Can You See Me Now? Read online

  There is a growing restlessness in my chest as I picture it, Arjun and Niv in the kitchen, drinking, laughing, whispering.

  I flick on the bedside lamp.

  It can’t be real. My husband and my best friend. I try to separate the facts from my own insecurities.

  All I had seen was the two of them talking. It’s a scene I’ve observed hundreds of times before; the only difference is that usually I’m right there with them. It is practically tradition for Niv to come around for a midnight snack after we’ve all been on a night out.

  ‘Morning,’ Arjun says, snapping me out of my thoughts as he emerges from the bathroom. He leans down to kiss me, little droplets of water running from his face onto mine. He lingers by my side for a few moments before walking over to the wardrobe.

  ‘You’re up early,’ I say, sitting up. My eyes follow him around the room as he picks out a suit and gets dressed quickly, efficiently.

  I trust my husband. Implicitly. That niggle in the back of my mind says more about me than him.

  I tell myself that it’s just paranoia. I have never quite managed to shake the feeling of being an imposter, of having more than I deserve, but I cannot let my worst self ruin my marriage.

  ‘I’ve got the flight to Mumbai,’ he says, turning to face me as he buttons up his shirt. ‘The Barclays meeting? I thought I told you.’

  I search my brain for a memory of the conversation. He had said something about a trip last week but I’d been too tired to pay attention to the dates. I look at my phone and there it is, five days blocked out in my calendar.

  ‘It must have slipped my mind,’ I say, yawning. I watch as he loops a bright yellow tie around his neck.

  ‘Did Niv get home okay last night? I was going to wait till we’d heard from her but I could barely keep my eyes open.’

  I nod. Niv had sent me a text half an hour after I’d all but thrown her out, letting me know she’d arrived safely. Yet another one of our traditions. I feel a pang of regret and make a mental note to call Niv later to apologize. She must think that I behaved like a complete idiot.

  I kiss Arjun goodbye, then haul myself out of bed and go into the bathroom. I try to quell the unease that is swirling up inside me as I undress and step into the shower. Even though the day’s barely started, I am exhausted. The DU rape case is getting to me and the stress is leaking into my life. I hadn’t even remembered to congratulate Arjun for signing with John.

  I take a deep breath as my insides twist and turn, the guilt and anxiety and anger melding together into one toxic combination, assaulting me from the inside, leaving me feeling raw and hollow. As usual in times of stress, my mind goes to Noor. I find myself wondering if she would still be here if I’d never met her. If I hadn’t done the things I did.

  The narrative I’ve built up over the years is one of redemption, of helplessness, of a girl who despite her best efforts was unable to save her best friend.

  The truth is entirely different. It has the power to destroy lives.

  I turn the shower off and step out. I push Noor away.

  Some memories are best left alone. They are too dangerous to even think about, just the slightest tug capable of unravelling a whole life.

  SABAH

  ‘You said it yourself. This story’s been covered to the death. There are already, three –’ Andrew looks at me for confirmation and I nod. ‘Three documentaries about the case. What makes this different?’

  I know he’s only playing devil’s advocate but his words and the indifference with which they are delivered make me flinch.

  I bend down to look at the laptop in front of me. I scroll through the images till I find the one I’m looking for, clicking on it so it fills my screen. I angle the laptop towards Andrew and Rachel, giving them a moment before I speak.

  ‘It doesn’t matter how many times it’s been covered before. The family’s never spoken to the press about it, nor have any of the key witnesses,’ I say.

  Across from me, Andrew looks unconvinced but his eyes are still fixed on the screen. Noor has the power to hold people captive, even in death.

  ‘This is exactly like the Harriet Clarke documentary, except that I was there,’ I continue. ‘I have relationships with everyone involved. I know their stories, I can get under their skin.’

  ‘The timing is certainly interesting,’ Rachel says and I nod. It’s no secret that broadcasters love anniversaries. ‘The focus will be the scandal?’ she asks, leaning forward.

