Beautiful Beast (Gypsy Heroes #3)(65)

‘OK, but you don’t know anyone here,’ I say with a grimace.

‘Listen. You know me.’

‘Yeah. I know all about you.’ I smile gratefully.

‘When was the last time you saw her?’ he asks curiously.

‘I haven’t seen her since I was ten. Something happened and one day she was no longer there.’

‘All right, go and see her. I’ll arrange a ticket back for you for the day after tomorrow. Don’t let me down.’

‘I’ll never let you down.’

‘Chitra’s poor, isn’t she?’

‘Very,’ I say sadly.

‘Would you like to give her some money?’

Immediately my eyes fill with tears. ‘Yes,’ I say, swallowing hard, unable to believe that he would be so generous to someone he had never met.

‘Oh, sweet Snow. What a soft-hearted thing you are.’

‘Thank you, Shane. You have no idea what this means to me.’

‘Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go see her and give her enough to change her life. Buy her a little house or something. You decide what is best for her, OK?’

I stare at him in astonishment. ‘You’d do that for a total stranger?’

‘You’re my baby and you love her. So she becomes part of my family.’

OMG! He called me his baby! I feel so happy I think my head is going to burst. And I almost blurt it out that I love him then, but I don’t. I just don’t have the guts.

‘You’re leaving tonight?’

‘Yeah. My brother’s secretary has already booked me a flight.’

I nod. ‘Go and meet the old devil.’

‘I really wanted you to come.’

‘I know, but I’ll be there the day after tomorrow.’

‘I will arrange for you to be picked up at Heathrow and brought to my grandfather’s place. Have you got a mobile phone?’

‘I haven’t got around to getting a new one yet.’

‘I’m going to transfer some money into your account tomorrow. Get a mobile phone immediately so you can call me, and more importantly I can call you anytime I want,’ he says with a grin.

‘OK, I will.’

We make love one more time. My body tingles, and then it is time for me to go. It feels strange to let him go again. At the door, I lay my cheek against his chest. I can hear his heart pounding, and wish I could stay there forever just listening to its steady beat.

‘Hey,’ he says softly. ‘It’s only two days. Nothing can keep us apart again.’





Thirty-nine


SNOW

To my horror, Kupu takes me to the slums in the outskirts of the city.

‘Chitra lives here?’ I ask in disbelief.

‘Yes, Snow,’ he says as if living in this rubbish heap is normal. ‘She lives here now.’

I am almost speechless with shock when we go down a dusty mud path filled on either side with corrugated iron roofed huts. Kupu stops outside one of the shanty huts and calls out for Chitra.

She shuffles out wearing an old sari and is holding a dirty, folded-up cloth pressed to her mouth. Her gaze falls on Kupu and then flutters over to me. For a few seconds her eyes squint and her head cranes forward with disbelief. Then her eyes widen and she stares at me as if she is seeing a ghost.

We look at each other. Then she screams with joy from behind the cloth pressed to her and almost trips over the doorway in her rush to hug me. Tears pour down her face.

I hug her tightly and join her in her tears. She is happy to see me, but I am horribly saddened and frightened to see the state of her. She is a shadow of her former self. Her eyes are deeply sunken and her body is a bag of bones. That she is very ill is clear. I can hardly believe this is my Chitra. Wiping her tears with the ends of her sari she bade us to enter her tiny hut.


I look around at the bare, pitiful surroundings. There is only one plastic chair, a little stove, some cooking utensils, and some cardboard boxes with her belongings in one corner. It is like an oven in this small space and I actually feel claustrophobic and oppressed. To think that Chitra spends her whole life here is unthinkable to me.

‘What’s wrong with you, Chitra?’ I ask.

‘I have tuberculosis,’ she says, suddenly breaking in a hacking cough that causes her to double over with its intensity.

‘But tuberculosis is curable. Why are you like this?’ I ask when the coughing fit is over.

‘I’ve been treated for lung problems for more than a year now, but because the doctors have been making wrong diagnoses and prescription errors, they have made the disease stronger rather than curing it. Now my doctors keep changing the drugs, but nothing seems to work. The only thing they have not yet attempted to do is surgery to remove the infected parts of the lungs, but I can’t afford it and anyway I am so weak now I don’t think I can even survive it. Because of all the wrong diagnoses I have hearing loss, terrible joint pain, you cannot imagine how they ache at night.’



That afternoon I call Shane on my new mobile and tell him exactly how I want his money for Chitra to be spent. I want her to have the best doctors in India to perform her surgery, and when she is better I want her to come and stay with us for a while. He says he will get someone to immediately start making the arrangements for her surgery and treatment. In less than an hour he calls back to give me the address of a private hospital to take Chitra to recuperate.