by Joanna Rees
‘I can’t begin to imagine the horror you have been through. Oh, Leila,’ he said. He reached his arm across the table, but her hands stayed in her lap.
‘I’m glad it’s over, that’s all. And that Chan has gone.’
‘He’s dead?’
‘I shot him, Rasa,’ Leila said, staring up at him and giving it to him straight. ‘I shot him and killed him, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. And I will have to live with the knowledge that I’m that person. Who could do that.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘He murdered Vijay, you know. He used to taunt me with it. I lived in terror that you would be blamed. He told me that you were on the run. Then he told me you were in jail.’
‘I wasn’t on the run. I was sulking,’ he said, with an ashamed shrug. ‘I was busy being an apprentice when I heard about the fire at Lace Island. It was only afterwards that Parva told me what had happened.’
‘Parva?’ Leila said, gripping the table. ‘Parva? But . . . but I thought she’d died in the fire?’
‘No. She and Bamu, Mina and Victor and the others got out. Parva still lives near me. She married a nice man and they had five children. The eldest is called Leila.’
Leila felt her own tears then, as a huge wave of emotion hit her. ‘Oh . . .’
‘She’d like to see you. You know you’re quite a celebrity now, but for us . . . for us . . .’ He stared at her, his eyes twinkling with tears.
‘I’d like that too,’ Leila nodded, sniffing. Rasa handed her his handkerchief and she pressed it into her face, recognizing the smell of lavender water. It was all too much.
‘Come with me. Let’s walk,’ he said.
She walked by his side through the restaurant, but she knew he was looking at her. Did he find it as astonishing to see her again as she found it seeing him? She felt ashamed that she hadn’t made more of an effort with her appearance. She felt dowdy and old compared to all the glamorous young women in the hotel, with their Western fashions. Or the Indian women, with their dashing silk saris. Leila felt like the washed-up refugee that she was, and seeing Rasa, well, it made her feel more emotionally exposed than she could cope with.
At the back of the restaurant was a large conservatory filled with palm trees. The air was hot and humid, but not unpleasant. If Leila hadn’t known better, she might have almost imagined she could be in the grove. They walked together between the palms as he told her more about Parva and her family.
‘And what about you? Didn’t you marry?’ she asked.
‘I did once, years ago, but it didn’t last. I was married to my job and I messed it up. I guess my heart wasn’t in it,’ he said.
‘You’ve been successful, then?’
‘I’ve worked hard, and yes, I’ve done well. I’ve been OK.’
He’d been OK. Leila sighed and she gratefully accepted his offer of a seat on a wicker chair near a trickling fountain. It was all so much to take in. While she’d been in prison on Lace Island, everyone else had been living their lives. It made her feel somehow foolish – that she hadn’t realized. That she hadn’t even considered it a possibility.
‘What will you do now, Leila?’ Rasa asked.
She sighed. ‘I am taking each day as it comes,’ she said, ‘but Lace Island is still legally mine, for the time being. They say there may be some compensation now that I have turned in half the state officials, but that won’t be for a long time. I don’t know how it will work. Keeping Lace Island, I mean. I won’t be able to afford the taxes, so I will probably sell it back to the government. That’s what they want me to do.’
‘And what do you want?’
She smiled sadly. ‘Oh . . . I don’t know. I never thought I’d live long enough to see this . . . to feel this. To be alive. And Lace Island is my home. I guess ideally I want to remove every trace of Chan and then rebuild Bibi’s house. But I can’t go back in time.’
Rasa was silent for a long moment, taking in everything that she’d said.
‘Why don’t you make the whole place into a luxury resort? Make it like Bibi always wanted it to be.’
Leila laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion. ‘Me? I wouldn’t know how.’
‘But I would,’ Rasa said.
She stared at him, his words sinking in.
‘All it would take would be some time and some hard work. And some money, but that can be arranged. We could build it back, Leila. Just how it was. Only better,’ he said.
He meant it. She could see it in his eyes. That restoring Lace Island was as much his dream as it was hers.
