Belle Nessa - A Gothic Story

How much did other journalists have to beg the editor to write a story? "I will come back with THE story, a wonderful one, an honest, personal account from the reserved Belle Nessa, perhaps her last with her illness.” 

The breeze from outside clamoured up and she opened her eyes. ”I close the windows, foggy now” the Uber driver stiffly explained. The air stifled and clasped at her throat and she felt dizzy.

“The air conditioner please!” The driver sighed loudly, but he turned the air conditioner on low. The mist enveloped the car gradually, it gathered and veiled itself around and soon dusk fell. Lila wondered suddenly if this was a genuine Uber. Too tired to be actually worried, she fell into a deep sleep.

The car was slowing as she woke up. It felt low and sterile outside in contrast to the vibrancy and vitality of Jaipur City. Not a sound, or a being in sight. She looked to her right and there it stood - the house; probably an old colonial home, but without the care and upkeep. Disordered ferns weer climbing and choking the exterior walls, a broken wooden picket fence flanked the house and weeds were scattered and overgrown all over the lawn. The air was perfectly still; not a bird, a cricket, nor car engine could be heard. She checked her phone from her handbag and there was no signal. The driver turned around. “You want me to wait?”

Lila smiled. “Just…”

And out came Belle, who had chosen to stay in this solitary house for the last 65 years. She walked forward to the broken gate unsteadily from the house unsmiling, looking intently at Lila. Her fixed look was stern, unwavering. 

“Please return tomorrow this time. I will pay you double!”

“Yes Madam” answered the driver as Lila clutched at her case, balanced her handbag on her shoulder and opened the door. The immediate chill of the countryside forced her to pull her jacket tighter around her. It was only twilight a moment before, but the darkness was almost thick and solid now, and with the mist it felt as though they were floating on an island away from India.

 She closed the car door behind her and as she turned back, Belle’s face was suddenly up close. Her hair was pulled back into a tight grey bun, and Lila could see the clamminess of her complexion, the translucency of her skin. Her brown eyes were liquid watery and she trembled as she spoke.

“Lila? Thank you for coming. I have wanted someone to hear my story for so long!” Her voice was quivering, undulating and low as she enclasped Lila suddenly. On contact Lila felt welcomed but was still shivering from the cold. A muggy dampness now swallowed up what fresh air she had left behind in Jaipur.

The Uber sped away and Lila was alone with Belle.

“Let’s go in, you must be hungry, thirsty. ”

She unsteadily made her way to the front door and it creaked as she opened it for Lila to step in to the front room.

“I only have cold food for you my dear, in the fridge. My maid left the food you will need. There is bread in the fridge, and powder for milk. Do you eat sliced beef?”

Lila looked around at the front room. Newspapers were strewn all over, on shelves, on the sofa, and books stacked high in little piles on the table and the floor. The curtains were bedraggled and unwashed. There was a Jaipur silk rug somewhere under the piles of books and nick nacs on the floor, Indian carved wall hangings hung up all around, but the walls had black scuffed marks and the flowered wallpaper was peeling at the corners. The room was once beautiful.

“Shall I do you a plate, or make you some tea?” Lila asked.

‘No’. Belle abruptly answered.

Lila hurried her meal down and then found her notebook and pen from her handbag.

Belle sat perfectly still at a huge wicker chair by the window and was looking upon the mist unblinkingly, like a serious, contemplative Budha. Lila saw her slightly tremulous head nodding a fraction of a nod, up and down.

“Shadows swaying outside the window” began Belle.

“Shadows?” 

“In the leaves and trees”.

“Oh I see.”

“Shadows are everywhere - we have to watch for the shadows. Do you know, to step on someone’s shadow is bad luck?” Her eyebrows were raised and she seemed to be serious.

“Oh!” chuckled Lila, unsure of whether this was a joke.

“So, I started writing as a rebellion. My Father thought a daughter was not entitled to an education. My mother was the forward thinker, keeping a tutor while my father was at work at the accounts office. Did you know he was an accountant?”

“Yes, yes I did.” Lila put a title to her page in capital letters: BELLE NESSA.

‘And so I snuck my way through Literature, Mathematics, Geography, History.”

“Yes” replied Lila as she doodled little flowers in the corner.

“But my brother was the one who threw his education away- sent to the finest boarding school in Darjeeling. He would come home and goad me about how much he knew. Well, the more he knew, the more I pushed my tutor to keep up with, oh for example Senenca, His goading was actually helping in my education!”

She bared her fragile teeth as she laughed for the first time, throwing her head back with joy and Lila was scribbling down all she could at a mad pace; the private life of Nessa had never been revealed, or her relationship with her brother. This was pure gold. Lila looked up, smiling: “Go on”.

