After all the recent ducking and hiding, it surprises me when the doorbell rings and Harris is right there.
‘What’s going on?’ I pull him inside the cool hallway. ‘You look horrible.’
He’s sweating, pale-faced, with his hoodie up. His eyes look haunted. ‘I’ve just been at…’
He stops when Nani comes into the hall, hot on my heels. ‘Who is this? Amita, who is this strange boy in our house?’
‘He’s not a strange boy,’ I say firmly in English. Best to normalise it, speak with confidence. ‘Nani-ji, this is Harris. I know him from Ouyen. Harris, this is my grandmother, Amarjot Kaur.’
I demonstrate a namaste, and Harris copies me awkwardly, bobs his head. ‘Uh, hi.’
I turn to Nani. ‘Harris is living in Mildura now, and he was visiting a friend nearby but he started feeling sick on his way home. I told him to stop here until he felt better.’
‘Ohh, yes, the heat,’ Nani says, nodding. ‘The heat can make you see spots.’
‘Yeah.’ Harris wipes his hoodie sleeve across his eyes. God, he looks like he’s seeing ghosts as well as spots. ‘Yeah, it’s probably the heat.’
Nani nods some more then pulls on my arm. She yanks me down until my ear is close to her face. ‘He looks like a sadhu!’ she hisses, as if Harris isn’t standing two feet away and can’t hear every word she’s saying.
‘Nani!’ I make a shushing calming motion. ‘He’s not a sadhu, okay? He’s just…he hasn’t had a bath for a while. But that’s not his fault.’
‘Can we discuss my personal hygiene standards later?’ Harris grimaces. ‘The car’s still parked right out front.’
‘Okay, okay…’ I feel like I’m being split in two. ‘Gimme your keys, I’ll sort out the car. Nani, why don’t you give Harris a drink or something, before he falls over. Just give me a sec.’
Snatching the keys Harris offers and extricating myself from Nani’s grip, I head outside. Harris’s car is parked sideways on the kerb, the driver’s seat still warm from him. I twist the key, the car coughs to life, lurches gingerly up off the bitumen and into the driveway. I ease it all the way up, into the carport.
The rear of the car is still obvious because of the racing stripes. I angst about what to do for a second until I see a folded pile of old bed sheets Hansa has stacked on a plastic storage box near the outhouse. One of the sheets covers the backside of the car nicely. It doesn’t look too weird, just someone who’s protected their car’s paintwork from the sun.
I run back inside, worrying about how Harris and Nani are getting on. Talk about worlds colliding.
They’re in the kitchen, of course. Nani is perched on one of the stools at the kitchen island and Harris is sitting beside her. Nani looks tiny next to him, like a nut-brown doll. Harris is sipping from a glass of mango cup stuffed with ice cubes, a sprig of mint floating on top.
Nani’s eyes are narrowed but she lifts her head to look at me. ‘He likes the mango cup.’ As if this is some sort of vindication of Harris’s character.
‘Everyone likes your mango cup, Nani.’ I smile at her. If I seem relaxed she’ll relax too. ‘I’ve sorted out the car.’
‘Thanks.’ Harris is getting some colour back, but his hand on the glass still trembles. ‘I’m sorry to call you, to come here –’
‘You must come,’ Nani says. ‘You cannot drive when you are sick. That is how accidents happen.’
Harris looks at her, presses his lips. ‘Yeah, you’re right. Thank you for the drink.’
Nani beams. ‘Mint settles the stomach.’
‘Harris, would you like to use the bathroom to wash your face?’ I suggest. ‘I can show you the way.’
‘Yeah, thanks.’ He nods and rises, follows me down the hallway. I hear Nani bustling to refill his glass in his absence.
I push him in the door of the bathroom. ‘What the hell happened?’
He rubs the heel of his hand across his eyes. ‘I was in Tulane Road, picking up some cash for Leon. And samples – there were supposed to be samples of the new gear. And I got up the steps, and they were…’ He stops, steadies himself at the bathroom sink. When he speaks again, his voice is a harsh whisper. ‘They were all dead, Amie. Four people in the house, and they were all…’
My whole body chills. Harris leans over the sink like he’s going to be sick. But he’s just catching his breath before running the cold tap, full bore.