‘You’d do that? For me?’
‘Oh, my Leila,’ he said, holding her hand. ‘If you only knew how much I have longed for this moment. For a second chance to do the right thing.’
Leila stared at him, too overwhelmed to speak. After a moment, she was aware of Rasa looking past her to someone approaching. Leila turned now and saw Jess.
She stopped and smiled and put her hands together in front of her heart. ‘I see you’ve found each other at last,’ she said.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Lace Island, present day
Jess stood at the top of the aircraft steps and breathed in the hot, tropical air, feeling, as she had done the last time she’d come back to Lace Island, that she was somewhere like nowhere else on the planet.
‘You’re here!’
She laughed, seeing Leila running across the newly relaid tarmac, waving her arms wildly, and Jess waved back, overjoyed as always at seeing her mother.
And boy, was she getting eccentric, Jess thought. Today, she was wearing orange jeans and a purple kaftan, her hair tied up with a big bow. She’d told Jess that for the rest of her life she was only going to wear clothes that made her happy, and Jess had enjoyed bringing her pieces from around the world. She was looking forward to presenting the kimono she’d picked up in Tokyo last week.
She dropped her bag and let Leila reach up and fold her into a hot hug.
‘Where have you been this time?’ Leila asked, staring at Jess with unashamed pride, and Jess knew she wasn’t annoyed with her. After all, it had been Leila who’d insisted that Jess went back to work.
Jess hadn’t wanted to leave her, but six months after Leila had been cleared by the police and the press furore had died down, she’d insisted on coming back to Lace Island and starting again.
Jess had found it weird coming back, her memory haunted by the night Suresh had been shot, but Leila couldn’t have been happier. She’d insisted that she’d lived on Lace Island all her life and that there was nothing to be frightened of. The worst had already happened. From now on, there were just good times ahead.
It had helped that Rasa had been with her, of course. Dear, sweet, kind Rasa, who had made it clear that looking after Leila was going to be his life’s work from now on. It had made Jess’s choice to leave them to their plans a lot easier.
Leila hurried Jess away from the plane and over towards the small Mini Moke she’d driven onto the tarmac.
‘Where on earth did you find this thing?’ Jess laughed.
‘Isn’t it marvellous? Rasa fixed it up. Miraculously, it survived the fire. We’ve been finding all sorts of treasures.’
They drove away from the landing strip and Jess whistled, amazed at what had been going on in her absence. All the poppy fields had been bulldozed, and all the barbed wire had gone. That was nothing compared to the building work up at the house. There were workers all over it, and Leila could see a large, sloping red-tiled roof was already up.
They drove further on, past the new house to the small eco bungalow perched on the top of the red cliff, overlooking the sea. The side was already covered in a flowering vine, as if the natural beauty of Lace Island couldn’t wait to reassert itself.
Leila raced inside and to the back, where Rasa was on the terrace. He gave Jess a huge hug, then poured tea for her as she stared out at the magnificent view of the twinkling ocean.
‘I can’t believe how
much you guys have achieved already,’ Jess said, smiling at Rasa. ‘It’s going to be incredible.’
‘You wait,’ Leila said, grinning. ‘I have so much to show you.’
In fact, any chance that Jess was hoping to unpack and unwind was thrown out of the window. Leila insisted that Jess take a tour with her down to the lagoon to see the holiday huts on the new bicycles that had just arrived.
Jess laughed, getting onto the smart-looking bike. She hadn’t been on one since she’d been in London and she wondered whether hers was still at the flat.
‘Does it feel weird, still being here?’ she asked Leila, as they cycled together down the muddy track.
‘No, making it into the vision Bibi had is erasing all the bad memories. They still come, of course, at night. But Rasa is there to hold me.’
Jess smiled. ‘I’m so happy for you both.’
