by Preethi Nair
‘If you need a bracelet, Maya, I will buy one for you, but don’t wear things you have bought off the street, it’s cheap.’
The first time we argued was three days before Father Antonio’s course finished. One of Marcos’s friends had informed me that he was thirty-two and not a student, as I had been led to believe.
‘You’re twelve years older than me and you are not a student. You lied and I cannot cope with deceit, any form of deceit,’ I shouted.
‘I never lied to you, Maya. I didn’t say anything when you asked. It doesn’t make a difference, does it?’
‘Don’t you understand, it’s not the age …’ I stormed out, unable to finish my sentence.
A few hours later he came looking for me. I was sitting alone in the games room. He came in and locked the door behind him and said that it was different with me, he knew from the first time we had met that there was something special. He took out his wallet and showed me strands of long, black hair. ‘Yours,’ he said. If anyone else had done that, I would have thought it was sick, but the way Marcos did it made me laugh. ‘Maya, I promise you, I will tell you no half-truths. I want you to stay here, it’s summer and you don’t have to be back yet for another three weeks.’ He said the words with such certainty. The day after, he changed my flights and I stayed on.
Father Antonio was delighted that I took such an interest in his course so he continued with private tuition. Marcos and I spent the rest of the summer together and then it was time to go back home. He drove me to the airport and he assured me he would come and see me in Edinburgh in a month’s time and, in the meantime, he would call. I wasn’t upset that I was leaving, it wasn’t like I had an overwhelming urge to stay, and in the back of my mind, I prepared myself for the fact that he might not call, maybe it was just a holiday thing. We parted at the airport.
I spent five days at home and then term began again. Summer seemed so far away as I went back to study. Architecture was boring, it wasn’t how I expected it to be, and the people on the course were pretentious. Maybe it was me; everyone else managed to find a group and get into the social life. As soon as I got back, I took up Spanish as an extra module and also developed a keen interest in Spanish architecture. Marcos called every day like he said he would, early in the mornings waking all my flatmates, but it didn’t matter. His calls were what I waited for because I grew to really miss him, I made myself miss him.
It was difficult to concentrate at university. I didn’t go out, I didn’t really want to. Being away from Marcos just seemed to bring us closer. Two months passed and he came to Edinburgh. I met him as he stepped off the airport bus that came into the city centre and it felt like we should never have been separated. Holding each other on that windy afternoon, nobody else existed and for most of those two weeks we were inseparable. I think you can love someone just from a desperate need to feel part of something, to belong to someone, to make the loneliness inside go away.
Marcos didn’t understand a word when the Scottish guide was giving him an in-depth explanation of Edinburgh Castle. Marcos stared at him and nodded in agreement and winked at me. We both burst out laughing in the eerie silence of that place. The other visitors tutted and were annoyed as we couldn’t stop and had to be escorted out.
That is how it was for those two weeks, we laughed, we understood each other and he made me feel safe. I got to see a very tender side of him, a side that only I knew existed. As if by being away from Palmadoro, he became himself without the constraint of pretending to be someone important, he was free and was almost childlike and vulnerable. Maybe it was ego, but I felt I did this to him, he needed me as much as I needed him. And I think now, that was what it was, he touched a part of me that no one else had managed to, it was a need to take care of someone and make things better for them, a vulnerability I could understand. I didn’t want the two weeks to come to an end. As the taxi took us to the airport, an anxiety took hold of me and time stood still when he kissed me goodbye. When I went back to the house, I discovered notes and gifts from him hidden in every conceivable place. I tried to carry on as normal but thought only of Marcos.
At Christmas, I decided not to go back to study; I wasn’t enjoying the course and another year couldn’t be wasted pretending I did. So when the time came to pack my bags and head back to Edinburgh, I told Ravi and Amma that I wasn’t going. I said I didn’t think architecture was for me, I wanted to take a year off and go to Spain to study Spanish. Ravi and Amma were shocked and did everything they could to dissuade me. They called Maggie in but even Maggie wasn’t enough to stop me.
