by Meera Syal
They visited Karol Bagh to eat in a dhaba on a noisy bazaar thoroughfare whose chole and paranthe were considered the best in town. Shyama and Sita left to browse the bustling market. Toby knew Shyama would come back bearing armfuls of glass bangles which she would never wear, and stacks of bindis which looked no different to the ones she could buy in the shop next door to her salon back home.
Over piping-hot masala chai, Toby enquired how the court case was going. Prem’s eyes clouded slightly as he muttered, ‘Good, good, thank you,’ and asked Toby how it had all gone at the clinic. Toby muttered something equally anodyne in reply and they lapsed into awkward silence, both relieved when the women returned with their armfuls of bags, in high spirits and complaining loudly about the price of everything nowadays.
Sita pointed out the two-hundred-year-old Sikh Gurudwara temple tucked away in a backstreet now overshadowed by a twelve-storey office block, its orange pennants bearing the Sikh symbol of the Teg Deg Fateh, defiantly jaunty against the dark brick and steel of its giant neighbour. They swung by the college where she and Prem had first exchanged stolen glances across its red-brick dusty courtyard, where a small group of students now stood outside, shouting slogans and giving out leaflets.
Shyama took one: it featured a stern, bespectacled man with the graffiti ‘MOLESTER!’ printed in red over his face. It seemed the head of the Economics department had been exacting favours for grades for some years, yet despite the number of female students now brave enough to come forward and expose him, he was still teaching. Shyama noticed how many men were also demonstrating, their voices providing a bass counterpoint to the young women’s rhythmic chanting. They seemed relaxed in each other’s company in a way she could not recall from her own youthful college days, when she either ran away from men (English boys, too keen and too much hassle) or tried to reel them in (the competition for the handful of eligible Indian boys who weren’t Neanderthal or needy was fierce and occasionally bloody).
Sita glanced over Shyama’s shoulder, skimmed the leaflet and shrugged dismissively. ‘Nothing new. It was happening when I was here, it will always happen. Only now they’re talking about it.’
‘But at least they’re talking about it,’ replied Shyama. ‘That’s half the battle, isn’t it?’
‘The next battle is how many of those girls who spoke out will be gossiped about. How many of them won’t make a good marriage.’
‘If it was my daughter, I’d give her a medal,’ Toby said firmly. ‘And go round later and beat the perv up,’ he muttered to Shyama.
‘If only it were that easy, beta,’ smiled Sita faintly and patted him on the arm.
‘And any bloke who judged her wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near her,’ Toby added, emboldened by this gesture of physical affection from Sita.
‘You will find that children have to make their own mistakes.’ Sita was now carefully avoiding Shyama’s eye. ‘Sometimes it’s like watching a traffic accident in slow motion. You can see it coming. You can shout out to be careful or get out of the way. But in the end, the best you will be able to do is pick up the pieces.’
‘And not say I told you so,’ Shyama added.
‘Hah, exactly.’ Sita lifted her eyes to Shyama for a moment and then said lightly, ‘When did you last talk to Tara?’
‘Oh, a few days ago, maybe? Well, I left a message on her phone … the Skype connection’s really dodgy at the hotel.’ Shyama could hear herself gabbling under her mother’s watchful gaze.
‘Then maybe try again today, yes? Our Skype connection is fine, isn’t it, darling?’ Sita took Prem’s arm and continued walking, leaving Shyama fuming behind her.
‘God, I hate it when she does that,’ she muttered to Toby, stumbling as they picked their way over the potholes on their way to the car.
‘What?’
‘She should just come out and say it, rather than this whole passive-aggressive shit.’
‘She was just asking you to keep in touch with your daughter. You’re too sensitive sometimes, Shyams.’
‘Yes, OK, just because you got brownie points for your white-knight-on-his-charger speech. Theoretical daughters are always perfect.’
‘I don’t expect perfect,’ Toby said sharply, stopping in his tracks. ‘Do you remember what that bloke said to us on our first ever scan?’
