A Sister's Promise by Renita D'Silva

Author:Renita D'Silva
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781910751138
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

RAJ

THE HUSKY PINK OF ROSE BLOSSOM

‘Your father didn’t!’ Raj says.

‘I’m afraid he did.’ His mother’s eyes radiate ache and melancholy. Her voice bleeds from old wounds oozing fresh hurt as the scab of time is picked off. ‘He was such a gentle man; it came as such a shock . . .’

‘I bet.’ Raj shakes his head, and his hands bunch into fists. He is surprised at how angry he feels on behalf of his mother.

‘And that is why, when I slapped you . . . I am no better than him. I understand now how he could have done it, in the heat of the moment, with fury blinding him to love and what was right.’ Her voice breaks.

‘But that was different, Mum. One slap is different from lashing the skin off your daughter’s back! He hit you and then, did he really kick you out?’

His mum nods, unable to speak.

‘Would you like the chicken or the vegetarian meal?’ the air hostess asks.

They both decline the meal although Raj asks for another Coca Cola.

The little airplane on the tiny screen in front of him is more than half way between England and India. Raj is gradually getting a picture of this land he has never visited, despite the fact of his father inviting him over so many times, even going so far as to send Raj the tickets for a round trip which Raj had returned unused.

Raj had refused because he’d always felt that India robbed him of his father.

He did not begrudge his dad for leaving his mother. He understood why he had done so. He even did not begrudge his dad the family he subsequently had. But he begrudged his father for going to India. That had felt final, like his dad was leaving him. He couldn’t forgive his father that.

Before his father left for India, Raj had always nurtured the secret hope that one day he could leave his unfeeling mum and go stay with his dad. But when his dad emigrated, that option was taken away from him. He used to see his father at least once a month when his dad was still in the country. After that, Raj didn’t see him at all, except for the one time his father made the trip to the UK to see his son, after Raj had spurned all his father’s summonses and pleas.

‘I can’t afford to keep coming here to see you, Raj,’ his father had sighed. ‘I run my own business as you know and I . . . ’

‘Then don’t,’ Raj had said. ‘And you haven’t kept coming. You’ve only come the once.’

‘Why don’t you visit me over there? You’ll love it, I promise. It’ll make a nice change from your usual.’ His father had implored.

But Raj had remained implacable, truculent. His father had given up, and had gone back to India defeated, and did not invite him there again.

He phoned Raj once every week, stilted conversations that said nothing at all, that resounded with all the things unsaid, with old upsets and new reproaches.

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