The House of Hidden Mothers

by Meera Syal

  ‘Doesn’t she do that?’ Priya broke into her reverie.

  ‘It’s not her job!’ Shyama said a little too quickly, and then, ‘But she does, all the time. And the cleaning. I can’t stop her. Toby thinks I’m forcing her to pay for her keep or something. She says she likes to keep busy. She’s devoured all the magazines I’ve given her, and is just starting on the bookshelf. She reads a lot. I don’t expect her to do much else. Anyway, I’m looking round for a replacement cleaner for when … well, as soon as possible.’

  ‘I’m sure Marta would like to earn a few more quid, if you want me to ask her?’ Priya paused. ‘Shyama?’

  ‘Sorry … sorry.’ Shyama sighed and dropped into a chair with a grunt. ‘It’s the whole going-back-to-work-thing … It’s weird … I don’t want to leave her.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t want to leave her with my husband either!’ Priya chuckled.

  ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, come on.’

  ‘No, what?’

  Priya saw the ice in Shyama’s eyes and, for once, swallowed what was on the tip of her tongue. Mainly the name, Corazon – the Spanish au pair she had employed the first year the children were both finally at school full time. Priya had specifically avoided the French or Swedish variety, following advice from other mothers who swore their husbands found just the idea of a girl from either region forbidden and exciting. And, of course, the accents didn’t help, far too seductive. Spanish girls, now they were more like Indians – they lived in extended families, and came from a culture where religion and respect for elders were still part of the fabric of society. And in Priya’s vast experience, most Asian men still got their erotic thrills from the idea of bedding a blonde, pale-skinned beauty, the kind of girl they would never have had a chance with as tumescent youths, the ultimate forbidden fruit and as far away as possible from the kind of women they would end up marrying. Got that one wrong, Priya recalled, remembering the number of times she had come across Anil and Corazon casually chatting in the kitchen, or how often Anil would volunteer for the morning school run, where he would help bundle the kids into the car and have Corazon sitting beside him up front, always revving the car a little too enthusiastically as they pulled out of the drive, and how he’d blushed like a teenager when the Iberian minx had told him over morning porridge that her name meant ‘Heart’. The children had wailed in protest when Priya had sacked her; she’d told Anil she thought they should find someone French after all, as the children would soon be learning it. He, of course, said nothing, but he went into a major sulk for about a month, going out of his way to be as formal and distant as possible with Céleste, the next au pair, who had the voice of Brigitte Bardot and the face of a trucker sucking a lemon. Priya had managed to stop an accident before it happened; Anil, of course, had no idea she was such an expert in these matters, adept at sensing the swell and promise of a budding affair. One day he would thank her. And she knew absolutely that Shyama wouldn’t.

  ‘She’s like our daughter,’ Shyama snapped.

  ‘Right, of course,’ Priya replied.

  ‘Actually,’ Shyama’s face softened, ‘it’s only just occurred to me, but we’ve been doing a bit of sightseeing, and … actually it did feel like when Tara was little again. How we’d just take off in the car and have adventures and she was just so fascinated by everything, even a trip to the car wash or a dash round the supermarket. I’d forgotten how much fun that was.’

  ‘Good practice for when the real thing arrives … Sorry, didn’t mean to call your unborn child a thing, but you know what I mean,’ Priya added quickly.

  Shyama laughed, and Priya breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘I’m used to translating your foot-in-mouth language into English,’ Shyama said. ‘I’m sorry if I’m … I didn’t mean to shut you out for so long, but … this takes a bit of getting used to … But I’m beginning to feel it’s going to be OK. It is, isn’t it?’

  Priya took her oldest friend in her arms. ‘You’re going to have a beautiful baby at the end of this. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, so much.’

  ‘When’s the due date?’

  ‘December – mid December.’

  ‘A baby’s for life, not just for Christmas, eh? Then relax. The hardest part’s out of the way. It’s going to be fine.’

  Mala’s pav bhaji was an unqualified success with the rest of the family. Sita even took a Tupperware of leftovers when she and Prem made their way across the back garden later, a fresh bundle of legal papers under their arms which Toby had spent an hour downloading and printing off as soon as he’d got in from work. Now he was sitting back in his chair, a cold beer in his hand, with that slightly vacant look of fatigue that often descended at this hour.

  Shyama watched as Mala moved around him, clearing up silently. The only time she looked anything like the cliché of the demure Indian housewife was when she was around Toby. He, in turn, never once looked at her. At one point their hands brushed accidentally whilst they both reached for a discarded mug and he stiffened awkwardly.

