by D. S. Butler
Humiliated in front of my family and friends, I was too embarrassed to face anyone and asked my Dad to tell the congregation there wasn’t going to be a wedding. That wasn’t even the worst of it. Later, I found out Rob had been having a yearlong affair with his secretary. Cliché stacked upon cliché. I would have laughed if it hadn’t hurt so much.
Through it all, Nicole had been amazing. She’d kept me company as I ranted about all the years I’d wasted on a no-good scumbag, and she’d helped me out by eating her share of the chocolate ice cream when my anger turned to melancholy. She set me up on blind dates, including one with Steve’s business partner, Toby.
Her heart was in the right place, but I don’t know whether it was Toby or me who was more embarrassed by her matchmaking. With absolutely nothing in common, we endured Nicole’s multiple clumsy attempts to bring us together until I finally put an end to it. Toby seemed a nice enough bloke, but he wasn’t for me.
Nicole hadn’t wanted me to go to India, but when I’d made up my mind, she’d supported me one hundred percent.
Nicole Carlson had been a good friend, the best. But now she was gone. I would never be able to repay her kindness to me, but I would be able to help Sienna. I would do everything I could to help her. I owed it to Nicole.
Chapter Three
I waited for the tears to come as I sat cross-legged on the bed looking at my injured toe. The bloody thing was probably broken.
But no tears came. I still couldn’t believe she was really gone. I only had that strange phone conversation to go on. Maybe Angie had memory problems or was unstable. She hadn’t been young when I’d last seen her and she was five years older than that now. Deep down, I knew I was fooling myself, though. I had no reason to doubt Angie’s word.
I leaned back against the thin partition wall then shivered as I saw a cockroach scurrying across the floor.
I reached down and grabbed one of my bright green Crocs and threw it at the large insect with all my might. My coordination skills had never been brilliant, and instead of hitting the cockroach, I hit a lamp, sending it crashing to the floor. I put my head in my hands and groaned as I heard movement from next door. After a moment, there was a quiet knock at my door, and Rich whispered, “Are you alright in there, boss?”
“I’m fine,” I called out. “I just dropped something. Sorry for waking you. Go back to sleep.”
The last thing I wanted was to talk to Rich about what had happened. I wasn’t really a sharer. I preferred to keep things to myself until I’d had time to process them.
But tomorrow, I would have to drive myself to the airport and get a flight back to Heathrow. I got up and began to pack.
The following morning Rich was cheerfully whistling in the shared room we used as the living area. It had a small sink, coffeemaker and a toaster as well as a small portable heating element we used as a stovetop. It wasn’t exactly the type of kitchen where you could whip up an amazing meal, but we never had time for that anyway. Rice and vegetable curries and stews made up our staple diet.
“Morning boss.” He grinned, poured a steaming mug of coffee and held it out to me.
“Morning,” I said, taking the coffee and wondering how to break the news to him.
“What’s on the agenda today?” he asked.
“Actually, there’s been a change of plan. I had some bad news last night.”
“Ah, I knew there was something wrong; you look terrible. Did you get any sleep?”
“Thanks for that,” I said dryly.
He looked horrified. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that… I just meant –”
I held up a hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just pulling your leg. But I am going to have to go back to the UK so that means you’re going to have to step up.”
He smiled. “Of course, no problem at all.”
I raised an eyebrow, thinking he was taking this better than I’d expected and then I realised he hadn’t thought things through.
“It will be a little while until the Foundation can send somebody else out to cover me, so you’re going to be on your own for a few days.”
“What? I can’t be here on my own. I’ve only been doing this job a couple of weeks. What if I get robbed or what if the locals decide we aren’t welcome here because…?”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Relax. They won’t even know I’m gone. The Foundation will send somebody else out as soon as they can.”
He scratched his head. “Well, maybe I should leave as well. Isn’t there something in the rules about having more than one person on the site at a time?”
“We need you to stay. If people realise that the site is empty, they will come and help themselves to our supplies.” I looked around, at the barren, temporary shelter we’d created. “Not that there’s much here worth taking at the moment, but they won’t know that. They might think we’ve got medication or things they can sell on.”
He placed a hand on his forehead and groaned. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You’ll be fine.”
We stood in silence for a few minutes as I sipped my coffee and then he said, “But I don’t have any medical training. What if one of the villagers gets ill and comes here for help?”
“Then you’ll have to tell them we’re not open yet and direct them to the District Hospital.”
We were setting up a programme for the screening of intestinal parasites along with educating people from the surrounding villages on how the diseases were spread and how they could minimise the chances of getting an infection. Sometimes this was as simple as wearing shoes. Villagers tending the land would go to the toilet at the side of their plot rather than walk back to use the new facilities in the village. Some of the elders didn’t trust the modern toilets and preferred to use the pits.
As they intended to eat the vegetation they harvested from the area, this created a vicious circle, and it was our hope that we could minimise the spread of infection through education.
