by Chris Speyer
‘How fixed?’
‘I don’t know how, but it seems to be fixed. It’s gone and mended itself.’
‘I don’t think bones can grow that quickly.’
‘This one has. Look.’ He waved his arm wildly.
‘OK, OK. No need to go crazy. I don’t suppose you could have lifted that rock you wanted to brain me with if it had still been broken.’
‘I was the seagull, remember?’
‘I know, I know – it’s just that this swapping bodies stuff is a little difficult to get my head round.’
‘How do you think it feels when it’s your body?’
Anusha looked thoughtful. ‘If you were the seagull, then who was in your body?’
‘I don’t know.’
She studied him carefully, as you might study a dog that sometimes bites.
Zaki stopped trying to smile and looked down at his feet.
Anusha swung her rucksack off her shoulder and came and sat beside him on the stone. Now it was Zaki’s turn to be puzzled.
‘Why are you here?’ he asked.
‘Because I’ve decided to help you get cleaned up instead of reporting you for attempted murder!’ She took a water bottle and some tissues from her rucksack.
‘What I meant was, why aren’t you at school? How did you know where I was?’
‘Simple – I followed you. Let me see your face.’
‘Ow!’
‘Don’t make a fuss. It’s not deep.’ She washed the cut on his cheek.
‘Followed me from where?’
‘The high street. I was on my way to school. I saw you get out of the van. At first I thought I’d catch you up, but then you went the wrong way and I wondered what you were going to do. I brought my dad’s camcorder, like I said I would, and I thought if I filmed you and something interesting happened, then we’d have it on tape. I thought it was better if you didn’t know I was there. You never looked round so it wasn’t difficult.’
She gave Zaki the water bottle so that he could rinse the sick taste out of his mouth.
‘When did you start recording?’
‘It was hard to do it while I was walking along and trying to keep out of sight, so I waited until you sat down over there and I hid amongst that stack of dinghies.’
‘So you’ve got everything! Me and the gull – all of that?’
‘Well, yes, but – it was just an ordinary seagull. It didn’t suddenly appear or anything.’
‘What about the fight?’
‘No, I’d dropped the camera by then. It was the camera that started it. After the seagull flew off the first time I waited and waited – I must have stayed hidden for over an hour, but as nothing really much was happening I stopped hiding and came across to talk to you. You seemed a bit confused, like you didn’t quite know who I was.’
‘What did I say?’
‘Not much. You were in a very strange mood. You called me “maid”. I thought that was a bit odd.’
‘My grandad calls girls maid. It’s proper West Country.’
‘Then I showed you the camcorder. I played back what I had recorded and you went mad – said I was trying to steal your secrets – called me a witch!’
‘A witch! Wow!’
‘I said I didn’t come here to be insulted and that I was going. I got halfway to the steps and you grabbed me, tried to get the camcorder off me. We fought – I got away but you kept coming after me and I couldn’t get to the steps. I dropped the camera just before you picked up that big rock.’
‘I saw the rest.’
‘Hmm.’ Anusha looked thoughtfully at Zaki.
‘What?’
‘When you say you were the seagull,’ she asked slowly, ‘what do you mean, exactly?’
‘Well . . . I was sitting up there and the seagull landed next to me. It looked at me and I looked at it and then – whoosh! – I was looking out of its eyes and feeling what it was feeling. I was the seagull! Except I could still think like me. I could choose where to go and what to do. So I flew out to sea.’
‘Why out to sea?’
‘I wanted to be by myself.’
‘But your body stayed here?’
‘That’s where it gets really weird.’ Zaki tried to bring his mind to focus on the problem of how his body could have continued to act once he had left it. And Zaki? Who was Zaki if he wasn’t his body? His mind shied away, searching for distractions. There was something very nasty lurking at the bottom of this question and his mind didn’t want to look at it.
The tide had crept in and the water was now lapping near their feet. Zaki watched the little ripples covering and uncovering the shingle. As he watched, a small, spiral shell clambered through the pebbles. He knew what it was. He reached down and picked it up.
