Some of you know that I've been in a short story writing course over the last couple of months. Intense, fabulous experience. Now over. The final submission is a 3000-word story. Here it is. I'd love to hear what you think. (This also means that I hope to return to more regular writing here. Hold me to it.)

Ghosted

That painting on the wall! She stopped on the landing. Today, its mass of brown looked more ham-handed than ever. And the potted plants on the steps, each more limp than the last. Would they ever change? Would he? She? She turned and looked back up. Just seconds since their desultory goodbyes, just a dozen steps down, and he had vanished into the flat. Noone there. She stood for a moment and shook her head.

Outside, she waited in the rain for a cab, umbrella under her arm. What was it he had said? "Raahil will come get me." It had been that simple. Raahil, and she knew. When had it last been good between them? Might as well ask, she thought, when had that painting ever been anything but awful?

Raahil. Rock bottom.

No cab. She walked. Getting wet didn't matter any more.

***

That long-ago day, the court was damp with overnight rain. Two men took turns with the squeegee, mopping up puddles so they could get a game. When they started, there were still slippery patches. One of the men found one, painfully, when he ran sideways for an angled backhand. Suddenly his shoes had no purchase, then he was nearly horizontal in the air, then he landed on the court, flat and scrabbling for his glasses. His partner shouted and started running over. The man playing on the adjacent court ran over too, but whipped a forehand from what seemed like a few inches above that prone head and scrambled back into position. Good shot! And it shot past her, in purple track pants, across the net on that court. For she had dropped her racket and was racing to his side as well.

She and the partner, looking down at him. "Are you hurt?" she asked. He held up a thumb, mouthed "no", signalled that he just needed a few moments to catch his breath. He sat up, patting his chest. They helped him to his feet, Mr Forehand also there now. "Thanks, Akshay, I'm OK, and I don't know your names but thanks too," he said to them, "and maybe I should sit for a while." She brought him her water-bottle.

Soon, they were playing together. Her arcing, topspun shots, she found, were a good match for his flatter ones. One time, one rally, for some reason she counted the shots that just went on and on. Backhand to forehand to backhand to volley to running back to return a lob, on and on and she could feel a smile growing on her face for how well she was playing and he was playing, not holding anything back, fighting hard, but the shots kept going just like she wanted and he wanted, and the years dropped away and she was moving just as smoothly and quickly as she ever had and she could see the smile on his face too ... she counted the shots, and when it ended and she later didn't even remember who had won the point, they had sent how many strokes back and forth across the net? "33!" she shouted at him. They stood there panting, bent over their rackets, smiling goofily.

Her next shot crashed into the net. Back to the grind. But still. Soon, they were playing so much that Akshay grumbled, but good-naturedly: "Dudes, I'm putting on weight!"

Later, especially in company, especially with Akshay, they would joke about that first evening. "Her partner, what's-his-face," he'd begin, and knowing what was next, she had quickly perfected an exaggerated groan. "Nearly gave me a what's-my-face, going for that shot."

She'd fire back, "Serves you right. Next time, try not to step in a damn puddle!"

"Wasn't a puddle!"

"Yeah, yeah. Puddle, damp spot, whatever. Serves you right!"

Not in company, they had an entirely private joke. "Come inside for a minute," she'd say when she needed help with a light fixture, or something to be lifted. "Here? Now?" he'd ask. Then amble over, shoulders in a melodramatic sag, pretending to unbutton his pants: "All right, ok, but only a minute!" And she'd shush him in mock embarrassment, but smiling widely. "The kids!" she'd say, whether Diva was there or not, and he'd say "Oh sure, you mean Diva and the one we're gonna have, but he can't hear me just now." Never got old.

He courted her something fierce. Flowers waiting outside her class, with a note that invariably said "Ce toi que j'aime", no matter that she tut-tutted time and again, "It's 'C'EST'! 'IT'S you I love!' Not 'THIS you I love!'". Or wait, did he actually like "This you" more than "It's you"? Because from him, she did. The time on the seafront that the wind took her bandana. He ran after it, clambered down to the huge tetrapods and retrieved it just in time; then held it at his waist, struck a pose and baritoned "Olé!". Passersby chuckling, her feigned exasperation. The daily phone calls, almost daily dates, conversation that never ran dry. The affection for Diva, bringing her a stuffed giraffe once, a matchbox with a small green caterpillar inside another time. "Keep it, feed it," he said. Days later, it turned into a moth and Diva was beside herself with joy.

How had she found this man?

It went well, she and him. The days he didn't leave her flowers, he'd wait for her after class, lunch break from his job writing software. Always in those slightly high-waisted pants with a thin belt, linen shirt with no tie, light jacket hanging down his back from a hooked index finger. "Work wear", he'd say. But did he ever wear that jacket, in this weather?

