The House of Hidden Mothers (40 page)

‘I hope you're not going to tell Mala to give it up.'

‘Quite the opposite.' Toby drained his glass. ‘I'm assuming her products are good for business.'

‘Amazing,' Shyama admitted. ‘We've never done better, not over such a short period …'

‘So you will be giving her a share of the profits, obviously?'

It should have been obvious but it hadn't crossed her mind. Shyama had been too focused on the practicalities to think about long-term division of the spoils.

‘I haven't discussed it with Mala yet …' she began.

‘Of course she wouldn't have asked, she doesn't think that way,' Toby interrupted. ‘But it's only fair – it will set her up for the future. So sending her back won't feel like we're just … you know – thanks for your womb, see you later …'

‘Of course not, no. I mean, yes, that's fair.'

She wasn't sure if she found it stupid or just touchingly naïve that Toby assumed Mala would not already be thinking that way. Poverty had brought her into their lives – she was an economic migrant, not a charity-giver. Of course she would have asked about her share of the profits eventually. Of course, eventually, Shyama would have offered. To engage in any kind of prolonged discussion with Toby now, she knew, would make her seem mean, exploitative even. They swiftly agreed that once their costs were covered, Mala should get three-quarters of any profits made, Shyama keeping the rest for backing and housing the project, and hopefully continuing it in some form after Mala returned to India. It wasn't what happened on
Dragons' Den
– the entrepreneurs who took on some beginner's bright idea often took at least half of the profits – but as Toby pointed out, Mala was their fairy godmother too. Without her, their son would still be a beautiful idea waiting to happen.

With the increase in orders, Shyama offered to help Mala with the nightly preparations, but she refused, in the sweetest manner possible.

‘Thank you, Shyama Madam, but I can do it fine. I like to be alone. It is good relaxing for me,
hena
?'

And yet often Shyama would come downstairs and find Toby – and, more often, Tara – sitting in the kitchen with Mala, helping to bottle and jar up the freshly made cosmetics or taking them to the extra fridge they had bought for storage which now sat in the garden shed. Whilst she was always welcomed in, she felt like a gatecrasher. They seemed to have more fun without her. When she mentioned this to Toby, he looked genuinely puzzled.

‘It's your kitchen, Shyams. You can come in any time you want. I mean, she never asks us to help, we just end up hanging out.'

Shyama tried it one evening, just sitting with them all at the table. The usual cooking smells of garlic and frying onions had been replaced by heady wafts of jasmine and citrus, mingling with the warmth of the gently heating pans. Fragrant steam filled the space. It felt cosy, female.

Toby sat filling in paperwork, a chunk of maleness in the corner, lifting his head every so often to listen or throw in a sentence. He reminded her of a full-bellied daddy lion lolling amongst his pride. Shyama's attempts at conversation were soon edged out by Tara and Mala's constant stream of chatter, Mala speaking in English, Tara usually responding in Hindi, each of them correcting the other. No wonder they were both getting so proficient, this was their classroom and they were both teacher and pupil. Shyama felt envious and a little redundant. Why hadn't she paid more attention when Sita had tried to encourage her to speak Punjabi, Hindi? Anything would have been better than the very little she had acquired. How ironic that her daughter would end up practically fluent while she could only speak a halting schoolyard mother tongue.

But something wonderful had also happened: Tara seemed to be coming back to them, slowly slowly. She was shedding whatever shrivelled and mysterious cocoon she had been wrapped in for months and was emerging scale by scale, feeling her way forward in her sensitive new skin. The dark bags under her eyes had disappeared and she had filled out a little – hadn't they all? Her hair was still short but less severe now, and her smile reached her eyes, which looked at her mother more often now, shyly, sideways.

Mala declared she had done enough for this evening; massaging her lower back with one hand, she watched benignly as Toby and Tara cleared away the used utensils and packaging. It seemed to be a well-rehearsed drill. After heating herself a cup of warm milk – she didn't need to ask permission now, the kitchen was her domain – Toby offered his arm to escort her to bed.

