Play With Me

by Ananth

‘Hang on, hang on, what do you want to do?’ Nat asked firmly.

  ‘Sorry, Nat.’

  ‘Don’t keep saying that. What do you want to do?’

  ‘I’m uncomfortable.’

  ‘Let me get help,’ she said and rang the bell connected to the nurses’ station.

  A man walked in and gave me a serves-you-right-for-having-that-accident look, but helped me sit up a little on the bed, set a smaller pillow under my shoulder and leaned me back to recline. I felt a lot better.

  ‘He shouldn’t move so much,’ he told Nat accusingly as he checked on the IV.

  ‘Does he need a painkiller?’ she asked him.

  He shook his head and walked out without saying anything.

  She shut the door behind him and came back to me smiling. ‘Behave! You don’t want to get on his wrong side.’

  I smiled weakly and shut my eyes. Groggy from the medication I briefly forgot Nat was still in the room and fell asleep. When I woke up again, the TV was on. I looked at the couch which doubled up as a bed and saw Nat sitting there watching a show.

  ‘Hey, sleepyhead!’ she said when she saw I was awake.

  ‘Fuck! You’re still here?’ I asked, genuinely surprised.

  ‘Yes. Where would I go?’

  ‘Home? Don’t tell me you’ve been here all day!’

  ‘Shut up, Sid.’

  ‘No, really, Nat. You needn’t.’

  ‘Sid. Chill! I won’t stay all night. Can’t stay all night,’ she smiled. ‘You haven’t eaten anything all day, the doc said you should eat something when you wake up. I’ll sit with you while you have your dinner and then leave. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Nat, this is so unnecessary. I feel terrible. First I don’t pick you up this morning and now this.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Sid. Dinner will be here any minute, eat and then I’ll leave. Rajat knows I am here and he is better off by himself actually, prefers it that way. In any case, he doesn’t get home before ten. I might as well be here with you than sit at home by myself.’

  Secretly I felt relieved. I hadn’t been in a hospital in a very long time, fortunately, and didn’t quite enjoy the fact that I would be alone. Nat was a comforting and warm presence. I kept quiet and began to watch TV with her.

  Someone knocked on the door, and then proceeded to wheel in dinner. The nurse followed and laid out the tray for me. She checked the IV and told Nat that I might need one more bottle in the night. Nat nodded and asked her how I was doing.

  ‘No problem, all his vitals are okay,’ the nurse replied and left the room.

  ‘I am so sorry, Nat!’

  ‘Would you stop saying that?!’ she said, screwing up her eyes.

  I ate quietly. Nat hovered over me, removing the foils and moving things around on the tray so it would be comfortable for me.

  When I finished she smiled and said, ‘Okay, I’m going down to get myself a cup of coffee, do you want one?’

  I said yes, and she left to get cappuccinos from the coffee shop in the food court. Private hospitals were a boon.

  Nat had left the TV on and the noise was beginning to get to me but the remote was on the table. I rang for the duty nurse and when she came in asked her to reduce the volume of the TV. She promptly took the remote from the table, gave it to me and turned to leave. Nat walked in at the same time and as soon as she saw the nurse she asked, ‘Is something wrong, Sid?’ And then turning to the departing nurse she demanded, ‘What did he want?’

  ‘Nothing. Remote,’ she replied.

  ‘Oh, okay. Thank you.’

  ‘You don’t have to terrorize her, Nat.’

  ‘All these girls are useless. Ask them anything and the standard reply is wait for the doctor in the morning.’

  She then carefully removed the lids off the styrofoam cups and stirred in the sugar. We drank in silence, watching news ‘break’ every second. I turned to look at her as she sat on the sofa, knees folded under her, holding the cup in both hands. Nat was five years older than me but sitting there, shaking her head in disapproval at the presenter’s antics, she looked like the little girl she once must have been.

  ‘Stop staring,’ she said, her eyes still fixed on the TV, and smiled.

  I started laughing.

