by Meera Syal
‘They left that baby in a hospital for three months. The first vulnerable twelve weeks of its life in an institutional cot, waiting for its status to be rubber-stamped somewhere. It’s inhuman.’
‘You sound like you’re batting for the other side now!’ laughed Vinod, pausing to gulp down something fizzy, judging by the gentle belches he was now trying to disguise. ‘This is virgin territory for humanity, no? Where there are no precedents, things will go wrong – or take time to sort out. But it was sorted out, wasn’t it?’
‘Sorted out?’ Dr Passi laughed dryly, giving up on her hair and twisting it expertly into a loose bun with one hand. ‘The last I heard, they finally allowed the baby to go home with its Japanese grandmother on a one-year humanitarian visa. That is not a solution, Vinod, that’s a stopgap. Once the year is over, what happens?’
‘Well, the new regulations should cheer you up then. If they pass this bill, surrogacy will only be open to heterosexual couples married for two years minimum and only those from countries where surrogacy is legal, and surrogate children will be given automatic citizenship.’
‘I read the email, thank you, Master-ji.’
‘So be happy, bhain-ji! You and I will lose half our business, but as long as they keep out the living-in-sin dirty types, the sad singletons too ugly to find a partner and the queers, it’s all worth it, no?’
Vinod paused for dramatic effect; when he used to practise at the bar, this was always his favourite technique – to ask the killer rhetorical question and let it hang in the air whilst the chump in the witness box had to work out whether they should bother answering it. The kind of when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife? quip which sounded good in John Grisham novels but didn’t always translate well in court. The one time he had put this very question to a man up for domestic assault, the man had spat at him, saying, ‘Ey, bastard! Why don’t you start beating yours? Might help you grow some balls.’ And he still had the cheek to plead not guilty.
Vinod had ducked out of criminal work soon after that. He found it too depressing defending the indefensible, prosecuting the pathetic and the dispossessed. Drawing up contracts and dealing with embassies may have seemed a come-down after the drama of a courtroom, but at least there were more happy endings. As he got older, he realized it wasn’t multi-vitamins or pounding the treadmill that kept him going, it was what pulsed out of every prospective parent he welcomed into his office: hope.
‘Renu? Maybe now’s a good time to just help as many people as we can. While we can. Tell some of them we may be their last chance at these prices. No?’
‘Let’s talk later.’ Dr Passi sighed and hung up.
Shyama sat upright on a sofa in the hotel lobby feeling slightly nauseous, caused by a combination of the over-zealous air-conditioning, which was raising goosebumps on her bare arms, and the anxious churning in her stomach. God, it felt like some sort of surreal job interview. Will they like us? Will we like her, this as-yet-unknown woman who might be carrying our child? She had to keep reminding herself that she and Toby were the paying customers, the discerning clients, not desperate refugees who had travelled five thousand miles in search of an unfulfilled dream. Ironic, she mused, that she was making the same optimistic pilgrimage in reverse that had taken her own parents to Britain fifty years ago. For them, until recently, India had remained Back Home, the very reason they had invested in the flat: it was the place to which they would return to warm their old bones until the day when their ashes would be scattered on the Ganges, joining all their ancestors before them, reunited in the river that reputedly sprang from Lord Shiva’s flowing hair. But having seen her parents spend the prime years of their retirement locked in this endless property battle, Shyama wondered if they would ever repossess that piece of land that represented their final homecoming. And if they failed, how would they cope with the bitter disappointment of all that wasted time? If she and Toby didn’t leave India with the promise of a baby, they would have to ask themselves the very same question.
Shyama checked her watch: the clinic’s courtesy minibus should have been here ten minutes ago. They had rushed down, both still damp-haired from the shower, Shyama blaming Toby for leaping on her and worried they had missed their lift.
‘Ah, come on!’ he joshed. ‘We’re on holiday! Spontaneous holiday tumbles are why anyone bothers to go abroad.’
‘Is that how you feel about … this? Does it feel like a holiday to you?’ she said, surprised.
‘Well, I mean … let’s try and think of it that way. That’s all I’m saying. Might be our last one without a kid in tow, eh?’
