Finding Arun (4 page)

Tears had welled up in Arthur’s eyes, and though it
was the first time Aaron had ever seen him cry, he had little
sympathy for the old man.

‘I didn’t understand what she was talking about. I
told her that we were happy, that we both loved her very much and
that she didn’t have to be sorry for anything,’ cried Arthur, now
weeping openly. ‘She asked me to make her a promise. Of course I
agreed, you know that I would have done anything for your
mother.’

‘What did she make you promise?’ demanded Aaron.

‘You have to understand, Aaron. She had been saying
so many utterly ridiculous things, it was difficult to know if she
was speaking the truth or if she even meant the things that she was
saying.’

‘What did she make you promise?’ Aaron repeated,
growing increasingly impatient.

‘She … she made me promise to tell you that Kalpana
was alive. That Kalpana was alive and that she wanted to see you …
and that she was sorry. Sorry for lying to you.’

Aaron felt his blood begin to boil again.

‘Why didn’t you tell me this as soon as I got home?’
he hissed through gritted teeth, trying hard to maintain his
composure.

Arthur lowered his head.

‘Because … because I still didn’t believe her.’

‘HERE you go mate, get that down you.’

‘Thanks,’ mumbled Aaron sleepily.

It was the fourth night in a row that he had slept
on Jez’s sofa, and the fourth morning in a row that Jez had woken
him with an over-stewed cup of tea. Ordinarily he might have
complained, but since his friend had put him up without asking any
questions, Aaron felt obliged to politely accept the lukewarm
drinks without comment. Following Arthur’s shameful confession in
the kitchen, Aaron had stormed out and headed straight for Jez’s
house. He was furious at his father’s deliberate disregard for his
mother’s dying wishes, a trait that, ironically, it seemed he’d
picked up from Catherine herself. He couldn’t stand the thought of
spending another moment in Arthur’s company and he knew that the
old man would never think to look for him there. He wasn’t sure
that Arthur even knew where Jez lived.

The two boys were old friends who had schooled
together until Jez had eschewed the idea of A levels and swapped
degree prospects for DJ’ing and drug taking. It was a decision that
had seen him promptly cast out of the village’s elitist social
circles and rendered his mother the subject of idle gossip and
pitying looks. Aaron’s parents had tried to discourage their
friendship, fearful of the influence that Jez might have on their
son, but Aaron had always admired Jez’s determination to carve out
his own path in life and as a consequence they had remained good
friends.

‘So?’ said Jez, lighting up a cigarette as he joined
Aaron on the sofa.

‘What?’

‘Are you gonna tell me what's going on?’

‘I was hoping we could just skip over that,’ replied
Aaron glumly, drawing a deep sigh. He pulled himself into a sitting
position and curled the duvet around his shoulders for warmth,
‘it’s kind of difficult to explain.’

‘Look, mate,’ said Jez, clouds of smoke billowing
from his nostrils, ‘I’m not being funny, ‘cause I know that you’re
going through a bit of a rough time with your mum and stuff, but
you’ve been acting proper weird these last few days.’

Aaron instantly stiffened at Jez’s words,
momentarily astonished to discover that he knew about Kalpana,
before realising that she wasn’t the mother he was referring
to.

‘You don’t have to tell me anything. In fact, I’d
just as soon as not know what’s wrong, but my mum will be back
tomorrow and you know what she’s like. She’ll be asking all sorts
of questions; can’t even get her to stay out of my own bloody
business, never mind keeping her nose out of yours.’

Despite himself, Aaron felt his lips form a faint
smile. It was the first time he’d smiled in days and it felt
good.

‘It’s my mum,’ he said finally.

‘Yeah, I guessed as much.’

‘No, I mean my birth mum. She’s alive.’

‘Flipping hell, are you being serious?’ exclaimed
Jez, springing from the sofa with such energy that he knocked over
the now cold cup of tea.

Aaron was silently grateful.

‘I wish I was joking.’

‘How do you know?’

‘She’s been writing letters to my mum for years and
Mum’s been writing back. I found the letters when I was clearing
out her study. Turns out that she didn’t die after I was born at
all.’

