Who Will Catch Us As We Fall (41 page)

Jeffery stared down at the mess in the pot. It was runny and blackened but he spooned it onto a plate and added a large helping of the beef stew. Seized by the oddity of the situation, he went and sat by Esther. In an attempt to thank her, he scooped up the
ugali
with his thumb and forefinger but it was too watery and refused to stick. He settled for a fork and eating the beef stew on its own.

‘Thank you,' he said gruffly, between bites.

Her eyes were fixed on a spot on the wall behind him, somewhere above his head, and when he turned to follow her gaze, she said, ‘I want to go and see Betty.'

Jeffery kept his face turned, his breath ragged. It had been three days, seventy-two long hours, since he had last seen Betty. ‘I'm afraid that's not possible. Remember I said that she's very busy this month and won't be able to come here as often.'

‘Take me to her workplace then. You know where it is.'

He had forgotten what a headstrong woman she could be. He recalled a night, some years ago, after the three of them had eaten dinner at this very table, while the two men were relaxing and David had said, ‘I have the police commissioner calling me now, investigating our office for corrupt activities. He's asking for our logs, receipts.' He had turned desperately to his whiskey. ‘What will I do?'

His wife had regarded him unsympathetically. ‘If you choose to lie down with dogs,' she had said, ‘you must be prepared to wake up with fleas.'

How different she had been then – with her stinging words and laughing ways. Now her life was made up of small, meaningless activities – pacing her room, cleaning the stove, watching the wall, which she did with the staring, blank eyes of a dying fish.

He said to her, feeling guilty for countless reasons, ‘You know I can't do that, Esther. What would her employers think?'

Finally, her eyes came down from the spot on the wall. They were shining with mischief, treating him as an accomplice. ‘She told me that on Sundays, they all go to the temple. They're gone in the morning and don't come back until two.'

Esther couldn't have known the value of her words; how they invigorated him with new hope, settling the turning in his stomach. But it was diluted by something else: a worry for Betty, the fear of pushing her even further away from him.

‘It's too risky for her,' he heard himself say from someplace else.

Esther's patience evaporated fast. ‘You do so many wrong things, every day, every hour! Why can't you do this one thing for me?'

He thought about the house again: the massive driveway and carved red-wood door; the quiet, waiting richness promised within. There was a hard pressure on his hands and Esther's gripping, pleading words. ‘Please, Jeffery. We'll go in and out, straight away. No one will even know we were there.'

That Saturday evening, he scanned the dim club for Marlyn in annoyance. All he required in order to wait was a drink and a chair, but neither seemed available.

His usual table had been pushed against the wall to make room for a dance floor, where the music throbbed in his ears and the crowd was terribly young and rowdy – already his shoes clung to the floor, sticky with spilled alcohol. Jeffery slipped out onto the narrow patio, where it was possible to see most of Westlands in one swooping gaze. It was an overcast night, the stars hidden within spreading gray clouds, and he settled on a wicker chair, glad for the quiet. When a waitress came to take his order, he had shouted after her, ‘Tell Marlyn to come quickly! I want to see her.'

He had come because he needed a break from the press of his unrelenting thoughts, because he craved the blinding oblivion of a drink and because he had a feeling the two men would be here. When the whiskey was placed in front of him, he caught the waitress's bony wrist.

‘Where is she?'

‘She's busy with customers.'

Marlyn had never made him wait before and her absence made his grip on the world slowly slip. Everything about him was collapsing into turmoil and he needed to steady himself again, feel in charge once more; the temptation and promise of the Kohli house grew and became potent.

‘Spending my money?'

Today it was a relief to hear the gritty voice. Jeffery sipped thinly at his drink and said, ‘Please sit down and celebrate with me.'

It was only him tonight, the man who had slammed his face into the bathroom mirror, and as he settled in the chair, tossing his jacket back, Jeffery glimpsed the metallic flash of a gun.

‘What is there to be merry about? I can only assume you have my cash.'

