The Stolen Girl (16 page)

M
y darling Diya
,

1) When you were seven months old, you fell ill. You had a temperature, diarrhoea, the works. Your cry reverted back to being the mewl it had been when you were just a few days old. Your cheeks were flushed and inflamed.

I was beside myself. I hadn’t registered at the surgery. We had fake papers but I did not want to put them under scrutiny just yet. It was early days. I told myself that if you did not get better within the next two days, I would take you to the doctor, risk being damned.

That night, you wouldn’t settle; you kept opening and closing your mouth, chomping on my hand, and I could feel the hot, desperate heat of your tender gums. I held you in my arms and prayed to a God I hoped had not forsaken me after what I did. I bartered and bargained with him – what I did, I did out of love for you, you see, and it would be fitting punishment if God took you away from me.

As dawn chased night away and light inveigled itself into the dark room, the air weary and thick, weighted down with illness and fear, I made up my mind. I was going to take you to the doctor. If we were caught, that was fine. Your life was, had always been, more important than what would happen to me, to us.

And then, as I stood up, you opened your mouth and I saw it. A sliver of white poking from between the sore red gums at the centre of the bottom palate, looking like the moon trying to part the curtain of sky at twilight.

I laughed, I cried. I held you close, rocked you and then rushed out with you to buy a teething ring. You improved as soon as the tooth pushed through and after that, with the other teeth it was easier, perhaps because I knew what to expect.

2) You walked when you were one and a bit, tottering steps – your goal: me. I had put you down on the mat in the living room, where I could keep an eye on you as I cooked. I was frying onions for our supper, the smell of spices and busyness, sweat plastered to my face, the sheen of steam, and I felt this grip on my sari. I looked down and it was you, standing upright and smiling at me! You had walked across the room and into the kitchen, all on your own and I had missed it!

I screamed with delight, lifted you up, twirled you around. ‘Show me,’ I said, setting you down, kissing your fragrant cheek.

And you had toddled on jelly legs that managed to hold you up, just; you had teetered like a haphazard stack of books and you had stumbled like a cute little pygmy, drunk on exhilaration, right into my arms. Drunk on love and happiness, that’s what I was. And pride. I was so proud of you, my love. So very proud.

I still am.

3) When you were two, the gibberish you were speaking, which always, nevertheless, made absolute sense to me, transformed by magic into words. And once you started speaking, once you discovered the marvel of words, you were off and there was no stopping you.

It was a time of miracles, the first and foremost being that we had done it. We had run away to a strange country, breaking so many laws, and we had survived beyond that crucial first year. You were now officially a toddler and you seemed content. I used to watch you all the time, right up until the inevitable happened and we were separated, to see if what I did had affected you. Everything you did, I compared with what literature was available. Was it normal? Were you happy?

If you had a nightmare, I would worry that perhaps it was the trauma that you had experienced manifesting itself in your sleep.

‘What was the scary dream about, darling?’ I asked as I rocked you in my arms, trying not to let my worry colour my voice, your breath coming in gasps of remembered sobs.

‘A snake.’ You hiccupped.

My heart stilled. A snake? Definitely something about India, then. What did it represent?

‘Huge one. And it came close, opened its fangs, hissed at me and then swallowed me whole.’

I closed my eyes, the snake of panic gripping me and swallowing me whole. ‘I know it is hard, but try not to think about it, Diya,’ I said, thinking, the blind leading the blind. I was trying to reassure my daughter and I was terrified, possessed by the snake of apprehension. ‘There are no such snakes in England, I promise.’

I held you until you fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion in my arms.

Afterwards I spent ages looking up references about snakes in dreams, obsessing about what your nightmare meant, what your subconscious was trying to communicate to you. I couldn’t settle, convinced that the trauma you had experienced was taking its toll; that this was the beginning.

Sometime in the early hours of dawn, I stumbled to the loo and found, lying open beside the seat, the book you were reading. It was all about snakes! And it was open to the page on pythons, replete with pictures, fangs wide open. I sobbed in sheer relief, sitting there on the toilet seat for what seemed like hours.

You had so many nightmares. You were prone to them. I suppose that comes from reading everything in sight; it fosters an overactive imagination. I painstakingly researched every single nightmare, searching for evidence of what was going on in your subconscious, worrying about whether you were really as happy and as settled as you looked.

