The House of Hidden Mothers (10 page)

That's what Mala thought had happened to Seema. That she had gone to Delhi to make her own hard choice and undergo irreversible change; that Seema, or her husband, had arranged to have her unborn daughter sucked out of her, all nice and neatly. She knew that in the cities they had machines that could tell you whether you were carrying a future prince or a girl worth less than gold or honey. Better than going through the whole nine months praying and hoping, only to give birth to disappointment and the dull realization that you would become a birth-giver and a murderer all on the same day. Yes, this is what must have happened, nothing else could explain Seema's strange behaviour, and very soon she, Mala, was determined to know everything.

She felt Ram's eyes upon her as she moved around. Flecks of curd were caught in the tips of his moustache, and she glimpsed flashes of pink tongue, all baby-soft, as he chomped and swallowed.

‘Can't you wait till I finish?' he asked. ‘What's the hurry?'

Mala avoided his gaze, already on her way to the tap again. ‘Bee-ji wants to go for a walk.'

Ram glanced over at Bee-ji, who was snoring buffalo breaths in front of the TV. Mala knew there was hardly any point in lying, he would eventually find out where she was going anyway. But she found herself enjoying the confusion on his face, enough to stop him mid-chew.

‘Well, she asked me before. About a walk. So I will go anyway.' Mala clattered a pan to show she meant business.

‘On your own?'

‘Why? You got anything in mind to keep me here?'

Then she looked at him properly. His confusion drooped into shame and she knew she had won.

‘You know how to make up Bee-ji's bed, don't you?' Mala said as she walked past her almost-new husband and wrapped herself in the ancient velvet shawl of the night.

‘
SO, NOT SO
much of a glue baby, more like a middle finger in the face of mortality, maybe?'

Lydia lit up another herbal cigarette and blew out a cloud of what smelled like smouldering tyres on a dungheap.

‘Do you smoke when you have proper patients?' Shyama asked irritably, paddling her hands in front of her face.

‘Clients, actually. And of course not!' tutted Lydia, struggling with the sash window until it finally creaked upwards with a wooden groan. ‘And they're not allowed to smoke either. Or eat or drink anything other than water. It becomes displacement activity. But as I'm giving you the benefit of my insight for free, you may have to, as our cousins across the pond say, suck it up.'

‘Could you at least smoke a proper fag then? These healthy ones make me retch.' Shyama coughed, adjusting her position on the faded brocade couch. ‘You haven't answered my question yet.'

Lydia smiled, unfurling herself on the window-sill. There was something feline about her slanted playful eyes, her bendy androgynous body, the kind Shyama always envied. She'd have loved to have someone call her lithe, gamine even, be one of those women who could go bra-less without looking like a camel-smuggler, wear cigarette pants and a simple white shirt, pausing merely to muss her cropped hair and spritz herself with Chanel. A quick glance at the women in her family told her this would be genetically impossible. ‘Cankles' featured prominently amongst the various India-based matriarchs; at least she'd escaped those, but even her much smaller, shorter mother had once had the solid legs and cushioned hips of work-horse women. They had clearly been designed to walk long distances and bear heavy loads, possibly carrying the luggage of the irritating gamine brigade skipping far ahead with their pert, unfettered breasts. I'm an ox, Shyama thought, from an old culture built for survival and endurance. Lydia's a sleek weak European cat. And no wonder she had an amazing body, she'd never endured the irreparable car crash of childbirth. Thus Lydia and her adoring husband, Keith, were free to spend their considerable double income on exotic holidays, theatre and concerts, and, in Lydia's case, a personal Pilates trainer who visited her at home thrice weekly.

‘Shyama, do you think Toby will leave you if you can't give him a baby?'

‘No, I don't. Stop doing that weird look, I really don't.'

‘What weird look?'

‘You know, your I'm-hearing-a-lot-of-denial-right-now-in-the-room look that you do on your patients.'

‘
Clients
. They're not ill.'

‘Clients, customers, instant karma purchasers, whatever. He knew how old I was when we got together. It's not a deal-breaker or anything.'

Lydia raised an eyebrow.

‘See, now you're doing the eyebrow thing!' Shyama yelled.

‘What eyebrow thing?'