‘I thought it would be strange. That I would be . . . I don’t know . . . shy, maybe, but’ – Leila shrugged and smiled happily – ‘so far so good. I have a lot of catching up to do. But he’s a good teacher.’ She laughed and Jess laughed too. ‘I keep forgetting I’m your mother,’ Leila said. ‘I’m probably not supposed to talk to you about sex.’
‘You can talk to me about anything,’ Jess said, meaning it. This relationship was weird and wonderful and new, and Jess was loving every minute of it.
They set off, faster now, Leila whooping like a girl, and Jess laughed too. Leila never failed to surprise her on a minute-by-minute basis. In some ways, Jess guessed that part of Leila would forever be a young girl. Then at other times she was sombre and sad and like an ancient wise old woman. It sometimes felt to Jess that she was more the mother figure than Leila, who pumped her for information about the world away from Lace Island, guffawing over the mobile phone Jess had bought her and making Jess howl with laughter when she learnt to text.
But what she’d never failed on was her unadulterated love for Jess.
It had been overwhelming at first – Leila’s mothering obsession. It had felt to Jess like Leila had wanted to go back in time and for Jess to be a little baby. She’d fussed around her and smothered her with hugs and kisses, until Jess had had to pull back and gently explain that they needed time to get to know one another.
The photos had helped, of course, Jess being able to fill in Leila about her past, year by year. The homes, the people who had come and gone – and, of course, Angel. And saying it all, telling Leila about what had happened to her felt cathartic. Like she finally belonged to her history and it had become part of her. She no longer needed to escape it, not when Leila longed for every single detail.
How Leila had put up with such emotional and physical abuse for so long and had come out relatively unscathed was humbling to Jess. But strangely, she didn’t seem to be bitter, although Jess knew that killing Chan still weighed heavily on her mind, no matter how many times Jess told her that she’d had no choice.
She skidded to a halt when they came to the lagoon, and Jess braked too, laughing at how girlish Leila seemed. She got off her bike, carefully lowering it to the ground. Then she skipped over to one of the new bungalows.
‘This one, we’re calling Aunty Parva’s,’ Leila said, twisting the handle on the door of the cabin. They stepped into the eco bungalow, its glass doors overlooking the lagoon.
Jess admired the bungalow with its simple teak finishes and lovely beige and green decor. A cousin of Rasa’s, a very pretty young woman called Mina, had designed all the bungalows, and it seemed as if everyone who had once been connected to Lace Island had come flooding back, bearing their talents and an open heart. And each one had made Leila more and more happy, as if the world could not match her joy.
‘So tell me what I want to know,’ Leila said, gripping her arm. ‘Did you go? Were there elephants and feasts?’
She was talking about Suresh’s wedding. Leila and Rasa had been invited, but Leila had refused to leave Lace Island with so much going on.
‘Hmm,’ Jess said, pulling a face. Then she sighed. ‘No. I didn’t go.’
‘You didn’t? But . . .’
She sighed again, knowing that she couldn’t hide the truth from Leila. ‘I couldn’t face it. And I didn’t want to remind him of what happened. Or there to be any focus on me. It was their day.’
Leila nodded and was silent for a long time. ‘That’s the only reason?’
Jess shrugged. Of course it wasn’t the only reason, not that she could articulate that to her mother. She couldn’t say the unspoken words: that she missed Suresh so much it hurt.
She looked out over the lagoon and the hummingbirds dipping in the water. It was stunningly beautiful, which only made her sadness more profound.
‘There’s no point. It’s too late,’ she said.
‘It’s never too late. Never. Look at us,’ Leila said, standing next to Jess and linking her arm into hers, but even though Jess knew she was right, her mother’s words of comfort didn’t stop the ache she felt inside.
It was hard not to get swept up in Leila’s endless enthusiastic plans, and for the next fortnight, it felt to Jess as if the rest of the world had disappeared. On this island, in the middle of the bluest oceans, it was as if time took on a different dimension. She was starting to understand how over twenty-five years could have gone by so quickly for Leila.