Shyama’s stomach contracted at the memory, long buried. Both of them in one of the basement ultrasound rooms in Dr Lalani’s clinic a couple of lifetimes ago, mesmerized by the fuzzy image of the first and only child they had ever managed to conceive, a floating blue planet suspended in a universe of possibilities, its tiny heart flickering like a distant star.
‘He said …’ Toby paused. The words were hard to utter, even after all this time. ‘He said, everything looks absolutely average. He said, for most parents, this is the only point when average will do just fine.’
Shyama didn’t want to hear any more. She pulled away from Toby, but he gripped her arm fiercely, those thick stubborn fingers used to hard work now too hard on her flesh.
‘I never expect perfect,’ he said. ‘Not from anyone.’
Their final stop that morning, at Prem’s insistence, was at the halwa seller on the Pusa road, whose rickety stall had been replaced by a gleaming, glass-fronted superstore where you could still buy the best milk barfi in Delhi. For the sake of the tourists, the curious and those old enough to remember the halwa seller’s grandfather, the present incarnation of this family business still supervised his vast bubbling pans in the open-plan kitchen, looking like a portly pyjamaed wizard, chucking in rosewater and beakers of nuts and sugar like incantations. They came away with three boxes and Shyama and Toby ate almost a whole one in the taxi on the way back to their hotel. It tasted like vanilla fudge, but crumblier, still warm on the tongue. That was when she told Toby that her Indian relatives had been asking to meet them, but especially him.
‘They’ve been on about it since we arrived, guilt-tripping Mum and Dad. “Oh, the shame, we haven’t met them since they got married!” Yes, they think we’re married, and no, they don’t know why we’re here. They think we’ve come for a delayed honeymoon.’
‘I don’t mind.’ Toby licked each fingertip, trying to prolong the fading barfi flavours.
‘But I do,’ snapped Shyama. She could still feel the tender place on her arm where those fingers had been. ‘Thaya-ji’s just been sitting on the fence over this entire stolen-flat business. Yogesh still wanders in and out whenever he likes, so Mum and Dad have to go and hide upstairs. It’s hypocritical crap, all of it.’
‘You sound exactly like Tara when you go off on one,’ Toby grinned.
Shyama paused, remembering that Tara had said almost exactly the same words to her all those years ago – how she’d counselled caution, respect for her elders and their way of doing things, staying quiet. She parried another stab of guilt, missing her daughter – her head had been so full of the child to come.
‘Anyway … I’ve told you now. So it’s up to you. But I won’t be going. Just as long as you know.’
‘But your parents …’
‘They understand. I’ve told them how I feel. Look, if Yogesh turns up, I won’t be responsible for my actions.’
‘What, you’ll just take a swing at your evil uncle, will you? Come on, Shyama, if your folks can handle it, so can we.’
‘I don’t have to handle it, that’s the point, Toby. You don’t know how deep this goes … it’s primal, you know, the whole land thing.’
‘So you’ve forgotten I’m from a family of farmers? I get the “land thing”, I’ve lived it.’
‘No, not in the same way. You and your brother share your heritage, you’re in the same country. It would be the equivalent of Matt letting Linda’s family squat on your land and then subletting it … and then laughing in your face every time you asked for it back.’
Toby shook his head, sweeping the last of the glistening crumbs off his lap on to the taxi floor. ‘You don’t thi
nk white people shit on each other too? When it comes to land, we’re all cavemen swinging clubs at each other. Matt got two-thirds of the farm because he’s the eldest, even though I would have run it better. And my dad knew it.’
‘It’s not the same.’
‘Why isn’t it?’
Shyama swallowed and stared out of the window, catching a glimpse of what looked like another demonstration outside a gated building, the car moving too fast for her to register any of the home-drawn placards. Most of the demonstrators seemed to be women this time; TV cameras and photographers flashed past as the car gathered speed. Two in one day. This seemed a country far too busy for revolution, although she did remember coming out of a West End cinema in London years ago and realizing there had been a full-scale riot whilst she had been sitting inside eating popcorn. Shiv had been with her; they had picked their way over the debris of shattered shop frontages, dodged lines of fluorescent-jacketed police, held hands as they darted along side streets with sirens wailing around them, trying to find the nearest working Tube station so they could get back to his place and celebrate escaping the uprising in bed. How young she’d been, more thrilled than dismayed by the social unrest that had happened yards from where she sat in the dark, eating, laughing, oblivious.
