Soul Beach

Soul Beach. ‘The doctor said it was natural causes,’ he says. ‘That’s how we want to remember her.’
    ‘But why was she in hospital in the first place, Rafi?’ Lewis asks, just as I’m at the point of giving up.
    No one says anything for ages, but then I see tears forming in Rafi’s eyes. I know how that feels. I wish I could tell him about Soul Beach, but, even if he believed me, there’s little comfort in knowing his sister is suffering as much in the next life as she did in this one.
    ‘She was only there at the end. Once it was almost over anyway. The rest of the time . . . well, you’ll know this, too, but it’s easy to hide stuff at boarding school. And in a girls’ school, everyone’s at it. Hiding food. Stealing food. I think she only started doing it to keep up with the others.’
    ‘Hmm,’ I say. Boarding school . I didn’t know that, but I sense it could be important.
    ‘She came home the summer she’d turned sixteen and she was so different. Thinner, and distant too. Mum noticed, Dad didn’t. Well, he did in the end. Till then she’d been the typical kid sister, you know?’ he asks, but he doesn’t expect an answer: he doesn’t even seem to be talking to us any more. He stares at the bleak garden. ‘But that summer she wouldn’t respond to anything I said or did. I could have pinched her and she wouldn’t have squealed.’ He remembers we’re here. ‘I didn’t. Pinch her, that is. I didn’t like her all the time, but I loved her. Brothers and sisters, you know.’
    I nod. I know. ‘So you think it was school that changed her?’
    Rafi puts his head in his hands. ‘Look, we were happy. Boring, but happy. I’ve seen how people look at us now. Mum and Dad don’t get invited to dinner anywhere any more. That’s the people who know. Imagine if it had hit the papers – Indian businessman’s daughter starves herself to death . They’d have assumed the worst.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘The usual stuff. That she was going to be forced into some dodgy arranged marriage, or forced by me and Dad into doing all the housework instead of going to school, or something.’
    I blush. I made one of those stupid assumptions too. ‘I see.’
    ‘So is it any wonder we wanted it kept quiet? It’s not like it makes any difference to Triti, now, is it?’
    That’s where you could be wrong , I think. Maybe it’s the denial of what happened to Triti that put her on the Beach. ‘Did she not say anything about what was happening? What changed at school?’
    ‘Did she say anything to you?’
    I look away. ‘Not exactly.’
    His face hardens. ‘Then, like I said before, I don’t know what you’re doing here. And I’d like you to go before my parents come back, please.’
    Lewis touches my hand. ‘We should leave, Alice.’
    I stand up. There’s more, I know it. But I follow them anyway, and then, as we pass through the hallway, I notice a collection of photographs on the wall. They’re so ordinary: Triti and Rafi, in different school uniforms and in fancy dress, on holiday in France and Spain and, once, on an exotic shore a little like Soul Beach. At a firework display. It’s everyday happiness. Triti is very slightly chubby, but only in a way that accentuates her prettiness. She’s busty, too, but not nearly as extreme as she is on the Beach.
    There are no pictures of her past the age of about fifteen.
    ‘You look happy. In the pictures,’ I say to Rafi as he opens the front door.
    He thinks about it. ‘We were happy. Maybe she thought she was only hurting herself, but she’s not here any more. We’re the ones who are still hurting.’
    ‘Sorry to have brought it all back up again, Rafi,’ I say, as we leave.
    ‘Yeah, well, I dunno, it was kind of nice to talk about her again. We don’t, as a rule. Just wish I knew what you came for. I hope you got it.’
    I want to reach out to him: to say I know exactly how he feels. But instead I walk away down the steps, and he keeps watching us until we turn the corner. Lewis and I seem to have an unspoken agreement not to speak till we’re back at the tube.
    ‘That was intense,’ he says.
    ‘Yes. And pointless,’ I correct him. ‘All I did was upset the poor guy. And for what? I hardly know any more than I did before. I don’t even know what school she went to.’ I walk ahead. I want to get away from him, from any reminder of what I’ve done.
    He catches hold of my arm. ‘Look. I don’t understand what it is