Civil Lines
Page 1
CIVIL LINES
Radhika Swarup
For Amarendra,
who believed when I wouldn’t.
I
Tasha-di had called so early that even now, hours later, I wasn’t sure I had spoken to her.
My phone had flashed fluorescent—a night-time precaution mandated by Benjamin’s light sleeping—and as I reached for it, I thought I saw an Indian number on the display. I swallowed hard. It wasn’t Maya. No, it wasn’t her number, and besides, she and I weren’t in the habit of phoning each other. There would be a joke shared by email or WhatsApp, or contact on a birthday, but beyond that, no real communication.
I blinked groggily, staring at the display. I couldn’t think of anyone who would call me at this hour. The phone stopped ringing. It instantly burst into colour again, and I rushed to answer it. The voice at the other end spoke my name softly, and with some hesitation, but there was no mistaking its identity.
‘Tasha-di?’
‘It must be early at your end,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I should have waited.’
She spoke more haltingly than I remembered, her voice breaking mid-speech, and I asked her if she was all right.
‘No,’ Tasha-di said. ‘No,’ she repeated, and then, ‘I’m worried about Maya.’
I couldn’t remember the last time I had spoken to Tasha-di. Di, I thought. Older sister, but the truth was, she was Ma’s sister, and that too by marriage. She really was Papa’s controversial cousin; a firebrand liberal, a feminist before feminism went mainstream, and a woman who had run away from an unhappy marriage and insouciantly weathered all the scandal that ensued. She was marginally older than Ma, but Ma had always called her Tasha-di, and when Maya and I came along, so had we. She was an older sister to a generation or more, and now she roused me from my sleep to talk to me about my own older sister. ‘Siya,’ she was saying.
‘Tasha-di, it’s so nice to hear your voice.’
‘Good, good,’ she said perfunctorily. Her voice was back to its usual gruffness. ‘Now listen, Siya.’
‘Tasha-di.’
‘You sure you’re up?’ and I knew she was thinking of our childhood when I would resist the mornings, pulling the covers over my head even as the day’s heat rose. They would come in, one after the other, Papa, Ma, and Tasha-di on her visits, parting the curtains, switching off the air-conditioning, and then the low hanging fan in an attempt to rouse me. I would refuse to rise, even as the sunlight streamed in and the room grew clammy, until finally, Ma would sit herself down next to me, and with infinite tenderness, peg my nose with her fingers. How I would then squeal, spluttering for breath, sitting bolt upright, telling Ma she could have killed me. Tasha-di, watching from the doorway, would smile, ‘But she got you up, my darling.’
‘Siya?’
‘I’m up,’ I said to her. ‘Tell me about Maya.’
‘When did you last speak to her?’
I fell silent, but the truth was clear. I couldn’t remember when I had last spoken to my sister.
I had only remembered Maya’s birthday on the day itself. I had been at a café choosing my lunch, and the person in front of me had ordered a coronation chicken roll, a combination so derived from India, and so equally divorced from any real concept of it that I smiled. How Maya would hate it.
And then I started.
It was the second of March. I took out my phone to confirm the date, and saw that it was past two in the afternoon. It would be nearing dinnertime in India. The woman in front of me was vacillating over her drink, and I typed a quick message to Maya:
Happy Birthday to the best sister in the world!
I pressed send, cursing myself for having forgotten, and for having thought of nothing more than a cursory message. Had anyone else remembered to mark the day? Had there been cake bought, or the luridly bright balloons she had always loved? I would order something to send to her—half a dozen pineapple pastries, or some flowers. Something to show I cared. The queue cleared, and I stepped forward to place my order.
The day turned out to be a long one. The press had heard reports of store closures, and my phone was ringing until late in the evening. It was past ten by the time I returned home hungry and crabby, and the thought of Maya had slipped my mind.