This morning, Rasa had told Jess to meet him at his new dive boat on the beach. The equipment had just arrived and he wanted Jess to help him test it out. Both he and Leila had been as jumpy as schoolchildren, babbling and squabbling about the reef and the bit they most wanted to show Jess.
Jess sat on the jetty, her feet dangling over the edge, watching Rasa stacking life vests in the boat. When she’d first met him, he’d looked so much like a professional hotel manager, but here, in shorts, a tatty straw hat on his head, he looked years younger. And like he belonged in this boat.
‘You know, it makes her so happy when you’re here,’ he said, polishing one of the diving dials.
‘Me too. I love it here, being with you two. It gets more like paradise every day. It’s the first time I’ve relaxed since . . . well, you know.’
‘It’ll take a while. You’ve been through a great deal.’
Jess sighed. ‘I know.’
There had been rather a lot to process in the last six months, quite apart from finding Leila. Blaise had been arrested, as had Senator Lonegan in the States. He’d apparently asked to meet Jess, but she had no intention of ever giving him that satisfaction. Leila and Rasa were the only parents she needed.
‘How is the job?’ he asked.
‘It’s good. It keeps me busy, but I don’t know, lately it’s been more tiring, jetting off around the world. Being alone in hotel rooms. I want to be somewhere permanent. It’s been lovely being here for a few weeks.’
Rasa glanced up at her from beneath his hat and she knew then that there was another motive for Rasa summoning her here.
‘What?’ she said, smiling.
‘It’s just . . . you know that the nuns have agreed to come?’
‘They have?’
‘From the old mission in Cochin. Leila wants to rehouse them here.’
This was news to Jess. She thought back to that day in the chapel and how the nuns had told her and Leila that they were praying for a miracle.
‘We’ve been drawing up plans for a new building with a rehab centre attached.’
Jess stared at him. ‘A rehab centre?’
‘Your mother is most insistent, and I agree with her. She needs to help people who have been affected by addiction. People who can still be saved. It’s early stages, but I can’t manage the hotel and that whole project too. I could do with someone to spearhead it. And to promote it. Make it a place that could really make a difference to people.’
Jess bit her lip, feeling a wave of excitement rush through her. She smiled down at Rasa, who winked at her and she knew then that Leila and he had thought this through. And that Leila had p
ut him up to asking Jess about it.
‘I . . . We want you to think about it, Jess. Take your time. We’ll talk more about it. Nothing has to be decided now, but . . . you know how much it would mean to us both.’
But Jess’s heart already had the answer. She didn’t need any time.
Her brain raced over the logistics of it. If they built a centre, she would finally be able to do what she had vowed she would when Angel had died.
‘Where is your mother, anyway?’ Rasa said. ‘We’re missing valuable diving time.’
‘She said she was expecting some people. I’ll go and see where she is.’
Jess got up and skipped down the jetty, staring at the beach, a new hope bursting in her heart.
The mission. Everything made sense. Leila and Rasa had just given her the thing she had most wanted. A real purpose. And she knew without a shadow of a doubt that this is what she’d been destined for all along.
She was so full of ideas that it was a while before she noticed that someone was coming down the beach the other way towards her.
She stopped, shielding her eyes, thinking that it must be a mirage. But it wasn’t. She’d recognize that limping gait anywhere.
She ran down the beach just as Suresh arrived past the frog rock, his trousers rolled up, dropping his suit jacket in the sand. He looked exhausted and thirsty, like he had literally just washed up on a desert island. Jess handed him her bottle of water and he drank gratefully.
‘Leila said you’d be on the beach, but I walked the long way round,’ he said.
‘Suresh, what are you doing here? Where’s Kareena?’ she asked.
He laughed, gazing at her. ‘She jilted me.’
‘She did what?’
‘The night before the wedding. Everyone was there. All the festivities were about to start and she called the whole thing off.’
Jess stared at him, open-mouthed with shock. ‘But . . . but why?’
‘She said that she wanted the real deal, that she wanted to fall in love properly and that she’d changed her mind about our arranged marriage. She couldn’t go through with it.’
