by Meera Syal
‘You see, everything very convenient for you. Pharmacy, grocery, foot doctor, suitings and shirtings boutique. No need even to leave the complex. Perfect for your restful retirement, hena, Madam?’
Fifteen years ago, she and Prem were still healthy working people, confident that they would carry their enthusiasm for life and fully functioning limbs into retirement. They made their plans over their kitchen table as the British winter sank its sneaky fangs into their bones: April to September in London, summer holidays with Shyama and Tara, doing all the touristy things they never seemed to have time for while they worked and lived in the capital – Madame Tussauds, tea at the Ritz. Then October onwards, back to Delhi, catching up with family, until the December damp and pollution set off their chesty complaints, and so off to South India – almost another exotic country to North Indians like themselves: coconut fish curry in Kerala, maybe even a peek at the saucy cave statues. Enjoy their free time and the money they had been working all their lives to amass, the golden carrot after the immigrant’s donkey work, munching finally on the future together.
Sita paused for breath on the landing. Fifteen years ago she could have run up these stairs. Ten years of fighting for the flat they had never spent a night in had aged them both prematurely. She could feel it, see it in Prem’s face beside her. He wore the same expression he always did when it came to anything to do with this dispute, whether it was one of the many international phone calls conducted at unsociable hours, or scanning and emailing duplicates of complex legal documents, or simply listening to one of their friends tentatively enquiring if there had been ‘any good news …?’ ‘Long-suffering’ was too bland a term for what she saw in the eyes of this gentle, generous man with whom she had shared her life for over fifty years. This was not about the loss of money; it was about the betrayal of a brother whom he had trusted. What price could you put on a man’s loss of faith? Prem’s brother, Yogesh, could answer that: such a bargain he’d got for the sale of a sibling bond.
Sita reached for Prem’s arm and they laughed at each other’s wheezy hai-hais as they negotiated the final few steps.
‘So, the good news is that we are listed number three for Friday’s hearings.’ Ravi Luthra beamed at them from behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. Ravi didn’t actually need to wear glasses at all, but he hoped they would lend him some sorely needed gravitas and so had purchased a pair from a young man in the mall with a stupid haircut. This self-consciously cool-dude type had assured him that many young executives were choosing intellectual eyewear to enhance their chances of promotion. Promotion wasn’t an issue for Ravi. His father, Luthra Senior, had had to virtually threaten his son with physical violence to make him study law at college so he could begin the process of taking over the family firm. The promise of a hard slap from the back of his hand was undoubtedly exacerbated by Ravi’s announcement towards the end of his law studies that he wanted to pursue an acting career. This then set off a chain reaction amongst the entire extended family, fuelled by months of nervous fainting fits and fundamentalist-level prayer sessions led by his heaving-bosomed mother. His father had gone into total meltdown at the news, infuriated that nothing seemed to sway Ravi from his embarrassingly clichéd Bollywood fantasy. Unfortunately, his son had enjoyed some minor success in the uni drama soc, listening to too many hangers-on telling him that he had that certain star quality and he should most definitely give it a go, yaar, why not?
‘It’s not all escapist-fantasy, shake-your-asses-at-the-masses movies nowadays,’ Ravi had argued with him. ‘The independent film sector is doing some really political ground-breaking stuff. All the major US studios are pouring money into bases over here … and with all the cable channels coming in, we’re considered cool now. I mean, actually in fashion. Indian actors are winning Emmy awards over in America! This is the new India, Pops!’
Luthra Senior wished he could explain how many times he had heard that very same line of B-movie dialogue over the last thirty years. ‘Everything has changed and nothing has changed, my son,’ Luthra Senior had told him. ‘And besides, take a good look in the mirror. You are skinny, with an unfortunate nose and a squeaky voice, and you will receive not a rupee from me unless you take the gift I and God are offering you. Furthermore,’ he threw down his paternal trump card, ‘look at the filmi folk – most of the stars are simply the kids of famous stars themselves. All they are doing is following in the family business, because that is how business works. So why isn’t that good enough for you, hah?’
