The House of Hidden Mothers (19 page)

‘
Theklo-ji
,' Ravi continued. ‘Compared to what you have already spent on this case, further necessary … funding will be minimal. It just means—'

‘I know what it means,' Prem snapped. ‘I lived here till I was twenty-two,
baccha
, my memory's not gone yet.'

‘But
jaan
, just listen to him. All he's saying—' Sita began.

‘No. I can't …'

Prem sighed deeply. He suddenly felt bone-tired and desperately thirsty. He wondered if Sita had given him all his correct medication that morning. They had left in such a rush, worrying they would be late. Late! How English they had become. Normally Sita had each of his nine daily pills lined up in separate named compartments in his little blue dispenser so there could be no mistake. They had one each, his and hers, a phrase that used to apply only to towels and toothbrushes, pillows and passports. Now it was drugs. Low blood pressure for her, high blood pressure for him, diabetic meds, heart tablets, her osteoporosis, his angina, musical-sounding diseases joining them in their long duet. He didn't care how many pills he had to pour down his throat, as long as they kept him alive long enough to see this resolved, but on his terms. In all his life, he had never borrowed money from anyone, although he had handed a fair amount out, never left a bill unpaid, never drawn government benefit, never bought anything he couldn't pay for upfront (except his houses, and even then he paid each mortgage off before they sold again). He had never been malicious or mendacious in any of his business dealings or on his tax returns, had never had a dispute with his many friends and neighbours. He had never been to Nepal (he had always dreamed of seeing the Himalayas), never stayed in a five-star hotel, never been on a cruise (despite the fact that so many of their retired contemporaries seemed to spend half their lives seeing ten countries in eight days without ever getting off the boat). He had never played poker in a smoky nightclub, something he had dreamed of doing in the brief period when he had passed through Soho, walking from Swiss Cottage to make his early shift at an office in Charing Cross, dodging groups of bleary-eyed punters swaying out of various side-street dives, smelling of cigarettes, stale whisky and male camaraderie. Prem thought it was the most exciting, decadent scent he had ever encountered. He had never bought a diamond ring for his wife, the only thing she had ever expressed a yearning for, and then only because she had been exclaiming over the newspaper pictures of Burton and Taylor's second marriage to each other. ‘Of course it's an Indian diamond,' she had sighed. ‘Look at the size of it!'

In short, Prem had lived his life believing in the goodness of humanity and the natural justice of the universe, believing that those who worked hard and played fair would be rewarded in kind. That every sacrifice he made, every benefit of the doubt he accorded others, would surely return to him. Not because of karma or fate, the usual suspects, but because people were innately decent. And family, well, they were the best kind of people, because blood ties were the purest and strongest of all.

So when things had first started to go downhill with the flat, when his repeated and kindly requests for Sheetal and her family to move out, as they had promised, had been ignored, naturally Prem turned to his little brother to sort things out. After all, it had been Yogesh's request to allow his daughter and son-in-law to move in, just for a while. Therefore Yogesh would now have to be bad cop to Prem's gently apologetic good cop. Yogesh could let his daughter move into one of the three properties he owned, and Prem and Sita could finally begin their retirement plans. So it was a total shock when Yogesh washed his hands of the situation, when he turned to Prem with that lopsided grin, fingers splayed in resignation, and said, ‘What can I do,
bhaiya
? I can't throw them out myself, can I?'

Prem would always remember that moment, the slow, chilling realization that everything he had believed in was broken. Even now, the recollection made him dizzy with nausea. To have thought so well of the world with a wide-open heart, only to have it ripped out by your own brother. It was shortly after this that he had his first angina attack. So how could he explain to this puppy-lawyer, with his designer pens and unconvincing spectacles, that without some shred of honour to cling to he would be swept away on a murky existential tide. That his refusal to grease every outstretched palm was the only way he could survive this journey. That he must try to believe that justice could and would be done, or what was the point of continuing? Otherwise the whole of his life would have been a terrible waste. He wanted to be able to stand in front of a judge with what was left of his soul intact.

At this point, all he could muster as an answer was, ‘It's not acceptable to me. Once the courts hear our case, they will see the truth. We must do things the right way.'