‘I don't.' He held his hand up to keep the man from interrupting. He was afraid that any disruption might cause him to falter, cause his decision to crumble. ‘But I have a plan on how we can get it together.'

‘What are you talking about, you crazy
mzee.
' The man leaned forward to grab the lapels of Jeffery's jacket. ‘I already told you, I want my money by Wednesday.'

‘And I can get you that tomorrow plus much more.'

He was released with a shove. The man ran greedy fingers over the armrests. ‘Keep talking.'

The keen interest on his face shone out under the white city lights, loosening some of the tension forming in Jeffery's temples. He said, ‘We'll have to do it tomorrow and it'll have to be together. I have it all planned out.'

Pooja sat at her dresser, brushing out her hair furiously. ‘I don't understand why you won't come,' she said to her daughter. ‘It's just a small flu.'

Leena rolled over in her mother's bed, burying herself deeper into the covers and away from Pooja's annoyance. From beneath this weighty, protective cloud, she heard her brother say, ‘She has a fever, Ma,
and a throat that's so sore she can hardly speak. She won't be able to talk to any boys, so what's the point?' His voice was light and teasing.

‘That's not why I want her to come.'

Jai was rifling through Raj's closet, searching for a tie. ‘You want her to get married. Everyone knows that.'

‘So what if I do?' Pooja spoke through a mouth held open in a wide oval, applying a generous coat of dark lipstick. ‘I got married when I was her age and look how happy I am.'

‘Things are different now, Ma
.
People don't get married at twenty-one any more.'

‘The younger you are, the earlier you can start a family of your own.' Swatting away groans from her children with a sunny tinkling of gold bangles on her wrist, Pooja continued, ‘So spoiled, you children are today. You think that all there is to life is studying and going out with your friends. You have no worries. When I was your age, I was thinking of my future, of
your
future,' and she was out of the room, shouting for Betty to find her shoes.

Jai stood at the full-length mirror and knotted his tie slowly, the silk cool in his fingers. He watched his sister, beneath the covers, and was glad that his mother had left them alone. Leena was going to London in two days and he knew that tonight would be the only possible time for Michael to meet with her. The tie kept slipping from his grasp, refusing to sit properly.

‘This evening I want us to go for a drink.' He said it in a rushed whisper, guilty for going behind his mother's back, of breaking that long-ago promise.

The blanket came down, her hair everywhere. ‘I'm sick.'

‘Can't you have one drink with your brother?' Finally, the tie tightened, perfectly shaped. ‘A friend of mine is going to be joining us and I think you'd be interested in meeting him.'

‘Not you too.' She threw herself dramatically back onto the pillows.

He ran tidying fingers through his hair. ‘I saved you with Ma
today, so you owe me.'

She conceded. ‘Knowing her, I would be at the temple today and married by tomorrow.'

He said goodbye and she listened to his footsteps rush down the stairs, her mother shouting something to Betty about dinner before the door closed and the echoes of voices receded, the house falling into a calming and much welcomed stillness.

Betty listened at the bottom of the stairs for the girl but she couldn't hear a sound. Usually, Betty waited eagerly for Sundays, when she would be alone for three hours, free to do whatever she wanted. Sometimes, she watched TV, always a colorful Bollywood movie with a woman draped in a sequined sari, surrounded by yellow daffodils or atop a snowy mountain, leaning her face up to a romantic, dark-haired man – both of them lamenting about their impossible love.

It felt deliciously redemptive, after all those hours spent working, to put her feet up on the same couch they had, to touch her mouth to the rim of Pooja's favorite cup and forget herself in the bright and foreign sounds of the movie.

But today, she knew that even if Leena had gone with them, she wouldn't have continued with her normal routine because everything around her was changed and nothing felt the same. She missed her cousin and the warm smallness of the kitchen – how close, in that raised one-bedroomed apartment, the sky had seemed, shot through with stars.
And how much I miss him.

She had been appalled when Jeffery had asked her to help him rob the Kohlis, his face intently close to hers and muddling her emotions. How foolish she had been leaving the house so abruptly that night, promising never to return when all she had wanted was for him to stop her.

