Read B009Y4I4QU EBOK for Free Online Page B

“We had a
thovila
for her and everything, a
kattadiya
”—a sorcerer—“even came. We had to pay him twenty-five thousand rupees. But she is still not cured. Still mad.”

 
    W
e had left London on the night of the eighth of December. Steve and I worked from home that day. At lunchtime we drove to Muswell Hill, did some shopping. We went to the music store, Vik needed a book for the piano exam he was taking in April. We bought a Keith Jarrett CD,
The Melody at Night, With You
. We shared some chocolate cake at Oliver’s Deli. We popped into M&S because we’d been overcharged for some wine at the weekend, we’d bought three bottles but were charged for five. The cashier asked if we wanted cash back or a credit voucher. Steve said a voucher’s fine, we’ll always come back here. He put that voucher in his wallet.
    The school Christmas concert had been the previous night. It was
A Christmas Carol
. Vikram stood at the back and sang listlessly as usual. Malli sat on Steve’s knee in the audience. When they sang “White Christmas,” he sang along. His face was a picture, enchanted by the fake snow falling on the stage. Malli loved all things snowy. I must take him to see
The Snowman
at the Peacock Theatre when we get back from Colombo, I decided then. I’d seen him gasp in wonder when he saw the flying boy and snowman on TV. The next morning I booked four tickets. For the fifth of January.
    What I did for my boys never stopped. Now I have to give that all up? During those months and months after the wave, I clutched the side of my bed, reeling with this thought.
    But how do I stop searching the Web with Vik for Galápagos tortoises? How do I stop talking with him about dinosaur birds? How do I give up on Malli’s dreams of being a dancer? Or the one who puts on shows? I had only just been thinking I really must get on with teaching him to read and write, that Christmas card he made us in school said “To Mum and Bab.”
    Mum. I could hear them. “Isn’t it true, Mum … In a minute, Mum … Oww, don’t turn the TV off, Mum … My leg hurts, Mum.” I wanted to scratch out that word:
Mum
.
    The torment of wanting them when they came up close like this. I will kill myself soon. But until then, how do I tame my pain?
    I need to prise them off me. But how?
    I must stop remembering. I must keep them in a faraway place. The more I remember, the greater my agony. These thoughts stuttered in my mind. So I stopped talking about them, I wouldn’t mouth my boys’ names, I shoved away stories of them. Let them, let our life, become as unreal as that wave.
    They had become muffled and distant then anyway. This happened in those first days after the wave. I couldn’t find their faces, they quivered as ina heat haze. Even in my stupor I knew that details of them were dropping away from me like crumbs. Still, whenever they emerged, I panicked.
    I must be more watchful, I told myself. I must shut them out.
    I couldn’t always keep this up. I’d find myself tracing their outlines on my bed, remembering their sizes and shapes. They were so real, these imprints, almost warm. I wanted to fix them on those sheets, pin them down.
    But I must stop this. I must turn away from them.

 
    T
hey don’t want me to drink. Some cheek, I fumed. My relatives, of all people, hark at them, they who are always reaching for the next Scotch. Over the years, whenever my parents and my aunts and uncles were invited to a dinner party where there’d be no alcohol, it was a family crisis. They’d complain for weeks beforehand. Oh, so difficult, functions like this. They’d plan to meet early that evening and have their fill. And now, some nerve. These same relatives were trying to stop
me
from drinking?
    In those early weeks, each evening someone would try to tempt me with a glass of wine. Come on, just one. Or a brandy then. It will relax you, help you sleep. But I refused. I feared it would blur the truth of what had happened. I had to