Whose right way? Ravi thought with a hot flash of irritation, before smiling and pretending to make some notes, mainly so he would not have to look at Sita's pained, deflated face. He wished that Prem was not in the room, so he could inform her that he was sure this family they were trying to evict had been busily paying their own bribes left, right and centre in order to scupper the case. Misplaced papers, last-minute schedule changes, incorrectly filled-in forms – all of these ‘mistakes' arranged and paid for by the other side. The clerk who had performed these sleights of hand would not have felt bad about doing so either. Had Prem and Sita offered more money, they would be sitting in that damned apartment right now, watching soap operas and having a foot massage.

Before he left that afternoon, as he passed the bundled case papers on to his peon, Ravi removed a roll of cash from his briefcase and told his boy to make sure the court clerk received it, with instructions to place their hearing at the top of the day's schedule. At least he could open the first door for Prem and Sita: after that, it really was out of his hands and straight into God's.

Tara shivered at her open window. The start of spring was still a couple of weeks away and mist hung over the distant parkland, grey breath over dull green. No sign of the parakeets today. She tapped on her keyboard, the Skype dial-up tone connecting this time, and waited until Sita's alarmed face appeared on screen.

‘Hello, Nanima?'

‘Hellooo? Tara,
beti
? Can you see me?'

‘Yes, I can see you. And hear you, so you don't need to shout.'

‘Hellooo? But why can't I see you then? Can you see me? Hellooo?'

‘Nanima … stop shouting a moment. Have you pressed the video-activate icon?'

‘The what?'

‘It's a little icon … a button with a picture of a video camera on it.'

‘Where is that? I can't see anything. Darling? Prem,
janoo
! Can you get me my glasses?'

‘Wait. Nanima? Nanima! Can you get Bitoo to help? Or anyone there under seventy-five? I'll stay logged in, OK?'

Tara sighed, angling the laptop away from her as she stubbed out her roll-up cigarette on the window-sill and threw it into the empty beer can at her feet. She could hear a cacophony of Punjabi squawks off-screen in what she assumed was the sitting room in her uncle's house in Delhi. Despite having given her grandparents several lessons in how to use Skype before they had left for India, every time they attempted to hook up online, it was the same old shouty pantomime of confusion and chaos.

Shyama had explained to her that in the dark days before computers, the only way of reaching anyone quickly in India was the landline phone, when it worked. Sometimes it wasn't even a phone in their relatives' own house but one of their luckier neighbours would act as an informal emergency service for the whole street. So you'd call up sobbing to ask if Auntie X or Uncle Y really had died, and find yourself having a bellowed conversation with a complete stranger, who would then have to send a small child/servant/dog with a note pinned to its collar to your family house for news, while you waited and wept.

‘That's why they still shout, even on Skype. Now everyone's got a computer and a mobile, no one bothers with landline phones any more. Shame, really, I used to quite enjoy the drama of it all.'

Typical of my mother, thought Tara. Anything to make life just that bit more complicated.

‘Tara,
didi
?'

Tara started as her cousin Bitoo's buck-toothed grin filled her screen.

‘Now I think we can see you – you can still see us here?'

‘Hi, Bitoo! Yes, finally, it's all working. How are you?'

‘Fine,
didi
, very fine.'

Bitoo grinned again, his startlingly large Adam's apple bobbing up and down nervously as he cleared his throat. He had never been one for much conversation. Nearest in age to Tara out of all the cousins, they had been thrown together on the two occasions when Tara had visited India, when they were both primary-school age. Bitoo was, of course, his family nickname. Most Punjabi families had a Bitoo, or a Kaka or a Goody or a Cuckoo – generic affectionate monikers for the cutie-pie younger children. Not so cute, Tara mused, when you're an unconfident teenager hoping to impress the lay-deez. Bitoo adjusted the screen, revealing behind him the usual display of garlanded photos of ancestors who had passed on to their next lives: Tara's great-grandparents and a couple of younger family members who had been taken too early, all wearing the same glum expressions, as if reluctant to be included in this morbid gallery of the long-gone. It had been years since Tara had visited the house, but she found it comforting to see the same familiar faces on the whitewashed wall.

‘So,
didi
, why did you not come also with your parents? It would have been good, the whole family here.'

‘Oh, I really wanted to, Bitoo, but college work, you know?'