4) My next test was enrolling you in school. I would miss you terribly, but you were ready.

That first day, you cried, holding on to my sari. But you came back out skipping happily. You had had such fun, as I knew you would.

For days, I waited for a phone call, for the police to turn up, but the false papers did their job. I breathed easier after that.

You enjoyed school. You loved studying. The other children – not so much. They made fun of your weight and of the fact that you loved to learn. But you took it in your stride. I did not even know you were being bullied until some years later when I was called in because of an essay you had submitted in which you described what you were going through.

When the head teacher called, I thought, this is it. They’ve found out.

They had – not about what I had done but about what was being done to you. ‘Please always let us know if you have any concerns, Ms Bhat. We’re here to help.’

I went home on teetering legs, unable to stomach the thought of you hurting, of you going through so much and me not knowing. And I thought I had been observant. What else had I been missing? What kind of mother was I?

I waited all day, not going to work, pacing up and down, and you were shocked to see me home so early when you walked in, the shock replaced almost instantly by joy.

You had flung yourself at me and I had held you in my arms, relishing as always the feel of you, breathing in your scent, chips and that flowery deodorant you had taken to wearing and something musty, uniquely you.

‘You didn’t go to work?’ A question in your voice.

‘The head teacher called me in,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know you were being bullied. How long has it been going on?’

A shadow fluttered briefly across your face. ‘Oh that. Mum, it’s nothing.’

‘Really? The teachers don’t seem to think so and neither do I.’

We had talked late into the night. You assured me you were fine. You said you were happy and I believed you. I had no recourse. You seemed happy, content with your lot. But the guilt that was always hovering reigned supreme. Would you have been bullied if you were brought up in India? Perhaps you wouldn’t have been overweight there. You would have had people to look after you, feed you when you came home from school, proper food, not a lone mother who worked long hours to make ends meet, who wasn’t around enough.

Lord, I thought for the hundredth time, what have I done?

You had turned then, in your bed. ‘Mum?’

‘Diya, why aren’t you asleep? You have school tomorrow.’

The thought of school and what it would bring for you petrified me.

‘Go to sleep, Mum. Stop fretting. I am fine.’

‘I love you, darling, you know that?’

Someone banged on the door of the flat opposite.

‘I do, Mum. I love you too. Now sleep. Go on.’

Was my love enough? Had I done the right thing? I asked myself that every single day and I asked it again that night, as the door being slammed shut in the flat opposite reverberated through our flimsy walls. And as usual my heart said yes. If I had not done what I did, you would not have been mine. You would not have looked at me like you do, with love singing out of your eyes. You would have loved me, perhaps, but not like I wanted you to. And yes, I was selfish, incredibly so, but for once in my life I did what I wanted, what my heart was urging me to do.

The question I am afraid to ask is, are you the one who has paid the price, Diya? Have you been paying all your life? This is the question that has kept me awake many nights and still does. Have you? I hope not, Diya. I sincerely hope not. I hope my love was, has been, enough.

5) Sometime in the first year of school, your accent changed. The words that fell out of your mouth were perfect, polished, like precious stones tinkling against glass. You spoke like they did on television and on the radio. And I was glad. Now, you couldn’t be claimed by another country, another life. You were English; if people couldn’t see it, at least they could hear it.

Even though I can read and write competently in English, I speak in that slow, careful way people with English as a second language do. I thought you would be ashamed of me, ashamed of this woman, with her frayed saris and her long drawn out vowels. But you never once corrected my pronunciation, my darling, like the other Asian mums at the restaurants I worked in grumbled that their children did. You accepted me as I am. You seemed just as proud of me as I was, as I am, of you.

Diya, this sanctioning of the DNA test is taking longer than I expected. The legal wheels are taking their time to turn but they are turning and this will be sorted and we will be together soon, I hope.

I love you more than you can fathom. You are my life.

Mum

L
ove

Noun:
a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child or friend.

Verb:
to have a profoundly tender affection for (another person).

I
stuff
Maltesers and pretzels mindlessly into my mouth, the saltiness of the pretzels counteracting the bittersweet explosion of chocolate and the memories associated with it. This car, Jane beside me, tired eyes fixed on the road ahead, the familiar smell of sweat mingled with flowery perfume, is like a second home now. I chew and crunch and swallow and try to think of nothing. It is difficult.