‘Someone's got to help the fat lady up the stairs,' he joked.

Shyama tried to ignore the darts of envy jabbing at her ribs. It wasn't Mala – it was the baby. She must be more exhausted than she thought. She probably just needed a good night's sleep.

And then she was alone in the kitchen with Tara, who was offering her a cup of something herbal.

‘It's ginger and cardamom, one of Mala's concoctions. In about half an hour, you will do the best burps you've ever done in your life …'

As Shyama took it, she could feel tears welling up again. Good God, maybe this was the menopause or something, she had to get a grip. And yet this small gesture cracked something inside her, opening a fissure in the wall of the dam, and behind it she could glimpse the ocean waiting to rush through. How long had she been waiting for this? All of this? This life in this kitchen with a man and a grown-up child and another child waiting to be born … now it was all so close, and she had to hold on just a little longer.

‘So, it's good news, isn't it?' Tara looked up expectantly from her steaming cup. Seeing Shyama's puzzled face, she said, ‘Gina did call you, didn't she?'

‘I haven't checked my phone … so they …'

‘They've decided not to press charges. I thought they wouldn't. Not with all the footage we had. Good job the crew had my back …'

Tara didn't get much else out. Shyama had her arms around her, both their mugs splashing hot liquid.

‘Mum!' Tara said, half annoyed, half laughing, managing to grab the mugs and get them to the table.

‘Oh thank God … thank God …' was all Shyama could manage, muffled against Tara's neck.

‘Thank Gina and social media, actually,' Tara said chirpily, gently extricating herself, thrown by Shyama's stricken face. ‘Were you really worried then?'

‘What do you think? You could have ended up in prison.'

‘Very unlikely, on this charge. First offence and all that.'

‘Well, at least you could have ended up with a criminal record, Tara! That would have followed you round all your life! Every time you applied for a job or a visa, or—'

‘Mum, if convicted paedophiles and terrorists and celebs with drug convictions can get about as easily as they do, I think I would have been all right, don't you?'

‘No, I don't! I think …' Shyama took a deep breath. Tara was here, talking to her, being happy. Don't spoil it again. ‘I'm just relieved for you, baby girl. That's all.'

‘Baby girl …' Tara repeated with a gentle laugh. Her face softened, something flitted across it that made another crack in Shyama's wall, and then it was gone again. ‘Talking of babies … not long until my little brother arrives then?'

‘You … how did you … did
she
tell you?'

‘Mala?' Tara blew on her tea, took a small sip. ‘I made her. It was obvious she knew … she made me swear not to tell you that she'd told me. You can see why that was getting complicated, so here we are, sharing in the kitchen. Just like on
Jeremy Kyle
, except no one has to take a DNA test this time, I hope … I guess you did all that back at the clinic in India, right?' Tara looked up when Shyama made no reply. ‘You're not annoyed, are you?'

‘No, no … It's just … We were going to wait until—'

‘Until what? I assumed I'd be one of the first people you would want to tell. I'm fine about it now, anyway.'

‘Are you? Really?'

Tara put her mug down again, warming her hands on it. She had written something on the back of her left hand. The ink had faded slightly, but Shyama could make out a few random letters and the word Shakti, or maybe Shanti?

‘Mala's … something else. I was a bit of a shit to her before, I know that was just that old thing we do, taking it out on a sister when we can't see the bigger picture of … patriarchy and exploitation … and then there's the whole legacy of colonialism and the infrastructure of the caste system. I mean, it's complicated …'

The words sounded a little rehearsed to Shyama, but she didn't dare interrupt.

‘Anyway, it's been … it's been amazing … and humbling, and really hard, hearing about her life back in India … everything she's been through. God, we have it so easy here, don't we?'

Shyama could have said that ‘easy' was a relative term – her life didn't feel especially easy at the moment – but she recognized that feeling a bit lost and weepy wasn't a fair comparison with being hungry and dispossessed, so she wisely held her tongue again.

