‘How much do people have to pay her?’ Nikki asked.
‘Whatever she demands. Of course, she doesn’t put it that way. She tells them that she’s continuing her husband’s work, that she puts in requests for special prayers in India to put them on a righteous path again. She claims that the money goes towards fees to cover long-distance calls and travel expenses for her prayer agents. It’s all done with lots of sympathy and smiles but everyone knows she’s running a thriving enterprise on shame and secrets.’
‘Wow,’ Nikki said. She recalled the hardened look that crossed Tarampal’s face when she talked about honour and shame. No wonder she took it so seriously; it was her livelihood. ‘It’s hard to imagine Tarampal running any sort of enterprise.’
‘She’s very skilled. She truly believes she’s making things right, offering some sort of service to restore people’s pride. The people who pay her end up believing it too, otherwise they wouldn’t part with their money.’
When discussing Maya’s suicide, Tarampal had struck Nikki as rather unsympathetic, her concern largely focused on Jaggi’s reputation. Nikki had thought Tarampal was simply being overprotective but now it made more sense. ‘It’s sort of ingenious,’ Nikki admitted. Sheena narrowed her eyes and started to say something. ‘Not that I condone it. I won’t be inviting her to return to our classes,’ Nikki added.
‘Good,’ Sheena said. She looked relieved. ‘I don’t need her poking around in my business.’
‘That’s fair enough. The only one permitted to poke around in your business is Rahul,’ Nikki said with a grin.
‘Nikki.’
‘I couldn’t help it.’
‘There’s nothing going on between Rahul and me.’
‘Still?’ Nikki asked. ‘Come on.’
Sheena dropped her voice and gave an exaggerated flutter of her eyelids. ‘We met up for dinner last weekend.’
‘And …?’
‘It was very nice. He took me to a restaurant in Richmond. We drank wine in a restaurant that overlooked the Thames. After dinner we walked along the river. He wrapped his jacket around my shoulders when the breeze became too chilly.’
‘How lovely,’ Nikki said. Sheena’s eyes glistened with the excitement of new love. ‘Are you going to keep seeing each other?’
‘Maybe,’ Sheena said. ‘If we can keep meeting up outside Southall for a while, then yeah. I didn’t run into a single Punjabi person in Richmond. At first I was afraid of being seen – it’s not that far away and my in-laws have loads of relatives nearby in Twickenham. But I forgot about all of that. You don’t notice who’s watching when you’re enjoying yourself. You don’t care either.’
‘Would Tarampal try to blackmail Rahul as well if she found out?’ Nikki asked. The tension returned to Sheena’s face.
‘He wouldn’t have enough to offer her,’ Sheena said. ‘She’s more interested in wealthy people, remember?’
Nikki shook her head. ‘Here I was feeling sorry for her, being caught in the middle of that awful tragedy.’
Sheena looked at Nikki sharply. ‘She spoke to you about Maya?’
Yes, Nikki began to say, but then she considered what Sheena had revealed about Tarampal. A seed of discomfort lodged itself in her chest. Once again, she felt like a complete outsider. For every question she asked, there were hundreds more that went unanswered. ‘I only know what she told me,’ Nikki finally said.
‘And I’m sure she told you a very good story,’ Sheena said. She clutched her handbag and made her way towards the door so quickly that Nikki had no chance of asking her to stop.
Chapter Ten
Kulwinder’s bones told her she was back in London. Before the pilot announced the landing, she felt the rheumatism seep wetly into her body. In India, she had been able to climb flights of stairs and to push her way through the throngs of people. Her sandals had clapped against the soil of her ancestral land, announcing her arrival. Now she was in Heathrow, wearing trainers with an old salwaar kameez and being ushered by a grim-faced attendant into the customs queue.
Her last trip to India had been with Maya. They had spent hours in bazaar stalls, feeling the fabric of exquisite saris crinkle beneath their touch. Kulwinder had bought Maya a pair of small gold hooped earrings. ‘Oh, Mum,’ Maya had said, a smile spreading across her face as she picked them out of the box. ‘You didn’t have to.’ But Kulwinder had been overcome by a sense of generosity towards her daughter during that trip, and she kept on buying her things – as if knowing that their remaining days together were numbered, she had been tempted to give her the whole world.
