softening.
‘Look, I don’t want to seem indifferent,’ Addi says. ‘After everything you both went through, it makes sense that you’d want to find somewhere to place the blame. But you knew her, Sabah. You remember what she was like, right? Before rehab. There’s a reason no one was surprised.’
I am not one for melodrama, yet somehow I can feel the blood gushing in my ears, drowning out what Addi’s saying. I step away from her, mumbling something incoherent.
When Alia asked me who I thought killed Noor, I’d dodged her questions, telling her, and myself, that I didn’t want to name names until I had something more than just a feeling to go on. But secretly, I have always believed it was Vineet.
Noor and Vineet had barely been speaking to each other at that point, so there could only be one reason why he had offered to drive her home. My theory for the longest time has been that he had tried something with Noor and when she fought back, he shot her. There were holes in this theory, of course, but holes I knew I could fill once I had a clearer picture. He could have coerced her into writing the note, he could have stolen a gun, he could have made it look like a suicide. There were endless ways to assemble this particular jigsaw.
But if Addi is telling the truth – and there is no reason for her to lie – then my theory about Vineet is wrong. It couldn’t have been him.
I look around at the roomful of people I went to school with.
Old friendships have been reignited, if only for one night.
The group of girls – women – from the Science stream who Noor and I had always made fun of are standing in a tight knot at the front of the room.
The boys from the football team who had chased after us are assembled in a rowdy twist near the bar.
A few feet from me, Addi and Saloni are clinking glasses.
Further along, Vineet is in a huddle with Mohit and Yash.
We had all played a part in what happened to her. We are all here, alive, while Noor rots away in a coffin. The unfairness of it hits me with a physicality that defies logic.
My eyes come to rest on Alia standing alone with a drink in her hand. A few paces from her, Niv is dazzling the man I recognize as the old head boy.
Almost everyone in this room has held a grudge against Noor at some point.
And if Vineet didn’t kill her, then who did?
ALIA
I glance at my watch. An hour in and I’m not sure I can do this any longer.
Wescott hosts these fundraisers masquerading as reunions every couple of years and usually I love attending. I am used to chairing national committees and attending meetings with the PM but there is a special joy in watching people who had once treated me as little more than Noor’s and Sabah’s sidekick spin cartwheels in my honour. But tonight, every conversation feels strained, tainted by the knowledge of how fragile my position is.
I feel an unexpected twinge of nerves as Sabah comes over and stands next to me. I haven’t seen her since I burst into her house a few days ago, demanding answers. I wonder if tonight she will be more forthcoming, and I consider asking her if she’s found any more leads but something stops me. When the present feels like it’s going to swallow you whole, it can be reckless to focus on the past.
Especially if the past has the power to annihilate everything you’ve worked for.
‘No husband?’ she asks, conversationally.
Trust Sabah to find a way to unnerve me before we’ve even said hello.
‘He’s away,’ I lie. Arjun and I hadn’t spoken since our little spat last night. I’d pretended to be asleep when he got home from the awards and he pretended he could sleep through the disruption as I flicked on lights and opened and closed wardrobe doors in the morning. I hadn’t even seen him at breakfast, choosing instead to eat in the office.
I know I am burying my head in the sand, but for now at least, it’s the only way I can survive. I need to keep my single-minded focus if I’m going to win this election.
‘Any news on the police files?’ Sabah asks.
I let a passing waiter top up my wine before answering.
‘We should have them in a day or two,’ I say. ‘The files are classified so we’re having to take a slightly longer route. I’ve spoken to –’
I pause, distracted by the sound of loud laughter. I cast around for the culprits but instead I spy Niv.
I’ve been avoiding her all evening. My eyes follow her as she moves through the room with her usual grace, shoulders back, narrow hips swaying gently, her swimmer’s body still intact a
fter all these years. She slips behind a column with an almost imperceptible glance around the room. I take a few steps back, trying to find a better angle to observe her from. My breath catches in my throat as I realize the person she’s talking to is my husband.
Arjun and Niv are close, too close. Niv has one hand on Arjun’s arm and she is whispering to him urgently. As I watch, Arjun scans the room then steps even closer, his attention focused on Niv again.
