by Preethi Nair
Every day, I worked in the shop to bring it back to its former state. I called Maggie as I still had no news from her and she said she needed some more time off. Jack was thinking of taking her away for a week. ‘Just make sure you come back safely because it’s going to be better than ever,’ I told her. There was still no news of Govind, Deepa or Amit so I decided to advertise for staff in the local paper. Anita begged me not to and I assured her that I would sort things out with them when they came back, but in the meantime, we needed staff. Upstairs the flat looked like a chaotic jumble sale that everyone had rummaged through. All that remained were the leftovers and a few suitcases. I tidied up, putting the clothes in the cases, and took it all into the spare room, cleaning the flat from top to bottom. Everything was finished by the end of that week. I could now concentrate on cooking for my guests, something I hadn’t done in a long time, and I began to retrieve the sense of perspective that I had lost.
My mother-in-law got very excited at the prospect of her eldest son coming to visit her and was thinking about the meals she wanted to cook him. I told her on the first day it was important for me to make them feel welcome in our home so I would cook. She wasn’t happy, but then I added that the baby would be pleased that her grandmother could play with her and that appeased her. I thought about the menus the day before and went shopping in the market.
The fishmonger had fresh trout that had come in that morning which I could marinade and lightly fry. I packed the rest of the bags with fruit and vegetables that were in season. I knew it was going to be a special meal, a new start for us all. On Friday evening, I marinated the fish with yoghurt, tamarind and spices, smelling the calm of a salty sea. It was quiet in the house, very peaceful; Satchin had gone to football camp and I had allowed Maya to stay over at her friend’s house for that weekend. Ammu was in the kitchen crawling about, putting whatever she could find into her mouth. She was almost a year and was trying to stand up. She would stand and make a noise for me to watch her and then after I smiled at her, she would tumble back down and give herself a clap. I talked to her, telling her what I was doing whilst preparing the fish, and although she was banging a saucepan lid with a wooden spoon, her presence was soothing. My in-laws had gone to see some other relatives and Ravi wasn’t back from work.
On Saturday, I spent the whole day chopping, mixing, frying and the house was alive again. The cooking smells floated to the upstairs bedrooms, bringing my father-in-law down to investigate what was happening. He never really spoke to me; he never spoke to anyone, and looked like an old cinnamon stick, walking two paces behind his wife, agreeing with whatever she said. He said that the smells took him back to his childhood and it was a long time since he had smelt the fragrance of freshly ground spices. So he stood for a while in the kitchen just inhaling and I gave him something to try. ‘Check for salt,’ I said. The old man was delighted.
The cooking was nearly finished; all that was left was the saffron rice and the cauliflower vegetable dish. The iddlies were steaming and the sambar was bubbling away. Ravi had prepared the table. I went up to change. I was looking for turquoise stones to match my sari when Ravi came in to tell me that the guests had arrived. ‘Five more minutes,’ I said. A few minutes later, he called out for me. As I ran down the stairs, I thought I heard a familiar laugh but it was drowned out by my mother-in-law’s voice. I walked into the sitting room and saw Ravi’s brother, Anil. ‘It’s been a long time, Anil Bhai,’ I said. About to continue, I glanced to the side, and came face to face with Raul.
‘Let me introduce you to my friend, Raul Karta.’
‘Raul, this is my lovely sister-in-law, Nalini.’
I froze. He stared at me, holding out his hand. I wanted to run out of that house and keep on running. A surge of emotion rushed through me and I held back my tears. Clearing my throat, I managed to whisper, ‘Hel—’ My mother-in-law gazed up at me from where she was sitting. Why? Why now? How had he come here?
‘Nalini is a fantastic cook,’ Anil said.
Raul smiled that same half-smile that he used to capture my heart.
‘Do you have children?’ he asked.
Children? I wanted to scratch his eyes out and hit him and say yes, yes, but you walked out and left them and didn’t give a damn what happened. You left them with nothing. Tears were pushing their way to my eyes as I fought them back.