  I can tell I have her. She can see the potential in the story. It’s topical, it’s splashy, it’s perfect for the post #MeToo world and, most importantly, considering the people involved, it’s exactly the kind of thing the networks will lap up. There was a reason why Noor had captured the country’s imagination back then, why thousands of people had come together in her defence. And that was before social media.

  ‘The scandal. And everything that happened after.’

  ‘You mean the—’ Andrew starts and I cut him off with a quick nod. The scandal was just the catalyst. It was the thing that drove us all to the brink.

  I twist the laptop towards me. My eyes flick back almost automatically to the screen. To the picture of Noor and me standing in front of the bright yellow Wescott bus, arms linked, big, beautiful grins lighting up our faces. I remember that day as vividly as if it was yesterday. We were on our way to Noor’s for a sleepover. It was before the Head Girl drama, before the Oxbridge trip, before everything went so, so wrong. ‘Best friends forever!’ we had shouted into the camera just before the timer went off.

  How had everything crumbled so swiftly after that? How did we go from being best friends to two girls who would do anything to destroy each other? Even before the thought completes itself, the answer comes to me. The guilt that follows feels as physical as a punch in the gut.

  Noor was my best friend. I betrayed her and she ended up dead. I take a breath to steady myself. Rachel is looking at me, head cocked, eyebrows raised. Next to her, Andrew is bent low over his notepad, his pen moving furiously across the pages.

  I get up and walk towards the window. The late winter sun is bouncing off the Thames, deceptive in the warmth it suggests.

  It astonishes me that the thing I most want to run away from is also the thing that I feel so completely drawn to.

  I stand there, staring out of the window until I feel my heartbeat settle. Nothing can change what I did, but perhaps by piecing together what really happened that night I can learn to live with it.

  I turn around to face Rachel and Andrew.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I mean the suicide.’

  ALIA

  Fifteen years ago

  The last day of school before the summer holidays: it was something I had been looking forward to since even before term started, but now that it was here, I felt strangely nostalgic.

  ‘Are you going to go and see your parents?’ Noor asked as the final bell rang and the class erupted in a chorus of hoots and exclamations.

  ‘Things are still volatile in Turkey,’ I said, shaking my head. I threw my backpack over my shoulder and picked up the stack of books I’d borrowed from the library. All fiction. ‘I’m staying here.’

  ‘Won’t you get bored? I couldn’t stand six whole weeks in Delhi,’ she said as we walked out of the classroom and joined the hordes of students crammed into the corridors. One of the many things I’d had to get used to was the strange way the school year was structured in India, with the summer break falling right in the middle of term. This meant a summer full of homework and test prep, but I suppose it was better than having nothing to do. Someone screeched and I turned to see a young girl frantically fanning her chest. I followed her glare across the corridor from where a group of junior boys were throwing water balloons at girls as they passed by. They were clearly bored of upskirting already.

  ‘Their brains are even smaller than the memory chips in their phones,’ Noor said, steering me so we were out of the line of fire. ‘I’d in
vite you to Shimla, but Abbu said it’s family only this time.’

  I rolled my eyes as we circled a group of girls posing for a picture, Sabah beaming at the centre. A little further, I saw Dhruv waiting for me by the gates. My boyfriend. Just the thought made me smile. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  The summer felt endless. The Delhi heat, which I had been enjoying in the spring, became unbearable, climbing up to a high forty-eight degrees. I spent most of my time holed up in my room with the old air con turned on and lights switched off. A week after school let out, Dhruv and his family flew to Europe on holiday. Even Saloni jetted off somewhere posh with her cousins. Every now and then I spoke to Addi on the phone, and I even went to see a film with her one afternoon, lured by the promise of a chilled cinema and popcorn, but other than that, I stayed in.

  I stayed in and refused to think about my parents who couldn’t even be bothered to pick up the phone and talk to me, let alone take me on holiday. They liked to pretend they were terribly important, even though we all knew that as aides to the ambassador and his wife, they were really just well-paid servants.