‘It’s not the same,’ she continued, ‘because you still have something. Some land, some respect. My dad’s bankrolled the whole family all his life and this – it’s like a bereavement. It’s the death of so many things – see, you don’t understand. You never will.’
‘Whoa. I’ve bent over backwards to understand, the whole time we’ve been together. Have I ever …?’
‘Ever what?’
‘I’ve always made an effort to … fit in. I mean, I virtually live with your parents. And they’re great. But when did you last see my family?’
‘When did they last invite me, Toby?’
‘They run a farm. They never entertain, but they have an open door. Every time I’ve suggested we drive over …’
‘Oh please!’ interrupted Shyama. ‘I’ve seen the looks they give me. It’s not quite flaming pitchforks and yokels shouting, “Kill the witch!” but if they could get away with it …’
This used to be the point where Toby would laugh, despite himself. But now he turned on her, his face reddening with frustration. ‘That’s bollocks!’
And this used to be the point where Shyama would know to back off, divert him, pretend to check her watch and allow the silence to cover up the moment, let it pass. Instead she said, ‘It’s humiliating, being stared at in this day and age, when you dare to venture out into the pretty bits of England. OK, maybe they don’t want to burn any crosses, maybe it’s just curiosity. The result’s the same, though. You’re reminded you don’t belong. Don’t tell me you will ever know what that feels like.’
‘I know what it feels like right now!’ countered Toby. ‘And it doesn’t bother me. In fact, it makes me feel … free. And …’ he ploughed on, seeing the growing incredulity on Shyama’s face, ‘you know you’ve hardly spent any time with Matt and Linda. God, they have no idea we are even doing … this. How could I tell them? They don’t know you well enough to think it’s anywhere near a good idea.’
‘Well, at least they must know I’m not after your money,’ hissed Shyama, aware that their taxi driver had turned down the blaring radio, either to facilitate their conversation or to listen in to it. Ears everywhere, as usual. Quiet, eyes down, what will people think? She was sick of it.
They sat in miserable silence for a while, Toby still smarting from Shyama’s thinly veiled insult. He rolled down the window, the handle slipping under his sweaty palm, letting the mingled scents of petrol, braziers and – always, somewhere – incense assault his nostrils, enjoying how it awoke all his senses. He liked this country, he liked being here. He didn’t see the flaws and the frustrations and the million hidden agendas and rewritten histories, how could he, and why would he want to anyway? How could anyone move forward if all they wanted to do was find fault and harp on about the past? There was an ebullient, childlike energy about this place; Toby felt he was being continually propelled forwards, onwards, surrounded by a population in constant motion. No beggars, what beggars? Everyone seemed to have a job and was busy doing it, at the roadside, in parks, in offices. No benefit handouts, so you got on with it. Even the places of worship were humming with the prayers of the drop-in devotees; the entrepreneurial ones set up their own makeshift shrines in tree trunks, alcoves, collecting coins from people on their way to work who tucked their briefcases under their arms to free their hands for a namaste and a mantra. But they stopped to make room for a blessing – that was what struck him. It wasn’t a Sunday thing like back at home. He had memories of itchy collars in damp Methodist churches, dirge-like hymns and the drone of the wheezy vicar, tubes as congested as the crumbling organ. It was like Shyama had told him once: the gods were everywhere, but were also part of everything. Just one more stop in the relentless, joyful flow that made women like Dr Passi say anything was achievable, that had enabled them to be here when every other possibility had been erased.
Suddenly they were stopping in front of a three-storey whitewashed house. It was separated from its similar neighbours by a narrow alleyway, across which lines of washing hung. Opposite it was a small park where schoolboys in pristine white school uniforms were engaged in a noisy cricket match.
