15.2
Satya’s tears were too much to bear now. This had not even occurred to her; she had just assumed that he would be there. When she finally pressed the cold metal digits before her, her view back across the street obscured by the graffiti on the small window slats, she wondered if this too was a long shot. Feeding coins into the slot, her call seemed to ring unanswered for minutes on end before it was finally taken by a very young voice, its gender indistinguishable. ‘Oh hello,’ she said at last, ‘may I speak to Siddique please?’
The voice did not reply, and for a second, she thought that the line had gone dead. But in the background, there were noises. Satya could hear shouting in a Bengali dialect and footsteps. There was the sound of a boiler rumbling and the echoes of a tall, empty room. She would have to insert a few more coins before another voice answered back.
‘Who’s this,’ came the frail accent from the earpiece, ‘What do you want? Who is this? Siddique doesn’t want you. Leave my son alone.’
‘No please,’ panicked Satya, ‘just wait a minute. I’m just looking for an old friend. Siddique used to know him. I’m just looking for a number. That’s all.’
At first, the reply was garbled; the voice may not even have been addressing her. ‘Wait a minute,’ replied the agitated woman finally, ‘I’ll find out.’
Once again, the line went quiet, except for the relentless clicks and hisses of their tall, old house, until a third voice reverberated back at her. ‘Siddique,’ she faltered on nervously, ‘this is Satya Singh. I don’t know if you remember me, but we were at school together.’
‘Yeah, I remember you. Of course I remember you.’
‘How are you?’ she asked.
‘You’re looking for a friend?’ he grunted impatiently. ‘Who?’
‘I’m looking for Ben.’
‘Who?’
‘Ben Johnson. You used to be friends.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t know that name.’
‘You do,’ she insisted, ‘You used to be best mates. I know you remember.’
‘No, you must be mistaken. He wasn’t a friend of mine.’
‘Please, please. This is important. I really need to contact him. I went to his house, but he doesn’t live there anymore. It’s important. Can you help me, please? Hello? Hello? Are you there?’
‘Look,’ he replied eventually, ‘I can’t help you. I haven’t seen him in ages.’
‘I only need his number. Can you just give me his number?’
‘No, sorry, I can’t help you,’ he said urgently. ‘And I have to go,’ he added, ending her call abruptly.
She listened first as he slammed the receiver down, and then she listened again as a second receiver settled back in its place, the line falling silent once more.
Now there was only anger. Her eyes throbbed, ready to burst into tears all over again. She was sick of everyone’s closed lives, sick of everything. She could not remember why she had Siddique’s number, but now she wished she had scribbled it out years ago. Her finger traced down every page of her address book desperately, but none of the numbers would do. None, perhaps, except one, but her heart skipped when she saw it, a suffocating nausea rising within. She could dial the number, she tried to tell herself, but found herself quivering all over. As she scrawled an address in the palm of her hand in blue ink, something told her that she would have to confront another anxiety within.
Anjana’s home was not far from Ben’s: this was one of the facts she used to curse herself with whenever she reflected on her own stupidity. If she could remember her way, she would be there in less than ten minutes, but she decided to walk very, very slowly instead. She would plan her words this time, she told herself. But then, she thought, Anjana might not even be there either. Had the whole world moved on in her absence? The earth had circumnavigated the sun in less time. What were the chances of her being there, she asked herself—almost wishing her old friend away—finding her street at last? Greater than she had imagined, it turned out.
When she finally knocked on her green front door, Anjana opened it almost immediately, swinging it wide open as if she had been expecting her somehow.
‘Hi Anjana,’ muttered Satya when their eyes met, ‘Long time no see.’
Her friend offered her a half-hearted smile but did not respond with words. Instead, she turned and led her into the hall and then her living room, offering her a seat by the window. Remote control in her hand, she took in the last of her programme and finally turned the television off, returning peace to the room.
‘So,’ she said frostily, ‘this is a surprise.’
‘I know,’ whispered Satya, gazing at her feet anxiously. ‘I should’ve rung, but I was in the area. Thought I’d just try my luck.’
‘Well it seems luck was on your side.’
‘Yes,’ she sighed, shrugging her shoulders, only for a great silence to descend.
In her friend’s face, Satya sensed hostility. Although she now felt warm, the radiator beside her tickling the air, she thought herself an unwelcome guest. What was her friend thinking, she wondered, sitting there in silence just staring at her? And now what was she to say? How was she to begin? Would any words do? If only her friend would say something, she thought. A cup of tea would break the ice. Nice weather always worked at university. She considered you’re looking well, but she did not say it. Instead she just cried within.
