by Meera Syal
‘There’s baby’s head . . . spine . . . fingers, nice long ones, bound to be artistic, eh? . . . Oh, I think baby’s got hiccups, see the little jumps? . . . Not much movement at this stage, there’s not much room in there now . . . OK, Chila?’
Chila couldn’t tear her eyes from the flickering blue screen, watching her child attempt watery kung fu kicks which she felt, a second later, beneath her skin. She had kept all the scan Polaroids and had stuck them with fruit-shaped magnets to the fridge. She had the whole sequence now, starting with the indistinct blob that had looked like a small blue-burning planet in an endless black galaxy. She had watched the blob acquire a tail, a forehead, hooded eyes – an alien comma, peeled as a prawn; seen hands and feet sprout and limber, vertebrae stack themselves as tidily as newly washed plates, features emerge from blank living canvas, a personality profess itself through thumb-sucking and sly somersaults. And now the person itself, ready.
For Chila the novelty had almost worn off. Nine months was a long time to spend in someone’s company every second of the day and night. For her, it was a chance for a quick chat, accompanied by helpful visuals. Deepak however, could not stop gazing at the screen, awe-struck and occasionally slightly afraid.
‘He looks squashed. Oh, look at his leg, it’s . . . Does that hurt, Chila? . . . He’s turning over . . . Is that his . . . ? Look at the size of . . . Well, that settles it, he’s bound to be a son of mine,’ he concluded.
‘That, my dear Deepak,’ Dr Stroud informed him, ‘is the umbilical cord, so don’t pat yourself on the back too hard. From this angle I can’t tell the sex—’
‘We don’t want to know,’ interrupted Chila.
‘Quite right too,’ said the doctor, wiping the sticky gel off Chila’s stomach. ‘No problems, it’s all looking quite normal.’
Deepak leaped up suddenly, pointing at the screen. ‘He’s stopped moving! He hasn’t moved at all for at least—’
‘I’ve stopped scanning, Deepak. That’s just a still, the last image before I switched it off.’
‘Good,’ blustered Deepak. ‘Of course.’
‘Deepak’s only been to one scan before this, the first one,’ Chila explained mildly, as she slipped into her shoes.
‘I see marriage hasn’t changed you much,’ remarked Dr Stroud drily as she pushed past Deepak towards the bin and whispered to Chila, ‘I delivered him, so I can get away with being cheeky.’
Chila sat up. ‘Yes, I know. So what was he like as a little boy?’ she asked with a shy grin at Deepak.
Dr Stroud wondered what this sweet creature was doing with the son of one of her oldest friends. The number of times Asha had bewailed Deepak’s romantic escapades. ‘He thinks I’m stupid, Sheila! He thinks I don’t know what he’s up to. But I can smell cheap perfume on his guest towels. I’ve seen the lipstick marks on his glasses. Unless . . . You don’t think he’s wearing lipstick now, do you? Bhagwan! I tell you, anything is possible when you go off the rails. I want to see him married before I die!’
Asha had complained of being on the verge of demise for most of the time Sheila had known her. Like many of the wealthy women she had treated over the years, hypochondria was another way of passing the days and feeling important. Still, having never had children herself, preferring merely to bring them safely into the world, Sheila always tried to understand. And silently thanked her own celibacy for keeping her far away from this maelstrom of worry and confusing passions.
She loved Deepak, out of loyalty, but she liked Chila more. She sat down on the couch next to her.
‘Oh, much like he is now. Charmed the birds off the trees and into his pedal car. I think poor Asha had given up hope of ever seeing a grandchild.’
‘Let’s leave Mum out of this,’ cut in Deepak, fidgeting awkwardly with his jacket.
Chila tried to imagine him as a schoolboy, in grey shorts with a stripy tie and jam around his mouth. She did try, but she could not quite grasp the concept of Deepak being a child. She simply saw him in miniature, same hair, same stubble, zipping around in a pint-sized sports car with a couple of large-breasted blondes sitting on the bonnet.