‘The I'm-letting-you-speak-only-so-I-can-say-Really?-in-a-faintly-sarcastic-way-afterwards eyebrow thing.'

‘Really?'

Shyama threw a cushion at Lydia's head. She batted it away in one graceful arm sweep and still managed to take a drag of her cigarette at the same time.

They both cracked then, big unashamed belly laughs which rolled back the years until they were students again, drunk and lazy-limbed on saggy mattresses, candles sputtering in cheap wine bottles, swapping embellished stories like Scheherazade trying to hold back the dawn. Shyama gulped for air, her sides aching; it was a while since she had laughed out loud. It felt like she'd had a workout but without having to wash her hair afterwards.

‘Now I know what the Laughing Guru was on about.' She sighed, wiping her eyes.

‘You've made that up.' Lydia sighed back, resettling herself on the window-sill before stubbing out the cigarette on the brickwork outside.

‘I swear, I saw him on Juhu Beach, years ago now. He believes – or believed, I have no idea if he's still around – that laughing is as good for you as meditation. Better, in fact. It purifies the soul, apparently. He gets his followers to stand in a circle and they all just guffaw their way to nirvana.'

‘What happens if you don't feel like laughing at that particular moment?'

‘Someone tells a dirty joke, they get out the holy custard pies, I don't know. It looked like fun for the first ten minutes, quite infectious really. And then …' Shyama dredged up the memory, sunlit and salty-tasting. ‘Then it looked quite creepy. Thirty-odd people laughing to order, not allowed to stop until he said so. I had a similar feeling when I visited an all-year-round Christmas shop. “Where every day is Christmas.” The elf behind the counter looked clinically depressed.'

‘Too much of anything, however pleasurable or exciting, will eventually bore or depress us,' Lydia mused. ‘One of the major reasons people come and lie on my couch is to be able to cope with some life-changing event. And yet, change is essential for our growth and understanding of what pain and pleasure are. It's all relative. So, for example, if you hadn't married your first husband …'

‘I wouldn't have properly appreciated the many talents of Toby Toy Boy?'

‘Exactly. But don't mix up appreciation with obligation. You don't owe him a baby as a thank-you for sticking around an old bag like you.'

‘I know that too.'

‘Then why?' Lydia paused delicately. You're forty-eight, Shyams …'

‘I know that, thanks.'

‘You've nearly drained your glass in the last-chance saloon, don't you think? And aren't there other things you want to do with your life right now?'

Shyama sat up and looked Lydia straight in the eye. ‘You don't approve, do you?'

‘It's not about me endorsing your decision, Shyama. It's just …' Lydia shrugged. ‘I see a lot of women your age twisting themselves into agonies about the babies they should have had, can't have. Let's put aside the women who actually have kids who are driving them potty …'

‘I know that one, too.' Shyama smiled weakly.

‘Right. But be thankful you're not in the other camp – our generation who thought we could schedule in babies, and then found out ovaries don't follow a time-management chart. Not that I think that was wrong. I would have been a miner's wife if my granny had had her way.'

‘Yeah, I can just see you in a pinny, wiping up the coal dust and sputum from the hearth …'

‘More importantly, because of our sacrifices – and there were many – we can offer our daughters the luxury of choice.'

‘You don't have a daughter,' Shyama sniffed, ‘so you don't know.'

‘Know what?'

‘Most of her generation don't even call themselves feminists. Apparently it's a swear word implying lesbian tendencies and a predilection for denim boilersuits. They defend topless models as empowered women making a smart career move; they drink and swear and shag like the worst kind of bloke and call it being equal and liberated …'

‘And that's all of them, is it? Every woman under thirty thinks that way?'

‘Maybe just the ones I hear in my house.'

Lydia uncrossed her limbs and jumped lightly down from the window-sill. Outside her window stretched the Flats, acres of green fringed by semi-wild foliage which extended a couple of miles into the next borough and almost to the end of Shyama's road. Lydia had often jogged between the two houses for an impromptu coffee; Shyama inevitably drove round in her car. Recently, a flock of wild parrots had been spotted swooping over the treetops, noisy jewelled immigrants claiming their patch of the suburbs. It had even prompted an article in the local newspaper, inspiring Tara to purchase a bagful of birdseed which she scattered on the tiny balcony outside her room. She hadn't said anything to Shyama, who, weeks later, had had to climb out there with the Hoover and tidy up the rotting heap of uneaten husks.

