The Stolen Girl (15 page)

‘You go, Lily. I have…Jane, my social worker, is picking me up. I don’t want to make her wait.’

My classmates wait for me to say more, qualify the statement with an explanation. I fiddle with my juice carton. ‘My foster carer lives quite a distance away, you see, and she cannot pick me because she’s got two boys of her own at primary school and they finish at around the same time as us.’ I am babbling but I cannot seem to stop. ‘This is just for the first few days. I’ll start taking public transport soon; I think I’ll have to take three buses to get here.’

I swallow, look down at my plate littered with the remains of my sandwich. It feels like this is the longest I have spoken since it all happened. I sit quietly in front of the psychologist, answering her questions in monosyllables, and she has taken to giving me a piece of paper now to depict my feelings. She has encouraged me to keep a diary. She has said she understands why I might be feeling tongue-tied. I had snorted then, in exasperation, I couldn’t help it. But I feel for her too, this woman with her thick glasses and owl-like, kindly eyes who is trying to do her best by me. But what can she do? What can anyone do?

I haven’t taken up Farah’s or Jane’s offer of a chat, to talk about anything, anything at all. Jane has not brought up the woman who has been searching for me since she mentioned it that day in the car – I cannot bring myself to say ‘my mother’, I cannot think of her as my mother even though I feel sorry for her. It would be a blatant betrayal of the woman who has looked after me and loved me and lived for me for thirteen years. Whatever she did, there must have been good reason behind it. ‘I am sorry it had to happen this way. At the time…’ she had said, her sigh immense, as she was led away. I ache for those easy days together, just the two of us, happy in our little bubble, nothing else intruding upon us, no outside world, no people laying claim.

The week’s gone by in a haze of tests, all of which came back fine. ‘They cannot find anything wrong with me; my mother loved me,’ I said to Jane fiercely in the car when she drove me back from the hospital for the last time, after I had said goodbye to the doctors and the kind-hearted nurse, Eileen, who gave me a picture of Bugbear, her schnauzer, and a million hugs and asked me to visit sometime, though not in similar circumstances. Eileen had smiled softly, her eyes shining. ‘You are a lovely girl, Diya,’ she had said. ‘I would take you home in an instant.’

That, there, is the problem,
I had thought.
I have one too many people demanding me for their own, and I was taken home by a person who perhaps shouldn’t have.
But she must have had a reason, I had thought immediately, knocking the previous thought away, angry at my mind for having betrayed my mother even for an instant. She must have had a reason.

Jane has not mentioned the woman again but I know she will. It will come. The woman is here, somewhere close by. She has been looking for me my whole life. She will want to meet me, I know. I just…every time I think of it, of her waiting patiently to meet her daughter –
me!
– my stomach cramps, my head aches.

It is not fair that my mother is in prison while this woman is here. I am angry at this woman for turning up, for causing all this mess. Without her claiming me, my mother would be with me and all would be well in my world.

If Mum hadn’t taken me, there wouldn’t be a mess.
I squash the thought. I cannot fathom another life with another woman as my mother. I cannot.

‘Isn’t there anything I can do? Anything I can say that can help towards her release?’ I had asked Jane on one of our journeys to the hospital. She had sighed deeply, eyes meeting mine briefly before concentrating on the road, something akin to pity shining out of them.

I don’t want your pity,
I had thought, anger flaring.

‘No, Diya, I am so sorry. It is out of our hands now,’ she had said.

‘How?’ I had yelled. ‘How can it be out of my hands?
I
am the one affected by all this. How can I not have a say?’

She had pulled over, stopped the car, put her arms around my shaking shoulders briefly before I shrugged them off.

Jane is waiting in the car park when I come out of school, the new gang I find myself a part of giving me elaborate hugs. I extricate myself, encourage Lily to have a milkshake for me and walk slowly to the car.

Jane smiles at me as she starts the engine. ‘How did it go?’

‘Fine,’ I say, fiddling with the clasp of my bag, not looking at her.

When we get to Farah’s, dusk has settled like a curtain announcing winter’s last act before spring takes centre stage, mellow golden light pooling underneath street lamps with heads ducked down like chastised children. The curtains are not drawn in the front room. I can see Farah, Affan and Zain sitting at the table; their heads bent together, their hair haloed by soft light bathing them in a supernatural glow. As I watch, Affan places his hand, palm outward on the table. Farah reaches out, lays her palm on top of his. Zain, not to be undone, lays his hand on top as well, the boys’ palms sandwiching their mother’s. And suddenly, I know what I must do.

‘Jane,’ I say softly.

She has just switched off the engine, is scrabbling about for her purse.

‘Yes?’ Her eyes, the colour of sea-splashed gravel, shining in the gloom.