‘That is messed up, mate.’

‘It’s more than messed up,’ replied Aaron
bitterly.

‘Why the hell did they tell you she was dead then? I
don’t get it.’

‘Not a clue. Apparently Arthur didn’t know that she
was alive either. He says that Mum only told him the day that she
died; claims he didn’t know about the letters.’

‘
Surely he must have known
something
? You can’t keep something that huge a
secret.’

‘Apparently you can,’ retorted Aaron
sarcastically.

‘What did the letters say?’

‘They were mostly just updates, but she seemed ... I
don’t know, just really, really grateful to my mum, like she owed
her whole life to her or something. She talked a lot about what she
had been doing; I think she runs some sort of shop. Oh, and
apparently I also have a brother and a sister. She talked about
them quite a bit too, especially the boy. It sounded as though he
was recovering from something in some of the earlier letters, an
accident maybe, but she seemed really quite proud of his
achievements.’

‘Did she ask about you at all?’

‘Oh, all the time. She was always asking after me;
asking how I looked and what I liked to do, about how I was doing
at school, those sorts of things. A few times she thanked Mum for
sending her photographs too; she obviously still cared about what
happened to me.’

‘Does she know that you thought she was dead all
this time?’

‘That’s the thing, I don’t know. It’s odd that she
would ask so much about me, and that Mum would tell her everything
so freely, but that she’s never asked to see me, except for in the
most recent letters. She mentioned some kind of agreement, so maybe
she did know? She also said she’s sick, really sick by the sound of
things; maybe that’s why she’s suddenly changed her mind?’

‘This is mental, mate, what are you gonna do? Are
you gonna go and see her?’

‘I thought about it, but I just don’t know if I want
to go through all of that again.’

‘Go through all of what?’ queried Jez.

‘Getting to know someone, getting close to them,
only to lose them. It was hard enough with Mum.’

‘How can you say that? We’re not talking about just
anyone, Aaron, this is your mum. The woman that gave birth to
you!’

‘But that’s just it, Jez, she’s not my mum, is she?
We buried my mum last week. Right now I don’t even know this woman.
I never thought that I’d get a chance to meet her and I was okay
with that. Now suddenly she’s here and she’s sick; what’s the point
in going to meet her if she’s not going to be around for much
longer anyway? I think it might be easier just to leave things as
they are.’

Jez looked at Aaron disapprovingly.

‘What are you so afraid of?’ he challenged.

‘I’m not afraid of anything, I just –’

‘Just do it, mate,’ interrupted Jez, ‘otherwise,
you’ll always be wondering, trust me. If I ever found out where my
dad was, I’d be straight over there. In fact, this woman can
probably tell you about your real dad too.’

‘But maybe there’s a reason that Mum didn’t tell me
about her? Maybe she’s dangerous?’

‘If she was dangerous, why would your mum have been
writing to her?’ Jez answered coolly, raising his pierced
eyebrow.

‘No, I don’t think so. It’s too far anyhow.’

‘Whereabouts is she?’

‘India.’

‘INDIA,’ exclaimed Jez loudly, this time spilling
his own cup of tea over the arm of the sofa.

‘Where were you expecting her to be?’

‘I don’t know. I mean, I know that you’re Indian,
obviously, but I didn’t realise that you were, well you know, a
proper Indian from India.’

Aaron couldn’t stop himself as a slow smile spread
across his face and a laugh burst forth from his lips.

‘Don’t laugh, mate, I’m being serious,’ grumbled Jez
irritably.

‘Why are you so surprised?’

‘Well, because let’s be honest, it’s another world
over there, isn’t it? Those Indians are different, backwards, not
like the ones that are born here. But you’re not like them.’

‘
Oh really? And what exactly are
they
like then?’ answered Aaron
bemusedly.

Anyone else might have been offended by Jez’s
comments, but Aaron knew that they were born more out of ignorance
than malice.

‘Well they’re a bit, you know, like that family that
lives at the end of my street, the one that moved in last year.
Perfectly nice, but a bit … simple. All funny clothes and greasy
hair. I swear there are at least fifteen people living in there;
not one of them speaks English and they all stink of frying.’