‘I think I know what you’re thinking, Satya,’ started her friend all of a sudden. ‘You’re wondering if I’m angry with you? Am I angry because you never returned my phone calls? Because you never let me know you were alright. Because you couldn’t call me just once. Am I angry because you just cleared off and dropped us all like we meant nothing to you? Am I angry, Satya?’ She shook her head. ‘No, Satya, I’m not angry. I just tell myself that something must’ve happened to you, that you must have had a reason. I didn’t like how you treated me the last time we saw each other, but I didn’t abandon you. I called you the next day. I wanted to ask if you were alright. Then I called the day after that. And when you didn’t come back to school on Monday I tried to reach you. And when you vanished off the face of the earth, I tried to keep in touch. I know you got sent away and I’m sorry about that, but you didn’t have to abandon us. Your sister gave me your number. Whenever I called, your cousin told me you were out. I believed her at first, but you were out all the time. Even at seven in the morning, even at nine in the evening. Well of course I stopped calling you. Who wouldn’t?’
‘I felt stupid, Anjana. That’s why I couldn’t speak to you. I was humiliated. I wanted to cut myself off.’
‘You made it worse than it was.’
‘No, Anjana, you made it better than it was. But probably because you never knew what really happened. What my brother did, I mean.’
‘To you?’
‘No Anjana, to you. I should’ve told you when I worked it all out, but I couldn’t because… I don’t know why. I just couldn’t speak to you. I thought I couldn’t tolerate you. I felt so completely, utterly humiliated. Yes, so I snapped at you. I pushed you away. And then life just got in the way.’
‘Did it? Or did you just let it?’
‘What can I say? I’m happy it did. I’m glad they sent me away. It was good for me. My uncle and aunt are proper Sikhs. I enjoyed their company. I liked seeing how they lived. It lifted my spirits. And then there was college: I had so much to catch up on, but it set me back on track.’ Glancing at her friend, she wondered if she could understand. ‘It all happened so fast, Anjana. By the time I knew I was going, I was already on my way. But they treated me with respect. When I arrived, they greeted me with smiles and hugs. My cousin, Andeep, is the same age as me, but she’s so much more mature. She has none of my stupid baggage. She’s just this spiritual soul, so warm and kind and welcoming. She helped me so much, Anjana. And she’s beautiful too.’ Just then, Satya recalled her pretty eyes, her nose is straight to a point, her pale red lips always forming a gentle smile. The first time she saw her, she was wearing a navy-blue dupatta, and looked so much more elegant than she ever did. ‘She has such a gentle soul, so refined. I must’ve seemed so insecure to them when I arrived, but they nurtured me. It was almost the answer to a prayer. Yes, I really believe that. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.’
Satya scrutinised her friend’s face, noticing an unfamiliar sadness in her eyes; she did not look like the character she had left behind. She regretted abandoning her friends now, but it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It had all happened so quickly, she told herself as if to justify it. Yes, that was it, she insisted as she began to recount all that had happened since her departure.
There had been a festive mood when she had arrived on that cold Sunday afternoon at her uncle and aunt’s. The long journey had wearied her, but she had noticed that their house smelled sweet as soon as she wandered across the threshold, the air carrying the scent of incense and samosas. Days earlier, she had been wondering about Hola Mohalla, but she had forgotten all about it until then; Andeep had to remind her as she showed her to her new room. It was the first time since she was very young that she had had a room to herself, but this one was tiny. She had only a mattress for a bed, a cabinet for her things and a small portable radiator to warm her at night. The room had no window and was barely wider than the mattress and only a metre and a quarter longer.
Her suitcase transformed into a wardrobe and her bag dropped on her bed, she had returned downstairs and reintroduced herself to her uncle. He had been dressed in a dark suit, the cuffs of his white shirt drawn out beyond the arms of the jacket. His wide-knotted red tie met an exaggerated collar. He looked a bit like he was caught in a time warp, she thought, his clothes more suitable for 1975, but she did not hold it against him. Instead, she looked at him in awe: his face was touched by a sparse black beard, a thin moustache just covering his upper lip, his hair wrapped tightly under a close, burgundy turban. He was unlike her father, quiet, mild-mannered and softly-spoken. When he spoke to her, their eyes rarely met; he would gaze towards the floor instead. He was not affectionate towards her as he was to his daughter, but she did not mind. She was a guest there, she reminded herself constantly, even as her respect for them grew.
She had enrolled at college the very next day, pleased to have Andeep for company. It was a 1980s cliché with its dark red-brown brickwork, brown-tinted windows and dark green fittings. Mostly a maze of single-storey buildings, there was one block of three stories: a tower of tinted glass. Inside, the floors were carpeted, the chairs upholstered with thick green cushions. Shortly after announcing her arrival she had been greeted by a tall, slim woman with short curly hair who led her through a pair of swing doors into her warm, bright office. The woman was exquisitely polite and understanding, her sensitivity surprising the teenager, causing her to mutter her thanks repeatedly. The contrast between here and there could not have been more marked. Here there had been a tour of the building and facilities. Here they cared about the reports from her old school. Here they were interested in hearing what she aspired to do with her life and what she hoped to achieve. It was a whole new world.
