Read Online The Stolen Girl by Renita D'Silva - Free Book Online Page A

of unruly hair. One of them is wearing glasses, the other has a mole right at the centre of his nose. They look curiously at me, unblinking, assessing. I stare back. Finally, one of them attempts a smile.
    ‘What are you looking at?’ I yell, but my heart isn’t in it and it comes out weary, barely louder than a whisper.
    ‘Affan, Zain, what are you doing up? To bed, both of you,’ their mother clucks and they disappear in a swish of pyjamas.
    ‘I am tired,’ I say.
    ‘Of course,’ the woman, Farah, says. ‘Have you eaten?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Come.’ She holds out a hand, then drops it to her side when I do not make a move to take it. She motions me to follow her up the narrow stairwell, echoing of the boys’ hurried footsteps, their conspiratorial giggles, the lemony scent of fabric conditioner and mischief settling in the displaced air crowding the stairwell in the boys’ wake.
    ‘Bye, Diya, I’ll be back for you tomorrow bright and early. Sleep well. You’ve earned it,’ my social worker, Jane – I must remember to think of her as that – calls up the stairs.
    I do not bother to reply.
    Farah points to the little bathroom sandwiched between two other rooms, the door of one of which is just closing, a flash of pyjamas, a shock of hair, a red fire engine overturned onto its side, Lego blocks scattered everywhere. A piece of paper flaps on the door, stuck with Blu-Tack that is curling at the edges, a legend inscribed on it in haphazard writing, in a jumble of capitals and small letters: ‘No GaLs aLouD’. The door to the other room is shut. A landing and then, tucked into a little alcove, another door.
    Farah opens this one. A bed with a sky blue coverlet, yellow flowers dotting it in buttery splotches, a cream IKEA wardrobe glowing dirty yellow in the light pouring in from the street lamp just outside the window, a small table with a bedside lamp and some books. The artificial smell of flowery air freshener masking something else, the stale odour of a room not in use, no memories associated with it, the grey taste of dust and emptiness.
    I go to stand by the window. A tiny garden hosting a trampoline and a plastic goal post. The grass blue in the darkness, black shadows dancing across it merrily, laying claim. A tumbledown shed, the door swaying in the wind. The silvery silhouette of a cat perched on the fence, tawny eyes glowing. A road, abutting the fence, cars whizzing past, eager to get home. Footsteps in the alleyway beyond, the sound of a match being struck, the hiss of drawn breath.
    ‘It’s not much,’ Farah says. ‘Spare towels and bed linen are in the cupboard here. If you need anything, just shout. Our room is the one beside the bathroom, next to the boys’. We put you in here because the boys tend to wake up in the night – we wanted to give you a little privacy.’
    A pause.
    I do not move, do not turn, force myself to stand still as a beacon, a lighthouse in the darkness guiding my mother home. My mother… That flower blooming again, encroaching, entrapping me from the inside. I want you, Mum. I miss you. I open the window, breathe in the heady scent of ice and night and cigarette smoke.
    ‘Sohrab is working late, an emergency. Hope he doesn’t disturb you when he comes upstairs later.’ She waits again.
    I do not respond.
    ‘If you need me, at any time of night, just knock. I am a light sleeper, you will not be disturbing me – chances are I’ll be awake anyway.’
    Why is she being so kind? Why does she sound like my mother? If she doesn’t go away now, I will break. I want to bend as far as I can go out of this window. How does it feel to fall, be weightless? Will it match what I am feeling inside?
    As if she knows what I am thinking, Farah comes up to me, puts her arms around me, draws me into a hug.
    I jerk out of her embrace.
    She pulls the window shut. ‘It’s too cold to leave it open, isn’t it? Look, you are blue.’
    She takes my hands in hers and rubs some warmth