‘Some kind of execution.’ He plunges his hands under the water. ‘Gunshot wounds. Hardly any struggle, I think. Must’ve been someone they knew, or maybe they got them late at night.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah.’ He stares at the two of us in the mirror, then shakes his head. ‘Anyway, when I got back onto the street, a patrol car came past, and I just…I kinda panicked, I’m sorry. I shouldna come here –’
‘Stop that.’ I hand him a towel. ‘Did the police see you?’
He presses his face into the towel, lifts it. ‘Maybe. They saw me in the street, they saw the car. I reckon they’d put two and two together.’
‘Then…you’ve got to stay here a while. Maybe overnight.’
‘I can’t do that.’ He glances towards the door of the bathroom. ‘Seriously, Amie, I can’t stay more than a few hours, max. It’s not safe for me to be here. You gotta think of your family.’ He makes a weak grin. ‘Not to mention I think your nanna might get a bit suss.’
‘Okay, then…’ I think, quick and hard. ‘Then we should change your appearance. That’ll work, won’t it?’
His eyes narrow. ‘What do you wanna do?’
‘Cut your hair, for starters. Your hair is sort of distinctive. Change your clothes, if we can find some others that’ll fit.’
‘What about the car?’
‘Maybe they’ll recognise it, sure. But if they see a different guy driving it…’
He nods.
‘I’ll get scissors and a change of clothes.’ I pat his arm, step out and pull the door of the bathroom shut behind me. Walk back up the hallway to the kitchen. ‘Nani, I’m afraid Harris was sick in the bathroom. He’s really not feeling well. I need to get him a change of clothes.’
Nani looks delighted to be consulted about this problem. ‘Your Mami has a box of Uncle Deepan’s old clothes… Now where is it?’ She hops nimbly off her stool and begins the hunt.
With Nani safely on-task, I search for a pair of scissors in the kitchen drawer and try not to think about houses full of dead people. Mass murder in Mildura. I should call Dad, right now. My hands get a little wobble in them – I breathe deep, control it. That can wait. There’s a different sort of emergency happening right now. I head back to the bathroom.
Harris is in the same position I left him, standing over the bathroom sink, only now he’s shirtless. His hoodie and T-shirt are balled in the corner. His jeans are slung low on his hips.
‘Hair-cutting, right?’ he says. ‘How we gonna do this?’
But I’ve been rendered momentarily speechless. I look at his bare chest for one more long second, then give myself a kick. ‘We do this with you sitting on the edge of the bath.’ I’m relieved at how steady my voice comes out. ‘I’ll stand in the bath behind you. Then we can collect the mess easy, and you can take a shower straight after.’
‘Okay.’ He still seems nervy. ‘Okay, sounds good.’
‘Take a seat.’ I make sure the bathroom door isn’t fully closed, so Nani doesn’t get concerned, before stepping over the edge of the bath. Now I’m immediately behind him. His shoulders are incredibly broad and I see his tattoo: the great brown snake, coiled and sinuous, sleeping there on his back. It’s an amazing piece of inkwork. I have to forcibly restrain myself from stroking it with my fingers.
I lay a towel across his shoulders. ‘Gotta warn you, I’m not a professional hairdresser, okay?’
‘Just chop it all off,’ Harris says thickly.
I start snipping. I’m working in a hurry before Nani’s voice “hoo-hoo!’’s out from the hallway. I’m really not very experienced at this: I’ve cut Dad’s hair before, but that’s usually with the clippers. I lift Harris’s locks up and slice about two and a half inches off. Now I have to maintain this length all over. It’s going to be a bit of a shaggy mop when I’m done, but his profile will be different which is what he needs.
His shoulders are still twitching. I don’t think he’s really focused on the haircut.
‘I dunno why they were shot,’ he says, avoiding his own gaze in the mirror. ‘I mean, it was a drug house. Leon’s money and the new batch samples – I was s’posed to be picking it all up.’
