The House of Hidden Mothers (39 page)

‘It really works, my skin feels amazing, but no one's going to buy anything that smells like mould … The lotion needs more oil, it's not being absorbed … See here, it's left a crust … See this thing on my skin?' Tara offered her arm up for Mala to inspect.

‘OK, so … I think maybe rose oil? Good smell?'

‘I hate roses,' Tara said dismissively. ‘Too … girlie, you know? You want to go for something more unisex.'

‘Uni-sex? More … naughty?'

Tara grinned. Oh, it was good to see her smile again.

‘No, something that both men and women would like. Something more … woody? Lots of perfumes are for both now. More profits, right? You understand profit, I'm guessing …'

‘Oh yes. I understand profit.' Mala nodded back at her.

Shyama realized Mala must be humouring Tara, bringing her in gently, trying to build bridges. She was doing a better job with her than Shyama had managed. Ever since Tara's arrest, they were no longer arguing, because her daughter met each attempt at conversation with polite formality. Shyama preferred the spats, missed them – at least there had been an emotional exchange. This polite indifference reminded her painfully of the last months of her marriage to Tara's father, when his infidelity had been confessed and validated. Yes, he loved the other woman; no, he wouldn't change his mind; no, of course he wouldn't fight for custody, what kind of a man did she think he was? One who didn't want a little girl getting in the way of his testosterone-fuelled shag-fest – that kind. Being polite was the only way Shyama could restrain herself from attacking him with a fork. But with Tara, it felt like a sudden bereavement, the withdrawal of barb and banter. No matter how much she kept trying, taking up cups of tea and snacks and hanging around the landing when she thought Tara might be at home, her daughter dismissed her with the same pleasant poker face. It didn't help that they were still waiting to see if the police were going to bring charges. Until then they lived in this limbo, waiting, as they were waiting for the baby to appear in a few months' time, both situations now out of their control. Nature and the law – both had their own rhythms and mysterious workings, unpredictable and inevitable.

And now, a mere month after Mala had tried out her first experimental batches on the family, it seemed that Shyama had a profitable sideline on her hands. At first the samples of scrub, lotion, hair-removing sugary peel, shampoo and conditioner had been offered as a complimentary gift to any woman who came into the salon. Shyama had sourced some pretty containers from one of her cash-and-carry contacts and Toby had painstakingly printed up labels listing all the natural ingredients, with some mystic descriptions extolling the virtues of products handed down through generations of village women and now available here, freshly made. Then women began coming in especially for the free samples, which quickly became non-free but were still vastly cheaper than any similar organic products. Then women came in wanting to have treatments incorporating the products – facials, body scrubs, massages – and ended up spending more time and money. Why not make a day of it and have the hair done also, Madam?

It was Priya's endorsement that really set the ball rolling. Shyama arrived at the salon one day to be greeted by her friend almost floating out of a consultation room, smelling of sandalwood, her hair still wrapped in a leopard-skin turban.

‘Oh my God,' she breathed, ‘I don't know what she's put in that facial, but my skin feels like a baby's arse … a few more of these and I can stop the Botox. And that lotion! Feel my arm, it's like I've drunk the blood of a virgin. I've got virgin-girl glow everywhere!'

Shyama, struggling with several boxes of gram flour and organic honey, declined the offer, managing to place the boxes on the counter before groaning as she stretched out her back.

‘Oooh, you need Surya Spa Ginger and Pepper Massage Oil rubbed into that, preferably by that hunky farmhand of yours,' purred Priya.

‘Hunky farmhand has, I think, got a bad case of Couvade syndrome. He thinks he's pregnant,' winced Shyama, beckoning Priya into her small office at the back.

‘Is he getting a sympathy pot belly and piles?' asked Priya, flumping into Shyama's chair. She always took Shyama's chair.

‘Kind of. It seems to be more of a general hormonal grumpiness with Toby,' sighed Shyama. ‘I wouldn't mind, but I'm not even the pregnant one.'

‘Oh, he's probably getting the whole cold-feet-I'm-gonna-be-a-daddy shivers. Women worry about the pain, men get all weird about the responsibility. Am I going to be a good enough role model, provider, that sort of stuff. It's a good sign, though, shows he's really invested in the baby, no?'

