Bad Boys of London: The Complete GYPSY HEROES Collection (81 page)

Lenny smiles tightly and nods. ‘Well played, boy. And you did all this for her.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you want my blessing?’

‘No, I don’t need your blessing, Lenny. I know what you are. You saw a broken bird and you didn’t take it to a vet so that it he could properly heal it, or even attempt to punish the sickos who hurt it. You just took it into your home and caged it, and hoped that it could never fly free again. And you made sure she had no friends so she had no support system outside of you. So don’t give me your bullshit about how much you loved her. You did nothing for her that was not totally selfish.’

‘She’ll be so easy to break.’

I walk up to his desk and plant my palms on the edge. I bend my body menacingly over him. ‘Try it,’ I say softly. ‘Just fucking try it and I’ll fucking burn down everything you ever built and see you in hell.’

His color changes, but he looks at me scornfully. ‘Do you imagine that I am afraid of you?’

‘You should be. I’ll tell you this just once: she’s mine now. You get in my way and I’ll break your damn neck with my own hands.’

He pushes his twisted face towards me. ‘You’re a fucking fool, Shane. You walk out of here and you’re a dead man.’

I stare at him cold-eyed. ‘From the moment I stop breathing, you become a walking time bomb. You want war, Lenny, I’ll give you war. Or you could simply give me the tapes and I’ll call us quits. You have your plum deal and I get my revenge.’

‘And the woman?’

‘Is mine,’ I state flatly.

‘And if I say no?’ His voice is calculating, probing.

‘Then it’s war and we both lose. I don’t get the girl. You don’t get your hands on those lovely millions and we both have some very pissed of Russians, but I figure they’ll be more pissed off with you than me.’

‘Get out of my office,’ he shouts angrily. A vein has popped into existence on his forehead.

‘I’m not leaving without the tapes.’

He flies up in temper and stomps over to his safe, opens it, and extracts two videotapes. They are held together with a rubber band. He deliberately chucks it on his desk in such a way that it slides on the surface and falls to the floor together with his pen. I bend down and pick both items up. Calmly, I return the pen to the surface of the table.

I meet his furious eyes. ‘Obviously, my guys will be crosschecking with your staff about the records of all the occupants of that floor on that day, and they won’t be expecting a frosty reception.’

‘You got your tapes. Now fuck off,’ he snarls.

‘I’ll see you around,’ I say as I exit his office. Outside, his minders give me dirty looks.

Thirty-five

SNOW

F
ifteen hours later, I arrive in Calcutta.

With a heavy heart, I change some money and walk out of the gleaming new Chandra Bose airport. Outside, I get into a taxi. The driver is a smiling, jolly man.

‘No bags?’ he asks in English.

‘No,’ I tell him. ‘No bags.’

I give him my address and he starts the car. He tries to engage me in conversation with inquisitive questions, but I give him monosyllabic answers, and after a while he gets the message and begins to sing to himself.

I stare out of the window at the dusty billboards, the trees I have missed, the throngs of people, and the vehicles that honk for no good reason at all, and I remember my mother’s unkind comment while I was growing up.

She said that Calcutta is like a giant mechanic’s shop. A grimy and greasy place where there is no such thing as pure white. And maybe she is right. I can see that there is no building or anyone dressed in brilliant white, but perhaps white is overrated. The heart of this city beats as strongly, or even more strongly than London.

The taxi driver stops his noisy car outside the gates of my family home, and I pay him before getting out of the cab. He drives away and I walk up to the gates. They are locked.

I stand there, my fingers gripping the metal bars as I look into the compound. The year I have been away is like a fantasy I created in my head. Nothing has really changed. What happened in the hotel room was just a nightmare. Lenny is part of that nightmare. And Shane, he is just an impossible dream.

Of course, I could never have a man like him. I just conjured him up.

I look at the green, perfectly manicured lawn, the perfectly straight flowerbeds, and as I am standing there blankly, Kupu, the gardener, comes into the garden with a hose pipe. At first he doesn’t see me. Then he looks up and does a double take. His jaw drops open in surprise and then he starts running towards me.

‘Snow, Snow,’ he shouts happily.