This observation, more than any of his mother’s fainting fits, had made Ravi pause for thought. And the longer he paused, the further his thespian dreams had receded, until he had found himself sitting in the chair once occupied by his father (who had retreated to a more comfortable office upstairs), playing with a pair of spectacles he didn’t really need.
‘Number three!’ he repeated cheerily. ‘So we will definitely get before the judge this time.’
‘Definitely?’ Sita repeated. ‘Because that’s what you said last time, and—’
‘Hahn-ji, I know, but this is a very complex case. Jarndyce versus Jarndyce, that is the legal system over here. Bleak House is, in my opinion, Dickens’s masterpiece. A friend of mine did a one-man condensed version of it in Bengali. With some elements of Kathakali dance also. It was a total hit. You have read it, no?’
‘No, but I have read every bit of paperwork a hundred times over and I can tell you, there is not one mistake in there. Not this time. And not last time.’ Sita fixed him with a steely stare. ‘So can you explain why our forms were returned as “incorrect” when we both know they were completely correct? After ten years, we have had a lot of practice in filling them in, hena?’
Ravi paused. He felt for these very sweet people, he really did. God knows he had dealt with some very difficult NRI clients over the last few years, all of them choking with fury over some stolen land here, some poached property there, banging their fists on his executive desk and demanding justice. Those who remembered living here got it much more quickly than their kids did, the real foreigners with their English accents and their imported bottled water. The second-generation sahibs and memsahibs would look appalled when their parents handed over paper bags full of money for the various bribes that had to be paid; the bags would include a substantial portion of his own fee (perfectly reasonable in any dual economy, the black and the white side by side), then they would be dipped into by his clerk, then handed over to the court clerks, passed on to their peons, the bailiff and his assistants or whatever goondas might be needed to remove the squatters, maybe a locksmith; most certainly some would find its way to the judge (discreetly disguised as necessary administrative costs), and if the police had to get involved, well, then get out the second emergency bag, because there would be a lot of them and you wouldn’t want to get into any kind of argument with them, or you might find yourself sitting in jail on some made-up charge, waiting for your traumatized kids to scrabble round for their inheritance funds to get you out in time for your flight home. It wasn’t a case of like it or not, it was just how it was.
Of course, he himself would have loved to see all bribery and corruption banished in the new India. He would love to be able to hand in a form and know it would reach its destination simply because people did their jobs properly without the need for a not-so-voluntary donation, to be able to get his daughter into a good school, have his wi-fi connected, call the police when in danger – if he could do all these things without recourse to the paper bag, how simple and clean life would be. But if everyone else was doing it, what kind of a fool would he be to say no and be shoved to the back of the queue? Just as these two people sitting before him had been.
‘Sita-ji.’ Ravi cleared his throat gently. ‘As I have explained to you many times, there is a way of resolving this matter much more quickly …’
‘No.’ Prem finally spoke, staring Ravi down. ‘We have already made enough … concessions.’ Prem nodded his head toward
s Ravi’s briefcase, where he had just hidden a fat bundle of money wrapped up in a copy of the Sunday Telegraph.
Even getting these people to pay cash for a third of Ravi’s fee had been a struggle, until he had explained that they were welcome to shop around, but every other solicitor he knew would be asking for at least half in undeclared paisa. But Ravi had felt an instinctive pang of pity for this particular couple when his father had handed over their case to him some eight years ago. They were now officially his most long-standing clients, and although it was entirely in his interest to keep this case going for as long as possible, even Ravi could see that time was not on their side and something had to give.
‘Theklo-ji,’ Ravi continued. ‘Compared to what you have already spent on this case, further necessary … funding will be minimal. It just means—’
‘I know what it means,’ Prem snapped. ‘I lived here till I was twenty-two, baccha, my memory’s not gone yet.’
‘But jaan, just listen to him. All he’s saying—’ Sita began.
