The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q (35 page)

To my credit, I paused for the longest time before I gave my answer.

‘Yes.’

‘Then come home, and let’s look for it.’

N
eville’s Beamer
, parked outside our house, was empty. Maybe he’d walked down to Streatham High Street to get a bite to eat. I entered the garden gate, walked down the path, turned the key. The moment I entered the house I knew something was wrong, and two steps later, standing in Gran’s threshold, I knew.

Neville and Norbert were both there, demolishing Gran’s room, inch by inch. They had moved all the furniture over to one corner and had pulled up the carpet in another. All enmity put aside, they now worked in brotherly unity; right now they were searching her photo album trunk. Neville sat on the floor beside the open trunk. He had an album in his hand, the one with the Quint family photos. He had taken out half the photos; they lay in a heap beside him. I caught him in the act of removing the next photo, turning it over to check its backside. Norbert was doing the same with a newer album. They obviously hadn’t heard my key in the lock, so intent were they on snooping. Incongruously, they were both dressed as if for the office, in suits and ties and – horror of horrors – laced-up shoes. It was the shoes that did it. They summoned Mum’s spirit, and lent me her words. I yelled into the silence:

‘What in the name of ten million suns are you two doing?’

They looked up, guilt written all over their faces.

‘Ahhh ... hello Inky,’ said Norbert. He jumped to his feet and put on the loving long-lost uncle act. ‘Great to see you again! We just decided to continue the search … we see that you’d already started, at least that’s the conclusion we’d jumped to, seeing as how you’d emptied the closet, and …’

‘How’d you get in the house?’

‘I happen to have a key,’ said Norbert. ‘When I came earlier this year I had a copy made; after all, you never know.’

Rage welled up in me, all the frustration and helplessness accumulated over the long empty hours of waiting suddenly finding a new form, a new energy in which to exit my body. I wanted to lash out at them both, scream and pummel them. It lasted less than a second. My knees buckled under me and I almost fell. Instead, I grasped for the door jamb for support, swayed a little and then steadied myself. I said nothing. What could I say? It was wrong for them to enter the house, wrong to start searching Gran’s room, but who was I to talk? I had led the search party.

‘Are you all right, Inky? You look exhausted.’ That was Neville. Big bad Neville, who’d never spoken a friendly word to me in his life, all of a sudden solicitous.

I nodded, suddenly aware of my exhaustion. ‘I hardly slept at all last night. I just want to …’

‘You need some sleep. Why don’t you run off to bed.’

I waved my hand towards the mess in Gran’s room.’

‘We can’t leave it like this. Put everything back the way it was. Mum’ll be furious. And Gran … Gran …’

‘What about her? Has she woken up?’

And that was what woke
me
up. Neville’s question sharpened my groggy mind. I looked up, met his eye, and I saw not the arrogant bully I’d always known but a frightened child, a naughty little boy who had done something wrong behind Mummy’s back, and feared the consequences. Coward!

I’d had enough of these two idiots. They’d both raced here, not out of concern for Gran but because of that damn stamp. That was all they cared about. They hadn’t even asked how she was. They
wanted
Gran not to wake up, because then they could take control of the stamp – if they found it. They’d bully Mum into handing it over, and knowing Mum’s complete indifference she would, without a whimper. But first they had to find it. How could I have even
dreamt
of collaborating with them, even for a second? How could I have succumbed to Neville’s coaxing, his silky lecture about being practical and realistic? I was as bad as them, the only difference being that I felt guilty about it. And all I really wanted was for Gran to wake up and be her cantankerous old self again. I’d have given anything in the world for her to trundle in on her rollator right now and give me the tongue lashing I deserved, to flay me alive with her fury. That was the Gran I knew and loved.

‘Get out,’ I said, and my rage finally found its outlet. ‘Just get out. Both of you. Out of my house. Right now.’

‘But …’

They actually cowered before me, these two uncles of mine. They quaked before my fury, Norbert in his crisp Wall Street pin-stripes and Neville in his immaculate white shirt and Gucci tie. I took a step forward, fearless, threatening.