‘Siya,’ came the call, Tasha-di’s voice impatient. ‘When did you last speak to your sister?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied. There was a sigh across the phone, and I knew I was being judged. The silence stretched thin, and I wondered if Tasha-di had hung up. But there it was, another sigh, and I said, ‘We haven’t spoken in a while.’
‘I’m worried about her, Siya.’
‘Is she ok?’
‘That’s just it,’ said Tasha-di, the softness returning to her voice, and I began to worry. How long had it been since we had last spoken? Had it been this year? When Ma was alive, the main days were marked—birthdays, Diwali, the turn of the year—but now, as I thought of when I had last spoken to my older sister, I realised I couldn’t pin down a date. I had last seen her in India, when Ma’s affairs were being dealt with, and she had been fine. Tight-lipped, unwilling to show frailty, but fine. I had asked her to come to London with me, for a holiday, for a break from the house and its ghosts, but she had refused. She had the family around her—Tasha-di, the cousins who remained in India, and the house. And, I thought, Maya was Maya. Inscrutable, obstinate, slow to embrace change, but essentially resilient. She would be fine. ‘I’ll call her,’ I said. ‘I’m sure you’re worrying about nothing.’
‘Siya,’ Tasha-di was saying, ‘Maya has retreated into herself since your mother’s passing. She was always quiet, but I thought that was your Ma’s influence. But the girl hasn’t written an article in months, and anytime I offer to visit, she tells me she’s busy.’
I tried to think of something positive to say. Maya would be fine. And yet, I was back in the past, trying to think of the last time we had spoken. How long had it been since Ma’s death? A little over a year. We must have spoken recently, must have messaged each other a joke that Ma would have disapproved of. Ma, I thought, and then, ‘When did you last see her?’
‘That’s just it,’ said Tasha-di. ‘I can’t remember.’
The room was still shrouded in the night. I looked at the window as we spoke, and saw that a light rain had begun to fall. The window was open an inch, and I shivered as the wind blew in. Such weather, and just as spring was beginning to flex its muscles! Just yesterday, I had found daffodils sprouting out in the pavement outside the flat, like so many wayward weeds, and had found myself filled with hope. The air had been crisp, and though they had swayed in the breeze, they had remained sturdy. I had found myself laughing, smiling at passers-by, but by the evening, chill had settled in the air.
I watched the rain splatter against the windows of my room, bringing a fine mist, and I rose to shut the window.
‘Yes, Tasha-di,’ I said as she told me I needed to get in touch. ‘I’ll do more,’ I promised. ‘I really will.’
I looked out again. It was a deluge now, the downpour, like the Indian monsoon, until my ears were suffused with the noise. It would be the work of a moment to look up a flight. I could be in India within a day. Benjamin could wait; my job search could too. Then I blinked as a raindrop splattered against my hand and shook my head. I was rushing to conclusions. Tasha-di’s alarm was ludicrous and Maya was fine. I wasn’t needed. My sister was fine.
And my life was here. Maya would have to get used to being without Ma, but that would have to be her solitary journey. I could provide a distraction, a stay of loneliness, but no concrete assistance. The thought of my upping sticks just because neither of us had thought to contact Maya was as needlessly self-indulgent as my aunt’s night-time call.
We must have exchanged parting pleasantries. I must have found my way off the call, and then, improbable as it was, I must have found my way back to sleep, as I found myself waking up long after my usual time. My back hurt, and I saw that I had slept in an awkward position. Had I been in India, Ma would have massaged my neck. The thought of Ma brought with it the memory of her passing, and I gulped. It was still new to me, in spite of our silences. For years now, we had barely spoken. Any interaction we did have was usually bookended with fights. There were stilted calls on birthdays or Diwalis, then a desert of quiet. And yet, after a year of her passing, the thought that I would never wake to rage against her filled me with a sadness I couldn’t quite understand. I could laugh. No, I could cry. All this emotion for a mother I had neither looked after nor missed.