A dog howls somewhere, mournfully. A car pulls up in the garage next door and a besuited man jumps out, loosening his tie, running a weary hand through his hair. The door opens and a little boy launches at him. He drops his bag and lifts up his son. The boy’s delighted laughter, his cries of ‘Higher, Daddy,’ rend the evening air, stained blue by the sorrow of the dying day and infused with the heady promise of impending night.

I never felt the lack of a father, never missed him. You were enough, Mum. Was what you told me about him, that he had died in an accident, a lie? It will be like this from now on, won’t it, me questioning every truth you ever told me? ‘You tell them, Mum,’ I had said that fateful evening when they took you away from me, but you stayed silent. One moment, one unacknowledged plea and thirteen years of truths collapse, topple around us like a house constructed of paper blown away by a child on a whim. Thirteen years of trust, destroyed as easily as an elaborate sandcastle washed away by one unruly wave. Can I believe anything you say ever again?

‘This woman you mentioned, the one who has been searching for me, she brought the charges against my mother?’

Zain tickles his mother and then both the boys are jumping on their mother, tickling her. I see Farah’s head fall backward, her eyes crinkle in laughter.

‘Yes. But, Diya, she did it out of love for you. I know it is hard, but try not to blame her.’ Jane’s voice is gentle as the breeze that whispers through the bare trees, soft as the murmur of the wings of crows flying to their nests to roost.

‘Yes, yes,’ I say impatiently. ‘She still wants to see me?’

Farah pulls the boys close, plants a kiss on each of their heads.

‘Of course she does.’ The car smells of dying engine, exhaust, Jane’s perfume mixed in with sweat, her tiredness.

‘I would like to meet her,’ I say. ‘Tomorrow.’

Farah stands up, turns and looks out of the window. The car is dark, headlights off, and yet I have the feeling she is looking right at me.

I will meet this woman and I will reason with her. I will tell her how much I love my mother. I will bargain with her, I will promise to be a wonderful daughter; I will promise her anything, anything at all, as long as my mother doesn’t have to be in prison, as long as she is not extradited and charged, as long as I know she is safe and free. So simple. Why didn’t I think of it before? I wonder as we get out of the car and walk towards the house as Farah opens the door, a little boy on either side of her, sheltered under the awning of her arms. Is she holding them or are they propping her up? When she sees me, she disentangles herself, steps forward and pulls me into a hug, even though I resist and escape at the earliest opportunity.

And for the first time since that nightmarish evening, I sleep. I dream that my mother is free, that she is smiling at me, her butterscotch eyes glowing, that we are dancing together, she in her sari, me in my jeans and sweatshirt. We dance and we laugh, her sari pallu swirling, trailing a rainbow in our wake, and our joy rings out like pealing bells and we are happy.

B
reakfast
: While I was eating my slice of toast (from a 400g wholemeal loaf – no butter), I thought once again of my girl, as I have taken to doing all the time now.

What is keeping her? If it was me, if I was told my mother was waiting to meet me, had travelled all the way from India for the privilege, I wouldn’t dally.

I have railed at the lawyer, asked him to do something. Surely I should have access to my own child? He keeps going on about how the child is undergoing huge trauma, to give her time…

‘Time! How much longer do I have to wait? Thirteen years isn’t long enough?’ I yelled.

‘There are procedures,’ he mumbled. ‘She’s had a shock, been cruelly separated from the only mother she’s known…’

‘I am her mother!’ I screeched.

Cruelly separated. Ha! Doesn’t she want to meet the mother she was cruelly snatched away from when she was a baby? What has Vani done to her to make her so…so reluctant to meet me? Has she filled my child’s head with stories, tall tales about the woman whom Vani’s always known would one day reclaim the child she stole? Did she think she would get away with this? She must have thought I would give up, sink into despair and let it claim me, like she claimed my child for her own…

A
arti sighs
, shutting the book with a frustrated thud. The food diary, which has given her such solace over the years, is not helping. She cannot concentrate on anything, cannot settle. She is so keyed up. She wants to walk to the high street, but in this present state, it would not be a good idea, she knows. Her lawyer’s voice echoing in her ears, ‘If it happens again, I will not be able to get you out as easily…’

It happened on her third trip to London. The investigator had phoned to tell her of a possible sighting in Harrow – a woman matching Vani’s description seen entering a kebab shop in Wealdstone with a three-year-old child, a little girl. Aarti had booked into a hotel near the kebab shop which was, thankfully right on the high street.

Aarti had sat glued to the window of her room looking at the flow of people below, waiting for news. It was early April and a weak sun graced the sky, casting the colourful shop awnings and the pavements glittering with the previous night’s rain in a mellow gold glow. People milled about, all colours and races, most in shorts. Just looking at them made Aarti shiver and she pulled her shawl closer around her neck, revelling in its warmth, the heating in the room turned to high, nose pressed to the window.