‘I'm still not sure it's right, what you're doing … but I can see it's going to change Mala's life so much and she says anything is better than what she had before …'

‘Well, I …' Shyama felt safe to talk now, but Tara held up a hand.

‘No, this is the important bit. What you've done for her now – bringing her over, helping her do her beauty stuff, the money you're going to give her – that makes it better. You've done the decent thing, Mum. That's how everyone should live, isn't it?'

Sita had been observing the developments in the new family unit with some misgivings, but she had her own urgent preoccupations to deal with – namely that the eviction date for their illegally occupied flat had been brought forward to 1 November, and suddenly they were going through the familiar routine of booking the cheapest air tickets they could find and dragging out the suitcases from under their bed. But this time it was different, this time they would be going with fire in their bellies and an end in sight to this whole
tamasha
– no, that was too easy a word, it was not just a fuss or complication. She could not think of a word in Punjabi or English that could possibly sum up what the last twelve years had been like for them, had done to them. It had been a slow-acting toxin, poisoning every good memory they had cherished of place and family. The final chapter of a long story, with no happy ending for anyone. Relations would be broken off for ever with that branch of the family – throwing their own flesh and blood out on to the street, how could they? She could foresee the wailing from Yogesh and Neelum, how they would claim they would have got their children to move if there had been somewhere suitable for them to go (never mind the two other properties they owned), and now this – the rich relatives who had so much, acting like the Empire itself, marching in and evicting the Indians from their own soil! See if I care, Sita muttered fiercely to herself as she carefully listed and packed all the medications they had to take along with them for every trip. In the old days, Prem's status as second-eldest brother who had bankrolled all his siblings' weddings from abroad would have counted for something. Now what were they? The idiot NRIs who had handed over their keys, never suspecting that the door would be shut in their face.

Prem rode this unexpected turn of events with his usual good-natured stoicism. ‘The sooner the better,
nahin
, Sita? We could move in and have our first Diwali in the flat.'

Sita made vague noises of agreement. Diwali was just two weeks away. Who knew what would happen, whether they would set fire to the place out of spite before leaving – she had heard of such things. When it came to kin fighting kin, all common sense and decency got trampled underfoot; all those weasly namastes and tearful touching of the elders' feet were all for show. When it came down to defending and claiming land and home, everyone became an unknown savage. Sita hoped this would be their last legal battle, the last time they had to pack their bulging files of paperwork amongst their underwear and towels. Prem was slowing down, she could see it. So was she, probably, but you never noticed it happening to yourself. As in everything else, they were each other's changing reflection. The halting walk, the thinning hair, the shaky hands, the dimming eyes – she noticed it all in her husband, so he must be seeing it in her. Now she understood why they called it the sands of time: their youth together had been a long unspoilt beach stretching before them; they had grabbed handfuls of it and thrown it to the wind. Now she felt she could count every golden speck left to them as it slipped grain by grain through their entwined hands.

‘But Mama, you will be back in time, won't you?' Shyama had fretted. She had called her Mama. She must be worried.

‘In time for …' Sita trailed off. How could she have forgotten? ‘Of course, we will be back before the baby comes. We have an eviction date; we just have to appear in court to confirm we agree,
bas
. Also we can't afford to stay much longer than a month, not this time …'

Prem had thought it wise to forgo staying with his elder brother on this visit. They didn't want any of the extended family to have any hint of why they were back again. Even though Sheetal and Sunil would have been served an eviction notice (which of course they would ignore), they would have no idea whether or when it would be enforced. Ravi Luthra, their lawyer, had advised them that surprise was the key, literally.

‘You see, Sita-ji, if the miscreants suspect their removal is imminent, they could change the locks, barricade the doors and we are stuck. The bailiffs are not allowed to break and enter the property, understand? They have to be allowed inside. But once they get in, then we are hitting a six right out of the park, slam dunk, or back of the net as you say in England, isn't it?'