Some evenings, they'd play tennis. Others, she'd drop Diva to football practice and stop to see him on the way home. He lived on the top floor of a '60s-era building in Gamdevi. Typical for the time it was built, it had no lift. The first time, she was startled by the narrow stairs, so dark at the bottom. Four flights up, he let her enter first - a tiny, airy, elegant flat. Purple and steel-grey cushions, curtains to match, spare metal-framed furniture, Sudhir Patwardhan print on the far wall, books on a shelf the only objects in some disorder. In its elegance and neatness, a very un-male home, she thought. But the colours? Like no woman she knew would use. And how to square the Patwardhan with the nondescript canvas on the landing?

There was something else still about the place, that she could feel but couldn't put her finger on. Like a word sometimes felt but not quite there, she thought - a secret held close, though maybe not deliberately. Just your imagination, she told herself. For they had drummed up a happy rhythm. Mornings, they both worked. Lunch in town, somewhere near her classes. Evening tennis, or the trysts at his place - sometimes, because Diva, a little rushed. But still precious, still delicious.

***

When they came, then, the knocks were like a burst of gunfire. Startled, she sat up, automatically wrapping the sheet around her. More knocking. She looked at him, lying there, and held her hand out towards the door. "Leave it," he whispered, pulling her back down. "Let him think I'm not home." She sat up again, her brow wrinkling. "Him? Who's him?"

Three more knocks, then silence. He lay on his back still, hands now behind his head, and it was as if she could see the gears churning: let the cat out of the bag, now how do I explain? "Well, are you going to tell me?" she asked. Without looking at her, he said, quiet and resigned: "It's Raahil. He's back."

"Raahil? Who's Raahil?"

"I was going to tell you. He's just a guy. He went away some months ago. But he texted last week to say he was returning. Didn't give me a date, but I know that knock. It's him. But it's nothing! Just come back."

"Went away? Returning? Know that knock?" she said, drawing her knees under her and letting the sheet fall away. "Too many words I don't get. Wanna tell me what this is about? Who's Raahil?"

He sighed. "How do I start?" he said, and it started.

Raahil is a friend. Just a friend? Yeah, just a friend, had something wrong with his leg. His leg? Yeah, his leg needed to be amputated and a prosthetic fitted. Wow, that's something, that's more than just "something wrong", you never told me this. Why would I tell you, it's not a thing I think about all the time. OK, go ahead. He couldn't afford it, so he asked for my help. And you gave him some money? Lent him the money, is what I thought. And he got it done. Yes, he got it done and was back to normal pretty much. All good I guess, but now he's knocking on your door and you're being mysterious. I told you, he's just a friend. But why won't you open the door? Because you and I are ... like this.

She took a moment, took a breath.

You said he went away, so you mean he lived here with you? Yes. You never told me that either. Because he went away and I didn't think he'd return. Are you telling me he meant something to you?

Now he took a moment, his clock chiming seven. "Getting time for me to pick up Diva", she said. "Are you going to tell me, finish this now?"

All right, yes, he did mean something to me. I note the past tense. OK, does. Don't stop there, I'm sensing there's more to come. We lived together for a long time, like a year. One year! Yeah, but then I couldn't understand, I started to get these anonymous notes. Anonymous notes, what? Yeah, all running down Raahil. What do you mean, running down? Just that: "Don't trust that Raahil, he's a creep", "Raahil has bad character and a horrible reputation. Please be warned and have nothing to do with him" ... I know them almost by heart. What did Raahil say about them? He just laughed them off - but wait, let me read you the last one. Sure, please, but do you know who was sending them to you?

He didn't answer. He stood, rummaged in a drawer, pulled out a sheet of paper: "What a fool you are. That devil is still leading you on. Ever since he was eighteen and a boy killed himself over Raahil he has been afraid to say no to a man. You are very stupid not to realize it. This is my last warning. A Friend."

She was too startled, even horrified, to respond. After a moment, he went on: "But he made a mistake with that last one. There was another piece of paper in the envelope. Credit card receipt, his name on it."

"Whose name?" she asked, dreading the answer.

"Raahil. It was him, sending those notes."

A pause, then she looked at the clock and leaped from the bed. "Oh my god!" she said, pulling on her clothes. "Late for Diva! Gotta go! You have to finish this!" Running down the stairs, passing the amateurish canvas on the landing, it suddenly struck her. Such an immaculately-appointed flat, but not a single photograph. Family, friends, landscapes, architecture, vacations, wildlife ... Nothing.

***

Two days passed like she was in a haze. She was filled with questions she had no answer for, doubts that tore at her. There were times when, without being fully aware of it, the dread would well up like risen bread. Who was this Raahil? What was between them? And only while dropping Diva that second evening did she realize it had been a normal, ordinary afternoon. That itself, already unusual.