‘No. I can’t …’
Prem sighed deeply. He suddenly felt bone-tired and desperately thirsty. He wondered if Sita had given him all his correct medication that morning. They had left in such a rush, worrying they would be late. Late! How English they had become. Normally Sita had each of his nine daily pills lined up in separate named compartments in his little blue dispenser so there could be no mistake. They had one each, his and hers, a phrase that used to apply only to towels and toothbrushes, pillows and passports. Now it was drugs. Low blood pressure for her, high blood pressure for him, diabetic meds, heart tablets, her osteoporosis, his angina, musical-sounding diseases joining them in their long duet. He didn’t care how many pills he had to pour down his throat, as long as they kept him alive long enough to see this resolved, but on his terms. In all his life, he had never borrowed money from anyone, although he had handed a fair amount out, never left a bill unpaid, never drawn government benefit, never bought anything he couldn’t pay for upfront (except his houses, and even then he paid each mortgage off before they sold again). He had never been malicious or mendacious in any of his business dealings or on his tax returns, had never had a dispute with his many friends and neighbours. He had never been to Nepal (he had always dreamed of seeing the Himalayas), never stayed in a five-star hotel, never been on a cruise (despite the fact that so many of their retired contemporaries seemed to spend half their lives seeing ten countries in eight days without ever getting off the boat). He had never played poker in a smoky nightclub, something he had dreamed of doing in the brief period when he had passed through Soho, walking from Swiss Cottage to make his early shift at an office in Charing Cross, dodging groups of bleary-eyed punters swaying out of various side-street dives, smelling of cigarettes, stale whisky and male camaraderie. Prem thought it was the most exciting, decadent scent he had ever encountered. He had never bought a diamond ring for his wife, the only thing she had ever expressed a yearning for, and then only because she had been exclaiming over the newspaper pictures of Burton and Taylor’s second marriage to each other. ‘Of course it’s an Indian diamond,’ she had sighed. ‘Look at the size of it!’
In short, Prem had lived his life believing in the goodness of humanity and the natural justice of the universe, believing that those who worked hard and played fair would be rewarded in kind. That every sacrifice he made, every benefit of the doubt he accorded others, would surely return to him. Not because of karma or fate, the usual suspects, but because people were innately decent. And family, well, they were the best kind of people, because blood ties were the purest and strongest of all.
So when things had first started to go downhill with the flat, when his repeated and kindly requests for Sheetal and her family to move out, as they had promised, had been ignored, naturally Prem turned to his little brother to sort things out. After all, it had been Yogesh’s request to allow his daughter and son-in-law to move in, just for a while. Therefore Yogesh would now have to be bad cop to Prem’s gently apologetic good cop. Yogesh could let his daughter move into one of the three properties he owned, and Prem and Sita could finally begin their retirement plans. So it was a total shock when Yogesh washed his hands of the situation, when he turned to Prem with that lopsided grin, fingers splayed in resignation, and said, ‘What can I do, bhaiya? I can’t throw them out myself, can I?’
Prem would always remember that moment, the slow, chilling realization that everything he had believed in was broken. Even now, the recollection made him dizzy with nausea. To have thought so well of the world with a wide-open heart, only to have it ripped out by your own brother. It was shortly after this that he had his first angina attack. So how could he explain to this puppy-lawyer, with his designer pens and unconvincing spectacles, that without some shred of honour to cling to he would be swept away on a murky existential tide. That his refusal to grease every outstretched palm was the only way he could survive this journey. That he must try to believe that justice could and would be done, or what was the point of continuing? Otherwise the whole of his life would have been a terrible waste. He wanted to be able to stand in front of a judge with what was left of his soul intact.
At this point, all he could muster as an answer was, ‘It’s not acceptable to me. Once the courts hear our case, they will see the truth. We must do things the right way.’