We would have a portable lab eventually. Some of the supplies were here already and others would be on the way. Reagents, microscopes and a centrifuge. We didn’t need much else and could operate on a minimal budget. But with no medical training, Rich wouldn’t be able to do much while I was gone.
The rain had finally stopped after continuing all night, and the sun was starting to creep higher in the sky and warm the land, creating a muggy, humid mist.
I sipped my coffee and did my best to reassure Rich.
“When do you have to leave?” he asked, a frown puckering his usually smooth forehead.
“Today,” I told him, wishing I could have given him a little more time to get used to the idea. Nicole’s funeral wouldn’t be for a few days at least, but there was something about the way Angie Macgregor had delivered the news over the phone that made me feel I needed to get back quickly.
I was worried about Sienna. I hadn’t seen much of her over the past five years, except in the background when I talked to Nicole on FaceTime or Skype, but I couldn’t help remembering her as that little girl with big blue eyes and light coppery brown ringlets, although to Nicole’s horror, she’d recently started straightening her hair, informing her mother she couldn’t stand her natural curls.
Sienna would have Steve to comfort her, her stepfather for the past five years. I wondered how close they were now. They got off to a somewhat bumpy start, which I supposed was understandable.
I put my cup of coffee down on the wooden bench in front of our makeshift home and stared out at the dark green vegetation. Anything could be hiding out there, and yet I felt safe. Nicole had been so worried that something would happen to me when I came to India. She insisted it wasn’t safe and that I would have to ring her every week otherwise she’d never forgive me.
We made it a habit. On Friday nights she’d start on the wine early and call me at ten p.m. my time. It wasn’t quite the same as meeting up in person, but it was better than nothing, and I looked forward to our weekly chats.
>
Through the video chats I’d seen Sienna growing up and noticed as each Friday passed, Steve played less and less of a role in their lives.
Sometimes I wondered if he resented me taking up his wife’s time on Friday evenings. For the first year or so, if we were still talking when he returned from work, he would lean over Nicole’s shoulder and wave at the screen. He never chatted for long, but he made the effort.
I couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time Steve had been at home when I was talking to Nicole. She’d said he was working longer and longer hours but assured me she was still happy.
Rich came back outside, chewing his lower lip nervously. He looked like he’d splashed some water on his face because the edges of his hair were damp.
He offered me a smile. “I’ll be okay. I know I won’t be able to do much when you’re away, but I promise to hold the fort.”
I grinned at him over the top of my mug. “I have every confidence you’ll be great.” I stood up. “Now, I need to get my things together and then I’m going to need a lift to the airport.”
We both turned to look at the vehicle we’d rented. It was a fifteen-year-old, dilapidated truck, and I wasn’t sure it was going to make it as far as the airport. From the look on Rich’s face, he agreed with me.
“It will be fine,” I said with more conviction than I felt and got up to walk inside slowly.
My toe was now red and purple, but most of the pain had gone. I was lucky it was just bruised.
It didn’t take me long to pack. I’d learned to travel light during my time in India. I only had a couple of jumpers as it was cool here in the evenings. Although our base was on elevated ground, the days tended to be hot, and even the rain didn’t offer any relief but just added to the humidity. We were at the tail end of the monsoon season. Soon the weather would improve, and hopefully, I’d be back in time for that.
I just had to get back to the UK for Nicole’s funeral and make sure Sienna was okay. If she wasn’t happy staying with Steve, I knew that Nicole’s mother and sister would step up.
In fact, I knew they’d be only too happy to take over from Steve. I’d always liked Nicole’s mother, but she was extremely full on. She liked to stick her nose into her daughter’s business and didn’t hesitate to show when she was disappointed in Nicole’s life choices.
Case in point, when Nicole had fallen pregnant with Sienna during the final year of her nursing degree, Nicole’s mother reacted as though it was the end of the world.
Chapter Four
I drove to the airport with Rich in the passenger seat. Our base was only sixty kilometres from the airport, but some of the roads around the reserve were not well-maintained. I navigated carefully around the largest potholes because the jagged holes had filled with rainwater, and every time the tyres dipped into one, thick, muddy water splashed upwards, smearing the windscreen.
After a few kilometres, the streaks of mud made visibility so bad that I had to pull over to the side of the road and pour one of the bottles of drinking water we kept in the back of the truck over the windscreen. I even wished it would start raining again.
As the water trickled down the windscreen, Rich thought it would be a great idea to lean over and turn on the windscreen wipers. I gasped as muddy splatters covered my white shirt, then shot daggers at Rich.
His eyes widened as he looked at me in horror. “Sorry,” he called out of the window. “I didn’t think the wipers would do that.”
I bit back a sharp retort. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him exactly what he thought was going to happen when he turned on the windscreen wipers, but I managed to keep my mouth shut. It had been an accident. I didn’t want to part on a bad note.
I tried to wipe off the mud, but my attempts made it look worse, producing smears all down my shirt. When I climbed back into the truck, he apologised again.
“Don’t worry about it.” I fastened my seatbelt. “I know you didn’t mean to cover me with mud.”
