by Preethi Nair
Tom began visiting restaurants and shops, offering samples and, within weeks, we had more orders than we could have possibly envisaged. I knew I could not fulfil them, not unless I left work. I thought about it, but the idea scared me. It scared me because although I hated working at the factory, it gave me a sense of stability and I knew exactly where I stood; there was no room for hopes and dreams, no room for expectations or disappointment. Tom kept doing figures to convince me that I could make much more money from home, making pickles, and Maggie added that, more importantly, I could be there for my children when they came home from school. I thought about it all as I went into work.
The women piled onto the bus as usual. Some of them were in their forties and fifties, looking defeated, old and dishevelled. That could be me in twenty years’ time so used to my life that I dare not dream, expect anything from it but mere survival. The biggest highlight of my life would be theirs: talking enthusiastically about buying a watermelon in summertime; or saving up for the luxury of a shower head to attach to the bath. I would have done nothing except that which was familiar – stitch skirts and take abuse from people who believed that they were better than me. It would show on me like it did on those women; rugged lines of sadness so deeply etched on their faces that they forgot how to smile. At least I had been given an opportunity, a way out; it was up to me to take a leap of faith.
I went into see Mr Humphries, who shouted at me for coming into his office without knocking. I told him I was leaving. ‘You’re doing what? Don’t come running to me when you’re desperate. You’ll not have a job here,’ he added, furious.
I said nothing. This irritated him further so he said he would have to dock my wages for giving him no notice and leaving him short of a worker. ‘Fine,’ I replied confidently, rolling up my tatty blue overall and handing it to him. I took my last brown envelope and left.
I remember feeling so elated and free, like I could do anything, be anyone if I chose to be.
‘It’s Amma, Satchin, it’s Amma, she’s at the gate waiting for us.’ I think the whole playground heard Maya. The other mothers stared at me.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Satchin asked.
‘Nothing, Monu, this is how it is going to be from now on. Today is a really special day and we are going to celebrate.
‘It’s not that Onam thing again?’ Maya asked.
‘No, Mol, it’s not Onam. What would you two like to do?’
‘Wimpy!’ they both shouted.
I shook my head, processed food with processed thoughts, and then I laughed. ‘Come on, then. Let’s go.’
The three of us sat and dreamt in Wimpy. Hamburgers hanging out of their mouths, Maya made a list on her napkin of all the things she wanted and quickly ran out of space because her writing was too big. Satchin and I talked of a big house with a garden and room to bring friends home. Then I told them about my plans for the business, how it would be awkward for a while, living with fruit and spices everywhere but it would only be for a short time. We walked back home, holding each other’s hands, and we stopped off at a photo booth to capture the moment so it would last forever.
It was four o’clock in the morning; I couldn’t sleep. Tom would be picking me up in less than an hour to take me to his wholesaler. I lay thinking about life’s many ironies: I had once placed all my trust in a man who was completely untrustworthy and I had promised myself not to trust that way again. I was then put in a situation where I had no option but to trust, and the very two people sent to me were the ones that appeared completely untrustworthy: Maggie and Tom. What would I have done without them?
My mother would say that the right people are sent to us just when we need them and they come in many guises. The beggar asking for food may well be a pauper, but it is only our judgement of him that makes him a pauper. ‘When we hold our judgements and see beyond, magic happens,’ she would say. ‘When we believe in someone even if they don’t believe in themselves, magic happens.’ Where was she now? What would she be doing? What would she say to all of this? I know she would say trust, because according to her, trust prepares the ground for forgiveness. Only when you put your faith and trust back into life, are you able to forgive, and with forgiveness all insurmountable obstacles just dissolve. Strengthened, I got up to get ready.
Tom arrived to take me to Spitalfields Market.
‘He’s a nice enough man but bargain hard with him, Nalini,’ advised Tom, as he was driving.
‘Tom, maybe I shouldn’t ask, but I need to know – why?’
‘Because he can be a bit steep with some of his prices and …’
‘No, Tom, I meant, I mean, why? Why do you go out of your way so much to help me and the children?’
He glanced over at me and looked hurt by my question.
‘Because I don’t want you or the kids to suffer like we did. Is that good enough for you?’ he replied defensively.
‘What happened?’ I asked gently.
‘What didn’t might be a better question.’ There was a pause. ‘I don’t really want to talk about it, Nalini. Some things are best left where they are.’
‘Tom,’ I said after a short while, ‘we do appreciate everything that you and Maggie do for us, I mean, I don’t ever want you to think that …’
‘I know,’ he interrupted. ‘Anyway, like I was saying, you’ve got to be very decisive with Mr Prakash. Tell him exactly what you want and the price you’re willing to pay. He’ll try and say no to everything but you just stay firm.’
It was dark and the wholesaler’s was bustling, even at that time in the morning. Traders were shouting out the prices of their products and where they originated. The floor was filthy with rain and tomatoes and other fruit which had been squashed by footsteps. There were no animals congregating around the food, hoping to take advantage of the situation. Mr Prakash was exactly as Tom described him. ‘All our fruits and spices are of the very best quality, Ma’am, you won’t find anywhere better, all freshly imported from India. Smell,’ he gestured, inhaling the aroma of a crate of mangoes. ‘And the price must indeed reflect the quality.’