Maggie liked Ravi Thakker’s house and said it was like a palace. To my horror, she even liked Ravi Thakker and said he was decent. Decent, she hadn’t met his parents yet, the mother and father duck. Maggie moved into the flat above the pickle shop and of course Ravi helped her, he knew how to play tactically, I would give him that, he was a good opponent. His great weakness was a dislike for animals, it was more a fear. Maggie made him a cup of tea for the trouble he had gone to in helping her move, seeing as Tom was busy. As Ravi sat down, I placed One Eye on his lap, expecting him to shake the cat off, kicking it away with an erratic gesture or that jerk thing he did so we all could see his true nature, but he sat there, looking petrified. Maggie pulled the cat off him. ‘Maya, now don’t do that again, you know your father is allergic to cats.’
‘My father loved cats actually, we had three of them,’ I retorted.
They both looked uncomfortable and then he said it was time he was leaving. I stayed to help Maggie unpack.
She tried to convince me to give him a go but I said the best I could manage was not to cause trouble and, given time, everybody would see what he was really like. Time would tell. ‘Life doesn’t always work out the way we imagine. Sometimes the worst things end up being the best and other times, what we think is the best thing that ever happened is not necessarily so, and people we don’t like end up being the kindest, most generous people,’ she said. Maggie wouldn’t understand, she always had her father there, not some intruder who came with lots of money. Maggie had so many outfits that they couldn’t be squeezed into the cupboards, so we left most of them in a suitcase and put it under the bed in the spare room. I asked if I could move in and she said no, it was always better to be a visitor.
Over that summer, before school started, I went as often as I could to see her. When she wasn’t working in the shop with Amma, she helped me make clothes, showing me how to cut patterns. Maggie had bought an endless supply of fabrics and colourful pieces of sari material before she left from the Indian lady on Green Street. Soft material that went on and on that I could tear into angry pieces or snip with calm precision. All could be stitched together, making whatever creation we wanted to. I had control over the fabric, the rest of my life was out of my hands.
The summer ended as it had begun, busily and too quickly. I started a new secondary school. It was all girls and I had to wear a pale blue uniform and lose the rough accent. I didn’t really lose it, it just got polished over with refined tones so that after eight weeks nobody could distinguish between Sandra Bailey, star pupil, lacrosse champion and netball team captain, and me. I was in a nice class led by Mrs Harrison who took no nonsense. It’s funny how things work; for years in my old school, I tried to be popular and now that I really didn’t care, they wanted me around. Some of the girls even copied the way I wore my skirt and tie. I don’t know if it was being aloof that drew them to me. I made friends with everybody but nobody in particular as I didn’t know how long we were going to stay this time and there was no point in getting close to people. After school, I taught Amma how to do fractions and also long division; I explained that it would come in useful when she was in the shop. On Saturday, I was allowed to go in with her.
Maggie loved the shop and it was hard to separate her from it. Most of the customers became her friends. It was a hang-out for lots of blue-rinse oldies who would stand there talking for hours about hip replacem
ents and pacemakers; the only time they would draw breath was when they remembered to collect their pensions to pay for the many jars they consumed. They would coo at me and ruffle my hair as I rang up their purchases at the till and then I had to be polite and offer them a plastic bag, but they always asked me to come across to them and place the goods in their trolleys. Another excuse to prolong conversation by talking about my height or my hair.
Smart women came in with really expensive clothes. They were probably aware that Edgware was not quite the fashion metropolis they had hoped for but they didn’t seem to mind. Other customers would sniff at the bottles of pickles, smearing them with their dirty fingerprints and then they would put them back on the shelves. Amma caught me one day asking a man if he was going to pay for it now that his grubby fingers were all over the jar. She pulled me to one side and told me that the people that came into the shop were special and the last thing they needed was to be spoken to like that. Both Maggie and Amma decided that customer services was not my forte and assigned me to help out in the back. Fatima would have been in her element there with a real life-size cash register, but I was glad. It got very boring listening to people go on and on about the effects that an old mango or a crusty lemon could have on them, I mean, really. It was much more fun being out back.