I have armed myself with snacks for the car journey to battle the nervousness, the queasiness I had been feeling all morning, that persisted after lunch and built up to a crescendo by the last class of the day. I had purposefully walked to the vending machines and used up the last of my change on any rubbish I could lay my hands on, punching in any code, not really caring what dropped down the machine into the slot.

I didn’t know what else to do, except to turn to the one thing that used to offer comfort up until recently. I needed a crutch to while away the long agonising minutes of journey eating up the distance between me and the woman, until now a shadowy figure looming in the wings, like the threat of a monster used to scare an impressionable child into good behaviour.

I don’t really want the snacks; my dependency on food has disappeared sometime during the week. No amount of food can fix the broken bit of me, the bit that tore irrevocably when my mother was taken from me and the certainty of who I am was destroyed.

I stare out of the window at the landscape hurtling past and feel the rush of bile flooding my mouth, the bitter green taste of envy making me nostalgic for a life that isn’t mine. What wouldn’t I give to be one of the teenagers congregating outside the corner shop, smoking and messing about; the dog walker whistling, the dog straining at the lead; the young girl conversing with the old woman outside the grocery store; the woman texting while waiting at the bus stop, her fingers flying over the keys; the group of girls laughing and nudging each other at the sight of a fit young man.

I take a sip of the milkshake Lily brought in for me, and the comfort I have been after, elusive as the glimpse of the moon on a stormy, overcast night, floods through me, calming my insides. It allows me to think of school and it is a relief to settle my nervous mind on that rather than on what will happen at the end of this journey and the woman waiting there for me.

I never thought I would say this but school was wonderful today, a release from the oppressive atmosphere at Farah’s house, in Jane’s car. Not that Farah and Jane aren’t nice, but being with them is like eating chocolate and being transported instantly to the evening my mother was taken away from me. Both are very kind, caring people and yet…they are there in place of my mother and that makes all the difference.

I woke up this morning after a restful sleep, happy dreams about Mum and me, and for the first time since that horrible morning after, I thought I was waking up in my own bed in our flat. I turned to smile at Mum and of course she wasn’t there, the pallid, soulless wardrobe standing in her stead. I was ready in two minutes flat, downing cornflakes mindlessly, and was waiting outside when Jane’s car pulled up in the driveway in a screech of tyres on gravel, the sound, I imagined, like the nails of a monster gouging soft human skin.

When I got to school, Lily was waiting with the posse of friends I seem to have attracted because of my notoriety. As I approached, she held something out to me. A Rolo milkshake.

‘I couldn’t have a milkshake without getting one for you. I know this one’s your favourite. We can ask the dinner ladies to keep it in the fridge for you to collect when you leave.’

I was so overcome I couldn’t find the words to thank her so I gave her a hug instead.

Nobody bullies us now or calls us names, but even if they had, I wouldn’t have cared. Nonetheless I must admit that it’s nice to be one of a group and not singled out. Of course some of them talk about me, whispering into their cupped hands, stopping and eyeing me curiously when I walk past – after all, I am the kid who was stolen as a baby – but it doesn’t bother me as much as it would have done before.

And for a brief while today, in English as we read
Macbeth
, I was able to forget myself, despite the butterflies, the flutters of anticipation at meeting with this woman, despite the worry of whether my plan would work. I was able to absorb myself in the story, to lose myself in the woes of Lady Macbeth and overlook, for a brief moment, my own woes.

‘Well, here we are,’ Jane says, switching off the engine, and I realise that, as I have been lost in my musings, the car has pulled to a stop in front of a Holiday Inn.

I stare at the steps, the awning, the polished amber of the reception desk, the glinting lights shedding pools of gold, applying a gilded sheen to even the most ordinary of things – the wooden arm of a chair, the sour face of the porter – and I am ambushed by panic.

I look up at the twinkling illuminated squares of windows and wonder if the woman is standing at one of them, a dark silhouette, her gaze piercing the darkness, seeking the daughter she is meeting after thirteen years, the daughter I am still hard-pressed to believe is me.

I busy myself brushing the crumbs off the skirt of my unflattering school uniform, gulp in several breaths of the stale air inside the car. It tastes bitter, of flowery car freshener and nerves.

A soft hand on my shoulder, like silken cobwebs brushing. ‘It will be okay. She just wants to see you, Diya. She loves you, remember that.’