‘Look,’ he said, holding up the shell with its occupant for Anusha to see. ‘It’s a hermit crab. That’s not his shell, but he’s taken it over and he’ll fight anything to keep it.’ As Zaki spoke, the tiny crab’s legs and pincers appeared from the shell’s mouth and the little claw opened and closed as the crab attempted to attack Zaki’s finger.
Anusha laughed. ‘It’s very brave! Can I hold it?’ Zaki passed her the shell. ‘Hello little crab,’ she said, holding it centimetres from her nose.
‘I’m like that shell. There’s something else inside my body,’ said Zaki. ‘I think something crawled in while I was in that cave. I’m sharing my body with something evil.’ He looked at the crab in Anusha’s hand. ‘I wonder if that crab ate the creature that made the shell.’
Anusha carefully placed the crab back in the water. ‘Off you go, little crab. I’m not sure I like you any more,’ she said quietly.
Zaki looked at her. ‘I think whatever it is that got into me is getting stronger; maybe not strong enough to push me out yet, but you saw what it could be like – and it’s doing home improvements – it fixed my shoulder. How do you fight against something that’s inside you?’
Anusha shook her head, then she sat up slightly. ‘The voice – the one you told me about yesterday. The one that called the girl’s name . . .’
A wave of dread flooded through Zaki’s body. He nodded . Yes, Anusha was right; that thing that had called out the girl’s name and the evil thing that had looked out of his eyes – it was one and the same. It had crept into him when he was in the cave; he had brought it into the open. He was like the carrier of a plague, of a deadly virus – and he knew now what it wanted.
‘It’s using me but it’s after the girl. That’s why she doesn’t want me to go near her. I’ve put her in danger – maybe others. You saw it just now; it tried to kill you!’
‘But why? What is it?’ Anusha searched his face.
‘I don’t know.’ Zaki’s head hurt; he felt confused; he didn’t know what was going on.
Anusha got to her feet. ‘Come on. We’re going to get wet if we stay here much longer. Anyway, I’m hungry. Have you got anything to eat?’
‘No.’
‘I have. You can share mine; you look like you need it.’
They climbed back up to the top of the landing stage and returned to the spot where Zaki had originally been sitting. Anusha laid out the contents of her lunch box between them and Zaki added the water bottle from his own rucksack and a snack bar that he found in his pocket and now broke it in half.
Zaki’s mind returned to the awful conversation that morning in the van. He pictured his mother among a group of strangers, laughing happily. He picked up a pebble and threw it as far out into the water as he could. Then he threw another and another, each with more force and anger.
‘Why did you come here?’ Anusha asked softly. ‘Is something going on?’
Zaki flung another pebble across the water.
‘I don’t mean all this, but . . . You don’t have tell me if you don’t want to, but, if something’s wrong . . . you know, something else . . .’ She left the sentence unfinished.
‘What makes you think there’s something wrong?’ Zaki ask
ed defensively. It was none of her business.
Anusha looked away. She fiddled with the snack-bar wrapper. ‘Just then you looked like you wanted to cry.’
Zaki bit his lip. He stood up and wandered to the back of the landing stage. Did telling people things make them more likely to happen? If he told Anusha that his parents were splitting up, would that mean that they would split up? When his throat stopped hurting, he went and sat down again.
‘My mum’s been away a long time,’ he said. ‘I don’t think she’s going to come back.’ There – it was out. It was real. He’d given it life. He couldn’t stop it happening.
They sat in silence, looking out across the estuary. Grey cloud was spreading from the south-west and the water had lost its sparkle, turning dark and uninviting. The breeze was picking up, ruffling the surface, the cold gusts sending cat’s paws racing, like shadows, towards them.
Anusha shivered. ‘It’s getting chilly. What do you want to do?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t much want to go home.’
‘Why don’t you come back to my place for a bit? We can have a look at the tape from the camcorder. Maybe we’ll be able to see something if we watch it on a big screen.’
‘Would that be OK with your parents?’