She asked as she walked in: "What happened next?"

He seemed apathetic about answering. Still: The evening of the last note, he said, some friends came over. In front of them, he had confronted Raahil, theatrically - his word - producing the receipt. It was emotional, traumatic, wrenching. Raahil denied everything, concocting a bizarre, convoluted explanation for the receipt. Finally, he walked out in a rage. Returned the next morning, silently packed his things and left.

"That's it?" she asked.

"Yeah, gone just like that," he said.

"But after he walked out that night ...", he said, and he was animated again, "that night, I saw a ghost."

Bring it on, she thought. Anonymous notes, a reference to a suicide, a mysterious knock, now a ghost. Why not?

That night, wrung out and exhausted, he flopped into bed. He lay looking at the ceiling, circling back again and again over what had happened, searching for reason, sense where there was none. He couldn't say, later, when he became aware. In the shadow beyond his bedside lamp, in how it bent the cone of light just that much, the dimmest hint of a shape. With his breathing, a gentle feeling, no more, of another breath taken. Not a sound, but that meant he could no longer hear his clock ticking, and how had that quiet come to be? He had the disturbing sense of his body, his very self, being ... "scripted", the word that came to his mind. As if every little movement and thought was scripted, then echoed. But by whom?

He told her all this in a near-desperate earnestness, as if he knew it was only the minute detail that could convince her.

"So I got out of bed," he said. "He was there," he pointed at the Patwardhan, "arms folded, leaning against the wall. Looking at me. Saying something. I couldn't hear, but I knew."

It took her several seconds to find a whisper. "What did he say?"

"You're going to miss me."

Was he saying that to her?

With a long sigh, he lapsed into apathy, hands behind his head, looking at the ceiling. When she spoke, he didn't look at her.

And the next time you heard from him was the knocking? Yes it was. Has he come again? Yes. Did you open the door? Yes. What did he say about the notes? Didn't come up, because I'm done with them. Seriously, you didn't ask him? No, because what's the point? But, but ... there's the suicide, for example. Well, what's he going to tell me about it? But you don't want to find out? No, I'm just glad he's all right, I was worried. And where's he now? Gone to bring his stuff. What, are you serious, he's moving back in? Yeah.

Bewildered, she had nothing to say. This had moved far too fast: take away the two days she hadn't seen him, and it had been half an hour since the knocks. Thirty minutes, and they were strangers again.

More silence, then she let herself out. He stared at the ceiling.

They met for lunch once more, but there was a shadow he showed no interest in lifting. He had no time for - interest in? - tennis, much less for the trysts at home. She did visit, but the magic was gone like it never was. She saw Raahil once: a short, wiry young man with a permanently lifted left eyebrow, a sardonic air and no time for her either.

***

Akshay called one day, soon after the monsoon broke and the city was awash and umbrellas had sprouted everywhere. "I'm worried about him," he said. "No tennis and I've barely seen him. Maybe he doesn't even get out much."

Postscript: Since you've read the whole thing now, here's some of where this story came from:

1) The man slipping and falling flat on a damp tennis court: me. My partner (yes, Akshay) really did shout in alarm and ran over; the guy on the next court really did sling a forehand from just above my head (to this day I don't know if he simply did not notice me lying there). But no, no woman in purple track pants running over as well.

2) The rally (lobs, backhand, forehand, etc) - another tennis partner and me. 33 shots is an exaggeration, but that one time, we both surprised ourselves by how long that rally went.

3) The courting and the French line: from when my wife and I were dating. She teaches French, and I loved this song by Beausoleil, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N_MjD5b018. So I'd leave flowers outside her class, with a note saying "ce toi que j'aime" because that's what I thought the line was. She corrected me, but I also got the sense she liked "ce", and so I liked it too. I don't think I ever wrote a note with the correct line. (Now you know why the image at the top.)

4) The anonymous notes: this really happened, with my father. As a young man in the early '50s, he hung out here in Bombay with a group of friends, one of whom was a woman who clearly had a crush on him. Then he started getting these anonymous letters saying horrible things about her - I've quoted two of them above almost verbatim. Finally, one of these arrived with a laundry receipt inside, her name on it. It was her. He confronted her in front of the whole group, and that didn't end well. And that night, so torn up emotionally by the whole thing, he suddenly saw her in his doorway. Just his imagination. Otherwise the most rational of men, he always said this was how he explained ghosts - when you are overwrought, your mind does strange things.

I'm not sure my father ever got over this bizarre episode.

5) Finally, I tried to use the idea of a tennis rally - rapid back-and-forth - in some of the conversation. Please let me know if it worked.