‘Passports – Internationals over here, British citizens here,’ the attendant called, forcing her back to the present. The line began to break as people moved into their designated rows. The attendant made her announcement again when Kulwinder was approaching the front of the queue. She held Kulwinder’s gaze.
‘Can I see your passport, ma’am?’ she asked. She wasn’t unkind about it exactly, but expectant, as if she already knew Kulwinder’s story. Kulwinder handed over her passport. ‘British,’ she informed the attendant, who returned her passport and walked away, pretending not to hear her. This had happened before. She had grumbled to Maya about it, who didn’t understand. What do you expect them to think, Mum? Maya would ask, staring pointedly at Kulwinder’s clothes in a way that made her wonder how it was possible to love your daughter and dislike her so much at the same time.
Sarab was waiting on the other side when she got out. He gave her a chaste squeeze of the hand and asked, ‘How was it?’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘It was home.’ As she said this, her heart filled with sorrow. Maya had occupied more space in her trip than she’d hoped. She had visited temples and lit candles for Maya, and for the truth of Maya’s death to emerge. In the middle of a distant relative’s wedding ceremony, she had left, clutching her side so people thought she was ill but it was actually the unbearable pain of watching the bride and groom take their solemn steps around the Holy Book together.
London had not changed. The wind whipped her face, spraying her hair with mist. She pulled her shawl over her head and followed her husband to their car. The city’s flat outskirts greeted Kulwinder with the usual dismal views: walls covered in swirls of graffiti, scaly rooftops and the wide glowing forecourts of petrol stations.
‘Are you hungry?’ Sarab asked as they neared Southall.
‘I had something on the plane.’
‘We can stop for something if you’d like.’
This was his way of saying he had not eaten dinner. Kulwinder calculated the number of meals she had left behind for him. There would have been enough for every night she had been away, including tonight. ‘Maybe McDonald’s,’ he said. Kulwinder said nothing and Sarab pulled in swiftly to the drive-through. She pictured him sitting there every evening, ordering his regular meal – Filet-O-Fish and Chicken McNuggets – and chewing slowly to pass the time. The prepared meals would still be in the freezer when she got home, and she would defrost them for dinner for the next few weeks. This happened every time she went away without him. In a strange way, it was comforting. If Sarab couldn’t eat home-cooked food without her, it meant he had missed her, a sentiment he would never express in words. It also reminded Kulwinder that he would survive without her.
‘Let’s sit inside,’ Kulwinder said. ‘I don’t like to eat while the car is moving.’
He agreed. They parked and entered the restaurant, finding a booth in the corner next to a window. The restaurant was noisy with the sounds of teenagers; it was Friday night. Out of the corner of her eye, Kulwinder noticed a few Punjabi girls but she was too jet-lagged to try to figure out whose daughters they were.
‘Your writing classes have certainly been very popular,’ remarked Sarab. ‘I was at the temple the other day and saw some women heading into the building.’
‘Which women?’ Kulwinder asked. While in India, her problems with Nikki had become as distant as London itself.
‘I don’t know who exactly,’ Sarab said. ‘I did run into Gurtaj Singh at the langar hall the other day. He asked me what was being taught in those classes. I told him Nikki was teaching the women to read and write. He said, “That’s all?”’
‘Was he suspicious?’ Kulwinder asked. She recalled the note Nikki had left on Tarampal’s doorstep. It still didn’t make sense – why had Nikki apologized? But if class sizes were increasing, it meant that Kulwinder’s initiative looked successful to Gurtaj Singh.
‘He seemed impressed,’ Sarab said.
They ate their meals and returned home. The house smelled familiar and foreign at the same time. Kulwinder breathed it in and felt a hard hit in her gut. Our daughter is dead. She turned to Sarab, hoping to make eye contact but his face was clouded over. He brushed past her to the front room and moments later the broadcast of the Punjabi news blared into the living room and drowned the silence.