‘Didn’t you hear me? I said
get out.’

They edged around the room, heading for the door, their eyes fixed on me. If I hadn’t been so furious I’d have found it funny, laughed out loud. Now I was just sick to my stomach. I glanced around and saw one of Gran’s walking sticks leaning against the wall. I grabbed it, waved it at them. They edged backwards through the doorway.

‘Inky, listen …’

‘How dare you! How dare you come in here and mess around in Gran’s room. How dare you! You haven’t even asked how she is. What kind of monsters are you? What kind of – of – of …’ I searched for the perfect word but all I could come up with was my old staple. ‘What kind of bloody
wankers?’

They were in the hall now, edging backwards towards the front door, me herding them out with the stick raised aloft.

‘At least tell us where she is, which hospital!’

That was Norbert. His hand was on the door handle, though he still faced forward. He opened the door. Neville slipped through it like the slick little worm he was, but Norbert braved my wrath a second longer. He stood in the open doorway, eyes pleading for that last piece of information.

‘What hospital, Inky? Where is she?’

‘St George’s!’ I yelled, brandishing my stick like a club. Norbert flitted through the door. I slammed it behind him and collapsed against it, sinking to the floor.

After a while I got up and went to the kitchen. I was hungry.

The fridge was empty. We had not done our usual Saturday shop. I opened the freezer, pulled out a ready-meal, and stuck it into the oven.

Then I returned to Gran’s room and began the long overdue clean up.

A
n hour
later I returned to the hospital. As soon as Mum, sitting at Gran’s side, saw me, her eyes lit up. ‘Save me,’ they said, ‘from these two morons!’ Neville and Norbert didn’t even look at me; whether from shame or anger I couldn’t tell. Surely they wouldn’t have told Mum what they’d done to Gran’s room? Neville was ambling up and down the ward muttering and looking at his watch every now and then. Norbert was reading the
Financial Times
at Gran’s other side. Neither spoke. The man in the bed across from Gran was as motionless and silent as ever. He had no visitors.

I pushed a chair up next to Mum and she leant towards me. ‘No change,’ she whispered, but I could see that already. Gran lay as silent as ever, a frail and crumpled ghost of her old self. It was amazing how, without the fire of her personality to activate it, weak and insubstantial her body looked, as if the fragile remnant of life still in it would slip away at any time. And even if it didn’t, if life continued but without the force of a healthy mind – would it still be Gran? Would Gran want to live as a vegetable? I knew the answer to that. So did Mum. And I remembered the eerie prediction she had made on her very first day with us: six months to live, she had given herself. We were nearing the deadline.

The ward door swung open and a team of doctors and nurses marched up to Gran’s bed. They all smiled and nodded at Mum and me before turning their attention to Gran. Immediately, the mood among us all perked up. Neville stopped his strutting and shot up to Gran’s bedside, pushing his way into the now closed circle. Norbert slowly folded away his
Financial Times
and put on his most self-important expression. We all left the room.

The news, after the consultation, was not good. Gran could remain in this state for the rest of her life, which would, with luck, be short. She could wake up in a moment with severe brain damage, unable to function as a human being, unable to speak or even recognise us. Or she might be as good as gold.

‘What’s the probability of brain damage?’ that was Neville.

‘High, I’d say, considering her age.’ Neville and Norbert looked at each other, dismay written all over their faces. Their concern was so transparent. Gran, it seemed, would either stay in a coma until she died, or, if she did wake up, would have brain damage. Next to those two options the possibility of her being normal again, normal enough to recover the Quint and hand it over to them, were slim. And that, presumably, was all they cared about.

O
nce the medical
team had left, Neville and Norbert turned fidgety and talkative.

‘I really have to get back to New York,’ Norbert said. ‘I’ve an important meeting on Monday and I don’t want to be too jet-lagged. I guess I’ll go back to the hotel and book a flight. I left the return flight open as I didn’t know what would happen with Mummy but as it is ….’

He shook his head, an expression of deep gravitas written across his face.