  I was lying in bed lost in the ordeals of the March sisters when the phone rang.

  It was Noor.

  ‘We came back early,’ she said, her voice sounding at once really far away and extremely close. I could hear the faint echo of ‘Wannabe’ in the background.

  ‘How come?’ I spoke into the phone, fiddling with the cord till the sound evened out.

  ‘Abbu had to work. Something about the arrests in Kanpur.’

  I knew about the arrests in Kanpur. Everyone did.

  There had been riots raging for days. What had started with a group of college students handing out flyers and leaflets about an AIDS awareness programme had quickly turned into communal violence when a Hindu extremist group attacked a bunch of Muslim volunteers over accusations of antinationalism, a term that seemed to stretch across everything from homosexuality and sex outside marriage to generally having and voicing an opinion. In response, the police in Kanpur had arrested four of the twelve college students, all of them Muslim, which of course only led to more outrage and retaliation, and eventually a curfew in Kanpur. In a matter of three days, dozens more arrests had been made as rioters took to the streets setting cars and buses aflame, thrashing buildings and beating up anyone they saw.

  ‘Is Javed Uncle going to Kanpur?’ I asked, aware that Hindu–Muslim riots fell under his remit as the Minorities Minister.

  ‘Yeah. And he’s taking Faraz. I wish he’d let me tag along,’ Noor whinged and I laughed. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed her. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘are you coming over or what?’

  The last two weeks of the summer slipped by and before I knew it, it was time to go back to school.

  As usual, I was spending the night at Noor’s.

  As usual, Sabah had not been invited.

  ‘So, will they put up the shortlist next week?’ I asked.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Noor said, not giving me anything. She was bent over her sketchbook, filling it with quick, feathery strokes. I craned my neck to see what she was drawing, but she twisted away.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be on it; you’ll make a better Head Girl than her anyway. I saw her with Vineet at the cinema the other day. They looked nauseating.’

  ‘Good for her.’

  ‘Yeah, apparently they’re a thing now.’

  Something passed over her face but before I could prod further, Noor flicked on the TV.

  I’d heard bits of gossip over the summer so I knew that Sabah and Vineet were officially dating. He’d invited her over to his farmhouse a few times but she came up with a new excuse every time. Apparently she wanted to make him wait till they’d been together at least a year. He’s not sticking around, Addi had said, the dating guru with even less experience than me, but thinking about how Vineet had drooled at Saloni at the party, I was inclined to agree. Plus, there was a rumour going around that he’d been seeing someone else on the side.

  I was dying to dissect this theory with Noor but I could tell she was preoccupied. Instead we watched Ross and Rachel argue on screen and munched on murmure until it was late enough to go to bed.

  I woke up, as usual, at dawn. I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Noor. I eased the door shut and crept downstairs in the dark, my feet finding their way instinctively into the kitchen. I flicked on the light and got the milk out of the fridge, humming to myself as I pulled things out of cupboards and lit up the stove.

  With its curving staircases, marbled halls and dozen or so bedrooms, Noor’s house was large enough to get lost in. Yet somehow, it was in this house that I felt most at home, most visible.

  I was watching the bubbles break on the surface of the saffron-coloured milk when I heard movement behind me. I could tell by the heavy sound of the footsteps that it was Noor’s father.

  ‘You’re up early.’

  I flicked the gas stove off and turned around. ‘I couldn’t sleep. You?’

  ‘This is my time to think. You’ll realize how seductive it can be when you grow up, the lure of a few hours to yourself.’

  ‘I can go . . .’

  ‘No, it’s fine. Stay.’

  I poured my kesar milk into a glass while he made a cup of tea for himself.

  ‘How were the holidays?’

  ‘Good. I painted my room,’ I said, blowing at the milk. ‘And read loads of books.’

  ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘Classics mainly. Little Women, some Jane Austen,’ I said.

  I didn’t feel the need to mention the Sweet Valley High books I had been devouring.