Kulwinder propped her suitcase against the bottom stair and left it there. Sarab would bring it up for her and then he would go back downstairs to the sitting room and fall asleep in front of the television. She drifted up the stairs to her room and unzipped her kameez. It made her shoulder ache to reach back but she felt skittish asking for Sarab’s help. What if he thought it was an invitation to touch her intimately? Or worse, what if he didn’t? Kulwinder shook away these thoughts. She managed to tug at the zip and drag it down eventually. Making her way to the bathroom, she passed Maya’s room and paused. The door was open. Once a shrine to all things Kulwinder detested about Maya’s Western lifestyle, the room had been hollowed out during the move to her marital home – the piles of magazines thrown into recycling, the door hook which held a dozen handbags tossed into the garbage, the high heels, the lipstick, the ticket stubs from concerts, the novels all chucked into boxes. Kulwinder did not remember opening the door. Sarab must have gone in there in her absence.
Would he ever forgive her? There were times when she wanted to break the silence by shouting: It was my fault, wasn’t it? She had given Maya that impossible choice. She had set up the marriage, considering it such good fortune to find a willing and available groom across the road where she could keep an eye on Maya. ‘Don’t embarrass me again,’ Kulwinder had said when Maya came home and declared her marriage over. In her lowest moments, Kulwinder believed that everyone was right: there was no mystery to Maya’s death. She had ended her life because Kulwinder had sent her back.
Kulwinder took a furtive glance at the window and saw the ghostly outlines of curtains in Tarampal’s living room window. She turned away. Regret struck her one bolt at a time. At the wedding, a clutching worry when Tarampal gave Jaggi a tight embrace that lasted longer than necessary. The flash of fear that crossed Maya’s face. The questioning look Sarab shot Kulwinder. The way Kulwinder, on the drive home, dismissed Sarab’s concerns and said, “She’s married now. She’ll be happy.”
If a man calls, always answer the phone with ‘Oh hey. I was just in the shower.’ It projects an instant image into their minds. This was the only tip Nikki remembered from a dating advice column she’d read in one of Mindi’s women’s magazines. It would finally prove useful; she was in the shower and the phone was trilling outside with the ring tone she had programmed for Jason’s calls. She was annoyed with herself for being excited. She reminded herself to be aloof. Aloof, she thought as she rang him back. Cool. Casual. I wasn’t waiting by the phone.
‘Hi, Nikki,’ Jason said.
‘Oh, hey man, whashappening? I had a shower,’ she blurted.
‘Cool,’ Jason said.
‘I mean, I was in the shower when you called.’
‘Oh. All right. Sorry to interrupt.’
‘No it’s okay. I was pretty much finished – you know what, it’s not important. How are you?’
‘I’m all right. Things have been a little crazy.’
‘Work stuff?’ Nikki offered.
There was a split-second pause. ‘Yeah,’ Jason said. ‘And other stuff. I need to talk to you about something. Could we meet up?’
‘I’ve got a double shift at O’Reilly’s tonight,’ Nikki said.
‘Can I meet you there?’
‘Okay. It gets a bit busy after eight on Wednesdays, so some time before?’
‘All right.’
‘Hey, Jason …’
‘Yeah?’
‘This is weird.’
‘What is?’
‘This – you. You calling me out of the blue like this and then wanting to meet.’
‘Do you not want to meet tonight?’
‘I do. It’s just that – that I haven’t heard from you in a while and all of a sudden you call and you say let’s meet and …’ She was struggling. ‘Do you know what I’m getting at?’ Jason’s silence sparked her anger. ‘Look, I’m a bit tired of feeling like I have to be available whenever you are,’ she said. ‘The way you left my place the other morning was very rude.’
‘I’m really sorry about that.’
‘I like you,’ Nikki said. ‘I can be honest about it. It’s not that complicated for me.’
‘It’s complicated for me. I need a chance to explain myself. There are circumstances which are quite out of my control.’
‘It’s always circumstances, isn’t it? Some foggy power that guys can’t control.’
‘That’s not fair.’
Nikki went quiet. Jason continued. ‘I like you too, Nikki. A lot. But I need to talk to you in person about where I am at the moment. Can I see you tonight?’
Nikki didn’t want to give in so easily but she also wanted to see him. She let the silence linger. ‘Nikki?’ Jason asked. His voice was soft and uncertain.