Whose right way? Ravi thought with a hot flash of irritation, before smiling and pretending to make some notes, mainly so he would not have to look at Sita’s pained, deflated face. He wished that Prem was not in the room, so he could inform her that he was sure this family they were trying to evict had been busily paying their own bribes left, right and centre in order to scupper the case. Misplaced papers, last-minute schedule changes, incorrectly filled-in forms – all of these ‘mistakes’ arranged and paid for by the other side. The clerk who had performed these sleights of hand would not have felt bad about doing so either. Had Prem and Sita offered more money, they would be sitting in that damned apartment right now, watching soap operas and having a foot massage.
Before he left that afternoon, as he passed the bundled case papers on to his peon, Ravi removed a roll of cash from his briefcase and told his boy to make sure the court clerk received it, with instructions to place their hearing at the top of the day’s schedule. At least he could open the first door for Prem and Sita: after that, it really was out of his hands and straight into God’s.
Tara shivered at her open window. The start of spring was still a couple of weeks away and mist hung over the distant parkland, grey breath over dull green. No sign of the parakeets today. She tapped on her keyboard, the Skype dial-up tone connecting this time, and waited until Sita’s alarmed face appeared on screen.
‘Hello, Nanima?’
‘Hellooo? Tara, beti? Can you see me?’
‘Yes, I can see you. And hear you, so you don’t need to shout.’
‘Hellooo? But why can’t I see you then? Can you see me? Hellooo?’
‘Nanima … stop shouting a moment. Have you pressed the video-activate icon?’
‘The what?’
‘It’s a little icon … a button with a picture of a video camera on it.’
‘Where is that? I can’t see anything. Darling? Prem, janoo! Can you get me my glasses?’
‘Wait. Nanima? Nanima! Can you get Bitoo to help? Or anyone there under seventy-five? I’ll stay logged in, OK?’
Tara sighed, angling the laptop away from her as she stubbed out her roll-up cigarette on the window-sill and threw it into the empty beer can at her feet. She could hear a cacophony of Punjabi squawks off-screen in what she assumed was the sitting room in her uncle’s house in Delhi. Despite having given her grandparents several lessons in how to use Skype before they had left for India, every time they attempted to hook up online, it was the same old shouty pantomime of confusion and chaos.
Shyama had explained to her that in the dark days before computers, the only way of reaching anyone quickly
in India was the landline phone, when it worked. Sometimes it wasn’t even a phone in their relatives’ own house but one of their luckier neighbours would act as an informal emergency service for the whole street. So you’d call up sobbing to ask if Auntie X or Uncle Y really had died, and find yourself having a bellowed conversation with a complete stranger, who would then have to send a small child/servant/dog with a note pinned to its collar to your family house for news, while you waited and wept.
‘That’s why they still shout, even on Skype. Now everyone’s got a computer and a mobile, no one bothers with landline phones any more. Shame, really, I used to quite enjoy the drama of it all.’
Typical of my mother, thought Tara. Anything to make life just that bit more complicated.
‘Tara, didi?’
Tara started as her cousin Bitoo’s buck-toothed grin filled her screen.
‘Now I think we can see you – you can still see us here?’
‘Hi, Bitoo! Yes, finally, it’s all working. How are you?’
‘Fine, didi, very fine.’
Bitoo grinned again, his startlingly large Adam’s apple bobbing up and down nervously as he cleared his throat. He had never been one for much conversation. Nearest in age to Tara out of all the cousins, they had been thrown together on the two occasions when Tara had visited India, when they were both primary-school age. Bitoo was, of course, his family nickname. Most Punjabi families had a Bitoo, or a Kaka or a Goody or a Cuckoo – generic affectionate monikers for the cutie-pie younger children. Not so cute, Tara mused, when you’re an unconfident teenager hoping to impress the lay-deez. Bitoo adjusted the screen, revealing behind him the usual display of garlanded photos of ancestors who had passed on to their next lives: Tara’s great-grandparents and a couple of younger family members who had been taken too early, all wearing the same glum expressions, as if reluctant to be included in this morbid gallery of the long-gone. It had been years since Tara had visited the house, but she found it comforting to see the same familiar faces on the whitewashed wall.