These thoughts caused a twisting, pinching regret within her and she was so busy fighting it that she didn't hear the knocking, loud raps on the metal gate, and she followed them out, her rubber sandals slapping on the carbro driveway.

‘Betty, Betty. It's me. Please open the gate.'

Her insides fell weak with pleasure. In retrospect, the real reason why he was there should have crossed her mind but she had been vain and flattered, thinking he had come to make things right. She had trusted him and so, without any questions, Betty twisted the key in the lock and opened the gate.

Earlier in the day, they had waited, half-perched upon the curb beside a row of kiosks just outside the turning into the Kohlis' street. Jeffery watched anxiously out of the window while his two companions fussed with their teabag-like pouches full of fine grain tobacco. He watched as they dipped the brown flakes between their lower teeth and gums, occasionally rolling it with their fingers to keep the leaves in place.

When the silver station wagon passed them close to eleven o'clock, Jeffery was certain it was Betty's employers – the decorative mirrors on the woman's outfit reflecting the sunlight and disturbing his eyes, the two men dressed in suits. The time coincided with the information Esther had given him, so he told the man to drive.

That morning, he had left Esther at home, prying away her strong grip. ‘You promised you would take me today. How can you say that you're too busy?' Her words trapping him. ‘All these nights you've spent with your whores, I've never said anything. But after all the things you've done to me…'

It was the first time either of them had mentioned what had really happened.

Esther was at the bottom of the steps, clutching her handbag. After so many months, she was out of her nightgown and in a long-sleeved white blouse and printed skirt. ‘You owe me this.'

‘Maybe next week,' and he had stalked away, shutting out her collapsing face with a firm slam of the door.

Now, his bowels loosened uncomfortably with fear and beads of nervous sweat broke out underneath his shirt. But it was too late to turn back and he focused instead on consoling himself.
I'll convince Betty once I am inside. We'll take what we need and then leave.

So he had pointed out the gate to the men and climbed out of the car when they reached it, rapping loudly and calling out her name.

‘Betty, Betty. It's me. Please open the gate.'

He knocked and called, rolled his fingers into a fist and pounded. His voice began strong, then cracked into a blubber. He worried that she had gone out, that she didn't want to see him, but then he heard her slapped and hurried footsteps and nodded quickly to the men behind him.

She didn't hesitate, pulling the gate open in welcome, her smile unexpectedly bright. ‘I was hoping you would come—' Her words faltered when she noticed the pro-box rumbling behind him. ‘Who is that?'

He opened his mouth to explain but one man had already burst from the car, quick on his feet and with such blurred movements that one minute they were facing each other and the next, Betty was pressed up to the gate with a gun to the back of her head.

‘Don't scream,' the man warned her. ‘Open the gate.'

She was so distraught that the keys trembled within her fingers, missing the lock, and on the man's command she handed them to Jeffery, who ignored her pleas.

The white pro-box lurched into the driveway and the man pocketed the gun and told Betty, ‘You come with us but a single sound from you and I'll tie you up.'

‘No need to do that, she'll co-operate,' Jeffery rushed to intervene, leaning down to Betty's ear. ‘Just do as they say and no one will get hurt.'

Her voice was thick, the words struggling through. ‘Jeffery, what have you done?'

‘They would have killed me and then come after you.' He took her hands, pressing them close. ‘I'm doing this for all of us.'

‘But the girl is inside.' Turning to his companions and grabbing one of them, she said, ‘There's a girl inside – she's sick. If you leave now, I won't tell anyone you were here. Come back next week and I'll help you.'

Betty was slapped across the mouth, her head snapping back, and Jeffery felt it, a twin sting in his cheek.

‘Go back?' They laughed and held their bellies. Jeffery shrunk closer to Betty as they were both commanded to move. ‘
Twende
.' They threw a black balaclava at Jeffery, instructed him to put it on as they slid behind similar masks – stiff, weaved cotton that burned his skin in the heat.