‘So the delivery is close?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, it’s close. I was gonna call you tonight. But the house…’ He swallows. ‘It looked like they were caught by surprise. There were some signs of resistance, but not…’
I stop mid-cut as I think of something relevant. ‘Are you sure they were all dead? If someone was left with injuries –’
‘They were dead.’ He looks at me in the mirror. ‘I checked all the rooms.’
The darkness of it clouds his eyes for a second, until he closes them, shivers. I put my free hand on his shoulder.
‘Harris. It’s gonna be okay. Just take a few deep breaths.’ My training for dealing with patients in shock kicks in of its own accord. But my own energy jitters in response to his nerves. I smooth my hand over the towel around him, calming us both. ‘Just take it easy.’
‘I’m not feeling very easy.’
‘Slow breaths.’
When he opens his eyes he stares at the floor in front of the bathroom sink. ‘Those people… They were just some blood and bone that got in the way while someone was looking for the drugs and the cash. It was so clinical. They were expendable.’
He’s saying something about himself, somehow. And I can tell we’re both reacting differently to the whole scenario. The fear of it, of these killings, makes me want to hide here in the house. For Harris, it makes him want to run. To get out, get in the car and drive away as fast as he can. I feel the energy in him, the way he’s containing the urge inside his body, the way it threatens to spill out.
I remember something my dad told me once about emergency situations: it’s really hard to wait and take a breath, think about what to do, consider the consequences. It’s hard to do nothing if you’re a person used to action.
‘We’ll figure it out. Relax for a second.’ I touch Harris’s neck gently. ‘Let me do this, then we can talk about it.’
He closes his eyes and exhales with a shuddering effort, as if more than breath is escaping him. I concentrate on what I’m doing. My fingers ease up from Harris’s nape. His hair has a dark sheen at the roots, but the gold is splintered all the way through, like a lion’s pelt. I’m not cutting the blonde out, just the whitened ends scorched by sun.
The bathroom is quiet, the low timbre of our breathing only punctuated by the crisp sound of the scissors. Hair falls in thick strands onto the floor, into the bath, into Harris’s lap. I turn his head or shift sideways for a better angle, working quickly, running my fingers through to check the length. It’s a choppy job but it’s all we’ve got time for.
When I’m done, Harris doesn’t look at himself in the mirror, just turns to me. ‘How’s that?’
‘It looks…different.’ Better, I want to say. His face is more open now. You can see his eyes. I wonder briefly if the curtain of hair he had before was useful, if he’s going to miss the shielding that a fringe can provide. I hope he doesn’t feel too exposed. ‘I would’ve cut it shorter, but I didn’t know if you’d want that.’
‘As long as the cops don’t make me, sitting in the Pitbull.’
‘Amita!’ There’s Nani’s voice, coming down the hallway.
I step out of the bath quickly, leave the scissors in the sink. Harris stands, nudges the hair trimmings closer to the bathmat with his foot, as I push the bathroom door fully open and step out. ‘Nani, it’s mostly cleaned up in here but I think Harris would like a shower. Were you able to find any clothes?’
Nani is cradling what looks like half the contents of a laundry hamper. ‘Some shirts and things are here. Hansa had clothes in a plastic box.’
I take the armful Nani is thrusting in my direction. ‘Oh, that’s great. That’s really good, thank you.’ I pass the pile back to Harris, step right into the hall and close the door behind me. ‘Let’s give him some space while he’s getting himself together.’
I walk back to the kitchen with Nani and wash my hands at the sink. The shower is running, water rushing in the pipes. I’m trying very hard not to think about Harris in the shower – this is not the time to be thinking about that at all – but when Nani speaks, I jump guiltily.
‘He will be all right, this Ouyen boy? He looked white in the face.’
I consider the best way to reply. ‘He should go home to rest. He’ll feel better when he’s washed and changed. Harris is new to Mildura, and he has no family to look after him.’
‘Then he should come to eat here!’ Nani looks aghast at the idea of someone struggling alone. ‘You should invite him!’