‘I need a twenty percent discount,’ I insisted.
‘Twenty percent,’ he shouted, ‘You’ll put me out of business, take the shirt from my back now.’
‘Fine,’ I said, turning away.
‘Ten percent,’ he said, muttering.
‘Fifteen, and I’ll give you good custom.’
‘You are indeed a hard woman, but may God bless you,’ he replied.
I chose crateloads of the finest fruit and filled jars with fresh spices, whilst he yelled at one of his assistants to help us load the van.
Maggie managed to source the pickle bottles cheaply from a man she knew who worked at a packaging factory. I went to the sari shop on Green Street to buy yards and yards of fabric for covering the lids and Tom picked up three hotplates from the second-hand shop on the High Street. There was absolutely no space to move in the bedsit and I tried to work when the children were at school or late at night when they were asleep. New worries now replaced old ones: I worried if I could make a go of it, if I was good enough to make a better life for the children, and then I worried about practical things like the intensity of heat in that room, whether they would fall sick from the draft that came from an open window, the constant smell that must have made them nauseous. I worried if I would be able to fulfil orders and if the standard of the pickles were good enough, would the supplier have enough fruit for the following week? And so the worrying went on, but when I cooked, everything paled into insignificance.
Orders increased and it got to a point where we had no room, there was no option but to move out. I decided to rent a one-bedroomed flat across the road so I would not be too far from Tom and Maggie. It was our first real home and it felt like a rajah’s palace. There was a separate sitting room and a big kitchen with a black-and white-tiled floor and a small garden. Tom, Maggie, the children and I splashed around that weekend with fres
h white paint and we bought some second-hand furniture which we re-painted and re-upholstered. Most of it was done in a rich green and pink sari material which Maya bought with Maggie and the curtains were also made in the same fabric. Maggie managed to get hold of an enormous second-hand fridge and an industrial cooker, from where I don’t know and I didn’t want to ask. The man at the second-hand shop also saved me a big wooden table where I could chop and lay out all the ingredients which fitted perfectly in the kitchen.
That move was another step for me, another leap of faith, and if I am going by the astrologer’s theory, who posited that even the slightest action is responded to by something far greater, then I would say we were rewarded heavily. The children were happy in their new home, we had money, so I could afford to buy them proper shoes to replace their flimsy plimsolls, I didn’t have to go traipsing around jumble sales for their clothes and now if they needed money for a school outing, I had it. The three of us could sit huddled together watching television on a Friday night, eating chocolate, or go to the cinema at the weekends if we chose to. I even enrolled at the local college to study English and bookkeeping. Customers kept re-ordering and, for the first time, I could afford to pay Tom who delivered the produce and Maggie who continued to help with the bottling and packaging.
My mother used to say that it was forgiveness that worked magic on the soul and made miracles possible. According to her, forgiveness from a broken heart combusted energy that made insurmountable obstacles just dissolve. So if she found Luxmiammayi gossiping about her, she forgave; if a servant boy stole whatever little she had, she let him take it; if I hurt her, and I know I did, she just forgave me. Not the forgiveness that belongs to a coward – he who sees but refuses to believe and so pretends that nothing has happened – but the kind of forgiveness which belongs to a courageous heart, the heart that accepts and says no matter what anyone does, or whatever circumstances are thrust upon it, it will always, always be all right. It does not become embroiled and constrained in anger and bitterness, but moves forward and grows.
If in the village there was a rift that seemed impossible to heal, she would muster forgiveness with bright turmeric, mustard seeds, ginger, garlic, the bitterness of lemon and anger of hot chilli. The latter two ingredients were supposed to counter the bad feelings and diffuse them. She then sealed it all with warm water and made a paste, which she added to whatever dish she felt appropriate, and then offered it to both sides. The results were not instantaneous and many could claim that it was time that solved the problems but somewhere, she was sure, her simple process of forgiveness was working away.
My mother taught me that forgiveness was part of life’s learning process. I don’t know if my mother simply forgave my father, if she truly accepted, if she let it go and sealed her wounds with the scent of fried ginger and turmeric, but for me it was impossible. Impossible, because how can you forgive a person who takes up most of your heart, who is your everything, your world, who tells you you are the most important thing and then leaves? Suddenly, the food that you help prepare for them is not good enough, the kisses that you give them are not good enough, you are not enough. Despite the fact that my parents were always fighting, my father was always kind to me and I loved him. I thought he loved me too. I would rather not have known the truth about my father. I would rather that my mother had pretended that he loved us and was taken away by some tragic fate. My mother said that to lie is the coward’s way and that truth is whole, like black or white. But what if there are a hundred shades for truth?
