15.3
Anjana returned from the kitchen ten minutes later with a tray of tea and biscuits, which she set before her friend on a small wooden table. She tried to smile at her as she handed her the plate, watching as she chose the only Jammy Dodger from a pile of cookies and shortbread. She would dunk it in her tea and suck the moist dough that returned until all that remained was a button of jam; that was how it used to be. Taking two chocolate chip cookies at once, Anjana sat down beside her, hunching her shoulders as she munched through the first of them. Glancing at her friend, she put the other one back and tried another smile.
‘I found him asleep under a tree once, eight empty beer cans strewn around him on the grass. His breath stank of something horrible and his clothes were all a mess. The closest he could get to comfort was two four-packs of special brew. It was supposed to take away the unhappiness, the loneliness. He told me he’d been at it since Monday, but it was Thursday when I found him. I hated that he’d started drinking, let alone like that. I told him he had to try to get over it. I persuaded him to return to school on Friday, but I could see he had too much to deal with. He said he had the worst headache ever and I watched him leave school again. But he did return. He returned with a spinning head about three hours later. He was unnaturally confident. Well, no, he was just off his head. He found your brother and told him exactly what he thought of him, almost kicking off a fight. I don’t know why I always got involved after that, but I did. His old mate Lee was ready to put him in his place for insulting his friend. And he would’ve if I hadn’t got in the way.
‘I pulled him away. I asked him what he was doing, what he was trying to prove. He never answered though. But I could see he hated your brother through and through. I could see it in his eyes. I was worried what he’d do. I took him out of there, made him walk with me. He wasn’t in the mood to listen, but I made him. I tried to reach him, but he just seethed with anger. There was something he wanted to tell me, but he’d never let it out. He’d stare at me for minutes on end, but then he’d say nothing. And so he just drank and drank and drank. It must’ve been better company.
‘His friends were impatient with him. Friends? Those people he used to hang about with before he fell apart. They’d just shout at him, swear at him. I never saw any of them trying to help him, trying to understand. It was a complete rerun of last time, exactly the same, except now it was Sid and Kevin instead of me. And the school? What can I say about them? They just threw him out, told him not to return until he’d learnt to control himself.
‘I tried to visit him, but his mum’s landlord had kicked him out because no one was paying the rent. I found a load of his stuff dumped in the street. I got my dad to collect it. He was meant to come and get it, but he never did. We still have it all in the loft. His records and that. His books. I have a recurring dream where he comes around and takes his stuff. He’s smiley, jolly. We have a good laugh, and in the midst of the dream I believe it’s real and true. I see my dad helping him out to the car, chatting to him like the old days. I always wake up so relieved, so content, but then it hits me: it’s only a dream. I ask my dad if it really happened and he just smiles again and tells me to move on. But I don’t.
‘He came back to school eventually, but I could see he was unwell. He was losing that cute chubby frame of his. His eyes looked tired, sunken in his face, and his skin looked almost too white for life; horrible and pale, abandoned by colour, like death walking. I saw him on the day of his return, a warm Monday morning, and I asked him if he was alright. He was introspective. No, not really. Just full of self-reproach. Blaming himself. For everything. It was his fault you got sent away. His fault everyone hated him. I told him he was wrong. I told him he was good for you. See, even after everything, I still told him he was good for you. I never blamed you. I never said you were stupid. Even after everything, I thought the best of you.
‘But he raged at me when I said that. Blaming himself for everything. For your bruises. For coming between you and your cousin. Saying he should never have been with you. I told him you were happy. I told him you did what you had to do. I tried to convince him that it wasn’t his fault, but he wouldn’t listen. Everything was his fault, and he blamed himself for it so completely.’
‘Did he talk about me?’ asked Satya shyly.
‘Not to me. He never told me he loved you. He never said he wanted to get you back or that he wished things were as before. He just blamed himself for you being sent away. That was the source of his anguish.’
‘You would say that,’ replied Satya.
‘Yes, and you would say I’d say that, but I’m not making it up. Maybe he just thought he couldn’t speak to me about it. Maybe that’s why. I’m not saying he didn’t like you. I’m just saying he didn’t tell me. There was a lot he didn’t tell me. He didn’t tell me how his old mates treated him. He didn’t tell me why he hated your brother so much. He didn’t tell me what life was like now he was back with his dad. And why would he after the way I treated him? Once we were best friends. We shared everything. But that was an age ago. All I could do was try to make amends. I wanted to help him survive. I would do anything for him if I could.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Nowhere near enough,’ she lamented. ‘But I tried to get his mates to support him. I told Sid to patch things up with him. I thought it’d be for the best, but it only made matters worse. I watched what happened, how it all went wrong. I watched him sit next to Ben in the canteen. I heard him apologising, excusing himself for all that had happened. It was just meant to be the two of them, but all the others turned up and made it into a big joke. They started teasing Sid just for talking to him. They just didn’t get it. And then Ben just lost it and shouted his head off. That’s when Sid changed his tune. Yelling at him. Shouting his head off too. All those words, they crushed him.
‘He tried to reply, but it was pointless. “I think the same about you,” he said, “I never asked you to do anything for me. I don’t need your encouragement. If you think I’m selfish git, well think that. I don’t care. I never asked you for your help. I’m sick of you all. I don’t need anybody.” I think he meant it. “Good.” That’s what Siddique said. “Good. Because you don’t have anybody now. Have a nice life, Ben.” He stood up and left him. They all left him, laughing at him as they passed. And that was the end of it. That was the day he dropped out. That was the day he gave up.’
