‘I’ll do you a good price,’ the man coaxed gently, sensing Olivia’s resistance waning.
‘I don’t know.’ She tried to get a better view, craning her neck to see if she could catch a glimpse of the kitchen, but it was hidden out of sight.
‘Do you like spice?’
‘Not really, no.’
‘Great!’ The man seemed thrilled. ‘We can make anything you like with only a little spice. We will cater to all your needs. In fact, we can cook omelette, chips, cheese sandwich. We can do it all!’
His desperation should probably have been a red flag for Olivia, but her curiosity got the better of her.
‘I don’t suppose you do stuffed paratha with your curries?’
If the man could have burst with excitement, Olivia wassure he would have. ‘Yes! Oh yes, it’s one of our top specialities.’
Olivia tried to find another excuse, another reason to question her choice, but she had nothing. She was so hungry that her brain had all but given up rational thought.
‘OK, fine.’ She nodded. ‘I’ll have a table for one.’
‘Fantastic!’ The man was so overjoyed Olivia thought he was about to hug her; instead, he opened the door and ushered her inside. ‘Great choice, madam, you will not regret it. I promise you will not regret it.’
Olivia
Olivia woke suddenly. Her body felt as though it had been doused in ice-cold water. Her sheets were soaking and clinging to her shivering skin.
‘Oh God,’ she moaned, feeling the bitter taste of bile rise up in the back of her throat. ‘Oh God, please no.’ She clutched her stomach. It writhed and rolled at her touch, the contents swirling. She needed to move, but the thought of standing made her queasiness triple in intensity. Her head was swimming, and the room began to spin.
You’re not going to be sick.
It will pass.
Just lie still and breathe.
Olivia’s entire body contracted.
‘I’m going to be sick,’ she whimpered, hauling herself out of bed and into the bathroom.
Fortunately, she made it in time for the best curry in Jaipur to make its way back up and out into the toilet. Olivia sobbed as her body ejected every last morsel and more. Her stomach ached with the effort and her throat burnt from theacid. How could she have been so stupid? She’d known the moment her plate of greying, insipid food arrived that something wasn’t right. But had she left? No. Anger flooded her, causing her chilled skin to burn red hot and her palms to drip with sweat.
Thankfully the ordeal was over in moments, but Olivia, who had now cried herself into exhaustion, couldn’t bear to move. Instead, she curled herself around the toilet and laid her head on the floor, her knees tucked up to her chin, her body folding in on itself. As she closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep, she felt her mind fill with thoughts of her baby sister. The nights she’d found her in this very same position, whimpering into piles of towels she’d fashioned around herself in a little cocoon. The poison that was being pumped into her veins killing not just the cancer but every bit of goodness inside her too.
‘You need to tell someone when you feel this bad, Leah,’ Olivia would say, dropping to her sister’s side and placing a cooling hand on her forehead.
‘Why? There’s nothing anyone can do. It’s just part and parcel of the cancer life.’ She’d sigh, trying her best to joke even in the darkest of times, with sick in her wispy hair and tears streaming down her face.
‘Well, you don’t have to do it alone.’ Olivia would grab a blanket from her bedroom and coil herself around her sister, throwing the cover over them both and holding her tight until their mum would discover them in the morning.
‘Oh, Leah,’ Olivia cried, the reality of her sister’s absence cutting through her. The pain flooded her, pushing any remaining swirls of nausea aside.
My darling, brave baby sister …
After an hour on the floor, Olivia’s body had accepted thatthere was nothing left inside her to give. Her head was pounding, and her mouth tasted faintly of spices and strongly of bile. She needed water and she needed proper rest.
Slowly, and very carefully, she made her way back to bed, wrapping her tender body in her still-damp sheets. Olivia glanced down at her hair; it lay in dirty tangles, clumped together with sweat and sick. What a mess she was. The infallible Olivia Jackson reduced to this.
I want to go home. I need to go home.
But it wasn’t her home in London that she craved. It wasn’t the pocket of solitude and tranquillity she’d so carefully crafted for herself that her body longed for. No, it was her childhood home. The place she hadn’t yearned for ever since she left it at eighteen. It was such an unexpected urge that, before she knew what was happening, Olivia’s chest had started to heave and a deep, guttural howl ripped from her mouth.