‘I’m happy to hear it all worked out for you,’ said Anjana when her old friend finally stopped talking.
‘Are you? You don’t sound it.’
Anjana sighed and closed her eyes. ‘I’m just waiting to hear why you really came here,’ she whispered, her eyes elsewhere. ‘We both know, don’t we? You came back to find Ben. You just came here because you couldn’t find him.’
‘Am I so predictable?’ asked Satya.
‘No. It’s just I’m the same.’ She looked at Satya at last. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I know that’s not what you wanted to hear, but it’s true. I should never have rolled over for you last time. I should’ve been brave. I shouldn’t have stood aside for you.’ Hearing herself saying these words, dropping from her tongue so unexpectedly, her bluntness startled even herself. ‘I’m sorry, Satya,’ she added quickly, shaking her head at herself, ‘ignore me. I’m just bitter.’
‘And so am I,’ gasped Satya.
‘Yes, I know. I warned you away from him, told you he was a loser, an idiot, a freak, and all the time I was so, so profoundly in love with him. Of course, I only realised this when he fell in love with you. I thought I’d be able to bear it. I told myself we were just best friends, that I’d be happy for him whatever happened, but in the end, it just burned me up. I hated you in the end. I hated you because he fell in love with you instead of me.’
‘Did he? Is that what he said? Because I’m thinking about him constantly these days. Yes, that’s why I came back. I wanted to see him. I nearly sent him a letter, but… something drove me here. I can’t stop thinking about him. I had to find out where he was, what he was doing. He’s always there. He’s always in my head.’
She stopped suddenly, for Anjana seemed to be a million miles from her. She wondered if she had heard any of it, only to shrink back as her toxic fury abruptly erupted, uncontained, spewing its acrid miasma into the air between them. ‘What exactly did you expect?’ she yelled, loudly enough for the neighbours to hear through the brick-thin walls. ‘You turn up, just like that. He hasn’t seen you for a year and a half, and you just expect things to go back the way they were. Don’t you think he might have feelings?’
‘Of course he has. But I’m always thinking about him. Is it wrong to say I want him?’
‘So everyone can stare at him again and look at him like he’s dirt? And accuse him of stealing their Indian princess? What was it last time? Ben, the dirty gora?’
‘This has nothing to do with anyone else. It’s about me and him.’
‘It was about everyone else before,’ Anjana bellowed into her old friend’s aghast face. ‘When was it ever about his feelings? You know it would just cause problems from the start. We’ve both seen how it goes. We can’t even stand the stupid gora who comes between friends, let alone one insanely in love.’
Satya stared at her friend, her lips scowling, her eyes piercing with horrified disbelief. ‘You sound worse than the racist idiots I encounter at university,’ she cried. ‘I can’t believe what you’re saying. And why do you have to use that expression all the time? You make it derogatory.’
‘I never made it derogatory. That was Bal, that was your brother.’
‘Well you should know better.’
‘No, you should. You should know your brother, and you should know your family. What exactly would they say? Or more to the point, what would they do?’
‘We’d keep it a secret.’
‘And how do you think that would make him feel? Because it always ended up like that for Ben. You’re a great person, Ben, but don’t talk to me in front of my friends. We’re friends, Ben, but don’t speak to me in public. Everyone did this to him. Yes, even I did. And now you want to too.’
‘You know what it’s like for me. I wouldn’t be ashamed of him. You know why it has to be a secret.’
‘Well, I don’t see the point then. You’d have to split up in the end, wouldn’t you?’
‘I’m always thinking about him. I just want to be with him. I want his company.’
There was an uneasy silence for a second or two, but it could not last. ‘But has it never occurred to you, Satya,’ screeched her friend without warning, ‘that maybe he doesn’t want you?’
Satya glared back at her awkwardly. ‘Yes,’ she wept, ‘it occurs to me all the time.’
‘You ruined everything, Satya. You don’t realise it, but you did. He was going to leave school because of you. He was going to throw all his dreams away. I talked him out of it, convinced him to stay, but in the end, it all happened anyway. He dropped out soon enough and it all panned out just how he said it would. University was going to be his escape from his life. It was his masterplan. But last I heard, he joined the old firm in the end, the family business. Maybe it’s unfair of me, but I blame you.’
‘I’m not the one who treated him like dirt for two whole years, Anjana,’ bawled Satya, leaping to her feet, ‘Oh who was it who did that? Oh, that’s right: it was you!’
A moment later Satya regretted her temper; Andeep would never have behaved this way. All of the colour seemed to have drained from Anjana’s face, her cheeks suddenly wet from a torrent of tears, her lips contorted into the saddest of frowns, her eyelids drooping, her hands fidgeting.
‘Yes,’ she muttered painfully, ‘you’re right.’ She glanced at Satya for a moment. ‘You’re right,’ she snivelled and it all came flooding back.