The kitchen was like a Bollywood movie set with Hindi music playing in the background. One song that was played over and over again had a wailing woman being serenaded by a squeaky-voiced man set to a funky disco beat. The action began with dramatic tears from Deepa which were trickling over the mangoes. She had been thrown out by her mother because she was caught dating a Muslim boy across the road from where she lived. Her sister-in-law, Anita, tried to comfort her, but there was work to be done and she took it upon herself to be the kitchen supervisor. After an afternoon of high drama, Anita offered her a place to stay until she made it up with her parents. That was the first week and then it continued like a serial.
Govind, who fancied himself as Amitabh Buchan, was taken on a week later. He looked nothing like the film star, and was weedy enough to have easily been sucked up by the ventilation fan, but he was very funny and had these really weird dance moves. He danced around the kitchen, looking at his face in the pots and pans whilst giving orders and instructions on how best to use the machinery. There were confrontations between Anita and him and many times she nearly hit him with a spatula. He took no notice. Deepa had to appear to side with her sister-in-law, as four weeks had passed and she knew she was outstaying her welcome. The situation with her mother had deteriorated and had not been resolved because Deepa could not get her lips around ‘arranged marriage’, but she made out to Anita that peace-keeping negotiations had begun and the terms of a formal agreement were being drawn up.
The next week I went in, Deepa was wearing a tight red sari blouse which was covered by a flimsy nylon sari, the end of which accidentally slipped into the big mixing bowl, so Govind had to fish it out and put it back on her shoulder. At this point she giggled quietly so Anita could not hear and then Amma came in to ask if anyone would be interested in overtime. Anita said she couldn’t because she had to go and get her little boy from the childminder, Govind said he would stay and then Deepa hurriedly agreed too. I don’t know what happened after that because I had to go home and do my homework, but the next time I saw them, I caught them glancing across at each other over the pickle machine and that same evening when they thought nobody was out the back, I heard him whisper to her that he ‘lubbed’ her.
The drama unfolded when his younger brother came to work at the shop. He was a lot more attractive and did not wear his hair in a centre parting that did him no favours. Not ascertaining the situation, Amit made advances towards Deepa in the form of a cheesy smile and wink. She was flattered and looked down to concentrate on washing her mangoes. David, the driver, also made some comment about how nice she was looking these days and Govind, sensing the competition, stepped up the tempo, took her out to the Chinese takeaway and told her again that he would do anything for her. At around the same time her sister-in-law was fed up of her leaving her clothes and dirty cups everywhere and asked her to move back to her mother’s house. She told Govind to prove how much he loved her and he asked her to marry him. I can’t remember how long they lasted together, but I remember Deepa leaving and Amit shortly following her.
Satchin and his best friend, Suri, also came to the shop on Saturdays. They would both laugh at the outfits I made and wore. ‘Nice trousers’, he would begin, then Satchin would burst out laughing and follow suit. Suri’s parents were both doctors and he seemed to know everything about anything. He was an only child and it showed because he stuck to Satchin like a leech. He appeared out of nowhere and attached himself to our family. First he came to borrow books after school, then to play on the computer and then he stayed for dinner. He did this by flattering Amma on some snacks she had offered him and before you knew it, he had almost taken up residence in our house. ‘Don’t be so grumpy, Maya, he is an only child and his parents work very hard, he probably misses them,’ Amma would say.
Oh yes, the infamous doctors who were busy saving lives. I couldn’t believe why I had been sidelined in favour of a boring know-it-all who did his break-dancing moves behind the shop when he thought no one was looking. He also had absolutely no style and wore purple Farah trousers and chequered green tank tops. But then I suppose it could have been worse, they could have been yellow. Suri did acknowledge me, smiling and nodding when he saw me, which was more than Satchin did now, and sometimes he helped me carry the trays of finished pickles out to the side room. As time went on, I made a point not to go into the shop on Saturdays wearing my creations, but dressed in trainers and tracksuits, hoping that one day they would invite me along to the park where they always went after finishing in the shop. I even took my tennis racket along, but usually I had to go home.