Shyama didn't answer for a while. She wanted to tell Priya more, but she couldn't put it into words, this heavy sense of unease that had been seeping into her over the past few weeks. It wasn't just the lack of action in the bedroom – these things went in phases, she knew that, and in any case most nights she collapsed into bed wanting nothing more than to be held while she tried to breathe away the worries cobwebbing the far corners of her mind. If anything, she should be feeling lighter, more reassured. Mala was settled, in fine health, busy and happy with her new hobby. Toby seemed to be getting over his initial stiffness with Mala, and at least Tara was civil towards her now. After a long time, she could see that they could be a family, an oh-so-modern, blended, rainbow-hued, outsourced, chucked-together temporary family, but one nevertheless, who could just get on with life together. So why did she feel so tired all the time? Why did the sight of her parents, silver-haired, walking up the garden hand-in-hand, bring a lump to her throat? Why did the discovery of a bundle of Tara's baby photos in the back of a drawer make her weep so much that she had to lock herself in the bathroom and sob into a towel? Maybe she was having a sympathy pregnancy too, although the one person she really felt sorry for was, bizarrely, herself.

‘You have to get this stuff out there …' Priya was talking and probably had been for some time as she took a selfie and began tapping buttons on her phone.

‘Right, I've just tweeted about Mala's stuff to a couple of journalists I know, they'll come sniffing round … What does she put in there? Can't just be what it says on the bottles …'

‘It is, I think … I mean, I buy all the stuff, it's all natural … I suppose it's the way she puts it together, I'm not sure,' Shyama replied, distracted by the now constant buzzing of Priya's phone.

‘Aha, wants to keep the magic to herself, eh? Wise woman. Which, of course, is just another name for a witch …'

And that was that. After Priya's social-media campaign, everything seemed to happen at breakneck speed. Shyama quickly had to train up a couple of extra girls to handle the swell of clientele for the new Surya Spa range and suddenly they had a waiting list on a daily basis for Mala's cottage industry. She also had to employ someone full time on the reception desk and get used to having her kitchen taken over every night by Mala, supervising her bowls, mortars and jars of unmarked liquids and granules like a corpulent conjuror, muttering incantations to herself.

Shyama was worried that all the extra work would put a strain on Mala's ever-advancing pregnancy, but if anything, she seemed to be thriving on the pressure and bustle of activity. Now Shyama understood why it was called the bloom of motherhood; Mala's face, her whole body, gave off a warm sensuality, open and inviting as unfolded petals. Heads turned, like sunflowers following the light, when she walked down the street or through the salon with that Indian-woman wiggle that Shyama had never been able to perfect. ‘They will always know that you are a foreigner,' her mother had told her in India when Shyama's attempt to haggle down a trader had been laughingly dismissed. ‘Your hips give you away, you walk like you only walk on concrete.' Shyama had wanted to say that she had seen plenty of hard-stepping women on the streets of Delhi, striding their way to their offices, that only women who had nothing much to do or laboured in sweltering heat ambled with that somnolent sway, but that would have shattered the myth of how all dusky maidens balance the
Kama Sutra
between their thighs.

Mala was young, that was most of her appeal, and the joy of gaining her independence and having the best of care would make any woman happy. And if Shyama occasionally suspected Mala of playing to the crowd somewhat, tossing her now unbound and styled hair so it tumbled around her shoulders like a shampoo ad, embroidering her ever-evolving village anecdotes with more scandal so the girls in the salon gasped and covered their mouths in wonder, stretching her back whilst she held court so her stomach rose proudly before the world to take centre stage, undeniable proof of the life force surging within her, well, all was forgiven. Whilst she carried her child – their child – Shyama had no choice but to smile and let it go.

Her tolerance levels, however, had been severely tested at their last scan. Their obstetrician had called Mala in at thirty weeks, wanting to keep a check on the baby's weight. Nothing to worry about, he had assured them, but given they were private patients, why not pay to stop the worry? So this time Toby had eagerly accompanied the women and he and Shyama had walked in hand-in-hand like a proud couple, Toby offering his arm for Mala to lean on as she lowered herself on to the sonographer's couch. Even for a man like him, used to the mundane stages of animal procreation, it seemed to be overwhelming. He stared at the neon-blue screen for some time, his jaw working steadily to keep control. For Shyama, it was a shock, seeing how much the baby now looked like a little person – the toes, the eyelashes, the softly sucking mouth.