‘Tara is a lot smarter than you give her credit for,' Lydia said lightly, snapping on the kettle. ‘Tea?'

‘No, thanks,' Shyama said, getting to her feet. She noticed she emitted a slight noise as she did so, something between a groan and a sigh. This was definitely one of the first signs of ageing. Being in a room full of her parents' friends at going-home time was like listening to an arthritic symphony, a veritable orchestra of ‘Hai!'s and ‘Ooff!'s – and her favourite, ‘Oeeeweeesh!', which had made Shyama and Tara flee the room, fists stuffed into their mouths. And now she too had joined the Osteoporosis Choir. She flexed her back for a moment, checking nothing had actually slipped off its axis.

‘You know I adore Tara,' Shyama said, waiting for Lydia's response. Lydia carried on rattling teacups. ‘It's just … is it awful to say I love her but sometimes I find her – or at least some of her attitudes … disappointing?'

‘And you reckon you've never disappointed your mother?'

Shyama grinned. ‘OK, I think this session's well and truly over. I've got to get back to work anyhow. And by the way, I don't intend to actually carry a baby myself. In fact, medically I can't. So that's that.'

She enjoyed the look of surprise on Lydia's face, and spotted something else there too. Relief maybe?

‘Right. Well that's …well, I have loads of contacts in adoption, Shyama, if that's—'

‘No, we ruled that out once we found out the length of the waiting lists round here. It's even longer if you want to use donor eggs. By the time we were near the top of either list, I'd be … a lot older. And getting a baby – I mean any child under three – is also really difficult.' Shyama saw Lydia take a breath, but ploughed on. ‘And I know there are loads of older kids who need a loving home, but many of them need really patient, specialized parenting because of what they've been through, and Toby and I felt … well, it wouldn't be fair. On Tara, especially.'

‘Is that what Tara thinks?'

‘I don't know what she thinks, exactly …' Shyama hesitated. ‘Every time I try to mention anything to do with babies, adopted or otherwise, she looks like she wants to vomit on me.'

‘Sorry, I'm confused here.' Lydia paused. ‘Aren't you worried that Tara doesn't seem to be at all receptive to the idea of a new sibling? You know, it doesn't matter how old you are, there will always be issues of jealousy, displacement.'

‘Get to the point, Lyd, I'm late already. Confused about what?'

Lydia sighed. She wondered how much she should tell her dear friend about the frequent late-night chats she had with Tara, mostly on the phone, sometimes in her kitchen when Tara had turned up, tipsy and tearful, raging against the mother-stranger she lived with. Keith never questioned the intrusions, retiring discreetly to his study or returning to bed, understanding that for Lydia this was not work, it was something she regarded as familial duty. Tara would ask Lydia the questions that only Shyama could answer: why had she never been encouraged to keep in contact with her father? Why was she expected to babysit her grandparents whilst her mother was out having fun with Toby? Why did her mother make her feel inadequate all the time? Why was she so convinced that Tara would never really understand the struggles and politics of her mother's generation, because Tara and her friends had all had it far too easy? (‘Oh, you want to talk about racism? Well, just listen to what we had to put up with!') Ditto sexism (‘I nearly went to Greenham!'), self-image (‘At least you have role models now. Who did we have?'), and educational pressure (‘I was considered a freak because I couldn't do science!'). Tara moaned to Lydia that it was like some twisted game of generational Top Trumps, where any experience or complaint she might have was automatically bested by her mother, who had got there before her and apparently suffered so much more. And even though Shyama encouraged Tara at regular intervals to ‘plug into your mother culture', it was in a preachy, take-your-medicine-it's-good-for-you kind of way. She'd direct her to the Mughal Miniatures exhibition at the British Library, the Indian classical-music concerts on the South Bank, various India-based news websites cataloguing the latest political scandals, the rise of the burgeoning middle classes, the hot new filmi actresses, the marches against the acid attacks on women who had dared to turn down their suitors, who then returned with plastic bottles of living death to fling in their faces.