Finding Arun: Living Lies Literary Fiction Series, #1

By Marisha Pink

If you live your whole life being who everyone else wants you to be, how do you know who you really are? 

Nineteen-year-old Aaron Rutherford is already reeling from the loss of his mother, when the unexpected revelation of a dark secret from her past changes his world forever. 

Forced to question everything that he has ever believed, should he simply follow the path that has been laid out for him, or will pursuing the truth help him to find what has always been missing? 

As the tangled web of lies unfolds and uncertainty takes over, a startling chain of events are set in motion that will see Aaron make the journey of a lifetime to discover not only who he really is, but ultimately who he wants to be. 

Awarded a B.R.A.G. Medallion and shortlisted for the inaugural Quagga Prize for Literary Fiction in 2014, if you love engrossing books that will take you on a journey, download Finding Arun now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Not By The Book
• Release date: Sep 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9780992628345

Book preview

PART ONE

AARON

ONE

THE warmth of the sun’s rays gently caressed Aaron’s eyelids through the window and even with his eyes closed he could see the hazy yellow and orange hue of the morning. For a split second the new day glowed with promise, but as he lay in his bed and blinked his eyes open, the now familiar stinging sensation brought with it the pain of realisation: she was gone.

He closed his eyes once more while a sinking feeling swept over him and the crushing heaviness in his chest became almost unbearable. He swallowed hard, willing himself not to cry, but silent tears pooled in the corners of his eyes and began to roll stealthily down his cheeks. He breathed a deep sigh, desperate to steel himself against the oppressive pain. It hurt like nothing had ever hurt before and no matter how many times he replayed the events in his mind nothing would change. She was gone and he hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye.

Brushing the tears from his face Aaron propped himself up on his elbows to survey the room. He hadn’t been there for months, yet in the short time since he’d returned home it had become difficult to coax him from the only room in which he felt truly at ease. The bedroom provided his only escape from the scores of visitors who had descended upon the house to pay their respects to his late mother. Unable to recall ever meeting most of them before, he neither wanted nor welcomed their intrusion, and with his mother gone even the faces that he did recognise seemed alien to him now.

Aaron had always felt uncomfortable in social situations and those involving his mother’s affluent and ever-expanding circle of friends were amongst the worst. He was well-mannered, impeccably groomed and boasted an intellect far beyond his nineteen years, yet these things were never enough to disguise one simple truth: he would always be the brown kid in the white room. Over the years her various acquaintances had each been careful to feign indifference to, and even unawareness of, the discord between the colour of his skin and that of his adoptive mother’s. For her part, she had loved and raised him as her own, fiercely challenging anyone who so much as threatened to look at him the wrong way, but inside he knew the truth. He would always be different and nothing he could say, or do, would ever gain him genuine acceptance into her world.

With his only ally gone Aaron felt awkward and alone, and despite his best efforts he found the conversations with mourners an increasingly tedious inconvenience. It wasn’t that their condolences were insincere, but without his mother’s mediating presence the exchanges quickly turned to idle chatter, uncomfortable silence, or a curious mixture of both. There was no longer a need for either of them to tolerate one another, yet each visitor persisted in their half-hearted attempts at conversation, trying and failing to forge a meaningful connection with him. Eventually he would tire of the charade and, finding any excuse to extract himself from the strained interactions, swiftly retreat to the safety of his room, certain that nobody was actually missing him.

In the confines of his room it was almost possible to pretend that nothing had happened. To pretend that his mother hadn’t fallen sick and that he hadn’t really left London to volunteer in Namibia all those months ago. He hadn’t wanted to leave her, but she had been insistent that he continue with his plans, assuring him that she would make a full recovery. As a doctor herself he’d had no reason to doubt her, but the other doctors had reassured him too; expensive doctors who were adamant that they had ‘caught it early’ and that it was ‘amenable to surgery’. Except that they hadn’t, and it wasn’t, and seemingly overnight her condition had transformed from fixable to fatal. Everything had happened so fast that it was almost a blur in his mind. For days he had tried desperately to get home, hitching rides with strangers and sleeping on airport floors, all the while praying that a flight would become available. But by the time he had arrived home it was already too late.

He sat up fully in bed pulling the duvet towards his chin to keep in the warmth. Over a week had passed since his mother’s burial and with visitor numbers showing a steady decline in recent days, he was hopeful that today he would finally be able to move about the house without being accosted. Aunt Ruby, his father’s sister, was the only one who remained, having flown in from Australia to assist when his mother’s condition had initially deteriorated, but she could hardly be described as a guest. She had made herself at home, instantly taking charge of running their large Georgian house, and without her intervention Aaron was certain that his father would have fallen apart completely.