  Shyama felt less guilty now about snapping at Priya earlier. She adored her, but it was no wonder Priya saw intrigue in every shadow – how long had she been playing away? Although, thinking about it now, it had been some time since Priya had regaled them with any fruity foreign anecdotes. Maybe she’d finally grown up.

  Watching Mala expertly wipe down the draining board, Shyama imagined her standing at her own sink or cutting vegetables in her own kitchen. How hard this woman must have worked throughout her entire young life, for only experienced hands performed domestic tasks so quickly and capably. Shyama remembered what she had first sensed in Mala during that initial meeting in the clinic – her intelligence, her hunger to engage and learn (she found it touching, the way Mala carried that Hindi–English dictionary with her everywhere, its cover already stained with turmeric and smelling faintly of garlic) – and she remembered how, back then, Mala’s surly, silent husband had seemed to drag on her life force like an anchor against an impatient tide. She reminded herself how much Mala had given up and left behind to be standing here in her home. She couldn’t let her wipe sinks for another five months, cooped up like a battery hen, confirming everyone’s prejudices about women like Shyama herself – women who bought a womb as unthinkingly as renting a car for a package holiday.

  ‘Tobes?’ Shyama ruffled the hair at the back of his neck, the baby curls hidden at his hairline.

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Need to talk to you about something.’

  As if on cue, Mala dried her hands on her sari and asked brightly, ‘It is OK I have bath?’

  Shyama waited until they heard the bathroom door slam shut upstairs. ‘She loves her baths, doesn’t she? Twice a day, a minimum of an hour each time … we’re spending a fortune on bubble bath.’

  ‘Still cheaper than the medical bills.’ Toby grimaced as he shifted in his chair and discovered an aching muscle he didn’t know he had.

  ‘She can’t go to the NHS, Tobes, not for antenatal … if it was an emergency …’

  ‘I know. It’s fine.’

  ‘We’re lucky Mum and Dad know so many private doctors, we’re still getting a bit of a discount and—’

  ‘Shyama, honestly, I’m not counting pennies when we’ve come this far. If she’s happy, the baby’s happy. And it’s not for ever.’

  ‘On that note …’ Shyama paused. ‘You know I’m back at work next week, and I was thinking I should take Mala with me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, I think she’s bored and she will be home alone all day.’

  ‘We could do her a Mala flap … like a cat flap, only bigger.’

  ‘Are you listening to me?’

  ‘Well, you do make her sound like a pet …’

  ‘Yes, that’s the point!’ Shyama twisted round to face Toby, who to her surprise wasn’t smiling. ‘She’s clever and she wants to learn, and I want her to take back something tha
t might be useful … She’s going to be a single woman and that’s not going to be easy back in the village.’

  ‘If she goes back.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘To the village,’ Toby corrected himself. At least he seemed to be listening now.

  Shyama ploughed on. ‘She seems to know a lot about skincare – just basic home-remedy stuff really – and when we visited that salon in Gurgaon she seemed to have some good ideas. I was thinking, why not let her just muck in and see what happens?’

  Toby rubbed his eyes slowly, adopting his man-in-deep-thought pose. It used to charm Shyama, how he’d tune out and ponder her bigger suggestions, never wanting to be pushed into anything too quickly. It had taken a good month of conversation to get him to take the whole surrogacy idea on board. But now, she wondered why on earth she needed his permission for this. He was at work all day, why should it bother him?

  ‘I suppose at least you will be able to keep an eye on her,’ he said finally.

  Shyama squeezed his hand, felt the calluses on his palms, all her irritation melting away. How could she forget it was this man, her love for this man, that had brought them here? She wanted to see those work-worn hands cradle their baby’s head, watch his slow smile as he took in their toddler’s first steps, the first time he or she rode a bike, read a sentence, broke their hearts with worry or pride. It was all to come, and she would be the first person he would ever have those experiences with, and hopefully the last. She’d only recently realized that rather than mourning not being able to carry this child herself, she was secretly relieved to be avoiding the nine-month journey from nausea and rusty-mouth to stretch marks, heartburn and piles. Her pregnancy with Tara had been uncomfortable and seemingly never-ending: whilst the other mothers in the local NCT classes had paraded around looking like flowers in slow joyful bloom, Shyama always looked like she’d been sleeping rough on a greasy bench. Her hair went lank and started to fall out, her skin dulled to the texture of parchment, and she cried at anything and everything – toilet-roll adverts, old people at bus stops, passers-by who dared to do a double-take as she waddled past with tissues in one hand and a bag of jalapeño-flavoured tortillas in the other. True, the sensation of her daughter growing inside her had been fantastic and freaky in equal measure, but although she was glad she had done it, she didn’t yearn to do it again. Maybe that was why Toby was so distant with Mala – he was angry at missing out on that intense initial bonding where the doting daddy lays his hands on his wife and feels his progeny tumble to the sound of his voice.