I backtrack quickly. ‘Well, that’s a good idea, Nani. But…he’s proud. He likes to think he can take care of himself.’ I see her look. ‘But I’ll invite him. You’re right, it couldn’t hurt.’
When the pipes stop gurgling, I give it five more minutes then walk down the hallway to knock softly on the bathroom door. ‘Are you right in there?’
‘One sec.’ There’s a pause, then: ‘Okay, I’m coming out.’
The door opens, and I have a brief dizzying moment when I’m hit by the smell of Harris’s skin carried on the hot steam. Then he steps out into the hall and I don’t know whether to laugh, or frown, or…
‘This shirt’s a bit much,’ he says, still buttoning it up from the waist. ‘What d’you reckon?’
I stare – I can’t help it. The shirt is a wide-lapelled number, pale pink with a silvery pinstripe. Harris has used the scissors to cut his beard back to stubble, and towel-dried his hair. He looks fresh and clean. His trackie pants have been replaced by a pair of my uncle’s old brown trousers: they’re not bell-bottomed, but it would be ungenerous to call them boot-cut. They’re tight at Harris’s hips though. In fact, they’re tight in so many interesting places I have to look elsewhere. His new haircut, with his smoother jawline and the pink of the shirt, makes his eyes stand out like green lamps.
I press my lips together against a smile, which doesn’t work very well. ‘I reckon if you grew out the moustache you’d look like an escapee from a seventies porno.’
‘Thanks,’ he says drily. ‘Trousers are a bit, ah, snug.’
‘Really? I hadn’t noticed.’
‘Uh-huh.’ He eyes me, then his eyes track to someplace behind me just as I hear Nani arrive from the kitchen. She bustles forward, takes Harris’s face in her hands.
‘He is looking better.’ She turns his head from side to side as his eyebrows lift. ‘Mm. He is quite handsome. The green eyes. And tall, like my Anupam.’ She holds Harris’s head so he’s looking at her level, lowers her voice confidingly. ‘My husband. Such a man! He has a full beard, you know.’
‘That’s, um, good,’ Harris says as she releases him. ‘Ma’am, I’m sorry to impose on your hospitality. You’ve been really kind.’
Nani tsks. ‘Kindness and generosity repay themselves.’
‘Thank you for the clothes. I’ll make sure to bring everything back.’
‘Old clothes of Deepan’s.’ Nani waves a hand. ‘This is no trouble. Nothing is too much trouble for my granddaughter’s fiancé!’
I yelp. ‘Nani!’
Harris’s mouth drops open.
Nani turns to me, smiling as if all her birthdays have come at once. ‘For so long I have wanted to see you matched! And now you bring home this handsome boy…’
My face warms up like a space heater. ‘Nani, Harris isn’t my –’
‘He wears his trousers like Shah Rukh Khan, hm?’ She gives me a twinkling grin.
‘Ah,’ Harris says. ‘Well, um, me and Amie, we’re just –’
‘Nani, we’re not –’ I start.
‘Oh, you have made me a very happy Nani!’ She grabs me and Harris and pulls us by the hands. Harris and I make matching goggle-eyed expressions at each other over the top of her head as we’re towed towards the kitchen.
‘Now,’ Nani says to Harris, ‘you have not told me your family name. And what is it that you do? Are you a student? Or perhaps you are working at the hospital, yes? Did you meet Amita there?’ She pushes us both onto kitchen stools, slides glasses of mango cup in our direction.
‘Uh…’ Harris’s eyes are round as goose eggs.
‘Yes,’ I choke out. Sweat is running down the small of my back. ‘Harris met me at the hospital.’ I give him a panicked glare.
‘Um, yeah,’ Harris says, nodding. ‘But I don’t work there. I came in…uh…’
I pick up where he falters. ‘Harris is training to be a police officer.’ I glance at him quickly. ‘He had an accident during training and came in as a patient.’
‘A police officer!’ Nani exclaims. ‘Such dangerous work! You must be a brave young man.’
‘Harris is very brave,’ I agree. I catch Harris’s look. He’s putting a brave face on this situation, that’s for sure.