Of the little extended family that they had, Aunt Ruby was the only relative that Aaron both liked and trusted. As a child, each time his mother had been called overseas to present her research at a conference, Aaron had been packed off to Australia to stay with Aunt Ruby for a few weeks. Over the years they had grown very close and though Aaron’s visits had become less frequent with age, their relationship was still much stronger than the one that he shared with her brother.

Aaron couldn’t recall ever being close to his adoptive father and it had quickly dawned on him that the expensive trips to Aunt Ruby were simply a way to relieve his father from having to engage with him whilst his mother was away. His father’s role had always seemed perfunctory; there was minimal interaction, none of the love or warmth that one might expect to receive from a parent, and in a telling act of detachment the old man insisted that Aaron call him by his first name. It baffled Aaron how his father and Aunt Ruby could have developed such contrasting characters, but never more than in the last week had he been grateful for their differences, and for the buffer that Aunt Ruby provided between them.

He swung his long limbs out of the bed and rose unsteadily to his feet, carefully stooping to avoid knocking his head on the exposed wooden beams that zigzagged across the ceiling. At nearly six feet tall he would have made an impressive figure, if it weren’t for his lanky, boyish physique, which often fooled people into thinking that he was much younger than he was. He picked his way cautiously across the room avoiding the piles of clothes, plates and luggage strewn haphazardly across the floor, and on safely reaching the other side, rounded the corner into the en-suite bathroom.

Catching sight of himself in the small vanity mirror he was somewhat startled by his appearance. His once neatly groomed, coffee-coloured hair was now an unkempt, overgrown mess that stretched in every direction imaginable about his tanned face. Two dark halos encircled his warm hazel eyes, a testament to the grief and suffering he had experienced in the past week, and an army of protruding hairs threatening to turn themselves into a full beard had laid claim to his jaw. He turned on the tap and splashed cold water rhythmically over his cheeks, the coolness at once inviting against the stinging heat of his bronzed, tear-stained face, and immediately he felt his mood begin to lift. He patted his face dry and, returning to the bedroom, scoured the rubble until he found a crumpled white T-shirt and a faded pair of grey tracksuit bottoms, which he deftly slipped into as he made his way towards the door.

Padding barefoot down the two flights of stairs to the kitchen, Aaron was conscious of the silence that echoed throughout the house. After the hustle and bustle of the past week the silence suddenly seemed eerie and unsettling, yet he wondered hopefully whether he might be alone. At the foot of the stairs he turned the corner towards the large open kitchen and much to his dismay found his father seated at the heavy oak dining table with the daily newspaper spread before him. Arthur Rutherford was a simple and pragmatic man, who liked the status quo and didn’t believe in unnecessary fuss. An antique dealer by trade, he preferred to work with things rather than people, and had shied away from most displays of human emotion until a chance meeting with Catherine, Aaron’s adoptive mother, had turned his world upside down.

Catherine had got under his skin, the way that she did with nearly everyone she encountered, and even stern and serious Arthur had been powerless to resist her charms. On the surface they had seemed an unlikely match, but as a young doctor Catherine’s obvious passion and drive to help others had touched something within him, and he had opened up to her, sharing a softer side that few others ever saw. His life had been devoted to making her happy and though the casual observer might have thought him bland and uninspiring compared to his outspoken and charismatic other half, she had always made sure that he knew just how important his love and support were to her successes.

Aaron paused uncertainly on the threshold of the kitchen, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot until at last Arthur glanced up and acknowledged his presence. It was the first time that they had been completely alone together since his return and now the awful truth of their loss seemed to stretch between them like some unfillable chasm. They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity to Aaron, Arthur’s steely grey eyes like bottomless pits of sorrow steadily pouring their sadness into his soul. They may not have been close, but they shared a mutual respect for one another and the places that they had each held in Catherine’s heart, and there in the silence of the kitchen no words were necessary for each to know and empathise with the other’s pain.

Unable to stand the tension any longer, Aaron was first to break the silence.

‘Good morning, Arthur.’

‘Good morning, Aaron. Are you hungry?’

‘Not really, no.’

‘You must eat; you need to keep your strength up. I think Aunt Ruby has left you a plate in the fridge. Take a seat and I’ll warm it up for you.’