Shyama reached over Toby and flung open the door. ‘You want to meet the family, go ahead. Mum and Dad will be delighted.’
Toby had barely got out and closed the door before Shyama shouted at the driver like a Punjabi fishwife and they screeched away. Toby told himself it must be all the hormones sending her loopy; he recalled similar weepy tantrums during their unending rounds of IVF. And then he remembered, she wasn’t the one taking the hormones this time. He thought about the other woman, wondered if she was retching into a bowl or lying in a darkened room with a wet flannel over her eyes, or throwing cutlery at her confused husband before bursting into tears and needing to be held. He had put up with all that and more. He doubted if the other woman’s husband would even be around to comfort her – or maybe, because she was so much younger, she just wouldn’t suffer as much. He hoped so. The thought of Mala suffering while she carried his child – their child – filled him with unsettling guilt.
He stamped the dust off his shoes, mindful that he might have to remove them as he entered the house, then swung open the steel gate, knocked and waited as excited foreign voices rose and gathered to welcome him in.
Shyama couldn’t remember how she had ended up at the clinic. She must have given the taxi driver the address – one of the few she knew off by heart here. It was busy today, with medical staff in scrubs, administrators with clipboards, delivery men being redirected away from the front entrance, all of them a whirlwind of activity around the stoic couples who approached the glass doors hand-in-hand, all of this fuss for them.
Shyama hesitated at the end of the short drive. She didn’t have an appointment and even though Dr Passi had said they were welcome to call in any time during this strange waiting period, she didn’t want to look like some neurotic control freak, hovering around for a morsel of news. She jumped at a sharp horn blast behind her and stumbled on to the grass verge as a car screeched up the drive, throwing up puffs of yellow dust.
A small crowd was gathering at the clinic entrance, there were flowers being exchanged, balloons bobbing, and a brief burst of applause as two women emerged, one of them carrying an impossibly small bundle swaddled in layers of white cotton. One of the women – and by now Shyama knew it was Gill – loped over to the waiting car and pulled open the back door. She seemed to be checking the baby seat, tugging on the straps to test them, whilst Debs continued receiving shouted blessings and smiled her goodbyes. Dr Passi moved in for a hug, turning to direct Debs towards the photographer who was busy recording the farewell.
After a few moments Debs called out to someone �
� Shyama couldn’t see who, but her gestures became more insistent. Dr Passi disappeared inside for a few seconds and brought back with her a small Indian woman holding the end of her sari over her face. She walked slowly, haltingly, to take her place besides Debs, who held the baby between them as they posed for the photographer. There was a brief embrace between them and more waved goodbyes, before Debs handed the baby to Gill to strap into the car seat and they pulled away. Shyama half raised her hand as they passed in case they recognized her, wanting to be ready to offer some gesture of congratulation. But neither of them looked away from the newborn, a dimpled depression in layers of blanket. The Indian woman stood motionless in front of the glass doors, watching the car until it disappeared. She flinched as a nurse came up behind her and offered an arm. The woman shook her head and walked away from the clinic alone, stepping carefully. Even from this distance, Shyama could hear the faint irregular chum-chum of her silver anklets. Maybe it was her gait, the weary, cautious walk of a woman who has recently given birth, that drew Shyama to follow her.
She found herself slowly keeping pace behind the woman, following her along the side of the clinic until the paved road became a narrower dusty track only wide enough for a single car. On her left, Shyama passed what she assumed were the delivery suites at the back of the clinic, newly built brick walls with black-tinted windows and air vents noisily churning out antiseptic-smelling vapours. To her right was a patch of waste-ground between this building and the next, with the usual collection of makeshift dwellings constructed out of tarpaulins and metal sheeting. A mother poured water over an unprotesting naked infant, who stood on top of a plastic barrel like a solemn cherub on a grubby plinth. Old newspapers and discarded food wrappers, caught on the wire fencing which separated Shyama from the pair, flapped like surrender flags. There was something timeless and tender about the scene, she felt. In the midst of a wasteland a mother was washing her child, trying to create order and cleanliness out of chaos.