I brush away the sudden tears, glad I am looking down at my lap. I swallow past the lump in my throat.
You love me too, Mum. You love me but you are in a prison somewhere and I am here, sitting in a strange car that in the past week has morphed into the most familiar thing in the world, the little puppet dancing from the front mirror my friend. I am afraid to get out of this safe cocoon, Mum, afraid to meet her. What if I get one glimpse and I recognise something in her, that elusive, intangible something that binds us to each other? What if I am drawn to her and go to her arms and forget all about you, about my plan to save you? What if I change into a Diya I don’t recognise, transform into Rupa, perhaps, the Rupa I was meant to be in another life with her as my mother? I don’t want that, Mum. I love you. I am doing this for you. I am going to plead with her for you. That terrible evening, Mum, you said that you wish there had been some other way. I wish that too. I wish it was you I was meeting. I would run out of here in a heartbeat then, run straight into your waiting arms. I wish it was you.

Jane gets out, a blast of freezing air invading the warm car. She walks round to the passenger side, opens the door for me, holds out her hand. I look at her soft pink skin, framing nails bitten to the quick, and I jump out without taking it. I walk swiftly towards the entrance without looking back as she shuts the door, locks the car and follows.

I am shaking in the elevator, like the last leaf clinging to a denuded tree at the fag end of autumn, trembling as we walk down the cramped, dark, endless corridor reeking of trapped smoke and a faintly medicinal odour reminiscent of hospital.

Jane comes to a stop in front of number 214 and knocks twice. I resist the urge to hide behind her. 214 used to be my old locker number. Is that a good sign?

As we wait for the door to open, I stare out at the gloomy February evening framed by the scratched glass of the window at the end of the corridor. Black clouds frown from an irate thunderous sky that wears an inky purple frown, cars shiver in the car park, frosted windows gleaming. Street lamps shine wearily, their dirty yellow glow not nearly enough to pierce the darkness, silhouetting unsteady slants of weak grey rain drunk on sleet and ice.

Soft footfalls on the other side of the flimsy door, painted snowy cream, paint peeling at the hinges. I picture the soles of the woman’s shoes whispering secrets, exchanging confidences with the tired hotel carpet, trying to perk it up with gossip.

And then, while I am still trying to prepare myself, the door is swung open.

The woman standing there, her hand on the doorknob, her gaze flitting past Jane, settling on me and away again, is tall and extremely thin, so slender as to be insubstantial. She reminds me of a naked winter tree stripped of the protection of foliage, sans the willowy grace afforded by branches. A horizontal, colourless stalk. I worry that if she so much as sighs, or if Jane opens her mouth and blows, she will disappear. Skin stretches over the bones of her face, like a dress a size too small straining over a body unwilling to be contained. High cheekbones, sunken cheeks, a small pursed mouth, worn-out black eyes, thin lanky hair falling in a listless dark cloud around her gaunt face. Nothing in her features I recognise. Would her nose be mine if it was fleshed out a bit? Do I see myself in her weak brown eyes, in the shape of them, wide at the centre and tapering upwards at the ends? She would have been beautiful once, I think, when she was a bit more filled out perhaps, with some flesh to give substance to the bones, some curves to soften the harsh angles.

Her gaze swoops on me, then darts beyond as if she is looking for someone else, and then, slowly, almost unwillingly it seems, flutters on me again. A puzzled expression haunts her eyes. They look trapped, the pupils agitated, and she keeps looking beyond me as if she is hoping for someone else to appear in my stead. Something flashes across her face, an expression I cannot read. Her gaze shifts to Jane as if she has wearied of looking at me. I have the feeling I have disappointed her in some way. I suck in my stomach, push my shoulders back and stand straight and tall like my mother taught me. My mother…

She raises one hand to her cheek, pats it as if she is offering comfort to herself and I notice a slight tremor to her fingers. I realise she is nervous and that gives me courage. She still will not look at me, perusing the floor instead, watching her feet as they shuffle and scuff, the soft whisper of heel on carpet.

She stands there nervously, not saying anything, not inviting us in, the three of us clustered around the door to number 214, a little tableau – two squat, chubby shrubs and one tall twig – until at last I ask, ‘Am I not what you expected?’ and she startles at the sound of my voice.