  ‘Okay, I think I’ll head home now. I’ll see you in the morning,’ she said, and got to her feet. She took the cup from my hand, and disposed both in the rubbish bin. She then came around to the bedside table, filled a glass of water and placed it and the bottle of water within easy reach. Straightening the sheets around my feet, she slapped me on my knee when I flinched trying to get my feet out of her way. And then she did what I was hoping she would – gave me a hug. I needed one. Her hair smelt of lavender.

  ‘Do you want anything from home?’ she asked. ‘I can go and pick up your stuff.’

  ‘No. Did I already ask you about the car?’

  ‘Yes. And I told you that I haven’t seen it. My husband did. I’ll ask him about it. Though you’ll probably need a new one. They brought a bag with them, it’s lying here. Your Mac and everything else is intact. Were you wearing a watch? You didn’t have one when he got there.’

  ‘Fuck!’ I loved my g-shock! ‘Thank God!’ I heaved a sigh of relief.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It’s fine, I wasn’t wearing anything expensive.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter! It could have been worse, a lot worse.’

  I sighed again.

  ‘Okay, I’m going now. I’ll try and be here by eight,’ she said as she turned to leave.

  It was meant to be a simple morning. Now here I was – busted head, broken shoulder, totalled car, lying in bed watching a Hindi soap. The only saving grace was that I had got to spend time with Nat. I had always known it but today I felt it even more – Nat was special. As I was thinking about Nat and how lucky I was to have her in my life, it struck me that I hadn’t heard from Cara.

  ‘Do you know where my phone is, Nat?’

  ‘It’s in the right-hand drawer but out of battery. I’ll get you a charger tomorrow and then you can talk to whoever else there is to talk to! Until then all I want you to do is get better. We can push the US trip to later if you don’t feel well enough by then.’

  ‘We have time, right?’

  ‘I think so. My visa is going to take at least ten days. Okay, I must go now. I’ll be back in the morning, when the doc gets in. Good night,’ she said, blowing me a kiss, which was a little strange. But I loved it.

  The moment the door shut behind her, I felt sad that she was gone and, for the first time in a very long time, I felt lonely. I was also annoyed with myself that I hadn’t spoken to Cara all day. She must have wondered where I was. Aanya might have told her but then she hadn’t called me here either.

  It’s just one day anyway, I told myself, I’ll make it up to her, and nicely.

  On her way out Nat called from the lobby to tell me that the night nurse, the one wearing spectacles, would take care of me. She had taken her mobile number too and would call her again to make sure I was fine. They probably gave me a tranquillizer along with the painkillers because I slept through the night like a baby.

  11

  In the morning I was woken up to have my vitals checked and drink some really bad coffee. I tried to get up by myself to go to the loo but couldn’t because of the IV so I called for help again. The night nurse came in and helped me. When I came out of the bathroom I noticed she had made the bed too.

  ‘Nadasa called,’ she told me with a thick accent.

  I laughed, then realizing that it might have seemed rude, thanked her and asked, ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She’s coming here at yiteyohclock,’ she replied. It was already ten minutes past eight. I stifled more laughter and thanked her again. When she left I realized the IV hadn’t been plugged back into my arm, and so, to celebrate my new-found freedom, I went for a stroll in the hallway. It was a large hospital and as I walked down the hall and past the orthopaedics ward,
I thought I saw my doc. He was in the middle of his morning rounds; that meant he would be coming to my room soon, and so I turned around and walked back, only to find Nat standing outside my door, wearing a look of annoyance.

  Funnily enough I felt a twinge of fear. I hurried.

  ‘Where did you go? And who let you go?’

  I pointed to the same spectacled nurse at her station. ‘It’s not so much she let me go as it is I went for a walk without asking her. I have been in that room for so long now,’ I whined.

  ‘And whose fault is that?’

  ‘My dear mother, can we talk inside?’ I asked, wrapping my right arm around her. My shoulder hurt and I winced. She laughed.

  It took us an hour to check out of the hospital. I waited in the lobby and began to charge my phone while she went from room to room, desk to desk, sorting my insurance paperwork as they prepared to discharge me. She was wearing a tastefully designed white cotton salwar kameez, which accentuated her full figure; her sunglasses were perched on head, her long, chestnut hair holding it in place.