I feel the world spin around me and for a second it feels as though I am falling, until the pressure of a hand on my shoulder grounds me. I don’t turn around. I keep my eyes on my husband, willing him to look at me, to realize that I can see what he’s doing.
He doesn’t.
I can’t tell if the feeling that sweeps through me is relief that I don’t have to confront him or anger that even after all these years, he can’t see me.
Niv says something and Arjun steps back, shaking his head.
Less than a minute later, he’s standing next to me, apologizing for being late.
‘I didn’t think you were coming.’ My voice comes out hard, brittle.
‘Why would you think that?’
His dark eyes are searching mine, but I haven’t got it in me to answer that. I deflect with a question of my own. I nod towards Niv, who’s standing at the bar now, chatting to Faraz, glass of wine in hand. ‘What was that about?’
‘Oh, Niv didn’t think I should – you know what, it doesn’t matter,’ he says, his gaze sliding off me and focusing instead on Sabah. He turns to her, his face breaking into a warm smile as he introduces himself, charming as ever. He chats to her easily for a few minutes before one of his colleagues pulls him away.
‘I didn’t realize Niv was friends with your husband,’ Sabah says when he’s out of earshot.
I force my voice back under my control. ‘Family friends,’ I say. ‘They’ve known each other since they were little.’
‘Oh.’
I can sense an ocean’s worth of undercurrents rippling beneath that one word.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. I just never trusted her.’
Despite everything, I feel my sense of loyalty kick in. ‘You barely knew her,’ I say.
Sabah eyes me with a mix of confusion and pity. ‘You aren’t serious. She’s your best friend and she hasn’t told you?’
‘Told me what?’ I say, my patience wearing thin.
‘Niv and I . . . we practically grew up together.’
I shrug. ‘You were neighbours.’
‘We were more than that. Noor and I thought of her like an older sister. We used to follow her around like puppies when we were little, trying to copy everything she did.’
I look at her, unconvinced. Niv is only a year older than us, the age gap hardly enough for her to play mentor or whatever Sabah is implying.
‘A year can seem like a lot when you’re six,’ Sabah says. ‘Anyway, the dynamic changed as we grew older, but we were still very close. Especially Noor and her.’
I can’t quite piece this new information together. I think about that first day in the cafeteria. Noor and Sabah hated Niv.
‘The year before you started, Noor found out that Niv and Faraz had been seeing each other. For quite some time it turned out. Noor was furious. She’d been confiding in Niv for years and all along, she wasn’t just her friend, she was her brother’s girlfriend.’
I had never understood Noor’s almost obsessive loathing for Niv but as I think about how possessive Noor was of her friends, how intense the rivalry between her and Faraz was, it clicks into place. For Niv to be involved with her brother . . . Noor would have seen it as the ultimate betrayal.
‘What did she do?’
Sabah lifts her shoulders. ‘What she always did. She sabotaged their relationship and things just kept escalating from there.’
I draw a breath.
Niv and I had been best friends for nearly a decade. We must have spoken about the Qureshis a million times. Why hadn’t Niv told me any of this?
Sabah draws her face into a wide smile and waves at someone. I turn to look. Arjun is walking back towards us, flanked by a smiling Niv on his arm, her emerald-green silk dress swishing around her calves.
‘Just watch your back,’ Sabah whispers before she steps forward, arms open, ready to draw Niv into a hug.
ALIA
Fifteen years ago
Nothing that happened next was any different to what happens to every other girl in every other high school. But here’s the thing: unless you’ve been that girl, unless you’ve walked the halls hearing the taunts and the whispers, unless you’ve crouched in the toilet trying to erase the sickening words scribbled on the walls, unless you’ve heard your best friend call you a whore, you have no idea what it feels like. You can’t.
I didn’t.
I told Noor I was there for her as the whispers and notes turned to outright bullying and abuse. I said I didn’t judge her when half the senior class started bragging about having shagged her. I claimed I didn’t hear the other girls talk about how they’d rather kill themselves than embarrass their families like she had. I promised her I would stay by her side, but in the end I abandoned her. I had to. It wasn’t sudden, brought on by the flurry of urgent whispers that followed her wherever she went. It was slower, more painful. I hung on as long as I could but ultimately it was easier to nod along, to join in instead of trying to defend her and damage my own fragile position in the process.