And for a moment my sad heart lifts. I love Kupu. This is my real family. Kupu, Chitra, and Vijaya, our cook. I have missed them. With shaking hands, he unlocks the padlock from a set of keys dangling from his tattered belt.

He opens the gate and I walk through.

He puts his palms together in a prayer gesture. His rheumy eyes are wet.

‘How’ve you been?’ I ask in Tamil.

‘I’m so glad you’ve come home. It’s not been the same without you,’ he replies sadly.

‘How is Papa and Mummy?’

‘Your papa is lonely. He’s lost a lot of weight, but he won’t go to the doctor. He spends all his time in his room watching TV.’ He drops his voice to a whisper. ‘Your brother is home.’

I sigh. ‘Thank you for the warning.’ I touch his skinny, wrinkled arm. ‘I’ll see you later, OK?’

His hands come out to grasp my hand tightly. ‘All right, child. Don’t worry, God sees everything.’

And I just want to burst into tears. God didn’t see anything. He let it all happen.

I turn away and walk up the short driveway to the portico of the house. My father’s car is in the garage. I open the intricately carved, heavy Balinese doors, and I am standing in the cool interior of my family home. But for the emptiness inside me, it is like I have never left. I walk further into the room and my brother pops his head around the side of the couch, sees me, and raises himself onto his elbow.

‘Well, well, the prodigal daughter returns,’ he says sarcastically.

I walk closer. He is flipping through a sports magazine and eating monkey nuts. He puts the magazine down. ‘Are you back for good?’

I nod.

‘Why?’

I shrug. ‘Just wanted to.’

His eyes glint with malice. ‘The streets of London are not paved with gold after all, eh?’

‘They are paved with the same gold as the streets of Kansas City,’ I retort.

He looks at me with irritation. ‘That was not my fault. Americans are just stupid.’

‘Really, all Americans?’

‘Yes, they are
all
as stupid as you are,’ he says, cracking a nut and lifting the pod over his mouth, letting them fall in.

My brother will never change. He will always be peeing on other people’s heads. I watch him chew. ‘Where’s Papa?’

‘Where do you think?’

There is no point in talking to my brother. The longer I stay the more likely it is that we will end up in a huge argument. I turn away from him and start walking towards the stairs.

‘Hey, you never said, what happened to your big dreams of becoming a teacher in England?’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Mother, obviously.’

‘I see.’

‘So you couldn’t make it there then, not even as a pre-school teacher,’ he notes gleefully.

‘No, I could not make it there,’ I say dully. 

‘You shouldn’t have bothered to come back here. There’s absolutely fuck all to do. And don’t start making plans to set up here forever either. I’m in the process of persuading Mother to sell this house and buy a smaller one for the three of us. I want to use the remainder of the money to set me up in a business.’

I go up the stairs and knock on my father’s door. Even from outside I can hear the TV turned up loud.

‘Who is it?’ my father growls impatiently.

I open the door and enter his room.

His bad tempered scowling face freezes for a second. Then he stands up and exclaims in shock, ‘Snow?’

Kupu is right. My father has lost a lot of weight. His face is sunken in and his shirt is hanging off him. ‘Yeah, it’s me, Papa.’

He fumbles around the low table in front of him for the TV remote. He mutes it and turns towards me eagerly. ‘When did you come?’

‘I just arrived.’

‘But why didn’t you let us know? Who picked you up from the airport? Does your mother know?’

‘I took a taxi from the airport, Dad, and no, Mum doesn’t know. It was a spur of the moment decision to come home.’

‘Are you all right?’ he asks worriedly.

‘Yes, I’m fine.’

‘Are you sure?’ he insists, frowning. ‘I … I mean, we … have been so worried about you.’

‘Yes, Papa. As you can see I am just fine.’

He nods a few times. ‘Come in. Come in. Come and sit down with me. Are you tired? Do you want something to eat? Vijaya can make something for you.’

I go and sit down next to him. ‘No, I’m not tired. I slept on the plane and I am not hungry. Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I am all right.’ He looks at me and sighs. ‘You left a child and you have come back a woman. It is a man, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ I whisper.

His eyes narrow. ‘Are you pregnant?’

I shake my head.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’m very sure.’

‘Thank God. Oh, thank God for that,’ he says with relief.