Aaron did as instructed and slipped into Arthur’s vacant seat while the old man stood to rummage around the fridge. He flicked lazily through the pages of the open newspaper until a closer inspection of one article caused him to flip quickly back to the front page in confusion. The newspaper was dated 8th April 2012; the day of his mother’s death.

‘Arthur, you do realise that newspaper is over two weeks old?’

Arthur sighed.

‘I know. I just thought that I would catch up on what’s happened since … since …’

His voice trailed off, leaving the unfinished sentence hanging in mid-air. Aaron didn’t know what to say, but a few moments later Arthur regained his composure.

‘We need to make a start on sorting through your mother’s things. Most of it can go to charity; it’s what she would have wanted. Are you able to help me out today?’

‘Of course,’ Aaron answered, swallowing hard in an attempt to suppress the tears he felt bubbling just below the surface.

He knew that his mother’s belongings would have to be cleared away eventually – as two grown men they had no use for the majority of her possessions – but knowing it and actually doing it were two wholly different things and Aaron couldn’t help feeling that this act had an unwelcome air of finality about it. Still, he didn’t want Arthur to see him cry, it would only make them both uncomfortable.

TWO

THE door to Catherine’s study loomed ominously ahead when Aaron reached the top of the second floor staircase. At Arthur’s suggestion he was to focus his clearing efforts there in case he found material useful for the medical degree he would be commencing at Oxford University in October. Dr Catherine Rutherford had spent decades building up an enviable collection of books, journals and unusual case studies from her work around the world, and the contents of the study had been her pride and joy. Anything that Aaron did not want or need was to be donated to the university where she had occasionally lectured until the illness had forced her to stop.

Aaron’s pulse quickened when he approached the door, the palms of his hands soft and clammy from the sweat of apprehension. He had been inside the study countless times, yet without her there, and without her permission, he felt like an intruder trespassing on her very soul. Her life’s work lay within its walls and logic told him that each item held at least an intrinsic value, or else his mother would never have kept it. The very thought of giving, or worse throwing, away her belongings felt like waving goodbye to small pieces of his mother herself. It was a responsibility that he would have preferred not to shoulder, but categorically he knew that the room could not stay as it was. Neither he nor his father wished to use it – it was too painful somehow – but left untouched the many shelves of books and files would simply gather dust and they both knew that she would not have wanted her efforts to go to waste.

Drawing a deep breath, Aaron turned the polished bronze knob and gently pushed back the door. Stepping inside, he was at once struck by how small the room felt. Floor to ceiling bookcases lined all but a single wall, creating the foreboding sense that someone was standing over him. To his left, a small sash window permitted a soft stream of light to enter the room, but the mountain of paper that littered the executive desk positioned beneath it restricted his view of the garden below. He stared into the small space before him, his right hand still clasped firmly around the doorknob for support. As a child the room had always seemed much larger, infinite even. The bookcases had towered over him from their great height and he had barely been able to see over the desk. He had passed entire afternoons sprawled on the circular red rug at the centre of the room, playing contentedly with his toys whilst his mother busily worked at putting the world to rights. Now he virtually matched the bookcases in height and at best he would be able to sit cross-legged on the faded red rug. Time seemed to have moved on, almost without him realising, and looking despairingly around the room he heard himself sigh, uncertain how or where to begin.

Tentatively approaching the nearest bookcase, he lightly stroked his index finger across a row of thick spines, clearing a line through the thin layer of dust that had already accumulated there. Kumar and Clark’s Clinical Medicine, Gray’s Anatomy for Students and Rang and Dale’s Pharmacology; all titles he recognised from the recommended reading list that the admissions tutor had sent to him. He pulled the heavy volumes off the shelf one by one and stacked them in a neat pile at his feet. Continuing along the shelf he paused to inspect each title in turn, trying to recall if it too appeared on the list, and slowly the pile began to grow. Aside from the odd book that piqued his interest, he placed everything else neatly into the sturdy cardboard carriers that Arthur, ever the pragmatist, had left for him to use.

By mid-morning he had cleared one whole bookcase and made a respectable start on a second. The pile of books he intended to keep now constituted three short stacks that easily reached to his knees, and the countless cardboard carriers had assembled themselves into a small brown fort surrounding him on all sides. Methodical in his approach, Aaron had become entirely absorbed in his task, the concentration and physicality of it providing a welcome distraction from the emotional fragility he felt whenever he allowed his mind to wander back to his mother. When he reached the third bookcase, a cursory glance at the gold carriage clock that adorned its top shelf alerted him to the fact that it was lunchtime. Ordinarily his stomach would have been crying out for food by this time, but his appetite had severely diminished since the loss of his mother and, still full from breakfast, he decided simply to take a short break.