Teenagers pushed each other into the puddles glistening on the road. Cars moved at ants’ pace, hindered by traffic lights and speed bumps, the drivers’ eyes glazed with boredom. Near the flower shop a girl idled, checking her phone. Tall, thin, effortlessly stunning, her long blonde hair falling down the sides of her face like a shiny waterfall, iridescent in the sun. She must be a model, Aarti thought, struck by a sudden pang for bygone days, when she used to be feted and loved and admired. At the time, she had been pleased, but irritated by the constant spotlight of devotion dogging her. Now, she mused wryly, some of that dazzling adoration, the feeling of being the centre of attention, basking in the limelight, wouldn’t go amiss.

Aarti started to turn away, to ring for a pot of tea, when she saw her. A little girl holding on to a woman’s hand. About three years old. The right age.

From where she was sitting, by the first floor window, Aarti couldn’t see the woman’s face. She was turned away, haggling with a vendor who had set up shop under a blue and white striped awning, plastic containers of onions, peppers, marrows, aubergines and tomatoes jostling for space on a narrow table that took up most of the pavement. The woman was slight and stooped, clad in a sari, her head covered by a pallu like married women commonly wore in India, incongruous here. Aarti knew without a doubt that she was hiding her face, that when she whipped the pallu away Aarti would see Vani, fear glowing in her eyes. Heat rushed through her, the thrill of rage, the adrenalin-fuelled buzz of discovery. One of the few positive feelings she had felt in a long time, like the sheer blast of hope when her investigator had phoned to tell her about the lead.

Her eyes were drawn to the little girl. Huge eyes, almond, flecked with gold. A round, dimpled face, curly brown hair. Adorable. The girl looked up, and for a moment, Aarti was sure she saw her sitting there, her nose pressed to the window. The cherub held her hand out palm up, opened her little fist as if she was offering something and Aarti was convinced that the little girl
recognised
her, knew her for who she was – her mother.

And then she was running, clattering down the stairs, not bothering to close the door to her room, not bothering to wait for the lift. She was flinging herself into the street, undeterred by the blast of wind that insinuated itself around her, wrapping her in its icy embrace, chilly fingers tickling her spine which was clad in only a thin jumper.

She took huge gulps as she ran, tasting excitement and joy. She sprinted past the rush of people, her elbows digging into flesh, running on strength she didn’t know she possessed.

Please God
– she was praying to a God she had forsaken long ago, at around the same time she forsook her parents –
please.
And it seemed God listened to her prayer, because as she came to a panting, heaving halt, the little girl was still there.

The child looked up at Aarti, her expression curious, and then she smiled. Aarti squatted down right there on the wet, rain-slicked pavement and pulled the girl into her arms, breathed in the soft baby smell of her, talc mixed in with the sweetest of dreams. A brief moment of bliss, before the woman turned.

‘Hey, what are you…’ she began.

But that is as far as she got before Aarti, who had gathered the last of her resources, stood up and, with all the strength she had left, slapped the woman hard across the cheek and then, promptly, fainted.

It had taken several lawyers and several lakh rupees to get Aarti out of that one. She had apologised over and over, the circumstances had been explained and the court ruled ‘lower culpability’ and ‘isolated offence’ and ‘mitigating circumstances’. She was let off with a fine.

Afterwards, her lawyer had sat her down and warned her that this had better not happen again. ‘Would you consider stopping this? Do you have to come over every time there is a sighting?’ he had asked, his eyes soft.

In another world, at another time, she would have flirted with him, knowing there was something there, that he liked her. ‘I can’t, I can’t stay away. This is my life now. I have to know.’

He had nodded once. He understood. ‘But please,’ he had said, ‘no repeat of this. I cannot get you out as easily next time. And you cannot help anybody, cannot find your daughter if you are in prison.’

Her phone rings, startling her out of her reverie.

‘Ms Kumar?’ A crisp English voice.

‘Yes?’ she blinks, trying to get back to the present.

The lobby of the hotel, the chemical smell of bleach and artificial flowers, phones ringing in reception, a woman laughing, high-pitched, the laughter fading to a tinkle.

‘Your daughter is ready to meet you.’ The voice softening on the last word.

‘Leave that this minute, Henry, and come here at once,’ a male voice yells sharply, somewhere behind her.

She breathes in, trying to rid herself of the lightheaded feeling that seems to have swamped her, clutching the diary to her chest like a talisman.
Your daughter.

‘Shall I bring her round tomorrow after school?’

Aarti nods before realising she is on the phone. She clears her throat.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes, please,’ and floats up to her room on legs that seem to glide on air – past Henry who is still giving his tired, beleaguered father the slip – to decide what she will wear when she meets with her daughter for the first time in thirteen endless years.