  He nodded quietly and we stood there for a few minutes, sipping on our drinks, me sitting at the kitchen table and him leaning against the counter facing me.

  Once again I had the strange feeling that he could see right through me.

  ‘What’s troubling you?’ he asked when the silence had transitioned from companionable to awkward.

  ‘Nothing.’

  I continued blowing at my drink, now tepid.

  ‘Alia?’

  ‘School starts next week,’ I admitted.

  ‘You seem to have settled in well.’

  ‘And we’ve got the Oxbridge trip coming up.’

  He nodded deeply. ‘Yes. It’s quite an expensive trip, isn’t it?’ He paused, as if he was weighing up his words. ‘Alia, are your parents—’

  ‘I don’t think it’s expensive.’ I’d managed to pull together some more money over the holidays, but it was still nowhere near enough to cover the cost of the trip. If there was one thing I hated more than being poor, it was people knowing that I was poor.

  ‘Things are different here. I miss London,’ I added, surprising myself with my honesty. I was so desperate to go on this trip partly because I wanted to go back to London. Even if it was just for a day, I wanted to lose myself in the busy streets and packed tubes. I wanted to be invisible again. Yet as I stood in front of Noor’s father, all I wanted was to be seen.

  ‘Of course you do.’ He smiled a sad little smile. ‘Did you know my ancestors are from Sindh? When my grandfather moved to India after the partition, he had to leave everything behind, his property, his business, his friends, and build a new life here from scratch. He moved to the camp that Nehru had set up near Purana Qila and eventually managed to buy a small shop in old Delhi. He used to sell spices during the day, and after the shop closed every night, they would all sleep there. My grandparents, my father, my uncle and my two aunts. Six people stuffed into a room that was smaller than this kitchen.’

  I glanced around the room trying to picture it. I had a mental image of the sardines my mum used to buy from the corner shop, packed tightly in a tin. I pushed the image, and her, away.

  ‘My father and my uncle never went to school. But they learned, and they hustled. They expanded that shop into a business, moved into a house, sent their kids – us – to school. But throughout my childhood, I was very conscious of
how hard my father worked just to provide us with the basics. Anything my brother or I wanted, we had to earn. So all this, it can still feel overwhelming, vulgar almost.’

  I opened my mouth to say something but no words came out. He was looking at me in that peculiar way that he had and in that moment, I could sense how much he cared, how deeply he cared.

  ‘When I look at you, I see that same energy that I had when I was your age. Noor, Faraz, even Sabah to an extent, they expect everything to be handed to them, but you . . . you’re not like that. You don’t wait for things to happen to you. You work for them. And I know how hard it can be to be surrounded by kids who don’t have to think about money or opportunities or plan their future. But you know what, it doesn’t matter. You are brave and resourceful and smart. And in the end, everything is going to work out for you. I can feel it.’

  The conversation – so random yet so kind – baffled me. I found myself blinking furiously to hold back tears.

  ‘Now, before my crazy daughter comes looking for you, off you go, jaan.’

  Jaan. I hung on to that word. I had only ever heard him call Noor that.

  Jaan.

  Life.

  ALIA

  Fifteen years ago

  Upstairs, Noor was snoring softly, hands tucked beneath her head, the duvet pulled up to her chin. She always slept like that, coiled tightly into a small ball as though she was trying to hold a world of secrets inside her. I watched her for a moment before tiptoeing into the bathroom with my book.

  The bathroom was a mess. Pots of make-up were littered around the sink and there were clothes strewn across the sparkling marble floor. She was so used to having someone clean up after her, I sometimes thought Noor felt obligated to make a mess just to keep her army of maids and servants busy. I tidied the sink and wiped it before putting my book down.

  I pulled my nightie over my head and twisted in front of the mirror to look at my neck. The label had been bothering me all night. My skin had turned a deep red where I had rubbed it raw. I applied some lotion – Noor’s – and then picked up a T-shirt that Noor had thrown over the bathtub and held it up in front of me. I slipped it on, the fabric soft, pillowy.