GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS SHORT STORY PRIZE winner 2021/22
GURNAIK JOHAL
‘Arrival’
THE MAN WAS HERE ABOUT THE CAR. Chetan knew this day would come, but he’d allowed himself to hope. They both looked at the empty drive.
‘My wife,’ Chetan said, not sure when Aanshi would be back. ‘We just needed a few things.’
It occurred to him to ask for proof that the man knew Divya. The man nodded and pulled a small picture out of his wallet. Chetan recognised the photo; he and Aanshi had seen it when stalking Divya on Facebook. It showed the couple on holiday, kissing in front of the pyramids. Chetan invited him in, and the man carefully put the photo back into his wallet.
Chetan took him into the kitchen, the front room a mess. The man asked questions about Divya that Chetan had imagined the police asking. When did she drop the car off? How long did she stay? Were there any signs that something was wrong?
But there’d been no investigation. She wasn’t technically missing.
‘We were at work when she arrived,’ Chetan said, offering the man a seat. ‘She posted the keys through the door. We’d agreed that I’d pick her up when she landed the next Sunday.’
Living this close to the airport, friends were always using their drive. Some relatives only seemed to visit for the parking space. ‘Why don’t you get a car?’ they’d say, as if the idea had never crossed Chetan and Aanshi’s minds. They got around fine as it was, riding the same bus in opposite directions for work. Cars only lost value. Plus, there was Aanshi’s whole environment thing.
‘Point being,’ Chetan said to the man, ‘it really wasn’t a problem saying yes to another person, even if we’d never met.’
Divya was the sister of a good friend, and in Chetan’s book, that meant something.
*
Chetan had driven Divya’s car to the airport on the Sunday her return flight was due. He arrived at the short stay pick up and texted her. He waited long enough that he was ushered on. He made a loop and pulled up a second time. He phoned her but didn’t get through. He was told to move again and resigned himself to paying for parking.
Inside Arrivals, he found her flight on the boards. It had landed in good time.
There was nowhere to sit. He looked around, matching the people waiting with the people arriving. She still hadn’t answered any of his texts. He phoned her sister, Anu.
‘Says it landed fine.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘Maybe she missed the flight?’
‘But why wouldn’t she tell you?’
‘Her phone could have died. She might have lost it.’
He waited until the next flight from Athens landed and left. The final figure on the parking you wouldn’t believe. He drove home in a right mood. When he arrived, Aanshi was on the phone to Anu. Divya’s fiancé had received a message: ‘I’m just not ready.’
*
Days passed, the car out front.
‘Was probably cold feet.’
‘Or she’s run off with someone.’
‘What if she’s escaping something? Committed a crime.’
‘Maybe she’s an undercover spy.’
‘What if she’s been, like, kidnapped?’
They called Anu again to ask her if there was any news of her sister.
*
The next Saturday, they did their food shop. Normally, they’d take the bus, but the car was just sitting there. Aanshi drove and Chetan put the radio on. God, how long since they’d listened to the radio? At the supermarket, he picked one of the big trolleys. They walked around with the same list they brought every week. But they were no longer limited to what they could carry.
‘Let’s go wild.’
‘I love you like this.’
They were home in record time.
*
They didn’t touch the car again all week. What would happen if Divya turned up out of the blue and it was gone? They spent the evenings cooking lavish meals and ate in front of an old sitcom they were watching for the first time. They froze the leftovers, wanting something new each night.
*
On the weekend, they decided to go to IKEA, a nightmare on the bus. While Chetan hummed along to the radio, Aanshi went through the glove box. She put on a pair of glasses that must have been Divya’s.
‘They suit you.’
‘I always wanted glasses. I used to lie at the opticians.’
He’d heard this one before.
‘I don’t know how they knew I was faking. It never worked.’
They got a space right by the entrance. Usually, they split up to cover more ground and met at the checkout, where they’d veto each other’s choices. But this time they stuck together. He didn’t even need to persuade her on the plates. And when she found an office chair that was just perfect, he didn’t look at the price. They loaded everything into the car and assembled it all that night.