II
We had fought the last time we spoke. It had been three months before her passing, or maybe six; I forget. The weather had been cold, and the day overcast, and though it wasn’t one of the usual days for reaching out, I had called the landline at home.
It was slowly starting to grow clear to me that the business I worked in didn’t have a future. All around me, I saw the casualties of the malaise hitting the UK high streets. Stores closed, jobs were lost, and in the head office too, I saw endless colleagues look around for new opportunities. Every week, a friend handed in their resignation, and their position wasn’t filled again. The rest of us worked as we pleased. We weren’t working to deadlines any longer, and there appeared to be no one around to give us direction.
It was an unsettling time, and though I wasn’t in the habit of unburdening myself to Ma, I wanted to hear someone ask after me. Still, my expectations were low; it was a weekend, and the two were sure to be busy. And yet, Ma had picked up on the first ring, surprising me, and as I stumbled for a reason for the call, she asked me, ‘How are you, Siya?’
There it was, the question, some interest expressed, but it caught me off-guard. ‘I, uh, well,’ I began, but she was already carrying on. There was work that needed to be done to the wiring of the house, and she worried about giving builders access to the home.
I broke in, more forcefully than I intended. ‘Ma…’
‘I don’t even know how long it will take…’
‘Ma.’
‘And the mess…’
‘Ma,’ I said again. My voice must have risen, as Ma paused. ‘Ma,’ I said again, and then, as I wondered what to say, I stopped. Too much had happened, and too much time had elapsed since we had confided in each other. And as far as Ma knew, I was happy with my life in England. It had been years since she asked about my plans to marry, and whenever she asked me how I was, my responses were monosyllabic. And now that I needed to ask for advice, I didn’t know how to broach the topic. ‘Siya,’ Ma was saying, her voice impatient, and I quickly blurted out, ‘that house is too big for the both of you, Ma.’
A shocked silence followed. I knew I had made a mistake the moment I had spoken the words. This was not the time to bring up the issue, and Ma was sure to think I was after my inheritance. I had only spoken as a diversion from my worries, but the truth was she rattled around the house, avoiding the stairs, ignoring cracks in the wall, and missing leaks and crumbling plaster. The truth was it was a house built for another time. The servant’s wing at the back of the house itself was over five times the size of my London flat, and had once housed families of retainers. Those same quarters now housed Shanti, our old nanny and Ma’s most faithful companion.
‘Na, na,’ Ma was saying. I could hear the irritation in her voice. ‘Leave it.’
‘But Ma,’ I said. ‘You know I’m right. It was too big for us even when Maya and I were young.’
‘Leave it, na,’ Ma said, adding the words that always ended all our arguments. ‘You and your sister can do as you please after I’m dead and gone.’
Maya hadn’t been party to the argument, but her presence hung over the conversation. She had sat right next to Ma, I knew, on the musty sofa outside our bedrooms, or on the straight backed dining chairs on the ground floor, her truest support and champion, the voice on her shoulder, her angel, her one true, unwavering, unquestioning confidante and child.
My fingers hovered over the phone through the day, and though I dialled the Delhi home’s number several times, I always disconnected the phone before it could ring.
It wasn’t a big deal, just a catch-up. I wasn’t moving to India, after all. It was just a chat. But we hadn’t spoken in months, and I was wary of breaking the succour of the walls that we had so carefully built around us.
My phone rang in the early evening. I fretted it was Tasha-di ringing to scold me, but I needn’t have worried. It was Benjamin, calling as he often did as he finished his work for the day. ‘My fridge is empty,’ he announced. ‘Do you fancy meeting up for dinner?’
I paused. He was still living an adolescent’s life, letting someone else feed him, refusing to take responsibility for the future, not thinking of my needs, and I knew we couldn’t carry on as we were. Something had to give, but then he laughed, nagging me to go out for dinner with him, and I found myself giving in and giving way to him.