‘Three,’ Ravi said, walking towards a photograph of the three of them. ‘Satchin is sixteen, Maya almost fourteen, and the baby is nearly one.’
As Raul was handed the picture, my hands trembled and my body began to shake, the room spun around and I wanted to vomit. ‘Nalu, are you all right?’ Ravi asked.
‘No, no, no …’
‘What is it, Nalu?’ Ravi came rushing over to support me.
‘Sick,’ I stammered.
‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ He, Raul, said.
I couldn’t breathe and fell forward onto the floor.
Ravi picked me up and took me upstairs. He put me in bed and picked up the phone to call a doctor.
‘No,’ I said.
‘What is it, Nalu? What is it?’
‘Need to sleep. Go down, will be fine,’ I mumbled.
‘I can’t leave you, not like this.’
‘Please,’ I whispered.
He went reluctantly.
I could hear footsteps beneath me, my mother-in-law scurrying around in the kitchen, insisting that they stay and that she serve the food, not to worry, I would get over whatever it was that I had, it was most probably a twenty-four-hour bug. I could hear Ravi saying that it might be better if they left but she was adamant. They sat at the table to eat. He sat at my table to eat. How could he bring himself to eat in my house? Food that he once rejected, children, home and wife, all rejected. I went to see my baby, carried her into bed with me, and cried until there were no more tears.
The whole night I lay awake thinking what I would do and the next day I decided to go to the hotel and see him. They were staying at Lancaster Gate, just around the corner from where he first brought us, nine years ago. Five hard years I fought, fought to make life better; anything could have happened to us. What kind of a man did that to his family? A man with no conscience, bereft of any feeling. I would move if I had to, taking my children with me, before letting him catch a glimpse of them.
I left early in the morning. Ravi was worried about me, but I said there was something that I urgently needed to sort out. Sitting on the tube, I was shaking, tears rolled down my face as I thought about the day I left my mother, the day he made me leave her, the afternoon I told my children he had died, Satchin sobbing, Maya lying crying on the roadside, endless hours at the factory whilst they sat and waited for me. The couple sitting opposite me looked embarrassed and began talking to each other. I thought I was doing my very best for my children and if I had to make that awful decision all over again, I would do what I did back then.
I wiped my tears as I arrived at the hotel and called up his room. He was expecting me, he said, and it would be better if I came up. He opened the door and my fists lunged at him with odious rage. He grabbed them. ‘Why?’ I screamed. He had no answer. ‘Why?’ I shouted again.
He said nothing; he did not even attempt to make pathetic excuses. I sat on the bed and began to sob hysterically. He came to touch me and I flung his hand away. ‘Don’t you ever touch me.’
‘You cannot see the children,’ I cried. ‘They think you are dead and I wish you were. It has taken us years to find security. They think of Ravi as their father and you cannot take that away from them. Promise me. Promise me!’ I screamed.
‘I cannot simply walk away from them,’ he answered.
‘You can’t do what?’ I shouted. ‘You left them, left them with nothing.’
‘You don’t understand, Nalini, it was difficult, you were difficult.’
I spat at him.
I asked him what it would take for him to disappear and promise never to come back.
Fifty thousand pounds. I bought a promise for fifty thousand pounds. Money that I could only raise by selling my shop, the business, everything we had worked for, dreamt about. He left that evening with an assurance that I would wire the money into his account as soon as I had it. If it wasn’t done within the month, he would return, this time to see the children.
I am ashamed to say it, but I sold myself twice to him, twice he robbed me of my dreams. We are tested on the things we most fear and I failed miserably. My mother would have said to me that gratitude had brought me to a place where it was finally time to face the truth, no matter how hideously ugly, and the foundations upon which new beginnings are built would be much stronger. But my children had grown to become secure, they loved Ravi and their little sister, and the thought of Raul re-entering their lives repulsed me and made me physically sick. I did not want to lose them, to cause them any more pain or further disruption. I didn’t want to lose Ravi or have our lives torn apart by a man that didn’t even deserve to be in the same room as them.