One day, though, they were really desperate and asked me to stand in as wicketkeeper because they were a man down. This was the lucky break I had waited for. I knew it had to be a matter of time. I walked to the back of the stumps and concentrated really hard so I wouldn’t let Satchin down. It was going really well and then it all stopped abruptly after half-time when I threw the ball back at the bowler, missing his hands, hitting his head and knocking him out. Suri told me not to worry about it, that these things happened, but Satchin was furious and didn’t talk to me for weeks. Amma told me not to worry because there would be more people in the house to talk to. She said we were expecting guests and I would be busy with them.
Ravi Thakker collected me from school as he had taken the day off work to get the oily-fingered grandma and the spluttering grandpops from the airport. They had arrived from Chicago to give my mother a hand with the new baby but there were still another two months to go. The idea was probably to get comfortable so we would have an invasion of the duck family and it would be hard to relocate them afterwards. Fingers was waiting for me with the door open and almost suffocated me with her grip, saying that I had grown to be so tall and that I was looking so pretty, growing to be like my mother every day. The grandpops shook my hand and squeezed my shoulder with a, ‘So lovely to see you again, Beta, you have grown into a big girl since the last time I saw you.’ He indicated my height back then, pointing to his rickety knee. It had only been two years and I thought he might be suffering from the onset of some debilitating memory loss so I didn’t make a comment.
Fingers had only been there for five minutes but she had managed to find the time to lay on a big spread. I didn’t really like Indian food and Amma always cooked me something different, but I made an effort not to be rude and I sat and ate with them. Amma was relieved, she was looking a little bit tired and since she was pregnant, I decided not to be so awkward and give her a hard time. Everything was going okay until grandpops told us the story of how the customs officials had stopped them and checked the contents of their numerous tins. Fingers interrupted him, saying, ‘But I
told them, it was only the food I made for my children.’ The idea of the food going off on a long-haul flight, only to be fingered by a customs official, made me want to be sick. I got up and ran, but didn’t manage to make it to the bathroom and it landed on her suitcase, which was blocking the door. Amma and Ravi Thakker looked horrified. Fingers was good about it, but followed me around for days saying that it was good she had arrived because I needed looking after.
Maggie liked her, but then Maggie never said anything bad about anyone. ‘She means well,’ she would say, but Maggie didn’t hear what Fingers said about her, especially when she found out she was living with Uncle Jack and wasn’t married to him. Fingers had managed to herd up a group of friends, I don’t know from where exactly. I think she might have shepherded them in from the local temples, community centres and old family connections that she looked up. It was all under the premise that she could calculate their astrological charts and tell them exactly which direction their lives were heading. She looked very professional making her calculations, adding it all up, hesitating for a moment before drawing square boxes, but as time went on, I realised that she did exactly the same for everyone and had a strategy where she would elicit information by randomly dropping in questions and then make it look like she had worked it all out. Then she divulged the information to the other women, adding a little bit more here and there.
The house was filled with her friends, you’d open rooms to find another Indian lady and another and another, brightly dressed, of all shapes and sizes. All hoping that she might impart some of her wisdom and tell them things were going to get better. She soon whittled all the ladies down to form an inner clique, who she invited around every two days. They all sat in a circle, dressed in bright saris and wrapped in cardigans that looked like they came from the Help the Aged shop. If it was really cold, Fingers got out her woolly hat. Sometimes they sang bhajans together. One of them was an old grandma who nobody could touch because she was keeping herself pure for God. She refused to eat anything from our house, even drink masala tea because she said that the smell would put God off and he wouldn’t listen to her prayers. Five minutes later, she pulled out a snuff box and inhaled the contents. So God was against the scent of spices but he wasn’t averse to a bit of narcotics then.