I think I only really began to forgive my father when I started to let go of Raul. Day by day, I let the feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness burn with peppercorns and chilli. The peppercorns and the chillies would sizzle in the boiling hot oil and expand until they could grow no further and then they exploded, releasing a suffocating smell that choked. Freshly squeezed lemon juice and the ginger would calm and soothe the aroma, evaporating the stench, bringing it back to a neutral place. To this mixture was added a sweet ripe mango, bursting with fertility and promise, limes and honey which held so many dreams, and lightly fried onions that grounded and made things feel safe and possible. All were bottled until the man became a shadow of a memory. It did not concern me who he was, where he was, and the thought of him coming back never crossed my mind. The labels were put on the pickles and the process was complete.
As we sat across the kitchen table, Maggie laughed when I told her what the secret ingredients were that made the pickles so successful. If only life were as simple she would say. She became chief taster, and I got her to put the lids on the jars so she could inhale the contents. Slowly, she began to open up and diffuse her memories with the aroma that emanated from those pickle bottles.
The smells took Maggie back to her childhood in a little town in the south of Ireland called Dara. Everything was green, deep green, but the piercing grey light (that she never got used to despite having been born there) made everything appear duller than it was. She was brought up on a farm where her father worked as a hand. Her mother was busy year after year giving birth and Maggie was kept occupied patching up the hand-me-downs that went from sibling to sibling and doing chores. She was helped by her sister Noreen who was a year younger than she was. Maggie probably had a lot more relations than she knew about as her father, who had a taste for the Guinness, did not quite remember what he had done at night. On his sober mornings, he ploughed the fields and made sure the family kept their home.
Maggie was sent to school sporadically so she could just make out the signs in the village and the notes that were passed to her by the farmer, all written with promises of love, prosperity and a better life. The farmer planted empty dreams in Maggie’s head and filled them with illusions so the dull light finally became bearable. She fell pregnant at fifteen. The family covered Maggie’s sin with nine months of silence, keeping her indoors, doing whatever tasks needed to be done around the house away from prying neighbours. Maggie’s mother took her child, named him Tom, and added him to her collection. The farmer said nothing, gave Maggie’s father some extra money and allowed them to stay on the land almost rent-free.
She loved Tom from the day she saw him, all wrinkled and scrunched in a ball with bright orange hair. Hair that didn’t listen and always went in the opposite direction to which it was combed. He had inherited that disobedient streak from his mother. When Maggie was asked to help with all the other children she did it without question but she always did the most for Tom. Loving him, singing to him, feeding him. She began working at the local shop, and the money she made went straight to her mother but she did not tell her of the rise she eventually received and with the extra pennies she began saving for things for her son. She got as far as buying him a little toy truck and then she realised he could not play with it because her mother would wonder where it came from. She hid it under her bed.
Shortly after Maggie turned eighteen, her mother died. Maggie’s father stayed out all night, she continued working at the local shop and at home but she wanted more, more for herself and for Tom. Maggie felt Noreen was old enough to look after the other children and ideas of going to England began germinating in her head. After a violent argument with her drunken father one night, she decided it was time to leave. Maggie stole money from the shop, took Tom, and fled to England with an idea that she would find her eldest brother, Michael.
The last address they had for Michael was in Bow, East London but when she got there he had gone and had left no forwarding address. She was forced to find work almost immediately. The money she stole only managed to cover the fare to England and a week’s accommodation. She rented the bedsit where her brother had stayed, hoping he would come back, and then she took work at the local factory. There was no one to look after Tom, only three years old, so she kept him locked in one room, put food and water out and put up makeshift barricades so that he would not harm himself. Agonising over him, she prayed he would be kept safe.
The money wasn
’t enough but more than that, she had nothing to offer her son. She went to work on the streets, working at nights, so she could take care of him in the day. At least at night, she thought, he would be safe asleep. Life continued and Tom went to school and then she made enough money for them to move out and live somewhere better. A few years later, one of her regulars died, leaving Maggie a house with the condition that she look after his cats and provide somewhere to stay for his uncle. So she found herself in the boarding house off Green Street. She could have stopped working then, when Tom was eleven, but she continued, thinking she could give him an even better life.
Maggie never told Tom that she was his mother. She did everything for him, worked for him, and then it got to a point where she didn’t know why she was working, she didn’t know what else she was good for, it had just all managed to creep up on her. When Tom asked about his mother and father, the brothers and sisters that he barely remembered, she said that their mother had died, their father couldn’t cope and all the other children had gone to live with aunts and uncles but for her, little Tom, well, he was too special, so she took him and came to London.
When he was old enough, Tom learnt what his sister did but he could handle it precisely because she was his sister and he remembered his mother as the warm Irish woman who died suddenly. His father turned into a loving one who eventually died grief-stricken, of a heart attack. Tom loved Maggie, anyone could see this, and she helped him in any way she could. He had always wanted to start his own business and when he left college, Maggie bought him a van and from there, he made his way. Occasionally, he stayed with her in the boarding house and other times he slept in his van, depending on the journeys he had to make. Then we arrived and threw their lives upside down.