‘They won’t mind. And you could dry off; you’re still half-soaked.’
g
School would be out in an hour and Zaki had no desire to meet any of his classmates; he set a brisk pace on the walk back into town, hoping to get indoors before the surging mass of school uniforms flooded up the high street. Much of the time, passing traffic forced them to walk in single file, so there was little chance for further conversation, which left plenty of space for one question to nag at Zaki’s mind – when the unknown thing had control of his body, why hadn’t it tried to use the bracelet? Had Anusha disturbed it before it had a chance?
Zaki could feel the weight of the bracelet in his pocket. Anusha had suggested that her father might know where it was from. Should he show it to him, if he got the chance?
g
Chapter 14
They were seated around the dinner table, Zaki, Anusha and her parents. At first Zaki had felt uncomfortable, not sure how he should behave, watching the others for clues. The food had been placed in the middle of the table and Mr Dalal had said, ‘Help yourself! Help yourself! No need to wait for an invitation in this house.’ But Zaki thought there might be a special order in which he should help himself from the different dishes and he was worried about taking too much. In the end Mrs Dalal had come to his rescue, spooning a large helping of rice on to his plate and then samples from the other bowls with the instruction to ‘See what you like and help yourself to more’.
It had been a long time since Zaki had taken part in a family meal. At home, since his mother left, they seldom ate together and, if they did, it was usually in front of the television. The novelty of all eating together added to Zaki’s discomfort, but the Dalals made sure he was included in the easy chatter and Zaki soon found that he was enjoying himself.
On arrival at Anusha’s place, Zaki had been sent upstairs to take a shower while his clothes were rinsed and tumble-dried, then Mrs Dalal had inspected his injuries and applied ointment to the cut on his cheek. Quite what Anusha had said to her while he was showering he never discovered, but there were no awkward questions during the meal and no one mentioned their absence from school.
The white walls of the room in which they ate were decorated with pieces of brightly coloured, printed fabric – Indian, Zaki supposed, but he didn’t really know. He thought of the bare walls of the living room at home. Nobody could see the point of putting up pictures when they all knew they would soon be moving on again.
There were shelves with a great many books and CDs. Woven rugs were scattered on the wooden floor.
A curious, grotesque mask hung on the wall directly opposite Zaki’s place at the table. Its gaping mouth was full of large, discoloured teeth, and curved fangs protruded from the corners. The eyes were bulbous and the forehead was crowned with a coiled cobra that appeared ready to strike. The skin was painted yellow and the lips a garish red.
Zaki couldn’t help noticing the large number of drums, musical instruments and instrument cases around the room and when Mr Dalal saw Zaki’s eyes wandering from one instrument to another he struck his forehead in mock horror crying, ‘Ah, how rude! We should have introduced you to the rest of the family.’
‘Sandeep! Don’t tease him,’ scolded Mrs Dalal.
‘Who’s teasing? All the instruments have names, don’t they?’
‘Just ignore him, Zaki,’ said Mrs Dalal. ‘Poor Sandeep is a musician, so he can’t help being mad, and he’s also a mathematician, so he’s doubly crazy.’ She was passing behind her husband’s chair as she spoke and she put her arms around his shoulders and gave him a playful hug.
‘That’s why she loves me,’ said Mr Dalal, looking very pleased with himself.
‘Go and fetch the ice cream. Make yourself useful,’ said Mrs Dalal.
‘Do you know that we Indians are the greatest mathematicians in the world?’ asked Mr Dalal as he prepared to leave the room. ‘It’s true! We invented everything, even zero. Without us, you’d still be counting on your fingers.’
‘Out!’ shouted Mrs Dalal, shaking a large serving spoon at him while she cleared plates from the table.
Mr Dalal danced out of the room while his wife shook her head despairingly.
‘I met him in Vienna,’ she said, as though that explained his antics.
‘Were you on holiday?’ asked Zaki.
