What the Light Hides Read Online Free PDF

‘She doesn’t like you very much,’ she said.
    Her words hurt me even though they were true.
    I shrugged. ‘My brother and I don’t inspire her. She finds it hard to deal with our mediocrity.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘That’s what she once told us.’
    Vera was quiet for a moment then said, ‘Darling?’
    ‘I know what you’re going to say.’
    ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t think you do.’
    ‘You’re going to say that my mother is a total idiot and that I am far from mediocre.’
    She laughed. ‘That’s true, but I’m not going to waste my time talking about her. I was going to ask you out for ice cream.’
    Then, as always, the exception to the rule. Not long after our visit to Sydney Uni my mother turned up at my doorstep unannounced, carrying a heavy roll of black material.
    She pinned the material to the top of the windowpane standing on my only chair while I scrambled through the cupboards in pursuit of a near-empty jar of Nescafé. Filling the kettle I protested, ‘It will make it even hotter in here.’
    ‘If the sun doesn’t come in, the heat will stay out,’ she said, snipping off black material, making it fit the frame.
    It proved right. I lived in cool darkness during the day and at night I pulled the curtains aside to let the air in. My dreams were filled with traffic and drunken yelling and my limbs were iridescent and strange looking in the light from the street. One night I woke and caught sight of my foot and in the time it took for me to wake fully I watched it with horror, trying to work out what was moving at the end of my bed.
    The material was an aberration; one of the few loving things my mother had done for me. And when winter came I couldn’t bring myself to take it down. Besides, it seemed in reverse to keep the place warm. I kept it drawn all the time until Vera woke one morning laughing. ‘I can’t see a thing,’ she said, and then, pretending to be blind, she patted my face, and said, ‘You have a wonderful face, young man.’
    The spices bring tears to my eyes. The curry is good and I wonder if Ben has eaten here. Chances are that he has. He and Vera are adventurous when it comes to food, adept with chopsticks and connoisseurs of all cuisines. We used to take Ben out whenever we came to the city. We let him choose the place. Often it was Japanese and very expensive.
    On one of those occasions we had just picked him up from the airport. He had spent a month in India working on a sanitation project in the desert of Rajasthan. Both Vera and I were surprised when he chose engineering. It had seemed too conservative somehow for his restless idealism. But through his involvement with Engineers Without Borders it had all started to make sense. During dinner he talked about sustainable development and the power of humanitarian engineering with the fervour of a religious fanatic.
    ‘What’s new?’ Ben had asked me, reaching for a plate with sashimi and glistening roe.
    He sat beside Vera, tanned and lanky, wearing a black shirt.
    ‘What’s new?’ I repeated, preparing myself for what was coming.
    ‘Sold any tables lately?’
    ‘You don’t want to hear about my tables,’ I said.
    ‘Ben,’ Vera said and put a hand on his. ‘You’ve just come home. Let’s enjoy this meal without arguing.’
    That stopped him momentarily. ‘Grandma visited,’ he said.
    ‘Visited?’ said Vera.
    ‘She came to Jaipur,’ he said, picking up a piece of salmon.
    Vera looked sideways at me.
    ‘Really?’ I said.
    Vera poured each of us a glass of warm sake. ‘Was it something you had arranged?’
    ‘No, but she was on her way to Europe and made a stopover. They all thought she was really cool.’ Ben got his phone out and showed us a picture: my mother in a dark blue sari next to Ben, both beaming at the camera.
    ‘Your grandmother is full of surprises,’ I said. But I wasn’t really that surprised. My mother pulled stunts for Ben’s love. She loved him in a way she never had Neil or