“ Of course, my brother, Naveed, was not of the temperament to have a woman in the room who could compete with him in any sense. I would argue with him as good as the rest of them and he, like my Father, was not pleased to have a woman around with too many views. I would blurt out whatever was on my mind. Youth, you see, is not sympathetic to patience. How old are you my dear?”

“Oh, I’m 26” answered Lila.

“ Now age has nothing to do with wisdom, always remember that. We just amass more experience along the way. But we can always choose the path to wisdom, which sometimes involves saying nothing at all”. She coughed and held her hand to her throat.

“So, my parents passed unfortunately and I was in my early 20s. Life was exciting and I was young, so I journeyed to the city and across India and had to make a living. I love Jaipur, and I loved Agra, Bombay, Calcutta, I just had to see as much as I could! Naveed was not going to fund my ‘bohemian lifestyle’’ as he called it, so I began writing stories for the local magazines, Aruna, Living Today, all of those, and then I strung a few of my stories together and had my first novel…”

Lila knew the bones of Belle’s career and her scribbling slowed down.

“ So I wrote: I am Millie, The King is Mine, Into Oblivion which I won the Booker prize for, as well as my collection of short stories and essays, and Naveed was hanging onto my coattails for dear life. Well, he wasn’t going to meet the people I met, and so he made himself my manager, oversaw all of my deals, wrung me dry and look at me now! He was a scoundrel too - or the horrific stories of himself and the ladies he would proposition. Forced ME to be alone, preferred me alone, stuck here, in my parents’ old home in the middle of nowhere!” she had raised her voice at the last bit and its shrill anger and distress was apparent. She stopped speaking, and smoothed down her black tunic for a second turning suddenly to look out of the window again.

Not even a clock was ticking to break the stillness.

“Are you married dear?”

“Yes, a few months. Actually may I use your landline soon to ring my husband, he’ll be worried and there’s no phone signal. I’ll reimburse the call..”

Belle pointed her head in the direction of the landline and as Lila went over and picked it up, Belle apologised.

“I’m sorry but there may be no line" which was the case.

“A good man worrying about you is wonderful. People are always seeking so much! But someone who is worrying about you and waiting, well that's a kind of real happiness."

Lila looked up inquiringly.

“I met the most wonderful man at one of my conferences, and we began writing to each other. The writer and free thinker MK Khan? Yes, the one who was found dead at his wheel on the motorway coming into Jaipur from Bombay. And who was he coming to see? Oh yes. And Naveed had told me he would not allow me to marry, imagine, using the word: ‘ALLOW’ ”.

Lila looked down worriedly but continued scribbling, and hoped this wasn’t spiralling into the confessions of a deranged woman.

“Well of course with my money Naveed was a powerful man. Remember he controlled all of my earnings and had his hand in all of my contracts, and he had contacts everywhere. EVERYWHERE! I am sure he had a hand in his death. My dear, here is a letter he wrote me telling me of his uncomfortable encounter with Naveed."

Lila reached out a slender, trembling hand for the love letter between MK Khan and Belle.

“Don't open it now, and you can keep it. All I had was a hunch as you may call it, anyway”.

Belle looked out again with a pained expression, her eyes narrowed as she looked into the mist.

Silence ensued for a few moments . Lila could almost hear her own heart pounding.

“ l can’t hear the leaves”.

“Sorry dear?” Belle looked at her.

“The leaves in the trees, I can’t hear them? How strange!”

Finally Belle answered:

“The mist is so heavy, dear. It wraps around everything.”

*

The night transitioned so quickly Lila wasn’t even sure it had passed or for how long. Strange lurid shapes had danced over her head and she had felt herself being drawn up and then flung down again; images of dark oppressive figures which she felt had been lurid, disturbing dreams.

In the morning, her body was more tired than ever. She freshened up in the en suite (no hot water, threadbare towel) and made her way to the front room. She opened the door and Belle was standing right there. Lila let out a little gasp and Belle frowned.

“My dear you’ve slept the day away, it’s midday!”

“It is?”

“ There's cereal, milk, tea, and toast. No eggs”.

Lila walked to the kitchen cupboard and reached for the cornflakes box. She quickly checked the sell by date and it was 2 months past. She got a bowl, rinsed it and poured in the milk powder, bottled water from the floor and stirred her milk together. She poured in the cornflakes and sat at the same, dusty table.

“Tea, Belle?”

“No thank you. You are a good soul. Good souls have a lot of responsibility upon them, to do the right thing.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

*

She was discouraged from a walk: “There are monkeys around which attack people here . There are also snakes aplenty. Be ready with your bag packed for the driver.” Lila couldn’t help feeling she had overstayed her welcome. She looked forward to spending a few days in Jaipur before she left for London again. Lila could feel the intense impatience of Belle upon her to leave as she sat again at the window, almost at the edge of her seat, looking out for the driver.