‘No, I was studying the cello; Sandeep was studying mathematics and teaching classical Indian music. I went to one of his classes – thought it would make a change from Mozart. After that I seemed to keep bumping into him and every time we met he complained about being hungry – Sandeep’s a vegetarian and Austrian food’s all meat. One day, he said if I could find the ingredients he would teach me to cook an Indian meal. And that’s how we got to know each other – food and music.’
‘Music is the food of love,’ sang Mr Dalal, returning with the ice cream. ‘It was your good karma that guided you to your wonderful husband.’
Mrs Dalal stuck her tongue out at him and carried the plates to the kitchen.
‘What’s karma?’ asked Zaki.
‘It means you cause what happens to you,’ said Anusha. ‘If you do good things, then good things will happen to you.’
‘More or less,’ said Mr Dalal. ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that.’
‘So if bad things are happening, then you must have done something wrong,’ said Zaki, and the empty, hopeless feeling started to grow inside him again.
A quick look passed between father and daughter.
‘What’s happening now can be to do with something in a previous life, and you can be affected by other people’s karma, and some people believe in the karma of places, even countries – collective karma if you like,’ said Mr Dalal.
‘Is it like you’re being punished?’ asked Zaki.
‘No, no, no.’ Mr Dalal waved his hands. ‘Karma should not be confused with rewards and punishments. This is not the way to think about karma. No, no. Karma is more like a natural force – like gravity. Listen – if I park my car on a hill and forget to put on the handbrake, what will happen?’
‘It will roll down the hill.’
‘Yes, and most likely smash into something at the bottom. But was the car trying to punish me?’
‘Not really.’
‘No, of course not. The car was just doing what it had to do because of gravity and no handbrake. Now, I might feel as though I was being punished for being stupid, but the car wasn’t punishing me, God wasn’t punishing me, it was simply cause and effect – physics. You see? Karma is more like that.’
Zaki nodded. ‘Do you think we really do have other lives?’ he asked.
‘This is getting very serious,’ remarked Mrs Dalal, who w
as leaning in the kitchen doorway listening to their conversation.
‘Yes, but very interesting!’ said Mr Dalal with enthusiasm.
‘Wouldn’t we remember being alive before if – you know – we had been here before?’
‘Can you remember being a baby?’ asked Mr Dalal.
Zaki shook his head.
‘But you wouldn’t deny that you were a baby! Can you remember having a very vivid dream?’
Zaki nodded. He’d had rather a lot of those recently.
‘But while you were having that dream you were actually lying in your bed and not flying through the air, or whatever it was you remember doing in your dream. True?’
‘Well, yes I suppose.’
‘So what we do or don’t remember is not a very good guide to what has actually taken place. Just because you don’t remember being here before doesn’t mean you weren’t here. Does it?’
‘But, Dad,’ Anusha interrupted, ‘our bodies weren’t here before. How could we be here before our bodies were even born!?’
‘It depends whether or not we’re just bodies and it depends what we mean by “before”. Time, to a mathematician, is a very interesting thing.’
‘Speaking of time,’ said Mrs Dalal, ‘I think it’s time Zaki called his father.’
Zaki felt instantly miserable. He hadn’t spoken to his father since stepping out of the van that morning. Now, Zaki thought, I’ll be in trouble for skipping school. Well, it wasn’t his fault everything was such a mess!
‘I told my dad I might come here,’ he said, rather weakly.
Zaki saw a look pass between Anusha and her mother.
Mrs Dalal smiled. ‘Would you prefer me to call him?’
Zaki could think of nothing he would like more.
‘Would you like to stay over? We’ve got a spare room?’ asked Mrs Dalal.
He felt a great surge of relief. ‘Would that be OK?’
‘Tell me your number and I’ll see what I can do,’ said Mrs Dalal.
Zaki told her the number and she left the room.
‘Now, where were we?’ asked Mr Dalal, clapping his hands together. ‘The problems of life and time – yes? The question of who we really are and where we really are. What is life? What is real?’ His eyes sparkled as he looked from Zaki to his daughter. He was obviously enjoying himself.
