The Stranger.

The Stranger

By Hannah Rachel Abraham

I looked down at my notebook. There was nothing in it so far except doodles, a huge ‘Day 6’ and secret code screaming ‘I’m hungry’ in Eoin Colfer’s Gnommish. ‘So in conclusion, you’re saying that she was moody and unpredictable as opposed to the beginning when she was basically unicorns and rainbows and then last year it all went downhill’. 

My interviewee shifted in his chair. ‘I wouldn’t like to say ‘went downhill’ per se, that’s rather an ugly phrase-’ 

‘But you agree?’

‘Well I would suppose so, yes’

‘And you came to this conclusion because?’

‘Well, I’m the ex-boyfriend, so I’d like to think I knew a little’

I smirked. He wished. 

‘Why are you doing this now? He asked wearily, with the thinly disguised impatience of someone who just wanted to get back to their game. 

‘She has to find out how to fix her. To figure out who she was and ask important people. It’s a therapy thing man, I don’t know’  

Ashish shot me a look. ‘Still doing that, are you?’

I matched his gaze with an equally withering one. ‘What?’

‘Nothing. Are we done here? Cool cool cool, good to see you again, it’s been great, really, you should keep in touch, and-’

‘Yes Ashish, I’m leaving, don’t worry.’ I gathered up my things and sashayed out, hurling a ‘I heard that’ as a parting shot at his muttered ‘dodged a bullet there’.

I checked my notebook. Last one for the day was Gracy Ammachy. Ugh. Dealing with Ammachys took a special kind of patience, one that Ashish had drained liberally in the last half hour. In fact, there was doubt whether that particular strain of human kindness had ever made its presence known in my character, but that investigation could wait till the current one was over. 

Sticking my hand out, I gestured wildly till an auto deigned to slow its pace. The driver stuck his head out and sized me up as I jogged alongside it. ‘Two fifty’, he pronounced. 

I bristled. ‘I didn’t even tell you where I was going’. ‘Fine, two hundred then, or wonandhaf metre’. His foot hovered threateningly above the accelerator, daring me to find another auto before my self control evaporated. ‘One eighty or I’m leaving’, I said, swinging into the darkness of the backseat before either of us changed our minds. 

Gracy Ammachy’s house was as picturesque as ever. The freshly painted gate screamed comfortable middle class and ‘Thottaparambil Thazhatheveedu’ over layers of blazing bougainvillea. ‘Molé, you’re here!’ rang out in clear, bell like tones across about two districts. I let her kiss me after my ears had stopped ringing. Ammachys have a very distinct style of kissing, they come very close to your face and just … inhale. They don’t even make contact, they simply breathe in your very essence and then let you go, like the cheerful cousin of a Dementor. ‘You must eat something, you’re positively wasting away’ she declared to the world, busily burdening the teapoy with enough food to feed a small elephant. This was going to be a long afternoon. 

‘Ah, so tell me, what brings you here?’ she bellowed from the safe distance of the kitchen. ‘Yes Ammachy, Sheila had to ask about her childhood memories and all that so she can start to remember. It’s a therapy thing you know, because -’

She poked her head out. ‘Therapy indeed! When I was young we would rather die before telling people we were retarded. I mean, and her dad is so well known and everything ...’ Her voice trailed off into somewhat normal volume levels. ‘But then again, things are better now. We weren’t allowed to ask for help then.’

We were quiet for a few seconds. 

I braced my auditory system and gingerly brought up my question, ‘So what was she like?’ 

‘Oh, she was a darling, really. Always listened to her parents, learned all the memory verses. Very bright child, though I say so myself. Would have made an excellent doctor, it’s a shame, keto. I think the teens were a rough patch, but then that’s true for everyone allé? Not that she didn’t have her faults of course - she would always walk around slouching, like one of those fisherwomen after a long day’s work only she would never do any work also just sit and read and stare all day. Hmm, what else, she had a nasty habit of talking about herself in the third person, yes, and she refused to write with her right hand as a kid and that mother of hers just let her be! Everyone knows it’s bad luck, it’s just downright irresponsible to let your own child just do whatever they want - she wanted to be a fashion designer, can you believe it? Fat lot of good that would do to the world. Fashion designer indeed! We had to humour all her little quirks of course, we knew she was a little fragile. OH, she had this phase where she hated wearing pants when she was about five, and she would walk around in only a -’ 

‘Ammachy, these unniyappams are amazing, I’ve missed them’ I interjected, before she bulldozed into more unsavoury topics I had no desire to hear about. She happily went on a tangent about the man who came to fell the coconuts the other day, and the afternoon went on.

On the bus back to Sheila’s, I reflected on my findings. So she had been just like any other twenty something - bright, talented, lazy and full of wasted potential. But she had been happy. I wanted to see her happy again. We used to be inseparable, her and I. Two halves of a whole, two sides of a coin. Basically the same person. 

I rushed home, bursting to express what I’d learned today. 

‘Sheilaaaaaaaaa cheggit this is what I found - okay, you used to be happy so that means you’ve known what it feels like and you can do it again, I know you can. I think what happened with us is that I began to hate all the things that made you, you. For future reference, that’s a terrible idea by the way. I hated the fact how you had such big dreams because it looked like they would never come true and you just resigned yourself to that miserable reality. I mean, you wanted to do fashion design, man! I started hating your perfectionism because it meant you would drown in unfinished projects that you weren’t happy with. Your passionate, emotional character began to just look like moody irritability to me. And Ashish, apparently. Not a bad guy, that. 

Anyway, you have loads of things to talk about at therapy tomorrow, so let’s go to bed now, okay?’

I smiled, happy that I’d got that off my chest. She smiled back, her brown eyes coming the closest I’d seen to relaxing in a long time. We would be okay. 

So I put down the mirror and went to sleep.

GLOSSARY:

Ammachy - Grandmother’ in Malayalam. Used for blood relations as well as old ladies in general.

Wonandhaf - Slang for ‘one and a half’

Molé - 'Daughter' in Malayalam, also used as a general term of endearment for younger females

Keto - 'did you hear?' in Malayalam

Allé - 'right?' in Malayalam

Unniyappam - Small round Malayali snack made from rice, jaggery, banana, roasted coconut pieces, ghee and cardamom powder fried in oil. Great for the arteries, I've heard.