Nani swivels back to Harris, owl-eyed behind her glasses. ‘Amita’s father is a police officer, you know.’
Harris nods his head gravely. ‘Yes, ma’am, I’m aware of that.’
‘You are? Very good,’ Nani says, and she leans forward to rub his cheek, smiling. ‘Ah, then you are a good match for my bebe. How lucky I am, to see two granddaughters find husbands!’
I stand up. ‘Nani, it’s been lovely to have Harris visit but he really has to go now.’
‘But you have not eaten!’ Nani says. She turns as if she’s about to head for the stove.
‘Nani.’
Harris rises too, taking my cue. ‘Yeah, I really do have to go.’ He sees Nani’s crestfallen expression. ‘I’ll come for a meal another time though. I promise. Sorry to be rude, but I gotta –’
‘Harris has a – a – training class to attend,’ I say. ‘Yes.’
‘Absolutely,’ Harris says. ‘Yeah, I better not miss that.’
Nani sighs, then nods. ‘Ah, you must not miss your class, I understand. Amita will invite you to our house again, won’t you, Amita? For a proper Punjabi dinner?’
‘I – Yes,’ I say. ‘Harris will come another night for dinner. I’ll make sure of it. Now I’m going to walk Harris out to his car, Nani, all right? I’ll be right back.’
Harris makes his goodbyes, with Nani gushing over him, then I finally manage to get him out.
The door has barely shut behind us and I’ve already started apologising. ‘Oh god, she’s not usually this bad. Thank you. Jesus, I’m really sorry you had to handle that –’
‘It’s fine,’ he says, grinning. ‘It’s okay, don’t worry about it.’
‘I should’ve expected something like this. She’s used to the custom of bringing a fiancé home…’ I squeeze my forehead with one hand. ‘She probably won’t even remember your name tomorrow.’
‘Relax.’ He looks at me. ‘She’s sweet, your nanna. You told me how she is.’
‘It’s the last thing you want to be dealing with after –’
‘Amie, it’s okay.’ He turns to me so we both stop. We’re nearly at the bedsheet-covered car, standing in the humid green shade of the plexiglass carport roof. ‘Y’know, it kinda shocked me outta my own head for a minute, and that’s all right. My head was a pretty stress-filled place when I arrived.’ He puts his hands on my arms. ‘Thank you. For everything. I’m sorry I screwed up and came here. I hope I haven’t put you in a mess with your nanna.’
‘What will you do now?’ I ask softly.
‘I dunno.’ He looks away, back. ‘Go tell Leon, I guess. That’s what he’ll expect me to do. It’s not like I can report it to the cops.’
‘You just did,’ I remind him.
He blinks, shakes his head. ‘Yeah, I forget, sometimes.’
‘That I’m your contact?’
‘That we’re not just hanging out, down by the river and stuff.’
He holds my gaze for a moment. Then his hands move from my arms, one going up to scrub through his changed hair, the other digging in his pants pocket. It takes him a second to realise he’s not wearing the same pants.
‘Ah, shit, have you got the –’
‘ – keys to the Pitbull, yes,’ I say, fishing them out of my own pocket and offering them up.
‘Cheers.’ He makes a pale grin. ‘Are you still gonna invite me for a proper Punjabi dinner?’
That surprises a laugh out of me. ‘I guess I’ll have to, won’t I? Oh god…’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ He’s still smiling as he opens the car door, slips into the driver’s seat. ‘Call me if your dad has a message, after you tell him the news.’
‘For sure. And Harris, please be careful.’
He nods, utterly serious now. ‘Always.’
I squeeze his hand on the window edge, pull the bedsheet off the back of the car as he starts the engine. I watch him back out. Then I return to the house. I have to contact Dad immediately, and I have to do Nani damage-control.
Standing with my hand on the door, I wonder if she’ll lose this memory before Hansa and Beena get home. She’s been losing time a lot more lately. The idea makes me sad.
But it also makes me stressed, the thought of what might happen if Nani does remember. Especially if she tells the rest of the family about my handsome trainee-policeman fiancé…
Goddamnit. I’m stuck.