‘Yeah, all right,’ Nikki said. Last chance, she thought, though she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Steve with the Racist Grandfather had a girl with him. Her long strawberry-blonde hair swayed across her back as she tipped her head to laugh at whatever he was whispering into her ear. This was worthy of announcement. Nikki texted Olive:
Steve has a girlfriend!
Olive’s immediate reply:
I’d come over to see, but have Parents Evening. Is she inflatable?
A live one! Can’t believe someone would go out with him.
I know! All the good men are taken and all the shit men aren’t even learning how shit they are.
Any luck overseas?
Nope. Lisbon Boy didn’t speak much English. My intellect needs as much stimulation as my other places.
Nikki replied with a winking face and returned her attention to the customers. Grace was taking orders from a group of men in suits on the end of the bar. She gave Nikki a wave. ‘How’s yer mum, darl?’ she asked.
‘She’s good.’
‘Not too cold any more. Tell ’er summer’s coming.’
Grace was right. The chill in the air seemed duller by the day and there were moments of lingering warmth in the afternoons. Soon, summer would arrive. The café next door would open its outdoor courtyard and the occasional American tourist would pop in for an authentic English pub experience and find O’Reilly’s distinct lack of charm disappointing. Nikki would still be working here. This bothered her more than usual. She had a quick vision of herself growing into Grace, her raspy voice chatting up customers she had served for decades.
Steve’s loud laugh broke Nikki’s thoughts. ‘Nikki, check out this guy on TV. Nola’s saying he should drop the musical act and focus on being Osama Bin Laden’s body double.’ A skinny turbaned man wearing a traditional kurta sat on the vast stage and expertly slapped the heels of his palms against a tabla.
The girl shifted uncomfortably. ‘That’s what you said,’ she protested.
The camera closed in on the panel of judges watching the drummer with intensity. It was Britain’s Got Talent. Nikki returned to the bar to search for the remote control. Although Grace was busy with customers, they couldn’t afford to have her crying over some contestant’s heartrending backstory. Wh
ere the hell was the remote control? She rushed to Sam’s office and knocked on the door. No answer, but the door wasn’t locked. His desk was a mess of paperwork and coffee stains. Nikki found the remote control on his chair, where he must have absent-mindedly left it. She returned to the bar and switched the channel.
‘We were watching that,’ Steve said.
‘Now you’re watching Top Gear,’ Nikki said.
Customers trickled through the door. None were Jason. Nikki took note of the time – it was past nine now. She checked her phone for missed calls. Nothing. She sent him a text. ‘You still planning on coming tonight?’ Her thumb hovered over the Send button. It sounded whiny. Desperate. She deleted the message.
The kitchen door opened. Garry emerged, balancing two large plates on his arm. ‘You seen Sam?’ Garry asked when he returned from serving.
‘He’s not in his office,’ Nikki said.
‘Tell him I’m going,’ Garry said. ‘I quit.’
‘What? Right now?’
‘Now,’ Garry said.
‘What happened?’
‘Wages here is shit,’ Garry said. ‘I ask for raise – he say, maybe, maybe. Then nothing. Viktor also quit.’
Through the glass panel on the door, Nikki could see Viktor packing up his belongings. ‘Garry, it’s really busy.’
Garry shrugged.
‘Can’t you finish up your shift and then talk to him?’
Viktor came out of the kitchen. ‘Talking don’t work for us,’ he declared. ‘Maybe Sam give special raise to you when you go in his office.’
The comment gripped Nikki in the throat. She saw that somebody had changed the channel on the television again. A close-up shot of the tabla man showed him thanking the judges with his palms humbly pressed together in front of his chest. Steve pointed at the screen and chuckled. Outrage rippled through Nikki like a tidal wave.
‘Listen, you little fuckwits,’ she seethed. ‘I have never slept with Sam. But if I did, it would be none of your damn business. You two can quit if you like – that would make my life much easier. But if you change your minds and decide to stay, I’d suggest you focus on doing your damn jobs properly. Maybe then Sam might consider you competent enough to pay you the wages you feel entitled to.’
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows Page 20