Benjamin had studied the menu by the time I arrived, and had suggestions for what I would enjoy. It was a new place we were trying out, a restaurant in his neighbourhood, and as the waiter—Italian, effeminate in his show—ushered me to our table, he said, ‘Your boyfriend has just arrived.’
Benjamin looked up at the term. He didn’t respond, but I could see the word bothered him. I smiled. He hated classification of any sort: boyfriend, relationship, commitment, family, marriage. Expectations made him feel claustrophobic. He had told me when we had first met that he performed poorly in exams for the same reason, and cited his mediocre degree from his mediocre university as proof of his resistance to labels. ‘Who is to tell me that I do or do not understand Shakespeare or Beowulf? Who is to tell me that I can or can’t love or care for somebody?’
I had wondered then if his explanation had been a coded warning, that it was I who would have to ward off expectations. I sighed and looked across the table. Benjamin was telling me he had a piece due in the following week, and that he would have to spend the weekend on it.
‘I won’t be around much for a few days,’ he said apologetically. He didn’t ask about my progress with my job search. In part, he assumed I would share any news that arose, and in part, I suspected, he didn’t want to put a dampener on the evening. I had been unemployed for several months now, and though I had been casting my CV out for at least a year, I remained unemployed.
The vigour with which I scanned job sites had dimmed of late, but it was a dispiriting process. I had to personalise each covering letter, researching the company and the role and setting out my unique suitability for the job, and often, I wouldn’t even be called in for an interview. More often than not, I wouldn’t even get a response to my application, which had a knock-on impact on my willingness to keep applying for jobs that I was never going to be considered for.
My time away from employment hampered me too. My CV now had a dreaded gap in it, and away from the structure of an office routine, I no longer showered first thing in the morning, no longer needed to get dressed as soon as I was up, and no longer saw the need to log on to job sites before the working day began. I grew lethargic, and the few jobs that did come on to the market were filled before I could so much as register my interest. My early failures paralysed me, and now, my paralysis ensured my failure.
I watched Benjamin as he complained about work. ‘It’s just as well,’ I said. And as he looked up, bemused, I added, ‘You being busy this weekend. I need to get a move on with my job applications.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. He set his bread stick down on the table and took h
old of my hand. ‘Something will turn up.’
I shrugged.
‘It will.’
‘Maybe.’ I could see him frown. There it was, the dampener cast over our evening. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ I carried on. His hand had been snaking back to his bread, but now he looked at me. ‘I can’t really afford my flat.’
He looked away. He didn’t speak for an instant, for longer, then as I refused to elaborate, he nodded. ‘No,’ he said.
He’d chosen the flat with me after my last tenancy ran out. It was a two bed flat, larger and more central than my last place, and though nothing had been articulated, he had enthused about the space, telling me we would be able to entertain better there, and that we would be able to have guests over to stay, and I had assumed he had wanted to move in. But then, he hadn’t said anything, and I hadn’t asked. Now he nodded as I told him I couldn’t justify the flat’s expense, but no solution appeared to strike him either. ‘No,’ he said again, nodding sagely, and I marvelled at how civilised our exchange was. This is what our interaction consisted of, nods and shrugs and polite agreement. I tiptoed around the edges of my discontent, and if he ever felt any cause for complaint, he never let on. There was no space for disagreement in our interaction.
‘The lease,’ I told him, ‘runs out next quarter. I’m not going to renew it.’
‘No,’ he said, breaking off a chunk of his breadstick. ‘No, I don’t think it makes any sense to.’
Laughter drifted up towards us from the other diners, the sound of someone else’s happiness, and I nodded. All this hate Benjamin professed for classification, when he had never paused to ask how I felt about the phrases he was so disdainful of. Boyfriend. Relationship. Commitment. Family. Marriage.
‘In any case,’ I said. He looked up, surprised. All the big blows had been landed already, I saw him think. The lack of a job, my giving up the flat. What else was left? ‘Tasha-di called earlier today.’