‘And then what happened?’
‘I don’t know. He disappeared off the face of the earth. Pretty much. I hear the odd piece of news about him here and there. I know he gave up trying to fight his dad. I know he gave up trying to take a different course, trying to set himself apart. I know he gave up trying to resist.’
‘That’s what you meant by the family business?’
‘Of course. Crime. Violence. There’s a great wall between us now,’ muttered Anjana despondently, ‘We’re worlds apart.’
At last, Satya comprehended the intense sadness that Anjana carried with her. Looking back at her friend, she could tell that it was consuming her, eating her up inside. Abandoning her guarded hostility, Satya wrapped her arm around her in a tight embrace. Not long ago, she thought it would be the other way around: Anjana comforting her for her loss.
‘Oh Anjana,’ she whispered, ‘I feel so sick. I thought Ben and I were destined to be together. I thought he was the answer to my prayers. How could it end like this?’
‘Because you confused your will with the will of God,’ she replied. ‘He answered your prayers, just not the way you wished. You always hated our school. Well this was your great escape.’
‘But I wanted to be with Ben.’
‘Some things are never meant to be, no matter how much you want them. God has other plans for you.’ Anjana was addressing herself more than her friend, she lamented. ‘Don’t think me callous, Satya, but none of this stuff matters. There’s only one thing we need to achieve in life: to make peace with God. Nothing else matters. Nothing.’
Releasing her friend, Satya gazed into her eyes. Her words were almost the same as her grandfather’s. He had shared that advice with her too, although it seemed an age ago now. It almost called her back to him.
‘Do you really believe that?’ she asked, studying her friend’s face.
‘That’s what I want to believe,’ Anjana replied.
‘So I just turn around now and go back to university? I forget this ever happened? I pretend it doesn’t bother me? Is that what I have to do?’
Anjana sighed again, but very heavily this time as if it exhausted her. ‘Okay, Satya,’ she said in defeat, ‘there’s something else. Wait here.’
With hurried steps, she ascended the stairs to her room, returning five minutes later with a creased letter in her hand. ‘Ben gave me this the last time we saw each other,’ she said, handing it to her.
Resting the page on her palms, Satya examined the composed handwriting in dark blue ink: a curved, joined-up script, flowing down both sides of the pale cream page in two neat columns. Seated there beside her, she read the boy’s thoughts aloud.
If my life was for public consumption,
If my life was for public consumption,
Would I be as lonely as I am today?
My dreams form of a closeness,
But are my dreams only of someone
No longer real?
Once in love,
But chances missed.
A voice still with me,
While I wait in this world for my turn.
Rivers flow
But the kettle, never full.
I am a loner
Who cares for the hearts of others,
Neglecting what is my own desire,
The pain, too strong:
Some things can never be.
Where my heart is placed,
No one knows;
I will never say.
If I sacrifice my heart,
Would it only be for another imagined?
My thoughts, elsewhere,
Placed in a prison’s grip.
My hidden world:
Only God knows what I hide inside,
Knowing a deeper side of me.
Holding me up, and sustaining me,
Preparing me to walk alone in the world.
And alone I will walk,
Footsteps in the sand, single-file.
Some things cannot be,
Rules dictate.
Life expects.
The mirror reflects
And the prophecies tell.
Life expectancy,
Life for death,
Belief in beyond
And freedom for love.
In this life, a love cannot dwell, A heart cannot couple With the truest companion, For, while some things are never meant to be, Some things, simply, cannot be.
I inherit the failure to command
That I should be granted
My true desire.
Instead, my heart is offered for sale,
My heart into custody
And intimacy revealed.
A stranger to delve, deep inside
And penetrate my private world.
My life, not for public consumption.
I have a private life,
My heart beats,
But it’s still sensitive.
I offer it from time to time,
But, in truth, I am a loner.
I don’t have to be with you.
In love, but chance, little.
I dream of our alliance
A heart near me,
But, still, far away.
And I wait in this world,
The river flows,
But the hills are dusty
And a wall separates us.
I am a loner
Who cares for the hearts of others,
Offering mine,
When I believe you need it,
And neglecting my own desire.
The pain, too strong.
Powers beyond our hearts command:
There will be none of this intimacy.
Anjana shuddered when she heard Ben’s words recited on another’s tongue. The emphasis was all different; its meaning warped. ‘I should’ve given you this as soon as you arrived,’ she said, ‘but I couldn’t. But now you know.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well he loved you, didn’t he? That’s what all this means. That’s why he wrote those words. I won’t call it poetry, but I can’t mock them. That’s what he’s saying, isn’t he? His heart has spoken.’
‘Did he say that? Did he ask you to give it to me?’
‘No, he didn’t say anything. He just pushed it into my hands and walked away. It was the last time I ever saw him.’
Closing her eyes, Satya felt her whole body flush with a tingling, burning sensation, numbing her legs and stomach. The creeping ache in her chest was a sign: it was time to depart, to run away, to disappear. Deep down a voice told her that she had to tell Anjana the truth, that a secret had to be opened, and reality had to be laid bare: now was the time to explain everything.
But as she folded the letter along its creases and carefully pushed it into the sleeve of Misty Blue as if it was something she truly cherished, Satya could not say a word, for she despised her companion now. The letter would uphold tradition, separating friends whenever it exchanged hands; this would be the last time they would ever set eyes on each other, she decided, planning her excuses for her sudden departure. Glancing at Anjana one last time, she wished herself away.