‘Yes, I’ve got to get back too,’ said Neville. ‘There’s really not much I can do here. When – if – she wakes up, or, or anything, you’ll call me, won’t you, Rika.’

And then they both turned their greedy eyes on me. And I knew what they were thinking. And I knew I’d won. There was no way they could get their hot little hands on Gran’s stamp, without my help. But my triumph was short-lived. I looked at Gran, lying there oblivious to us all and to her own life. And more than anything, more than I wanted the stamp, I wanted her back. Neville spoke.

‘Aaaah, Inky, um, what happened earlier, you see, we have to be realistic. We have to be prepared. You heard what the doctor said …’

‘Go,’ I said. ‘Just go. Both of you.’ And so, for the second time that day, I threw my uncles out.

S
he ought to be exhausted
, after the hours spent at Mummy’s bedside, but sleep just would not come. The Beast was scratching at the edge of her consciousness, demanding entrance. Could she? Could she possibly?

What choice had she?

‘Rajan!’ she whimpered into the night, into the darkness of her room. ‘Rajan! Help me!’

He had never failed to come, to help. But tonight he was silent.

It had been tough, so tough, but she had found him again. She had found him in the depths of her soul: the real Rajan, the beautiful being who had led her through the tangled weeds, the thorns of adolescence, who had shown her the way out of her confusion and insecurity and heartbreak. He had shown her a different path, one of strength and courage, one that lifted her out of herself and held her straight and true: he had connected her to the earth and to the heavens and to a sense of self that was solid and sure.

And then he had died.

But there was no death.

In their final months she and Rajan had often discussed death. Rajan had been sure, so sure, that it did not exist. ‘The body dies,’ Rajan had said, ‘and falls away. But consciousness, the life that inhabits the body, lives on.’ He had no fear of death, Rajan had said.

There was the story of the sparrow, flying through a lit hall which was life on earth. Rajan had disagreed. His words had always stayed with her:

What if life on earth is actually a dark hall, he had said. What if we came from light, and return to light? What if this is the night, and real daytime comes afterwards? ‘I think we long for light, for God, for joy, because we remember it. I think the memory is slumbering deep inside us. I think it is all inside us, Rika, and all our stumbling through life is to find that light. I think we return there after we die.’

She clung to whose last words; and so Rajan was not dead. He had returned to the light, and in that light he was alive for her, and pure, and strong, and, most of all, he was with her.
Always.
And so Rika had reached out to him – and found him.

All these years Rajan had been a living presence in her soul. There he was, always. She had only to turn, turn away from her own weaknesses and problems and dilemmas; turn within, to an outstretched hand. He was an anchor, holding her steady through all the ups and downs of life.

So Rajan had lived on, whole and perfect. Love incarnate.

Rajan was an outstretched hand within her, an invisible hand she could always grasp. A silent inner hand that gave her courage when she felt fear, light when she felt dark, strength when she felt weak. Rajan lived within her. He was her silent mentor, her spiritual guide, her Guru. She clung to that hand, and it had sustained her all the years: through the ups and downs of marriage, through Eddy’s illness and his death, through the trials he had left behind. Helped her to raise Inky. She could speak to him, in silence, just as she had spoken to him when he was alive, and he had given her answers, clear, solid answers, just as he had when he was alive.
Have no fear, Rika. All is well, Rika. You are whole, and good, Rika.
She could conjure up his face, smiling, beautiful, his eyes melting with love, the way he had been that last evening before – the evening before her life had crashed in upon her.

Rajan was her anchor. He had kept her calm through every storm.

E
xcept for one memory
; that one night of the accident. The fall. The horror. She would never, ever go there, not even with a thought. It was the one horror she could not bear.

She had packaged that horror into a neat little bundle and called it ‘the Beast’, and pushed it into the darkest corner of her soul, never to think about again. Pushed it behind a thick wall, slammed the reinforced iron door shut, locked it and thrown away the key. She had sworn never to see those terrible pictures again, never relive the horror of the night her life fell apart. Rajan’s face, blood-covered – no. Never; the horror was too great. The moment a memory, a thought, slipped into the light of consciousness she pushed it away, back into its prison.