‘He's amazing,' Toby said finally, and then, ‘Sorry, didn't mean to say “he”. It just came out …'

‘Anyway, it doesn't matter,' Shyama murmured. ‘We don't really want to know. We're just grateful that—'

‘He
is
a boy,' Mala interrupted. ‘You don't have to tell me. I know.'

Shyama stared at Mala, who smiled back at her, innocence itself. She wavered under Shyama's questioning gaze, looked at Toby for reassurance.

‘Sorry, Shyama Madam, should I not say …?'

‘No, it's fine, Mala,' Toby soothed her. ‘You'd know better than us, that's for sure. Is she right, by the way?'

Shyama stiffened, glancing at the sonographer, who looked from her to Toby to Mala, assessing what must have been an unusual situation for her. She must know, she must realize that Shyama and Toby were the ones who counted here.

‘She is spot on,' the sonographer beamed back at Toby. ‘It's a boy.'

Toby would never admit it, but this was the moment that he fell in love. Not the hearts-and-flowers kind, the dizzying rush that had flung him headlong into Shyama's arms six years ago, but the kind of love that enables a parent to lift a car off a child or rush into a burning building. Neither would he admit that the primal surge he felt flooding his veins had anything to do with the fact that he was going to be the father of a boy-child. But it was there, the thrill pulsing through him every time he said to himself, ‘That's my son. My son.'

Shyama didn't have the expected altercation with Toby when they returned home, somehow the fight had gone out of her, and his delight was so tangible it brought them together. They made love, they talked into the night, old times buoyed up by new news. Good news – a boy meant Tara would still be the only daughter, her place intact. Still, they both decided not to share the information with her or Shyama's parents, not yet.

‘Won't they guess when we paint the nursery blue?' Shyama teased Toby, running her hands over his stubble, so fair you would only know it was there by touch.

‘The nursery?' Toby asked.

‘Well, once Mala's gone, that's the obvious room for our boy.'

She listened to Toby breathing in the silence.

‘Well, that makes it sound very … stark,' he said eventually.

‘Stark? She's only got ten weeks until she has the baby, and then—'

‘What, we just shove her back on a plane?'

‘Well … obviously she'll need to recover first … but her visa's only for six months, and anyway, if we'd stayed in India …'

‘But we're not in India, are we?'

‘No, but if we were, she would have just handed him over and
we
would have got on a plane. Would that have made it any worse?'

‘Not for us, Shyama, no.'

Disorientated for a moment, Shyama disentangled herself. She could hear Tara talking loudly in Hindi up in her room – she must be on Skype again. She was getting good. The conversation sounded intense; once Tara was on a roll, she was unstoppable. Shyama wished she was down here now, next to her, on her side. Though she wasn't sure when the sides had actually appeared.

‘I think you're forgetting whose idea it was to bring Mala over here,' she cautioned Toby.

‘No I'm not, I'm just—'

‘Who set her up in a job? Which she's making a success of, by the way.'

‘Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that, Shyams …'

Shyama sat up and switched on the bedside lamp. Toby blinked in the unexpected glare, his eyes briefly dropping to her naked, exposed body before he turned away, reaching for a glass of water. But not before Shyama had seen something on his face. What? Disappointment? Embarrassment? She'd stopped going to Pilates ages ago, had let her gym membership lapse last month. There was so much to do and she'd thought all the running around heaving boxes and managing the rush at the salon would keep her fitness levels up. But she'd noticed it herself, the slackening of her muscle tone, especially on her upper arms. She had wings, but not ones that would fly her anywhere nice. She'd even neglected her red highlights, despite the fact that Gita kept trying to push her into a chair every time she passed, to redo them. Now they had all but grown out, just the ends of her hair were tipped with colour like the last embers of a slowly dying fire. And with Mala's delicious curries on offer every night or lurking in the fridge, she hadn't been surprised by the extra roll of flesh on her stomach. She quite liked the feel of it, squidging against her waistband – it felt like protection. During her marriage to Tara's father she had been numb from the neck down for most of the time. With Toby, spring had invaded her every pore, the rebirth spectacular after a long winter. And now this: reaching self-consciously for the sheet before he turned around again, an adolescent covering-up for a woman of her age. The absurdity of it. Surely they weren't going to sink into that tired cliché: young man wearies of old flesh. She knew him better than that. And he must know that if she sniffed any scent of that on him, she would fight it with every ageing tooth and nail.