I find my eyes filling with tears.

‘Don’t worry, Snow.
I
will find you a good husband. You are young and beautiful. Many boys from good families will come for you. Don’t ever tell anyone about this man who cheated you. You know how it is. People will talk. The less they know the better.’

‘Oh, Papa. No one cheated me. And I don’t want you to find me a good husband. I promise I just need to stay here for a while and then I will get my own place and be out of your hair.’

‘Your own place? Out of my hair? What is this Western nonsense? You are my daughter and you will stay with us for as long as you are unmarried.’

‘Oh, Papa,’ I sigh.

He grabs my hand. ‘This is your home. As long as I am alive you have a home here. Nobody can kick you out.’ My father exhales loudly.

‘I’ve missed you, Papa.’

He nods slowly. ‘I’ve made a mess of everything, Snow. A horrible mess. Do you know that you could recognize and follow my voice from the time you were born? You would turn your big, green eyes and stare at me. But I didn’t have time for you. I was too busy. And for what? I lost it all anyway. Now I sit here in this little room and turn the TV up too loud and pretend to be bad-tempered so no one will come in. I’m an old fool.’

‘You’re not an old fool, Papa,’ I say sadly. 

‘Yes, I am. No one will know my regrets, except me. Now go and see your mother. She will be very happy to see that you have come home.’

‘I’ll see you at dinner, OK?’

‘Yes, yes,’ he says softly.

I stand up and kiss him.

I leave my father’s room and as I am closing the door I see my mother coming down the corridor. She is dressed in a housecoat. She stops mid-step. Her eyes widen.

‘Hello, Mum.’

She recovers herself and walks up to me. A year has made no difference to her. She is as beautiful and as distant as ever.

‘You look different,’ she tells me. She stares at me. ‘Something happened to you …’

I drop my eyes.

‘Something bad,’ she says.

I inhale a quick breath and meet her inquisitive gaze. ‘Yes, but I’m fine now.’

‘Tell me what happened to you,’ she says sternly.

I shake my head. ‘Oh, Mum. You know what happened to me.’ In spite of myself my voice breaks.

‘I warned you, but you’ve always been too wild, too rebellious, too clever for your own good.’ Her tone is cold and unforgiving.

And then I see it in her face. She is not sorry for me. She is glad that I have been punished. I have acted impulsively and I have been punished.

‘Is it OK for me to live here for a while?’ I ask softly.

‘Of course. Where else would you go?’

‘Thanks, Mum.’

‘I’ll go and tell Vijaya to lay an extra place for you for dinner. Why don’t you go and have a shower and freshen up? You can fill me in later. It’s been so long since I’ve been in London.’

And then she walks away. I turn to watch her go
. What have I ever done to you to make you hate me so?

I know my time here will be short. I have a little money still and I must find a way to go to the city and find a job there. I
will
make it on my own. I
can
make it on my own. I
will
become a pre-school teacher.

I think of Shane. He seems to belong to a different world. I wonder what he is doing now, and immediately I feel a tearing pain in my chest. I take his photo out and look at it.
Are you well? Are you safe, my darling?
I trace his jaw line with my finger. I stroke his body and the tears come hard.

Oh, Shane, Shane, Shane.

Thirty-six

JAKE

I
enter the smoky back room of the Chili Club, and Lenny is sitting behind his desk. I close the door and he rises and comes forward.

‘How are ya?’ he asks, pumps my hand and gestures to a chair. His friendliness doesn’t disarm me or take me off my guard. Lenny and I go back many years. I know him well. He is nicest before he sticks a knife in your back.

‘Good. You?’

He turns the corners of his mouth downwards. ‘Can’t complain.’

I sit, lean back, and watch him take his seat behind the desk. He opens a silver cigarette box and holds it out to me. Technically, I’ve stopped smoking. But I still indulge once in a while. I reach out and take one. He flips open a black lighter. I lean forward and wait for the tip of my cigarette to burn cherry bright.

‘Thanks,’ I say and leaning back, inhale deeply.

He lights his own cigarette and sits back, making his chair tip back. I watch him inhale and exhale. His eyes find mine through the haze of smoke.

‘Like old times, eh?’ he says.