I made arrangements to sell the shop, telling Ravi that I had made a decision to spend time at home looking after Ammu. Maggie said it was worth doing when I told her about Raul’s reappearance, that she would have given anything to keep Tom from finding out. She would help me by giving me some of the money from the sale of the house off Green Street.
‘Get rid of him, just get rid of him,’ she said. ‘It’s in the past, we can start again.’
MAYA
My mother-in-law to be, Señora María Carmen Gonzalez del Hoyo, was a fearsome woman who took charge of the wedding preparations like a general in command of a military operation. She had set the date for Marcos and I, after weeks of orbiting like a satellite around the priest so she could find out which combination of dates were the most auspicious. Five months to the day, he said. I don’t know how she coerced the priest into marrying me in church, but she did, dressed to kill in her combat outfit of grey angora skirt and jacket and perfectly set hair. Señora Gonzalez del Hoyo took charge of an army of caterers, decorators, musicians, and florists, manoeuvring them all with timely precision and occasionally gunning down a violinist or a decorator who stepped out of line.
That particular morning, I was in the flat, emptying out my clothes from the cupboards. She rang the bell, more as a warning that she was letting herself in than a request for entry, and launched herself like a missile. Steaming into the apartment with excitement, she pulled out the wedding invitations. I was about to say that she had put an ‘o’ in the wrong place and that it really didn’t matter when at that very moment, the phone rang. It was Ravi, calling me to say that Maggie was seriously ill, that the doctor had given her a few weeks at most.
I put the phone down and ran to the bedroom hastily throwing things in a suitcase. María Carmen was shrieking Spanish in a high pitch tone in my ear. ‘I have to go to London, right now,’ I said. She seemed startled as if uncomprehending. ‘Voy a Londres, ahora mismo, mi tía está muy enferma. I have tried to call Marcos but there is no reply, he must be in court, tell him I will call him when he gets home,’ I said, shutting the suitcase. She buzzed around me like a queen bee that would not go away, saying that I could not just leave her, what about the invitations, the wedding, the preparations? When would I be back? I ran out of the door as she threw me her fur coat. I went back to kiss her goodbye and told her that I would call her soon.
Hailing a cab, I arrived at the train station. It was a two-hour rail trip from Palmadoro, hidden away in amongst the hills, to Madrid. The train was late and when it came, the driver got out for refreshments so we had to wait another twenty minutes whilst he had his coffee and smoked his cigarette. I was exhausted and slumped into a seat next to the window. I loved to see the hills and the countryside as we rode up. A February sun managed to muster enough courage so it could shine, despite the fact that it was cold outside. People were bothered by the way it came pouring in brightly and pulled the shutters down. I took the huge coat that María Carmen had given me and placed it on the chair next to me to make it look occupied so I wouldn’t have to worry about whether the sun bothered them or not.
The coat looked like a huge dog. Palmadoro did not really justify such a thing, except for a few misplaced days in winter, but the ladies liked to parade in them with their long pearl necklaces, comparing quality and price along with the other gossip from the town. Most of them had nothing better to do and would sit in the cafés and restaurants with their aperitifs, go to the hairdresser’s to get their hair set yet again and then wander back home to cook and wait for their husbands.
I had been there for years and still had not managed to make it into any of the inner social circles, despite Marcos being the town’s foremost barrister. This might have been due to the fact that Celia de la Casa Morales spotted me one morning in what she thought were my pyjamas. I could not be bothered to put on the customary twinset and skirt to go to the supermarket so I went in one of the outfits I had made. It caused angst amongst the other shoppers who began peering through the shelves just to make sure what they were seeing was true. Celia was there and the way the story returned to us was as though I had run through the town naked. ‘Un poco de discreción, Maya,’ was the best Marcos could come up with.