Aaron laughed harder at this ridiculous portrait of
a ‘proper Indian from India’, but Jez continued on unabated.

‘
You think that I’m joking, but I’m not. Last year
my mate Raj went to visit his family in Delhi. He said it was the
worst holiday he’d ever been on. He had to share a room with two of
his brothers
and
three of his
cousins, all of them just on a mattress on the floor. They didn’t
have proper showers or toilets; he had to go in a hole round the
back of the house and wash himself from a bucket. And that’s not
even the worst of it, he –’

‘Enough, enough,’ cried Aaron, gasping between
breaths and holding his hand up to silence his friend. He had
almost been reduced to tears and now he was doubled over in
hysterics, struggling to catch his breath.

Jez lit up another cigarette and puffed on it
sulkily, seeming insulted that he was not being taken seriously,
but despite his ignorance his assertions had struck a chord with
his friend.

When Aaron’s laughter subsided it gave way to a
comfortable and contemplative silence in which he found himself
questioning everything once more. He was certain that India and
‘proper Indians’ were not as Jez had described them to be, but he
couldn’t accurately picture them. He knew little about his
birthplace, except for the fact that it was the very reason he
never quite fitted in, in London, and far from holding any
attachments to it, he had come to resent it. The Rutherfords had
never taken him back and his mother had never seemed particularly
keen to talk about or to visit the place. If anything, she had
actively discouraged it, a fact that seemed to make more sense in
light of his recent findings.

And then there was Kalpana. What did he really know
about her, except for what she had written in her letters? Was she
tall or short, fat or thin? Did they look alike? Would he recognise
her? He had often wondered about his biological mother, imagining
what kind of person she had been and what kind of mother she would
have made, but Catherine had always been reluctant to discuss her
and he had stupidly believed that it was because the memories of
what had transpired in India were too painful to relive. Instead
he’d made do with the little bits of information that he could
glean from anecdotal conversations and over the years he had learnt
to dismiss the more inquisitive thoughts just as quickly as they
had arrived.

But things were different now. Now he had an
opportunity to learn the answers to all of those questions and
more. His mother’s deceit and Arthur’s secrecy could not be
reversed, but Kalpana was still alive and he could, if he wanted,
fulfil her wish to see him. Yet something was holding him back, a
feeling deep in his gut, a relic of former beliefs and allegiances.
For all the thinking that he had done over the past few days, Aaron
still couldn’t fathom why his mother would have kept something so
important from him and, if he were to be believed, from Arthur. In
spite of everything that he had unearthed, he remained convinced
that she must have had a legitimate reason for acting in the way
that she had. A reason he was sure that she would have shared with
him, if only he’d made it home in time. Catherine Rutherford had
loved him with every bone in her body and she would have done
whatever was necessary to protect him, even if that meant keeping
him in the dark on occasion. There was something about Kalpana that
he didn’t know, Aaron was sure of it, and it was that something
that made him reluctant to go in search of her.

LEAVING Jez to his daily rituals, Aaron departed the
house for the first time since he had arrived. He walked with
purpose through the streets, a baseball cap pulled low over his
face and his chin firmly tucked into his jacket collar, in an
attempt to conceal the coarse beard that he was still yet to find
the time to shave. He knew where he was headed and rounding the
corner he spied a small petrol station that he was sure would serve
his needs. Approaching the forecourt he saw them: pink, yellow,
red, white and every colour in between. He groaned at the thought
of having to engage in decision making at such an early hour, but
then a tangerine flash caught his eye, the last remaining bunch of
orange lilies, and he knew exactly what to do.

He lifted the bunch of flowers from the bucket and,
shaking off the drops of water that had collected along the stem,
brought the flowers to his nose, allowing the familiar scent to
fill his nostrils. His mind was immediately pulled back to his
youth when his mother had scolded him for playing ball inside,
fearing that he would knock over one of the many vases of orange
lilies that she had routinely filled their house with. He smiled a
wistful, nostalgic smile as he reminisced about happier times and
momentarily forgot his current woes. This was how he wanted to
remember her, just as he had always known her, and not as the
lying, deceitful portrait that anger had painted in his mind.