  As she walked across the hall, gracefully, amongst a sea of unknown faces, I felt a tinge of envy, jealousy even, that she belonged to someone else. But for now, in this moment, I could comfort myself thinking she was mine, here for me. She was standing at a counter and signing a stack of papers when she briefly turned to take something out of her handbag. Suddenly she looked up and smiled. It was as if she knew I was thinking about her.

  ‘Give me five more,’ she mouthed, holding up her hand to show me.

  I nodded. Damn! It must feel good to have a really wonderful woman in one’s life, someone to love and be loved by.

  I texted Cara.

  Hey girl.

  Hiya, she texted back and called me immediately.

  ‘Hey!’ she squealed as soon as I answered the phone. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I am fine. Much better. My head still hurts though.’

  ‘Nothing a good orgasm can’t fix,’ she said and laughed.

  ‘You are wicked!’ But even as I said that I found it funny that it didn’t take her long to get me thinking about sex.

  ‘When are you back?’

  ‘I am checking out now. Should be home by three, I think. These guys are taking a lot of time.’

  ‘Hmm, do you want to come home, so I can take care of you?’ she asked.

  ‘I want to go home, Cara.’

  ‘Can I come home then?’

  I was going to say yes when I noticed Nat walking towards me.

  I ended up saying, ‘Listen, give me ten minutes? I’ll call you back.’

  ‘If you don’t then I will,’ she said and hung up. And then texted me immediately:

  BIG hug. Only your head hurts I hope, all other parts working? Ha Ha.

  It was funny. I smiled.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked Nat.

  ‘Aanya,’ I lied.

  ‘Oh!’ She gave me a look that said ‘I don’t believe you’. ‘Should we go?’ she asked, slightly annoyed.

  I nodded, smiling. She smiled back and, holding my hand, asked, ‘Can you walk with me to the parking lot?’

  ‘Of course, Nat. I’m fine.’

  We drove in companionable silence for a while until Nat spoke up: ‘Promise me, Sid, that you will be more careful in future. I know how much you love your fast cars, but you’ve got to be more careful.’ And then she went quiet.

  ‘You know, you were very lucky. It could have been a lot worse,’ she began again a few minutes later.

  ‘I know. I was rushing because I didn’t want you to wait. I didn’t see that guy coming . . .’

  ‘Anyway, forget about it. You are here, you are okay, and that is all I care about.’

  I turned to look at her. She reached over and touched my forearm.

  ‘I am glad too. How are things at work?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ve been away a day, how different can it be?’

  ‘Blame it on the head injury,’ I replied, feeling silly.

  She laughed, ‘Yeah, right.’

  Then I remembered. ‘Has Cara begun work on the video we are meant to take with us?’

  ‘I think so. I haven’t spoken with her since our meeting. She’s been in and out mostly. You should speak with her more often by the way. She came to us because of you.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’ve told you that.’

  I shrugged. My shoulder hurt. And then realizing I couldn’t possibly continue the conversation without giving away something, I turned to look out of the window.

  When we got home Nat walked up with me to the apartment, lugging my bag. I fumbled at first and then managed to open the door. It seemed odd that I had trouble with my hand–eye coordination. I felt fine mostly but the bump in the head was making me fuzzy ever so often.

  ‘Okay, the doc has told you to rest,’ she said as we walked in. She turned around to look at the house. ‘This is nice!’ she said, and walked over to open out the curtains, filling the room with light.

  ‘Yes. I like it here,’ I replied.

  ‘No, I meant you have a pretty house . . . home. This is warmer than I thought it would be.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know, maybe I was expecting a bachelor pad.’

  ‘Aah. Thank you then.’

  ‘Yes, you should be proud. I spend half my time cleaning up after my husband. This place is so neat,’ she said, looking around for a place to put my bag down.

  I pointed to my work desk. ‘Thanks again. I like it that way. And you know me, I can be a bit finicky about things.’