Deepak had always been cagey about his past experiences and Chila had never wanted to push him, finding the idea of him with other women upsetting and distasteful. She had no history, brought no ghosts with her as they got into bed. Which meant everything he did was unique, ground breaking, perfect. How must it have been for him? she wondered. How could he have deemed her special when he’d seen it all before, done it all before? Maybe she ought to make some provisions for after the birth. She had once seen some chocolate bodypaint advertised in Cosmo; it seemed a great idea, combining her two favourite activities in one handy jar. It had been months since Deepak had been intimate with her, virtually since the confirmation of her pregnancy.
‘We don’t want to disturb the baby,’ he had said, as if he expected it to bang on Chila’s uterine wall and ask them to Keep it down.
Chila had read enough baby books to know that there was no medical reason to abstain. And now she was having difficulty sleeping, lying awake while the baby did its nocturnal disco routine, she found it strange, the physical proximity and the desert of bed between them. She couldn’t discuss any of these feelings with Sunita. Talking with Sunny could be dangerous, they both knew that. The baby had brought them together, held them in tenuous balance. Beyond the scales loomed an unknown darkness, full of glinting secrets and softly breathing premonitions. If Chila ventured out too far, her fear dragged her back, gratefully. She had to deal with what she could see. He was still with her. They were still married. They were soon to be parents. Within those certainties, she would still try her best. She decided to ask Deepak to go via Tescos on the way home. Tonight she would cook, and clean her own kitchen afterwards. And plan something very special for dessert.
Tania drove mindlessly for an hour, automatically stopped at red lights she did not register until minutes later, took bends and negotiated junctions with the blind instinct of a homing pigeon, and found herself driving along the street of her childhood home. Nothing much had changed; still the same short row of terraced Victorian houses, wedged between two dual carriageways, and at the back of them an old railway yard where dying engines were taken to be spannered, hammered and eventually melted down for scrap. There were still children rushing up and down this rabbit run, a rainbow coalition of bikers and runners.
The last time Tania had skipped along here, hers was one of only three Asian families in the street. Her former house looked well-tended, in fact better than when they had lived there. Someone had planted sunflowers in the tiny front garden and the window sills and door had been newly spruced up in a dazzling shade of lime green. A woman emerged from the front door, indigo-black in a vibrant zigzag wrap and matching headscarf. From the folds of her robes, a small child peeped out with lemur-luminous eyes, clinging with arms and feet to her front. Somalian, Tania guessed, and watched her scatter what looked like old cooked rice onto the path.
Tania inhaled painfully. Her mother used to do this, donate leftovers to the city sparrows. ‘These chirie love my biriani,’ she would say proudly, resting her bulk on the upturned milk crate, hoping she would actually catch the birds eating her food. Tania used to dread arriving home from school, with her gaggle of friends, and finding her huge mama parked like a polyester-draped juggernaut in their front garden. ‘We’ve got a back garden, you know,’ Tania would hiss, trying to heave her back into the house, wishing she had a normal-sized mother whose embarrassing behaviour would at least be less visibly comic.
And now, almost every front garden in the street had been turned into an extended patio. It was mainly women in bright robes and saris who sat right outside their front doors, chatting, hanging washing, wiping down children, reading, shelling peas, oblivious to the honks and fumes of the nearby major roads. Their boldness had also encouraged a few white OAPs to venture into the once hallowed space of the front lawn and just sit, to watch the b
affling multi-coloured world go by.
Now Tania could see that this was perfectly understandable, logical even, coming from places where life was lived outdoors, communally. It was an act of bravery, considering the weather here. Tania had never thought of her mother as courageous. But she did know how cowardly it was to deny someone the simple pleasure of sitting under a pale sun to watch the sparrows eat. Grief gripped her in a huge tight fist. She wanted to bury herself in the billowing waves of one of her mother’s voluminous housecoats, her favourite pre-school game, to make a tent and invite everyone to lounge in the shade of Mama’s gargantuan thighs, Chila, Sunita, Deepak, even Suki, gather them all in and create sanctuary. There had to be somewhere she could call home.