In India she had learnt the techniques; a way to master the mind, to never be in thrall to unwanted moods and thoughts, to master the darkness.
She
was in charge, in control, not the Beast. That was true independence, true freedom. She had used her techniques to keep it there. To force it back; used all her power to keep it locked away, to never again enter the light of day, the light of consciousness. Perhaps, she had thought, she had hoped, it would wither away and die.

But the Beast, the one thing she was unable to face, had lingered there in the depths. Behind the wall it lurked, in darkness. She had kept it imprisoned for thirty years. But it had brought no satisfaction. No relief. No freedom. Through all the years, all the ups and downs of married life, the joy of motherhood, the struggle for survival, it had loitered, that Beast, reminding her of its presence.
One day
, it said,
one day you must release me
.

Tonight it writhed within her, rumbled and prowled, scratched at the door of her awareness, demanding entry.

She had always known that one day, she would have to face the Beast.

That’s why she’d kept the letter.

When it first arrived, soon after Inky’s birth, it had let loose a small earthquake within her. She had told them, warned them, in that very first letter!
No mention of the past, please.
And no letters from Mummy. No contact with Mummy. Not yet. She couldn’t talk to Mummy, or write to her. Not yet. Mummy was too close to the Beast. She couldn’t deal with Mummy.

And, now here was a letter from Mummy and obviously, it would be about the Beast: Mummy would be asking for forgiveness, or some such thing. She couldn’t deal with that. Or could she? She had turned to Rajan, and he had smiled back from within and said, silently,
One day you have to go there, Rika, back to that night. Why not now?

Rajan had wanted her to open it, she’d thought at the time.
She had left the letter on the mantelpiece for a week unopened. Inky had been just a baby; her marriage had been intact.

‘Why don’t you open it?’ Eddy had asked, and Rika had been tempted: one day, she would have to face the Beast; she knew it. When she was strong enough.

But not just then. There was the baby, and the marriage, and the start of a wonderful new life.
No Beast for now
, she’d thought. Rajan was right there too, a strong presence within her, a zone of comfort and safety. It was not the time for unpleasantness. So she had shoved the letter into that Ikea storage box and left it to brew. For years. Eighteen years, while she gathered the strength she would need to one day release the Beast, to face it with courage. Let it out of that mental dungeon and into the light.

She had thought the way to do that was to put the past firmly in the past and forgive Mummy. To melt the ice between them, break the silence. Forgiveness was the first step. So when Marion had tentatively mentioned that she had to go to Canada and Mummy needed care, Rika had taken the plunge.

‘Send her to me,’ she had said to Marion.

But it hadn’t worked out. The moment Mummy stepped into that Arrivals Hall at Gatwick the whole plan fell apart. It was as if she and Mummy had stepped back in time: back to that bickering, mutual resentful state. Needy teenager, bossy mother; that’s what they were, all over again. Would they never break out of it? She had pushed the Beast back into its dungeon.

And now Mummy lay on a hospital bed and she might die or stay in a coma for the rest of her life, and it was
all her fault.
Just as it was all Mummy’s fault, back then.

Rajan! Help me! What should I do? What can I do?

Nothing. No answer. She was helpless, and all alone. Rajan stayed silent, as if he had nothing more to say.

She could read the letter now. Could she?

What a time to release the Beast! It was a bad time, the worst! Mummy in hospital with her head all bandaged up! Mummy’s head shattered, just like Rajan’s, back then! She couldn’t!

Do it,
Rajan said.
Read the letter.
She could hear him as clearly as if he were in the room with her, speaking out loud.

Read the letter.

Yes. It might be a bad time, but it was the right time.

Dawn was just breaking when Rika got up, had breakfast, and prepared herself for the day. She opened the cabinet door, slid out the Ikea box. The letter lay on the top. She picked it up, pushed it into her handbag, and slid out of the house without waking Inky.