  ‘Yes. That we know!’

  ‘Do you want something to drink, Nat?’ I asked. ‘Sorry, I should have said, “Welcome home,” first.’ I bowed.

  ‘Rubbish. You sit down. I’ll get something.’ She walked towards the kitchen and came back with a can of Coke and two glasses.

  ‘I was going to have a beer,’ I complained, taking a seat on the couch in the living room.

  ‘You can’t drink as long as you are on painkillers, you should know that much.’

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Give it at least a day,’ she pleaded.

  She poured me the Coke, took my phone from the bag and plugged it into the charger on the desk.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘I am going to write you a note and leave the pills here,’ and proceeded to scribble.

  ‘How much was the bill, Nat?’

  ‘Not bad actually, the insurance covered most of it. It was a small accident for them. It’s the car insurance you should worry about.’

  ‘Don’t remind me. Thinking about the car makes my head hurt. Lucky I wasn’t carrying my camera yesterday or someone would have walked away with it.’

  ‘True. Should I leave everything here?’ she asked, showing me the big folder with the papers and reports.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied.

  The living room window overlooked a very old and large gulmohar tree. She came over to the couch, and we sat there next to each other staring at it.

  ‘Sid, can I ask you about your family?’

  ‘Yeah, of course.’

  ‘So where are they?’

  ‘I don’t have one,’ I replied and, turning to her, smiled.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, I was a single child and my parents died.’

  ‘Really? Oh? Oh. I mean, so sorry, Sid, what happened?’

  ‘They passed away in a car accident when I was sixteen. I was in boarding school and they had driven over to meet me. It was just before my final exams. On the way back a truck drove into them.’ I laughed when the realization struck me. ‘Trucks love our family!’

  ‘Shut up, Sid.’

  Having lived with it for so long, I was able to recount the story dispassionately.

  ‘Passers-by took them to a hospital. Mom died on the way and it took a while before Dad regained consciousness long enough to give contact numbers. His brother, my uncle, arrived later in the evening an
d Dad passed away around midnight. He had a clot somewhere that got to his heart, and he went in his sleep. My uncle didn’t call me for another week, because I had exams, so I didn’t know and didn’t see them. When they did tell me, I came back home and saw their pictures on the wall. I never forgave my uncle’s family, haven’t spoken to them since.

  ‘I eventually realized that they probably did the right thing. What could I have done even if I had heard the same day? If anything, I would have wasted a whole school-year if I had missed my exams.’ I shrugged.

  ‘I am so sorry, Sid,’ she said, and reached out and held my hand. Funnily enough, it felt like we were sitting in the car again and staring out of the windscreen.

  ‘It’s fine, Nat. I don’t tell anyone this story. Nobody asks. Everyone thinks I have a family somewhere and I leave it at that.’

  Nat’s eyes welled up.

  ‘I am so sorry, Sid. I wondered why you didn’t call anyone and simply asked. Didn’t mean to op . . . er . . . reopen a wound,’ she said, struggling to complete her sentences.

  I didn’t know if I ought to comfort her, and ended up putting my arm around her shoulders and hugging her to my side. ‘Nat, I am glad you were here for me, and took care of me all day. I didn’t mean to upset you. And please don’t worry, it happened so long ago that I feel a certain degree of separation when I talk about it, like it happened to someone else,’ I said in an attempt to assure her.

  She smiled. ‘It couldn’t have been any other way. Honestly, I was glad I was your last call yesterday. ’

  At first I didn’t understand what she meant and then it struck me.

  ‘Okay. Can I leave you alone and go home? Will you eat something on time and then take the pills? Should I send you dinner?’

  ‘Nat, go!’ I insisted. ‘I’ll be just fine.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll go. Call me if you need anything,’ she said and then she leaned over, touched my cheek with hers, giving me a semi hug. Once again, the scent of lavender enveloped my senses.

  When she pulled back she touched my cheek again with the palm of her right hand and said, ‘I want you to know I am here for you.’

  I smiled and mouthed a ‘Thank you’.

  12