talking is the best way, I find,’ Auntie PK says. ‘No games.’
‘What’s the point?’ Mum interjects. She has been sitting silently for a while, but now this question bursts from her. ‘What’s the point? Nothing can change what has happened!’
‘Mum—’
‘I knew this would happen! Didn’t I tell you, Manoj? I knew!’
‘How could you possibly know, Mum—’
‘You ruin everything! That’s how I knew!’
‘Now, Renu—’
I stand up abruptly. ‘What? What do I ruin? Go on, tell me!’
Mum’s tears are flowing now. ‘You alienate everyone. You’re selfish!’
‘And – and what else! Don’t stop there, Mum!’
‘You don’t call us, you don’t visit, you never even say thank you for anything anyone does. You – you killed that budgie Auntie Promilla gave you!’
Everyone turns to stare at me. I clench my fists at this list that my mum has come up with, the list of all the things I do wrong. I am so mad I can’t even see her properly. Mad at my mum, at my dad for letting her say these things, at all of them, sitting here in my flat, passing judgement. Even Auntie Promilla, who rarely says anything, is looking at me with sad eyes.
‘You said the budgie flew away,’ she says, a tremor in her voice.
My mouth tightens. My dream from this morning hits me square in my chest, and suddenly I can’t breathe. I look at all of them, not daring to say what is on the tip of my tongue, yet knowing I’m going to blurt it out. I stare at Auntie Promilla, who has given the GIF various family pets over the years, some beloved and others hated. But the first pet that she ever gave us, gave me and Rose, was Gus-Gus.
‘Talking of Auntie Promilla’s pets,’ I say breathlessly, talking quickly so I can’t change my mind, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you for years. Whatever happened to Gus-Gus?’
The silence in the room can be cut with a knife. For many moments, nothing happens. No one speaks and nothing moves. People look blankly into space, at their shoes, at the wall, at anything but each other. Jharna is the only one who has no idea something cataclysmic has been said. Jharna, and Federico, whose hair is standing on end in the face of all these arrows aimed straight at my heart by my family.
My mother looks down at her trainers, my father at the shiny laminate floor. Auntie Pinky and Uncle Jat finally look at each other, then away, then each other, then away. Auntie Menaka is looking absorbedly at her long manicured yellow fingernails.
Auntie Promilla doesn’t say anything, not one word, but she flinches. Yes, Auntie Promilla remembers the Irish wolfhound.
In the silence that follows my question about Gus-Gus, I can hear the thumping of my heart and it sounds suspiciously like a time bomb.
Uncle Jat clears his throat, finally breaking the silence. He turns to Auntie Promilla.
‘So are you doing anything important at the moment?’ Uncle Jat disapproves of Auntie Promilla’s obsession with animals. ‘I can get you a job, you know. All these animals-shanimals, they are okay as a hobby, but they are hardly a profession. We could send them to a charity—’
Auntie Promilla shakes her head, shrugs, nods her head. This covers every possible answer. She is looking nervously at me.
‘I’m so lucky I don’t have to work,’ Auntie Menaka cuts in, sitting on the arm of a sofa. ‘Or look after animals.’
‘Do you remember the hamster?’ my father asks.
Everyone laughs nervously. They avoid my eyes. They discuss various other pets that the GIF has had over the years. There’s nervous fidgeting all around.
‘I once saw a spider monkey in our back garden,’ Federico says. ‘Its long arms and legs were crossed. I tell you, it was meditating! I swear it even had its eyes closed.’ Federico thinks we are talking about pets. Jharna is looking at me, though, with a slight frown on her brow.
Everyone else is smiling and nodding now. We can move on from the awkwardness brought on by my unfortunate mention of Gus-Gus, who disappeared at the same time as my sister.
‘There was a time I thought I would take up silent meditation. For the rest of my life.’ Auntie Pinky laughs nervously.
‘You, silent!’ Uncle Jat makes a sound like upph.
‘Hard to imagine,’ Dad agrees. Apparently we can move on.
But then he glances sideways at me. Just for a fraction of a second, so that it’s hardly there at all. But I know they all remember what I’ve said. I know they can hardly breathe in case they blurt out the wrong thing. In case words are spoken that can’t be taken back.
‘This is how we’re going to play it, is it?’ I say softly.
Jharna looks up from her phone, her eyebrows raised. Everyone else is quiet.
My father rubs his face. He looks suddenly old. His face is pinched and there is so much grey in his hair. He looks shrunken. ‘This is all my fault.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Enough, okay? Enough with the drama.’
‘No, beta,’ Dad says. ‘That’s for us to say. Enough. You need to come and live at home if you can’t cope with day-to-day life like a normal adult. We’ve tried and tried with you—’
‘Damn you,’ I whisper. ‘Damn you all.’ They’ve tried and tried? When have they ever tried?
Then I find I can’t speak. There are words I want to say that I have never been allowed to say, words that even now are stuck in my throat. Words that hurt too much to say out loud.
‘Please just go,’ I say finally. I want it to come out angry but instead there is a crack in my voice and I can’t meet anyone’s eyes. I suddenly have no fight left. I can’t even look at them any more. I shake my head, holding back tears, and leave the room. I walk up the stairs to my room, close the door behind me. I slide down to the floor, squeeze my eyes shut with my hands and try not to think about anything at all. Not my family, not the mess I seem to be making of my life, not Gus-Gus. And certainly not my sister Rose.
The next day, a Monday, I resolve to go back to my normal life. I’ve found that in times of stress over the years, having a regular and predictable routine is the one thing that I’ve been able to depend on. In the last six months with Simon, I let my routine slide a little, let it get scruffy around the edges, but now it’s time to put my life back on track.
As I walk out of my house, I take a deep breath to brace myself for the day. But I needn’t have worried, because the city looks like it is determined to help me in my resolve. On the train to New Cross Gate, to get to campus, I easily get a seat. On my walk to Goldsmiths, a little girl with a cheerful pigtail on top of her head waves shyly at me. As I make my way across campus to get to my department, the March sun plays peek-a-boo on the common, and candyfloss pollen floats on the breeze. I turn my face up to the warmth.
Maybe, just maybe, I can go back to who I was before I met Simon. If I can do that, if I can let go of the image Simon created of me – a tempting picture of someone who knows who they are, for whom something vital didn’t get left behind a long time ago – then maybe things will be okay.
I walk into my department building, humming along to someone who is listening to ‘Cake by the Ocean’ on their phone, determined to make this the first day of the rest of my life.