Beautiful Beast (Gypsy Heroes) (18 page)

I take them and lie back in terrible pain.

SHANE

We have a bitter north-westerly wind coming off the sea today.

The cat is curled up and I’m about to do the same for the afternoon.

I knew she was gone even before I got to the flat. I guess I knew from the moment she did not answer the phone. I open the door and the sound of silence is deafening. A pressing sensation of heaviness lodges itself in my chest. I walk to the kitchen table and there is a letter there. I leave it where it is and go out onto the balcony. I sit on a chair and, lifting my legs up, rest my crossed ankles on the railing.

I light a cigarette and take a long drag. Warm smoke fills my lungs. I blow the smoke out slowly. I don’t think. I just smoke. When I’m done, I kill the cigarette and go back into the kitchen.

I pick up her letter and read it. Her writing is delicate and neat. Just like her.

Hey Shane,

Before I go, I wanted to say it was fun while it lasted, and that I really enjoyed myself with you. You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever met.

I want to thank you for trying to help me, but more important than that, I want to thank you for bringing me back from the dead. If you had not come into my life … I don’t even want to think. You were like a lone star shining brightly on a dark night.

Anyway, I am returning to India today. In the end, that is my home. I will be safe there.

Take good care of yourself and thank you again, for everything. I’ll never forget what you did for me.

Best,

Snow

p.s.

Nothing was a lie. I meant every word I said to you. Every breathless word. 

I let the letter flutter down to the table surface, and go into my bedroom. I sit on the bed and, taking her pillow, bury my face in it. I inhale deeply and let the smell of her hair fill my brain. I should have known last night that she was not asleep. I was too caught up in my plan.

How can she go to India? She has no money.

And then a reluctant smile comes to my lips. She
had
money put away. Good girl. And though it cuts like a knife that she has gone, I am glad that she is out of harm’s way. The best place for her at this moment is to be far away.

I put the pillow down and look at my watch. In three hours I have a meeting with Lenny. I’ll get her back. This is just temporary.

Whatever it takes.

Beware…

Of my hunger

And my anger

                              - Mahmoud Darwish

SHANE

H
e sits behind his desk, a cigarette between his lips, and squints at me. Cigarette smoke rises between us. His hand moves and the sickening gleam of white makes me think of him touching her body, and in a flash, before I can stop my thoughts, they have run on like stallions in heat. Him on top of her. Her on her hands and knees, and him pushing into her pussy. His ugly fingers digging into her little bottom as he slams into her. My gut twists with the kind of raw, tearing jealousy I have never experienced before. I want to fucking shatter the smug bastard’s jaw.

He looks at me expressionlessly. ‘What do you want, Eden?’

‘You already know what I want,’ I say coldly.

He laughs, a short bark of disbelief. ‘You’re one cocky cunt. You think you can come in here and ask for my woman and I’ll just hand her over to you? What do you think she is? A cheap bottle of whiskey that I can pass on to you? Huh?’

‘She’s not your woman,’ I say calmly.

‘If she’s not my woman, then what the fuck are you doing here asking for my blessing to keep on fucking her?’

‘I’m here because you’re a cunt, Lenny.’

His eyes flash, but his voice is polite. ‘You’re Jake’s kin so I’ll ignore that insult, but I suggest you stop right there. This is going to get ugly real soon and before you know it, it’ll be outright war.’

I push my chest out. ‘She doesn’t love you.’

‘My jacket doesn’t love me. But it’s mine and I use it whenever I please.’

His sneering tone and his choice of words are calculated to infuriate me. I unclench my hands. He will not get to me.

‘Well, she is not a jacket. She’s a woman, and she can decide who she wants to be with.’

‘Let me tell you why she belongs to me,’ he says conversationally, as if he is telling an amusing little anecdote. ‘When she crawled up to me and begged me to help her, her entire body was covered in bruises and bite marks. There were grip marks on her cheeks where they held her face and fucked her mouth. They had filled her belly with their semen. When she vomited I saw it. Globs of it.’