Toby sauntered over to the concierge’s desk and within a minute was deep in conversation with a pretty young receptionist, the air conditioning teasing the ends of her hair, the taut muscles in Toby’s arms flexing, then relaxing as he went through some apparently hilarious mime. For someone who had never been abroad before, he seemed entirely at ease. True, he still looked like a turnip transplanted to a hothouse, squatly solid amongst the fine-boned North Indians attending to him, but he wasn’t wilting under the shock of the new. He actually seemed to be thriving in this exotic climate, enjoying his role as the stranger in a strange land. The receptionist laughed again, throwing her shoulders back to reveal a smooth unlined neck. She’s flirting with him, Shyama realized with a shock, and what’s more, he’s flirting back. Toby had that lazy smile on his face, legs apart, fingers now looped into his belt hooks, all thrust and grin. It never ceased to amaze her how easily men succumbed to such obvious flattery. What had Priya said? Tell them they’re wonderful a couple of times a day, even if you don’t mean it, and they’re putty in your hands.
Shyama’s old marital battle scars wouldn’t let her do that. After so many years of begging for affection, she found it hard to lavish excessive praise on anyone else. An uncomfortable shadow of her last conversation with Lydia flitted across her consciousness; they hadn’t spoken properly for ages, not since that testy exchange in Lydia’s kitchen, although she knew that Tara and Lydia were still in contact. There had been an awkward bon voyage kind of supper arranged at Priya’s insistence, where the three of them had gone through the motions of being comfortable old friends, with Priya pushing them together insistently like an overbearing mother on a doomed playdate. Something had broken between the two of them, something to do with Lydia’s opinion of Shyama as a mother – specifically, as Tara’s mother. Well, Tara and Toby knew that she loved them. She shouldn’t have to spell it out with bells, whistles and cheerleader pom-poms. And if Toby wanted to dimple his way across New Delhi, her tickling his tummy, then chucking him a biscuit wasn’t going to make much difference.
Toby finally turned round and saw her watching him. He waved cheerily, not a trace of guilt on his face, the same eager, happy-to-see-her Toby, wagging his invisible tail. Yeah, he loves me, was her first thought. And her second, which she erased in a nanosecond: he and the willowy receptionist look more like a couple than we do.
‘Ready to board the baby bus?’ Toby called out, bounding over and indicating the people-carrier with darkened windows waiting on the hotel forecourt. He offered his arm with a mock-gallant bow and Shyama grabbed it gratefully, allowing him to lead her from the chilly interior into the close humidity outside.
Ahead of them, two women were settling themselves on the back seats. Shyama threw them a small smile as she and Toby sat down opposite them, and the car pulled out into the three-lane carriageway outside the hotel. Shyama was grateful that the air conditioning was off and the driver seemed to be happy to rely on the good old-fashioned virtues of open windows and a pleasant breeze.
The traffic was how Shyama remembered it: a cheerful free-for-all of car horns and near misses. The main difference was the number of luxury cars zooming past them – BMWs aplenty, a Lexus or two, a couple of pimped-up Porsches and several Mercedes – all seemingly driven by their owners, busy-looking suited men barking into their mobiles, and stylish women in crisp cotton tops, their oversiz
ed sunglasses making them look like shiny-lipsticked beetles. Overhead the sun was a pale golden disc, a bindi nestling between the wide eyes of the cloudless sky.
The noise of the streets assaulted them through the open windows, swallowing them up like a soundscape: traffic, voices, music, around them, inside them. Shyama was amazed by the number of purpose-built shopping malls that seemed to have sprung up on every other block, dotted with branches of familiar chains: Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, and the more enticing desi fast-food joints serving in five minutes the kind of snacks her mother would spend an hour preparing. Each illuminated window offered a glimpse into a world of glamorous possibilities: Western designer brands of sunglasses, sportswear and shoes vying with the equally expensive homegrown labels, exquisite, intricate jewellery featuring that rose-hued Indian gold whose purity made it almost pliable, homeware and lifestyle boutiques mixing the traditional with the contemporary – linen bedding featuring rustic prints, reclaimed peasant saris fashioned into pouffe covers and table-mats, coffee tables refashioned from the pearl-inlaid wooden doors that once guarded a fallen dynasty’s palace courtyard.