The windscreen was also splattered with dead insects, but I tried very hard not to think about that.
The morning was already heating up, and as there was no air conditioning in the truck, we wound down the windows as low as we dared and continued at a steady pace. It was a balancing act. We needed the flow of fresh air to combat the heat, but we also wanted to keep the muddy water out.
Finally, we reached the main drag and took the highway towards Kochi airport. Rich twiddled his thumbs and every now and again shot me an anxious glance. “You will call them and tell them we need someone sent to replace you straight away, won’t you?”
I nodded as I changed into a higher gear, thankful to have left the potholes behind. “I’ll call them as soon as I’ve sorted out my flight. I promise.”
He sank back against the seat but didn’t look completely reassured.
After a moment of silence, he leaned forward and tuned the radio to a local channel, which played a quirky mix of Western music and Bollywood hits. As “Saree Ke Fall Sa” played in the background, I thought back to the phone call from Angie Macgregor.
It had unnerved me, but I couldn’t say why. Maybe Steve had asked her to call me. That made sense. He’d be distraught and busy trying to comfort Sienna. I tapped my finger against the gear stick. There had been something about Angie’s tone that struck me as odd. She hadn’t sounded devastated or upset.
I mulled it over, and my hands tightened on the steering wheel when I realised why Angie’s voice had sounded wrong to me. The tone of her voice hadn’t been emotional or sad. No, her voice had been laced with fear.
A shiver ran along my spine. Why was Angie Macgregor afraid?
Having met her briefly, I imagined most people would be afraid of Angie Macgregor, not the other way around. If I were being unkind, I’d describe her as a battleaxe. Nicole would disagree with that assessment, though. After getting to know her, she’d grown fond of Angie and described her as a woman who knew her own mind.
I pushed my hair back from my forehead, already feeling hot and sticky. I couldn’t wait to get inside the airport and be greeted by cool air conditioning.
After I sorted my flight, I’d use the waiting time to call and offer my condolences. Should I call Steve or Nicole’s mother first? Or would calling be an unwelcome intrusion? Of course, I wanted to tell them how sorry I was and offer to help in any way I could, but I didn’t want to bother them so soon after Nicole died.
I didn’t even know how Nicole died. Angie hadn’t offered the information, and I hadn’t had a chance to ask before she hung up. Had there been a car accident? An illness perhaps? But no, I would have known if Nicole had been ill. There was no way she’d have kept that from me. Was there?
When I’d spoken to her the previous Friday, she’d seemed… normal. There was nothing to indicate anything was wrong or that she was ill.
I bit down on my lower lip as I turned onto the one-way system that looped around the airport.
The number of people and cars in the area was overwhelming, and for a moment, I longed for the peace and quiet of our base beside the nature reserve. The contrast was amazing, but that was India. Some areas were so populous you couldn’t move without jostling into someone, and others were so deserted you could walk for hours without meeting a soul.
The airport was so modern and high-tech, it made me feel like I was entering a time warp. The village beside the nature reserve appeared stuck in time with one concession — everyone had mobile phones. The village had an electricity supply, but service was sporadic, and we frequently had outages, especially during the thunderstorms during monsoon season.
I pulled up beside the gate to departures, jumped out of the truck and avoided eye-contact with an official-looking man in a uniform striding towards me. Before he could say anything, I scooted around to the back of the truck and grabbed my holdall as Rich climbed over to sit behind the steering wheel.
I stuck my head in the passenger
window to say goodbye. “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine. Just sit tight, and somebody from the charity will be with you soon.”
As I turned to walk away, he called me back. “Abbie, you are coming back, aren’t you?”
I hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Of course.”
As he pulled away from the curb, I turned and headed towards the airport’s entrance, sidestepping the official, who barked something at me. I muttered an apology. Hoping he would assume I was a tourist who didn’t know any better and let me off.
Inside the airport, I felt a rush of cooler air engulf me. There were people everywhere, and I took a moment to get my bearings. I apologised as I found myself caught up in a line of people queuing at the oversized luggage counter.
Like most people, I usually bought my airline tickets online. But as we didn’t have the internet hooked up to our base yet, I’d hoped to book a flight at the airport. With a sigh, I took in the long queues at the airline desks, then pulling out my mobile, I made the decision to check online before joining the long, snaking line.
I logged into the booking site and quickly scanned the available flights. There was one today, leaving in three hours, a flight out of Kochi changing at Abu Dhabi. The changeover made it a thirteen-hour trip, but it didn’t look like I had many other options.
I typed in my credit card details and purchased the ticket then passing the people waiting for service at the airline counter I walked up to the check-in desk. The woman behind the counter lowered her gaze to the muddy streaks on my shirt and her smile faltered.
“Any hold luggage today, Madam?” she asked in cool, slightly disdainful English as I handed her my passport.
“Um.” I tugged open the zip on my holdall and rummaged around until I found a clean T-shirt I wanted to check my luggage in because the toiletries I’d packed wouldn’t be accepted in the cabin.