My face whitens and he sees it.

‘Awww … I’ve upset the pretty boy. Well fuck you. Her anus was bleeding. She used to scream when she went to the toilet. Her cunt was so swollen she couldn’t walk straight for days. She was like a mute child for weeks. I took care of her. I ran the bath and fucking bathed her, asshole.’

He stops and tilts his face upwards.

‘She’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming and thrashing, reliving it all. Sometimes she didn’t recognize me. She was half mad. One day she ran down the street in the middle of winter stark naked. I ran out after her, tackled her to the ground, and brought her back. I won’t tell you the rest of the stuff I went through with her. She was a broken bird. Totally helpless. I could have done anything I wanted with her, but I never touched her for months. So don’t come here with all your youth and arrogance and pretend you know how to take better care of her just because you fucked her a few times. Because you fucking don’t. You don’t know what we’ve gone through together.’

He laughs bitterly.

‘For the first time in my life I felt pity for another creature. She moved something in me. They say that everyone, even the worst killer, has a divine spark in him. She touched that spark. She made me good.’

For some strange reason I actually believe he is telling the truth. That at some level he cares for her. ‘If you truly care for her then give her your blessing. Let her be happy.’

‘With you?’

‘Yes, with me.’

He leers. ‘Why? Because you like the taste of her pussy? Eh?’

My jaw clenches. ‘Don’t talk about her like that.’

‘Look at you. You think you’ve got it all figured out. You think it’s a fucking song taking care of her? Are you ready for the flashbacks? Are you ready to be sitting in the middle of a classy restaurant as she freezes up like a fucking statue, or worse for her to start screaming her head off for no goddamn reason? Are you ready to chase her naked body down the road in the dead winter? Are you ready for her to start sobbing while you’re fucking her?’

The desire to sock him one hard, so hard he’ll never be able to talk again, is so strong I have to clench my fists and force myself to stand still. I take a deep calming breath. I will not let him rile me. No matter what, I have one objective and I’m not going to let anything stand in the way.

‘I’m not here for relationship advice, Lenny.’

‘You’re a young punk. What do you know about relationships? Do you think I don’t know about you? Tell me, what’s the longest a relationship has lasted with you?’

‘She’s different. In exactly the same way she touched that spark in you, she touched something in me too.’

He laughs with suppressed fury. ‘Yeah, I’m sure you believe that too.’

‘It doesn’t matter what you think,’ I say quietly. ‘I’m not here to convince you of anything. I’m here for the videotapes.’

‘What videotapes?’ he asks, but I see the furtive gleam in his eyes that he is unable to hide fast enough.

‘The videotapes that show every occupant in the lift getting off on the second floor of your hotel.’

‘What makes you think such videotapes exists?’ he asks slyly.

I look at him steadily. ‘You forget we know the same people. Everybody knows you have surveillance in your lift.’

He looks at me calmly. ‘The tapes are my property. As is Snow.’

‘You should have handed those tapes over to the police. It’s an obstruction of justice.’

His eyes turn mean. ‘Are you threatening me, boy?’

‘No, I have less incentive to give the tapes over to the police than you have. I want those men.’

His eyes glitter. ‘Revenge. Yes, I thought about it. But it seemed like a wasted effort when I already had the bird in my hand. In a way I owed them thanks.’

‘Just give me the fucking tapes. You got no use for them.’

He shakes his head. ‘You have a lot of balls coming here asking for this, asking for that. Who the fuck do you think you are?’

I’m done playing with this fuck. There is only one way to deal with a psychopath. And it’s not by expecting empathy or giving it. The only way is to yank their greed chain. ‘You know the sweet deal you cut in Amsterdam?’

His eyes are suddenly sharp.

‘That’s my deal. You get any ideas about not playing along and I’ll pull the rug from under you. The Russians will be down by two million euros and guess who they’ll be coming after? How many breaths do you think you can take before they catch up?’

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.

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.