The coat fell to the ground as the train moved and as I picked it up, I heard Maggie’s laugh. I was eight years old and had put on Bogey. Bogey was Maggie’s fur coat which had been given to her by a friend, the same one who left her the house and the cats. Maggie had named it Bogey because, she said, the man always had a spot of mucus dangling from his nose and it was so out of place as he came across so suave, she never had the heart to tell him.
I wore Maggie’s red stilettos, which were far too large, and her necklaces, put on Bogey, took her cigarette holder in which I placed a sweet cigarette which kept falling out and then paraded around her living room. ‘Rule number one, Maya, darling, always make sure that your nose is clean and you’ve tucked your knickers in correctly after you’ve been to the loo and then success can’t fail but to see you,’ she said. I placed Maggie’s handbag on the table and pulled my skirt down correctly from where it had been lodged. ‘See, that’s much better already. Success, he’s seen you now, he’ll be on his way shortly.’ Success didn’t recognise me and hit my mother instead. A few weeks later we moved to our new house across the road from Maggie and Tom.
One of the foremost memories of my childhood included the three battered suitcases stacked on top of a cupboard, my mother hastily pulling them down and stuffing them with whatever she thought was important. When those suitcases came down, I knew the contents of the house would be sold and that we would have to say goodbye to the people we cared about although she would promise that we would see them again. We never knew what happened to most of them, especially the ones we loved.
I always thought if I was ever asked to write a book, I would begin each chapter with waking up in a different bed: the cotton contraption made from a white starched sheet which was doubled up into a triangle and tied to the door where I spent my first few years; the bunk bed I shared with Satchin where I slept on the top because the thought of the legless hamster descending upon him was all too much; the wrought-iron urine-stained bed in which hundreds of people had probably slept, before it was occupied by Amma, Satchin and I, and then there was the ‘normal’ double bed which we bought in the sale for our new flat. The new flat was number 64a and the bed had a bedroom to go in and that is where my mother and I slept. Satchin slept in the sitting room on the sofa. Well, he was supposed to sleep on the sofa bed but often, in the mornings, I would find him on the other side of Amma. This was our happiest home and I remember splashing around, flicking paint at each other whilst we were decorating it.
We lived above the downstairs man so we couldn’t run about and make lots of noise or he would hit his ceiling with the end of a broom and shout lots of abuse. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t have mattered, but he was also the landlord so
Satchin and I tiptoed about. He still hit his broom hard against his ceiling. On the occasions he got really abusive, Satchin and I let down the tyres of his black Ford Cortina, but I understood how the noise of clattering jars must have irritated him. We lived with a whole family of pickles, there were hundreds of them, everywhere you went there was a pickle jar. I, too, hated the smell and the sight of them.
The pickles followed me to school. When my friend Fatima came to our house to play, she would see the pickles and think she was being original by suggesting setting up a pickle shop. I had to consent because she had a pretend cash register which she brought around especially and if I said no, let’s sell clothes or something, she wouldn’t let me have a go on it. The pickles permeated her psyche and she would bring that game to school and all the other children queued up to be customers and fought over being the shopkeeper. It is amazing the power a cash register can wield. Then, when her mother came to work with Amma, Fatima, also succumbing to a pickle overdose, swiftly abandoned that game and we moved onto other things.
We became ‘Boney M’. We were short of a few singers and explained to our doll audience that Boney had gone off and we had regrouped into a band called ‘M’. Sometimes we just became the girl singers from ABBA. I never got to be the blonde one though. I could have been if I really wanted to, but I gave in to Fatima because nobody else did. Fatima desperately wanted to do our concerts in the garden because she didn’t have one but to get to it was worse than The Krypton Factor assault course. The door that led to it was stacked high with pickle boxes and then, once you finally got past it all, you had to attempt to make your way down the stairs, bypass the colony of snails that had set up home there, and finally kick the door hard to open it.