As they paused at traffic lights, Shyama was drawn to a window featuring a spotlit mannequin, one hand on hip, a handbag dangling from the other as if she’d just been caught on her way to some exclusive party. But she was not like the shop dummies Shyama remembered from her last trip – busty, beehived ladies with enigmatic painted smiles, generously filling their figure-hugging blouses or shalwar kameezes, the kind of women who would never turn down pudding and would pinch your cheeks as a conversation opener. Here was the next generation’s model: pert-chested, smooth-stomached, lean-legged, hips meant for skinny jeans and G-strings rather than sitting on sofas and bearing children. Shyama knew that the price tags hanging from the clothes would be sky-high. ‘Ethnic chic’ seemed too insulting a term for it. This was aspirational, envy-inducing glamour: around these islands of exclusivity the people-carrier still dipped over endless potholes, the open drains still stank, temple bells and muezzins still called out to their daily worshippers, street hustlers still limped their ragged way along the queue of waiting cars, offering out-of-date magazines and twisted cones of charcoal-cooked peanuts. The old clichés of ancient, modern, rich and poor were intertwined like long-suffering, mismatched lovers.
But something felt different. The shame had gone, realized Shyama, the weight of the colonial yoke, the embarrassment at the dust on your feet and the things that don’t work or break down or just look second-best, eyes always raised towards Eng-er-land, the West, those who got it right and had it all. The mannequin seemed to regard her with blank superior eyes, telling her, You can’t fob us off any more with your bargain-basement lipsticks bought for your aunties and your Marks and Spencer socks for your uncles, expecting us to ooh-aah at your exotic foreign gifts. Now you are coming to us, nah?
The people-carrier lurched forward, getting a head start on a clump of impatient moped riders, throwing Shyama and Toby forward in their seats. The two other passengers just managed to catch themselves too. The awkward silence broken, they smiled at each other.
‘Can’t believe how expensive everything has got since I last visited,’ Shyama began.
‘Yeah, well, luckily some things are still dirt cheap, or we wouldn’t be here!’ laughed a cheerful American voice. The woman extended her hand. ‘Gill. How you doing?’ Her eyes were ice-blue chips in a lean, healthy face, she had cropped hair, and surprisingly rough calluses briefly scraped the skin on Shyama’s palm. ‘And my partner, Debs.’
Toby nodded and offered his hand to the woman next to Gill, immediately confronted by his own prejudices: this one was way too feminine-looking to be a lesbian. You’re a clod, he berated himself. They don’t all wear dungarees and have moustaches. Debs’s handshake was firm and warm. She had long brown hair loosely tied back in a plait, and a sheen of perspiration on her upper lip, which topped a generous mouth. Hellos were murmured all round. A hint of conspiratorial discomfort hung between them for a moment before Gill broke the silence.
‘Your first time here? At the clinic, I mean.’
Shyama nodded, unsure how much she ought to say.
Toby thankfully jumped in. ‘Yep. And my first time in India.’ He grinned. ‘Really like it so far.’
‘Oh yeah, me and Debs did our fair share of backpacking in our younger days. Never thought we’d be back for a family, but we’ve been really satisfied with the service here. Haven’t we, Debs?’
‘Oh, sure. Dr Passi’s a true visionary. What’s she’s done for us …’
Debs’s voice had an Antipodean upturned lilt, every statement a question, always opening the door, expecting a response. Gill’s answer was to produce her smartphone and quickly tap up a series of pictures featuring her and Debs in various poses with a moon-faced, happy toddler, behind them a blue-gold wash of beach and sea.
‘She’s gorgeous.’ Toby nodded towards Gill. ‘Has your eyes.’
‘And not my nose, thank God!’ Gill laughed. ‘Our donor daddy’s a handsome beast, but we’re hoping our son will have some of Debs’s lush face. It’s her turn next.’
‘Yup.’ Deb grinned. ‘My eggs this time. You’re using yours, or …?’
Shyama flinched. She felt as if someone had just reached over, pulled down her trousers and started poking her with a monkey stick. But there was no malice in the two friendly countenances opposite her. She had left behind the pinched faces and empty eyes of the women with whom she had shared those endless private waiting rooms; her new compatriots exuded vitality and good fortune, discussing eggs and sperm as if they were ordering off a menu. Get a grip, woman, she scolded herself. You’ve come too far to get embarrassed any more.