I have never regretted anything more.
I stayed close to Noor the first couple of days, determined to prove to her that I was on her side no matter how bad things got. I looped my arm through hers as we slipped out of the classroom during lunch break a few days later and chattered mindlessly, trying to ignore the groups of girls whispering and boys whistling and making obscene gestures at her as we walked past.
A group of boys who I recognized from Sameer’s party stopped us as we pushed through the corridor.
‘Hey, girls, fancy a threesome?’ a boy whose name I didn’t even know said as his friends laughed rowdily.
‘Come on,’ I said to Noor, trying to nudge her away, but she was frozen in her spot. I followed her gaze further down the corridor to where Vineet was standing surrounded by his usual gang. My eyes met his for the briefest of seconds before he looked away, leaning back on the railing and laughing at something Mohit was saying.
I looked around but I already knew there would be no teachers in sight. They retreated to the staffroom at lunchtime.
‘Move,’ I said to the boys who had clustered together in a tight circle, barricading us. We would have to push through them to get past. I looked sideways at Noor, whose face had gone very, very still.
‘Don’t be like that,’ the boy said. ‘We all know Noor’s up for it, and you’d never say no to Noor, right?’
Till a week ago, these boys would’ve been ready to fall at Noor’s command, a flick of her hand and a teasing smile enough to get her whatever she wanted.
‘I bet they get it on at their famous sleepovers,’ his bespectacled friend spoke, flushing with pride as his words provoked a fresh round of laughter from the others.
‘How about a live show just for us?’ he continued, stepping so close that I could smell the samosa on his breath, the faint smell of onion and potatoes making me feel sick as I felt something twist inside me. ‘We can pay, if that’s what you want.’
I was trying to come up with a retort when I felt a shock of pain run through me. I flipped around, furious, but the boys were standing in a tight knot, surrounding us completely and it was impossible to tell who was responsible for the stinging pain that had spread across my bottom and the even sharper sting of shame that accompanied it. I gripped Noor’s arm tighter and pulled her as I tried to push past the boys but she remained rooted to the spot.
‘Noor, come on,’ I hissed, desperate to get away, but she didn’t move, her eyes fixed on the floor. The feeling of helplessness rose t
hrough my chest, choking me.
I saw the way they were looking at me, the way their eyes flicked over my face for half a second before moving down, tracing the curve of my breasts. I felt sick, violated, surrounded by boys who only wanted one thing.
I knew when it came to it there was one thing I was not willing to risk for Noor.
I tried one last time to pull her with me, and then I let go, gasping as I elbowed my way out and the group closed around her.
When it came down to it, instead of standing by her, I chose me.
When the boys crowded around, drool practically dripping from their mouths, I chose me. I ran.
I threw one last glance back at her before I ran down the corridor, away from them, past Vineet and his friends, past Niv and Dhruv, past the teacher who was looking at me suspiciously and the groups of girls who were shaking their heads, the boys’ laughter and taunts following me all the way to the cafeteria.
I spotted Sabah holding court at her usual table. I ignored the prying eyes as I rushed through the room, panting as I plumped myself in the corner, praying that Sabah wouldn’t ask me to leave.
She didn’t.
She simply raised her eyebrows and continued talking, allowing me to fade into the invisibility I had spent months trying to escape.
Noor walked up to the table a few minutes later. I noticed her eyes, red, raw, and I forced myself to look away, trying not to think about how I had deserted her.
‘Sabah, can we talk?’ she said.
‘Sure,’ Sabah shrugged.
‘Privately.’
‘You can say anything you want in front of my friends. I trust them,’ Sabah said, looking around the table and gracing us with an indulgent smile.
Noor sighed, but didn’t argue. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, Sabah. I didn’t know he was—’
‘Recording you?’ Sabah cut her off, the hurt leaking through her voice. ‘So once again you’re sorry you got caught, not that you did it. Do you even care –’ She took a breath to steady her voice before she spoke again. ‘I can’t keep doing this. He’s not my boyfriend any more and you’re not my friend, so you two can set up your own porn channel for all I care.’
Can You See Me Now? Page 18