The third bookcase was crammed full of box files, which his mother’s erratic, doctoral scrawl informed him contained archives of niche medical journals. Pulling the box labelled ‘Journal of Tropical Pediatrics 88–89’ from the top shelf for company, Aaron lowered himself cross-legged onto the rug, exhausted from the graft of the morning. He leant back against the dense cardboard fort and clicked the box file open to reveal around a dozen faded journal issues, each one as illegible as the next. The sun had obviously gotten to them long before filing and Aaron wondered why his mother had deliberately kept texts that she would not be able to read. A former specialist in paediatric medicine, it was possible that the journals contained her own article submissions, or that collectively they were of some financial value, but whatever the reason his mother had never done anything in her life without just cause and he was certain of a logical explanation.

He held the February 1988 issue up towards the light and peered closely at the front cover, squinting while he tried to make out the faded images. A thin slip of rough, off-white paper fell from between the pages and drifted slowly through the air before finally coming to rest in his lap. He glanced down at it in surprise; the ends were somewhat dog-eared and both sides were covered in a large and unfamiliar inky black scrawl. Instantly intrigued, he set the journal to one side and, lifting the scruffy piece of paper from his lap, began to read in earnest.

P.O. Box No. 21, Puri H.O.

Baliapanda Road

Puri – 752 001 (Orissa)

India

05/03/12

To Dear Catherineben,

I am hoping this letter is meeting with you in the very best of healths. And for your husband also I am wishing it.

I am very sorry for writing again but it is a very much long time that I am not hearing of you. Am I saying something too bad for you? I am so much hoping that it is not something I am saying wrong for upsetting you. Maybe you are not receiving my last letters? I don’t know how these things are working in UK exactly but we are not such problems having before.

I am sad very much in my heart for not hearing of you. Always before you are writing and giving pictures of Arun and like this I am knowing that my boy is okay. I am smiling all the days when your letter is coming, but now is only very much worrying for something bad happening with Arun.

I am praying to God every day for bringing me some news of my boy. My pujari is telling me to being patient and I am in my heart knowing that God is doing only what is best for me, and for Arun, and for you, even I am not understanding his ways.

I am thinking how very much busy you are being with your important doctor work. You are having very much a kind heart and I am thinking maybe now is more important you are helping people like you did helping me and so much time not having for writing maybe?

I am promising I am trying to being patient Catherineben, but now is so long for waiting and I am scary for the time is not enough. I am with all my heart asking you again and I am praying to God for making this one thing for you important also. I am staying everydays sick in my bed now, not even to the mandir I am going, and the doctor cannot anymore helping me.

Hanara and Lakshin are giving me the care and for this I am knowing already I am very much lucky. To having here two children is a blessing truly, but it is in my heart always the one who is missing. I am knowing it is not much time more for me in this world Catherineben and I am wishing for see my dear son Arun only once time more.

I am understanding that this is not in our agreement and for this I am really very much sorry again. You are so much giving to me and my family and it is not for not thanking you and certainly not for making a trouble in your life. Only it is to seeing with my own eyes the man my boy is becoming. To be knowing surely that he is happy in his life from my choices so that peacefully I am resting when the time is coming.

After this I will not anymore asking for you Catherineben, this is my really promise.

I am waiting for hearing from you very soon.

With very best wishes,

Your friend Kalpana

THREE

AARON stared in disbelief at the paper in his hands, his pulse quickening as the colour began to drain from his cheeks. His mouth tasted as though he had been sucking on coins and his throat was rapidly closing in on itself. A million questions raced through his mind, too quickly for him to make sense of any of them. Shaking, he read the letter again, and then a third time, and then a fourth, but still he found himself unable to process the words. Nothing seemed to make sense and it was only on the fifth reading that his mind stood still long enough to focus on a single phrase: ‘Maybe you are not receiving my last letters?’