That morning Lila unearthed an article featuring Belle with her brother Naveed at a literature festival 20 years ago from a scrapbook Belle had left in her room on the table. The headline said: ‘Belle Nessa and Her Brother/Manager Attend the International Literary Awards Ceremony in Berlin”. He was clutching her elbow tightly, wearing a wide, fake grin, and she had such an intense look of unease about her, it had startled Lila. She really was beautiful too - a true Belle. He looked rakish and there had been something guarded in his look. He had died 5 years after that picture, in a car accident.

Lila wondered why Belle had never moved on from the house.

*

“My dear, the car is here” shrilled Belle. Lila wheeled her case from the bedroom and made her way to the front door. Again she was held in a brief embrace and Belle looked her in the eye steadily. She stepped back and the coolness around her willed her into the car. 

“Thank you Belle!” she shouted with the window lowered, but as she sped off, a look of blood curdling horror had passed over Belle’s face.

The window was hurriedly raised by the driver. She buckled up as the car gathered speed. It increased its haste and Lila couldn’t erase Belle's terrified expression from her mind, nor the picture of her brother Naveed and his steellike grip on her elbow in the photo. The mist seemed to thicken and she closed her eyes as once again the familiar dizziness and lightheadedness overtook her. She imagined it was due to just eating crudites and cornflakes for the past twenty - four hours with minimal supplies of bottled water and powdered milk - and was glad she would be in the city again, around people, food, noise, bustle and life. To just hear nature and traffic, see shop fronts with food and garments, fruitsellers at the roadside - the anticipation of it all made her smile.

The car felt as though it were floating away as it lifted and ferried through the carpet of fog back to civilization. She tried to relax, but now felt the car driving even faster. She worriedly checked the speedometer at the front, and they were doing 70 miles an hour, along these rural roads.

“We’re going very fast” she said loudly enough for the driver to hear. As if in response he put his foot down and sped up even more. She checked the speedometer and they were now doing 80 miles an hour. “Excuse me!’ Lila raised her voice to him, and he was mute. What if they were to hit an animal or worse a child? She had promised double fare so why was he rushing at such a mad, dangerous pace? She gripped the handle above her as it veered through the narrow village roads and at times she was thrown off her seat by the bumps and potholes they encountered. She closed her eyes feeling slightly nauseous and then opened them in terror. They had left in the opposite direction of which they had arrived! And this was not a silver but a black saloon car.

“Driver!” she shouted, now really frightened. He turned around to look at her for a long moment while the car gathered momentum and they continued at breakneck speed.

The veins bulged out of his face and there were drops of sweat running down his forehead. His eyes were bloodshot and almost red, and he gave the hint of a sinister, malign smile at her.

It was not the face of the driver before, but of Belle’s brother, Naveed.

*

Her blood ran cold and she felt herself struggling to breathe as she gulped and gulped but couldn’t breathe out. She felt herself suspended from it all, as though looking down at herself while this experience happened to someone else - beyond surreal. And the car drove on.

As she observed herself, the actions gradually formed words which strung together as sentences to a commentary of her situation. “Are you going to engage with a dead man? Make a deal? Probably not. You’re alive now - do something to stay that way. Are you just going to be a passenger in your own life, literally?” She prayed. She prayed out loud, into the air, loud enough for him to hear. He groaned and the car swayed.

Of course, jinns and evil spirits were completely recoiled by the name of God.

She continued praying fervently, loudly and under her breath and he visibly groaned again and the car swayed further as she chanted the prayer louder, again and again. At one moment he groaned in anger and irritation and the car slowed down, slow enough for her to keep her bag on her shoulder, open her door and slide out curled up as far as possible. She landed on grass, but with a bump and a bruise to her head, she lay there with her eyes closed, and then drifted away into unconsciousness…

*

How the villagers found her she didn’t know, but she thanked them and kissed and held their hands through the window as she was driven away by a cab they had arranged. People in a village with yellow flame and orange mango trees with bees buzzing near to her face, around her cut eye. She was still trembling by the time she had reached the airport, and stumbling out of the car, paid a few hundred extra pounds to get on a flight back to London that evening.

*

“So you didn’t get the story” her editor sneerily informed her when she finally called him a few days after arriving in London.

“What do you mean? I’m emailing it to you this morning”.

There was silence for a few seconds. “You mean you wrote it before you left? I see. Well, at least you had a nice holiday in India.” Again the sarcasm, which annoyed Lila.

“What do you mean?”

He continued: “Well, it’s good you explored the house. And I’m sorry Belle Nessa died just three days before you left”.