quick glance up and down, a slight incline of the head, a satisfied exhalation.
I wondered if she was like Mrs Christmas, childless, and maybe that was why she was so protective of me. But mama told me, with a snort of disgust, that she had three grown-up sons and a few grandchildren also. ‘But I’ve never seen them! Do they live far away?’ I persisted.
‘Oh yes, very far. Wolverhampton!’ she quipped back.
It had seemed quite a long way to me when we had driven there for my birthday treat, but I guessed by my mother’s flaring nostrils and exaggerated eyebrow movements that she was being ironic, the way Indians are ironic, signposting the joke with a map and compass to the punchline.
‘But why don’t they come and see her then?’
My mother sighed and ruffled my hair. ‘I will never understand this about the English, all this puffing up about being civilised with their cucumber sandwiches and cradle of democracy big talk, and then they turn round and kick their elders in the backside, all this It’s My Life, I Want My Space stupidness, You Can’t Tell Me What To Do cheekiness, I Have To Go To Bingo selfishness and You Kids Eat Crisps Instead Of Hot Food nonsense. What is this My Life business, anyway? We all have obligations, no one is born on their own, are they?’
She was into one of her Capital Letter speeches, the subtext of which was listen, learn and don’t you dare do any of this when you grow up, missy. I quite enjoyed them. They made me feel special, as if our destiny, our legacy, was a much more interesting journey than the apparent dead ends facing our neighbours. I just wished whatever my destiny was would hurry up and introduce itself to me so I could take it by its jewelled hand and fly.
She paused for oxygen. ‘I mean, Mrs Worrall is their mother, the woman who gave them life. And she on her own with Mr Worrall, too. I tell you, if my mother was so close, I would walk in my bare feet to see her every day. Every day.’
She turned away then, not trusting herself to say anything more. There was still something else I wanted to ask but I knew it would have to wait. I had grown up with Mrs Worrall, I had seen her every day of my life, but I had never seen or heard Mr Worrall. Ever.
My mother emerged from the shed holding aloft an old dusty glass vase which she blew on, and then scuffed with the sleeve of her shirt before handing it to Mrs Worrall who took it with a pleased grunt. ‘Please, Mrs Worrall, have it. We never use it.’
Mrs Worrall nodded again and cleared her throat. ‘He knocked mine over. I was in the way, in front of the telly. Crossroads. He likes that Amy Turtle. So he got a bit upset, see.’
Mama nodded sympathetically. ‘How is he nowadays?’
Mrs Worrall shrugged, she did not need to say, same as always, and went back inside her kitchen.
‘Mum, I’m starved, I am,’ I wheedled. ‘Give me something now.’
She busied herself with shutting the shed door, not looking at me, her face drawn tight like a cat’s arse. ‘There’s rice and daal inside. Go and wash your hands.’
‘I don’t want that…that stuff! I want fishfingers! Fried! And chips! Why can’t I eat what I want to eat?’
Mama turned to me, she had her teacher’s face on, long suffering, beseeching, but still immovable. She said gently, ‘Why did you take money for sweets? Why did you lie to papa?’
‘I didn’t,’ I said automatically, blind to logic, to the inevitable fact that my crime had already been fretfully discussed while I’d been having the best day of my life being Anita Rutter’s new friend.
‘So now you are saying papa is a liar also? Is that it?’
I pretended to take a great interest in a mossy crack in the yard concrete, running my sandal along it, deliberately scuffing the leather. I knew how I looked, pouting, defiant in the face of defeat, sad and silly, but I could not apologise. I have still never been able to say sorry without wanting to swallow the words as they sit on my tongue.
Mama knelt down on the hard floor and cupped my face in her hands, forcing me to look into her eyes. Those eyes, those endless mud brown pools of sticky, bottomless love. I shook with how powerful I suddenly felt; I knew that with a few simple words I could wipe away every trace of guilt and concern ebbing across her face, that if I could admit what I had done, I could banish my parents’ looming unspoken fear that their only child was turning out to be a social deviant. ‘I did not lie,’ I said evenly, embracing my newly-born status as a deeply disturbed fantasist with a frisson that felt like pride.
After my mother had retreated back into the kitchen, Mrs Worrall came out and stood in her doorway, wiping her large floury hands on her front, watching me kick mossy scabs across the yard. ‘Come and give us a hand, Meena,’ she said finally. I hesitated at the back door; I’d seen glimpses of her kitchen practically every day, I knew the cupboards on the wall were faded yellow, the lino was blue with black squares on it and the sink was under the window, like in our house. But I’d never actually been inside, and as I stepped in, I had a weird feeling that I was entering Dr Who’s Tardis. It was much bigger than I had imagined, or it seemed so because there was none of the clutter that took up every available inch of space in our kitchen.
My mother would right now be standing in a haze of spicy steam, crowded by huge bubbling saucepans where onions and tomatoes simmered and spat, molehills of chopped vegetables and fresh herbs jostling for space with bitter, bright heaps of turmeric, masala, cumin and coarse black pepper whilst a softly breathing mound of dough would be waiting in a china bowl, ready to be divided and flattened into round, grainy chapatti. And she, sweaty and absorbed, would move from one chaotic work surface to another, preparing the fresh, home-made meal that my father expected, needed like air, after a day at the office about which he never talked.
From the moment mama stepped in from her teaching job, swapping saris for M&S separates, she was in that kitchen; it would never occur to her, at least not for many years, to suggest instant or take-away food which would give her a precious few hours to sit, think, smell the roses—that would be tantamount to spouse abuse. This food was not just something to fill a hole, it was soul food, it was the food their far-away mothers made and came seasoned with memory and longing, this was the nearest they would get for many years, to home.
So far, I had resisted all my mother’s attempts to teach me the rudiments of Indian cuisine; she’d often pull me in from the yard and ask me to stand with her while she prepared a simple sabzi or rolled out a chapatti before making it dance and blow out over a naked gas flame. ‘Just watch, it is so easy, beti,’ she’d say encouragingly. I did not see what was easy about peeling, grinding, kneading and burning your fingers in this culinary Turkish bath, only to present your masterpiece and have my father wolf it down in ten minutes flat in front of the nine o’clock news whilst sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by spread sheets from yesterday’s Daily Telegraph.
Once, she made the fatal mistake of saying, ‘You are going to have to learn to cook if you want to get married, aren’t you?’
I reeled back, horrified, and vowed if I ended up with someone who made me go through all that, I would poison the bastard immediately. My mother must have cottoned on; she would not mention marriage again for another fifteen years.
‘Shut the door then,’ said Mrs Worrall, who swayed over to the only bit of work surface that was occupied, where a lump of pastry dough sat in a small well of white flour. Otherwise, all was bare and neat, no visible evidence of food activity here save a half-packet of lemon puffs sitting on the window sill.
‘What you making?’ I asked, peering under her massive arm.
‘Jam tarts. Mr Worrall loves a good tart. Mind out.’
She bent down with difficulty and opened the oven door, a blast of warm air hit my legs and I jumped back.
‘What’s that?’
‘What yow on about? It’s the oven.’
I’d never seen my mother use our oven, I thought