*
Another week passed with no news of Divya. Aanshi settled on the story that she’d found someone. Chetan on the story that she was running from something.
He beat the dust off their picnic blanket and put it in the boot. She wanted to drive. He blew on the coffee until it was the temperature she liked, and then held the thermos out for her to take sips on straight stretches. They sang along to whatever was playing on Magic. They’d been meaning to visit Windsor for years. Someone took their photo in front of the castle. They wandered around a park and cleared a patch of grass for their picnic.
‘Did you ever play conkers as a kid?’ Aanshi said, putting a few in her bag. ‘I’ll show you when we get home. We used to have these huge tournaments at school.’
‘You’ve never told me that before.’
‘I wasn’t any good. We started putting bets on the games and they got banned.’
She rested on his chest after lunch and they stayed like that, doing nothing. It was calming to feel the weight of her on him, this whole other human.
*
That week, he drove her to the care home in the mornings and picked her up when school finished. In the car, they discussed their students and patients. Chetan was almost grateful for the traffic.
They made plans to drive down to the coast. They were supposed to leave tomorrow. But here was the man about the car. The man who was supposed to marry Divya.
*
Chetan didn’t know what to say. He listened to the TV playing in the front room. He made tea and arranged some biscuits on one of the new plates, which felt a ridiculous thing to do as soon as he put it down on the table.
‘We filled up the tank,’ he said.
He needed somewhere to look and turned to the window, setting his eyes on the two conkers from Windsor hardening in the sun. They hadn’t got around to playing with them yet. He thought he saw the car pass outside and imagined Aanshi deciding to drive away. He imagined a sitcom in which he and the man formed an unlikely friendship – the two of them, bonded by abandonment, helping one another rebuild their lives.
Aanshi pulled up. She turned the engine off but stayed in the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel. How rare to see her without her seeing him, to get a glimpse of the person she was beyond him.
‘Here she is,’ he said, finally.
It wasn’t until the man stepped outside that Aanshi moved. She opened her door, confused about the stranger who had emerged from their house. The man explained, and she fidgeted with the keyring. She handed him the keys, apologising, and joined Chetan in the doorway. They watched the car go. He didn’t ask her why she wasn’t carrying anything, why there were no shopping bags. He didn’t need to know.
*
She took some leftovers from the freezer to thaw. Chetan ate a biscuit, ruining his little pattern. There was laughter from the other room. He turned off the TV.
‘What was he like?’ she said.
‘Nice enough. Not much of a talker.’
‘Wonder what he did to make her leave.’
‘If we’re being honest, he was punching.’
‘Coming from you.’
He drew her in, laughing. ‘If you left me, where would you go?’
‘Nowhere far. Maybe Mum’s.’
‘The whole world open to you and you go to your mother’s?’
‘I’d be sad. And you?’
‘Somewhere with a beach. A desert island would be perfect. I think if I left you, I’d want to leave everything.’
She sat at the computer and put some music on. They paid for train tickets to Brighton – you wouldn’t believe how much – and then sorted dinner. The kuzhambu they made last week came out in a slab in the pan. They stood together as it cooked, watching it become liquid again.
‘Tomorrow,’ she said, ‘I want you to act like you’ve just met me.’
‘Like I’m sixteen?’
‘I want you to ask if the seat next to me is free and then work up the courage to talk to me. You’ll say that you’ve never been to Brighton, and I’ll agree to show you around. You’ll buy lunch and I’ll buy dinner.’
‘Will I be myself?’
She looked at him, a whole other person.
‘Yes.’
GURNAIK JOHAL is a writer from West London. He was shortlisted for the Guardian 4th Estate short story prize in 2018 and graduated from the University of Manchester in 2019. His debut collection of short stories, We Move, is coming out in April 2022, published by Serpent’s Tail.
Photo credit: Aashfaria A. Anwar.