Bitoo nodded gravely. The Indian lot all understood that nothing interrupted Studies. Although in truth, Tara could have easily gone: she had completed all her assignments for the term and being there with her grandparents would have been wonderful. They could have put the right names to all the photos in the dead relatives' gallery, shown her around their childhood haunts, been her translators when her own limited Punjabi dried up and rendered her a smiling, grinning idiot. As she was now, faced with Bitoo's wavering, wide-eyed face. The miles between them and the years apart made Tara feel she was on some weird speed-dating site, searching for a conversation opener that would get them through until the wine arrived. With a shock, she realized this was how she would feel all the time once her grandparents had gone. They were her strongest link to India, speaking history books, their old, gentle bones the creaky bridge between her and her sepia-washed ancestors on the wall.

‘You are doing exams right now, yes?'

‘Um no, there aren't many exams on my course, Bitoo.' She could see the growing consternation on his face. ‘I get assessed continually though,' she added hurriedly. ‘I've just made my first small film, my end-of-term project.'

‘You're doing movies?' Bitoo's excitement subsided as he remembered, ‘Oh yah, right, you are doing some media-style degree, isn't it?'

‘Media-style. That about sums it up, yep.' The sarcasm went unnoticed.

‘I am also studying hard,
didi
. Right now I am making applications to universities. I have a good chance of getting a scholarship to study abroad. So then I will also be talking to everyone on Skype like you!'

‘Oh congratulations, that sounds amazing. You hoping to come to London?'

‘No, no,
didi
! America. Everyone wants America only right now.'

Of course they did. She understood then how he saw her: the oddball relative living in a swampy backwater, doing an irrelevant subject in an increasingly irrelevant country. Tara felt a headache begin thrumming at her temples.

‘So where's Nanima … um, I mean Thayee-ji?' She used the correct title that Bitoo would understand for ‘elder uncle's wife'.

Bitoo swallowed again. It looked like a small animal was trying to burrow out of his throat. ‘Um, they have gone upstairs … to their bedroom …'

Bitoo darted nervy glances towards the door, where raised voices of welcome were now filtering through. A figure appeared behind him fleetingly. Tara recognized the voice and now understood why her grandparents had made themselves scarce. It was Yogesh. He did a comedic double-take at the screen, so cheesy it almost made Tara laugh out loud. It was disconcerting – wrong, somehow – how much he looked like his brother, Prem. He cleared his throat noisily and looked down into the camera.

‘Hello, Tara,
beti
! How are you?'

This is all your fault, Tara realized. You are the reason we stopped coming over. You broke that thread of continuity, dropped us like a bad stitch, unravelled our shared history with your greedy hands.

‘Hi, Uncle. Have you given my grandparents their flat back yet?' Tara asked loudly.

Yogesh's smile flickered for just a moment. ‘Very bad connection, hah? See you soon!'

Yogesh left the room quickly.

Bitoo got up clumsily from his chair, sending it clattering to the floor. ‘I'll just see if they are coming now, OK,
didi
?' he croaked, and fled to safety.

Tara felt better after seeing Prem and Sita. Bitoo had taken the laptop to them in their bedroom. Yogesh must have still been lurking around downstairs, but her grandparents did not seem perturbed if he was. Tara enjoyed their delight at being able to finally see her clearly.

‘
Theklo
, Prem, it's like she is just next door!
Kamaal hai, hena?
'

Her grandmother's favourite phrase,
kamaal hai
– how extraordinary is the world, how often it shocks and delights us, how small we are.

She had looked well, was optimistic about the imminent hearing, even hoping they might get an eviction date within six weeks, before their tickets ran out. Prem, however, had seemed less chipper. He looked as if he'd aged since he'd left. He had sat quietly whilst Sita shouted their news at Tara, but her eyes were on her grandfather. She could have helped them. What they needed were some Western bad manners and bovva-boy bravado, someone who didn't give a toss about all the family niceties. It shocked Tara that her grandparents still stayed in Prem's eldest brother's house, which Yogesh would call into regularly, unchallenged. No one had the balls to say out loud what he'd done, just as no one would allow Prem and Sita to stay in a hotel, not when they could be fed and watered by their kin. Everyone's doing it, she thought. Faking it, like me.