‘No, I … we’ll be using donor eggs and Toby’s … my husband’s …’
‘Cool. Well, Renu … Dr Passi’s got great contacts. She gets eggs in from a load of European countries as well as here. I guess you guys could go native? Indian eggs, I mean, if you want the baby to look like you?’
‘Gill, honey!’ Debs laid a hand on her knee, leaning forward mock apologetically to Shyama and Toby. ‘In Adelaide, she’s considered subtle. She pissed off everyone we knew in LA so that’s how we ended up in San Diego … Remember how nervous we were first time? Give them a break, honey.’
Shyama was now holding the phone and scrolling through an endless parade of the mummies and their baby. ‘So, you had your baby here – how long ago?’
‘Nadia,’ Gill said proudly. ‘She’s twenty-three months old, so we were last here …?’
‘Two years next week, it will be. We came weeks too early, sort of had a holiday while keeping an eye on Kamini, our baby momma.’ Debs took the phone and stroked the screen with a finger, looking up at Toby briefly. ‘It’s so hard being here without Nadia, though. My mum’s holding the fort. We’re just hoping her brother comes along before her birthday – we so wanted to be back for that, but—’
‘Well,’ offered Gill, ‘we could always ask Dr Passi to bring forward Kamini’s Caesarian if she goes over our deadline.’
Debs threw Gill a brief questioning look.
‘What, Debs? Renu suggested it, it happens a lot. Babies don’t just turn up on schedule, right? And we’ll need a couple of weeks to sort out the paperwork afterwards.’
‘Oh God, don’t get me started on the paperwork,’ sighed Debs, rolling her eyes at Shyama. ‘You’re both British citizens, right?’
Toby nodded. ‘Yeah, so …?’
‘So you shouldn’t have a problem getting the baby home. Just make sure you get in quick with Vinod, Renu’s lawyer, as soon as your surrogate’s sorted. He’s not cheap, but you can’t take any chances with the—’
‘Don’t scare them, Debs,’ interrupted Gill. ‘Look at their faces. It’s going to be fine!’
Shyama’s face felt tight with smiling. Toby’s left foot drummed a jittery beat on the floor of the moving vehicle.
‘Look,’ Gill said kindly. ‘We�
��re here again. Can’t get a better recommendation than that. And some of the crap we’ve heard goes on …’
The rest of the journey passed in a haze of horror-filled anecdotes – of couples presented with the wrong babies due to embryo mix-ups; babies born with incurable diseases and left behind; illiterate surrogates virtually pimped out by their male relatives – stories that would later give Shyama vivid nightmares. She and Toby being handed a screaming bundle, which was then revealed to be a squalling baby with a monkey’s face and too-human tortured eyes. Shyama in a toilet cubicle, desperately trying to stuff a gurgling infant into a leather holdall, hiding the child under layers of application forms, while Toby waited outside, holding their passports as the last plane ever to leave for London prepared to depart. Shyama and Toby, older, but clichéd old, as if arranged by a slapdash make-up artist – over-greyed floury hair, pencilled-in wrinkles, sitting in slippers before a fire and raising their faces as they heard, ‘Bye, Mum! Bye, Dad! Don’t wait up!’ Their eyes resting on their son, five foot two, pebble glasses, flaming-red hair. That one at least made her laugh out loud as it woke her, heart slamming against her chest, sheets coiling round her in a damp tangle. This despite the fact that Gill and Debs had ended every tale of doom with the reassurance that ‘It would never happen under Renu’s watch. She’s the best.’
Shyama and Toby drew up outside the clinic at around the same time that Prem and Sita found themselves once again climbing the dusty stairs to L & L Associates’ reception. The office was tucked away in a shopping complex which had remained reassuringly unchanged over the last twenty years, one of the low-roofed, whitewashed buildings that were once the commercial heart of the apartment complexes of the nineties building boom. Sita remembered how proudly their estate agent had gestured towards the Chambeli Centre as he drove them towards their almost completed flat just a couple of blocks away.