Sunita groaned as she rounded the corner into her parents’ road and saw the dozens of cars parked around their house. They definitely had guests, judging by the make and state of the vehicles. Their rich friends drove BMWs or Mercedes, with personalized number plates, usually an approximation of their offspring’s names. She spotted a 5EE MA, an AN1 1 and a P00 N4M, wedged in between the other poorer friends’ cars which were generally from the Datsun family and all had extremely worn upholstery, where too many family members had been squashed together in the back. She picked her way through the bumpers, annoyed her mother had not mentioned this when she had dropped the children off this morning. If she had known they were having company, she might not have chosen today to wear the red mini-dress and black bomber jacket which a gushing sales assistant had claimed made her look like Cher with a pre-surgery bustline.
As she reached the driveway, she could see the party going on through the open curtains. Dusk had fallen quickly, in the time it had taken her to walk from the bus stop, and the illuminated window framed the revellers like actors on a spotlit stage. The guests flitted from table to sofa to the drinks cabinet, a huge globe on wooden wheels which split at the equator to reveal bargain-cheap wines, expensive vintage whiskies, and sweet pre-mixed cocktails for the ladies. The dividing doors to the back room and kitchen had been opened out, and Sunita glimpsed her parents loading starters onto huge china dishes. She stood on the lawn for a moment, taking a mental snapshot of the hubbub, humming-bird-bright saris, men in sober suits, the more dashing ones in pyjame kurthe with shawls hanging casually from a shoulder, engaged in their old dance of greeting and eating, slower now, older, but the same old steps, a rhythm which had pulsed quietly in the background of childhood, a river which continued with or without her.
Sunita felt as if she stood on the banks, poised, watching others borne away happily in the current. It was so easy, to just drift, to laze in the undertow, like Chila, instead of leaping against the waves. She remembered Uncle with Patterned Jumpers and his lecture on reincarnation, and wondered if he was inside. She thought he might like to know that she had come back as a salmon.
Amongst the throng she spotted Akash cheerfully offering round snacks on silver trays. He had turned up for a party that he hadn’t thought to mention to her. Sunita prickled with irritation until she remembered their conversations nowadays consisted of a few surly grunts over the bodies of their squirming children. He would look good: the dutiful son-in-law. She would look exactly how she felt right now, like the absent mother in the scarlet dress. She rang the doorbell, took a deep breath, and plunged inside.
Mata-ji sat in a comfortable armchair with a hot-water bottle concealed under her cardigan. She was not up to standing much nowadays, and besides, she liked watching the youngsters enjoy themselves. Sometimes people forgot whose mother she was. She supposed that they did all look alike, the ancient ones in their white saris and tightly knotted buns who limped and sighed and wheezed behind their children at functions.
Mata-ji was one of the lucky ones. Her daughter-in-law was a gem, never made her feel like a burdensome widow. She even had her own room and fan heater and her radio permanently tuned to a station that played non-stop bhajans. Not like some of her unfortunate friends, whose sons used them as unpaid babysitters and cooks, whose daughters-in-law locked up the pantry and phone when they left them alone in the house. One family had done the unthinkable and placed their grandmother in a home of some kind. It was the final proof that chaos had arrived. It was called Sunny Pastures, but looked like a hospital and smelled of cabbage and cats. Mata-ji had been there once to pick up her friend on the way to an engagement ceremony. How awful it was to be in a place full of old people, reminding you wherever you looked of your own crumbling body. How terrible to receive your children as visitors once a week, if you were lucky, and spend the rest of the time being called Dear and Lovey by busy women in nasty clothes. Mata-ji had felt her friend’s shame as her own. To be old in this country was punishment enough. To then have to do bingo and ballroom dancing with other toothless persons was simply torture.
Mata-ji massaged her feet, emitting tiny grunts of pleasure. Nikita and Sunil, who were tottering past with handfuls of sweetmeats, dropping a trail of sticky pink crumbs behind them, paused and watched the floor show.
Nikita giggled, spraying her front with flecks of barfi. ‘You sound like the guinea pig at nursery, Buree Dadima. He’s called Henry.’
‘What is it? You are hungry?’ shouted Mata-ji. Her great-grandchildren had shocking accents, their parents spoke Punjabi like memsahibs, even her own son sometimes forgot a phrase and reverted to English occasionally. Mata-ji hoped fervently that her son at least still dreamed in his native tongue. Personally, she would hate to fall asleep and hear people whining in that funny twang in her head.