In that split second Aaron knew the real reason his mother had kept the faded journals and his stomach did a quick somersault. Pulling the box file closer towards him, he held each issue up in turn and gave it a gentle shake. His suspicions were instantly confirmed when the movement yielded a small flutter of letters from between the pages, each scrawled in an inky black lettering identical to that which covered the first note he had found. The faded red rug no longer visible beneath him, Aaron felt tears prick his eyes for the second time that day. Paralysed amongst the sea of letters, tears coursed down his cheeks, slowly at first, but soon picking up speed, until his vision became so blurred that he was looking at, but could no longer see, the letters that lay all around him. He gasped desperately for breath between the violent sobs that rocked his body, yet the string of questions continued their relentless tirade and before long his upset and confusion had transformed into an irrepressible rage.

Like a man possessed he struggled to his feet and, defiantly wiping away his tears, attacked the third bookcase with new vigour. Box file after box file was wrenched mercilessly from the shelves, the journals inside shaken violently, finally forced to give up their secret hoards. Each shelf was stripped bare, its former contents sent crashing to the floor in a flurry of perfectly preserved notes, until nothing remained but a thick blanket of dust outlining where the box files used to stand. Collapsing breathlessly back into the fort, Aaron sat back against the stacked carriers, panting with exhaustion from the sudden surge of activity. The manic outburst had helped to quash his rapidly rising anger, providing a vent for the intense frustration he felt, but now all about him lay more letters and ultimately more questions.

A soft knock at the door startled him and he looked up in panic, half- expecting Aunt Ruby to come barging in.

‘Aaron, is everything all right in there?’ came Arthur’s concerned voice from the other side of the door.

‘Yeah, it’s … it’s fine,’ he lied, his heart beating furiously inside his chest.

‘What was all that banging?’

‘Oh, I … I just knocked a stack of books over, that’s all. Everything’s fine.’

A brief and awkward silence followed while Arthur appeared to contemplate Aaron’s excuse, but it seemed to satisfy his concern because he quickly changed the subject.

‘Aunt Ruby’s not back yet. I don’t know where she’s got to, but I’m starving and I can’t wait any longer. I’m going to order a pizza or something for lunch; do you want anything?’

Food was the farthest thing from Aaron’s mind after what he had just discovered and he wasn’t ready to face Arthur yet either, not until he had more information.

‘No thanks, Arthur. I’m still full from breakfast.’

‘Okay. I’m sure there’ll be a few slices left over if you change your mind later.’

Aaron listened while Arthur’s heavy footsteps backed away from the study door and made their way downstairs. When he could no longer hear them, he breathed a deep sigh of relief and, gingerly mopping his brow, turned his attention back to the chaos that lay before him. The sheer number of letters was overwhelming, perhaps ten or even twenty years of correspondence; a lifetime’s worth. He reached for the nearest one and began to read compulsively. Entirely engrossed, he consumed letter after letter, pausing only to reflect on the things that he had read and what they might mean. However, far from offering any explanation, each reading only served to add to his confusion and to raise more questions about his biological mother and the nature of her relationship with the only mother that he had ever known.

The Rutherfords had always maintained that Aaron’s real mother had passed away shortly after his birth. Entrusted into Catherine’s care during her residency in India, the dying woman had quickly developed a strong bond with the young doctor and, with no trustworthy next of kin, begged her to take care of Aaron once she was gone. The childless Catherine had been so touched by the woman’s plight and resolute faith in her parenting abilities that she had felt compelled to accept. Now it seemed that not only was this story fabricated, but that his birth mother was very much alive, had regularly corresponded with Catherine over the years and even had other children.

With each letter that he read Aaron’s reality became more and more twisted, until he was no longer certain of anything that he had believed to be true about his life with the Rutherfords. It was hard to take it all in at once, but something inside was pushing him, daring him, to keep reading and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the page. He pressed on, desperate to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle, but the task was complicated by the absence of Catherine’s responses to each letter, and by the fact that his frenzied attack on the bookcase had disturbed any chronological order that Kalpana’s letters might have been stored in.

Straining to read the last lines of the umpteenth letter, Aaron became aware that he was sitting in near darkness. He glanced up at the window, surprised to find that the sun had already set and that the faint glow by which he had been reading was cast entirely by the lights that adorned the garden below. He had been locked away for hours and so absorbed in his quest for the truth that time had slipped by almost imperceptibly. He felt drained, physically, mentally and most of all emotionally. His head was swimming with everything that he had read; yet for all his efforts he was no closer to understanding the true circumstances surrounding his adoption. He desperately wanted to put the letters back where he had found them, to close the door to the study and to crawl back in to bed and pretend that the day had never happened, but he knew that there could be no simple return to the life that he had always known.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a low growl originating from deep within his belly, as he registered the feeling of hunger for the first time in over a week. Breakfast