Inside her head was possibly the most pleasant place to be, where she danced like a nautch-girl and rolled around under mosquito nets with her dear departed husband. She spent many a happy hour recalling their gymnastic love making in various hot locations. It was what gave her that beatific expression that passing youngsters called wisdom. If only they knew. She felt sorry for them; all this busy-busy lifestyle and pressure of work, so little time to enjoy. Of course she had worked hard all her life, but her tasks were finite. When a pan was clean, it was clean. When the prayers were over, it was time for bed. Everything had had its place, and nothing had interfered with that. When she had broken all her bangles on the stones around her husband’s funeral pyre, crashing her wrists against flint, even then, she had felt fulfilled. She had given all of herself to him. He was on his way, on to the next stage. Now she was alone and free to recall him whenever she wished. At this very moment she was on a wooden cot somewhere near Amritsar, and he was coming towards her, carrying his tenderness with him, like a diya in his palms . . .
‘What you thinking, Buree Dadima?’ Akash knelt next to her, automatically taking her hand.
‘Kuch-nahin beta. Nothing special. Where is Sunita?’
Akash pointed her out reluctantly. Sunita was offering a silver tray of drinks around the front room, ignoring or possibly oblivious of the curious glances that followed in her wake.
‘Why has she forgotten her trousers?’ Mata-ji demanded.
‘Um, it’s a dress. It’s the fashion nowadays,’ Akash muttered, hoping Great-granny wouldn’t notice the bondage-style boots as well.
‘When the peahen starts strutting, the peacock must beware.’
Akash shifted uncomfortably and heard his knees crack like walnuts. ‘Sorry?’
Mata-ji worked her dentures into a better position. ‘She doesn’t dress for you. What’s the matter?’
Akash focused on a loose thread on his cuff. He was afraid to look up. Buree Dadima had a way of wheedling information out of everyone; they were taken in by her snowy hair and mischievous, deep-set eyes.
‘Oh, nothing. It’s nothing. You know, now she’s studying again, she’s just . . . experimenting.’
Mata-ji snorted into her chunni. ‘Ex-per-menting. So many long words and you still understand nothing.’
Akash was tired. The children were on a sugar-high, he had lost two clients that day and was frankly not in the mood for deciphering obtuse Indian quips
.
‘Buree Dadima, it was different for you. All the rules have changed. We have so many choices.’
‘What is choice? Hah? You stay or you go. You love or you don’t love. And if you find another, in few years you will be back in same place, with choices. Even the gods had arguments with their wives.’
Akash sighed wearily. ‘It’s much harder being a man, believe me.’
Mata-ji snorted again, then chortled, then broke into an asthmatic laugh, hacking like an old boiler, slapping Akash’s shoulder as she struggled for breath. She wiped her eyes finally, waiting for the phlegm to settle. ‘He Bhagwan! That is a good one. Now I know the world is upside down.’ She patted his cheek affectionately. ‘Easy to love in the harvest. It is how you love in the famine, that is what counts.’
Akash smiled patiently. ‘And men are from Mars and women are from Venus.’
Mata-ji stopped smiling. ‘Don’t be stupid. Now get me some food. Good boy.’
Sunita rinsed out some glasses in the sink as her parents co-ordinated bubbling pans at the stove. They were a good double act; her bumptious, short-legged father banged lids and cracked jokes while her mother glided effortlessly through the chaos, smiling at his punchlines as she maintained order with a flick of a wrist.
‘Beti, you must be busy nowadays,’ her father shouted over the hiss of the pressure cooker.
‘It’s all the studying she’s doing,’ her mother added, tucking her sari end into her waist.
‘Of course, studying. You don’t forget to eat properly, brain food—’
‘Like almonds, fish, lots of milk—’
‘You’ve never liked milk—’
‘The trouble we had to get you to drink your thoo-thoo—’
‘Hah, she would hide her bottles—’
‘Under her bed!’
Sunita had never really noticed before how they finished each other’s sentences. They were slowly fusing into the same person. Even the way they negotiated each other’s bodies in the small space was fluid and unconscious. Sunita had always been the envy of her friends. ‘Your folks are so cool,’ they would say, when the term had been fashionable. ‘Yeah, suppose so,’ Sunita would reply nonchalantly, bursting with pride inside.