  ‘Tobes?’

  A sigh. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you sad? That she’s not me?’

  ‘What?’ Toby’s sharp tone made her blink.

  ‘I mean … I know you’re missing out on the whole look-at-my-fat-fecund-wife,-I-did-that stage.’ She managed to raise a wry grin. ‘You know, singing to my tummy, feeling the kicks …’

  ‘Going out at midnight to get you pickles and pineapples …’

  ‘Rubbing wheatgerm oil into my skin … and other places …’

  ‘Now, that’s beginning to sound like fun,’ Toby smirked.

  ‘Not what you think. One of the dads – the kind that suggest all the expectant fathers ought to wear fake pregnancy bellies so they can really feel what their partners are going through—’

  ‘I hate him already.’

  ‘He spent weeks massaging his wife’s perineum with the very same wheatgerm oil, so she would stretch nicely and avoid tearing during the birth. I’ll never forget when he boasted one week that he’d managed to get a whole fist in. I thought Shiv was going to throw up.’

  ‘You got your ex to actually attend birthing classes?’

  ‘Just the one. I used to go on my own.’

  ‘Well then,’ Toby filled the growing silence, ‘seems like you missed out, too. So we’re quits. Make you feel better?’

  ‘I’d feel better if you were … nicer to Mala. I mean, if you stopped being so weird with her. I know this is all weird anyway, but …’

  ‘I wasn’t aware I wasn’t being nice.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you come to the scan?’

  ‘You were there, you didn’t need me too.’

  ‘It’s our baby, Tobes. Yours and mine. You shouldn’t let your awkwardness with Mala stop you sharing the important stuff with me. Tobes?’

  The telephone rang in the corner of the kitchen. They both looked up. It was so rare that anyone ever called them on anything other than their smartphones.

  Toby got there first. ‘Oh, hi Lydia!’ he answered with genuine warmth.

  Shyama stiffened at her name, feeling increasingly uneasy as she caught the tone of Toby’s exchange with her. ‘OK … When?… Where? … She’s here, do you want to … OK, I will.’

  He replaced the receiver.

  ‘Get your coat. Tara’s been arrested.’

  There was a disappointing lack of graffiti in the police station cell, Tara decided. She’d seen enough gritty crime series to expect the windowless, white-walled room with a smelly toilet in a corner and the wire-framed bed with a wisp of a mattress. But there had been nothing much to read during the hours she had already been left there: mainly the names of people wanting to let whoever came after them know that they had been there too, scratched randomly into the flaking walls: Kash, Maz and, more surprisingly, Otto. Another nice middle-class kid who had got in with the wrong crowd, sending his parents into a tailspin of panic and soul-searching. Except that Tara hadn’t rung either of her parents with the single phone call she had been allowed. Lydia had been her first port of call, maybe because she was worried about one of her grandparents picking up the phone if she called home. It would have been like one of their Skype calls to India, loud hysterical shouting with the juiciest snippets repeated for maximum effect. ‘Prison! Yes, she’s in prison! No … pris-on! Jail! With pimps and murderers! Don’t tell Thaya-ji! The shock will kill him!’ Trying to explain to her bewildered grandparents that she had been arrested for obstruction on a demonstration against female genital mutilation would have been way out of their comfort zone. She wondered where her fellow protesters had been taken. She’d assumed they would all be shoved together in some sort of holding pen, but maybe that only happened in American prisons. Only in the movies did one of the featured support cast turn up with a wry smile and cash for bail.

  Her wrists still ached from the handcuffs, her neck from where she had been wrestled from the human chain she had formed with the other women from the group and dragged along the ground. It was a familiar story: a peaceful demo outside an embassy, coordinated by a network of women’s organizations, had soon swelled in size as other uninvited supporters turned up, ostensibly to show their solidarity but clearly using the opportunity to promote their own causes. The spirited chanting of the placard-holders was soon drowned out by the megaphones of the professional demonstrators, mostly male and young, fiery with passion and hostile to the police, burning with indignation for all the other global injustices that continued around them. There were so many, once you started counting them – that’s when sleep and hope began to leave you. Tara knew this already. She had spent weeks struggling with an overload of nightmare-inducing imagery and statistics. All around the globe, women and girls were burned, bartered, battered, bestialized. The obsessive pull of the internet provided all that information at one click, opening windows into parallel worlds of suffering you never knew existed, and once seen, there was no going back, no forgetting them. What had started as an attempt to understand and contextualize what had happened to her in her mother’s kitchen that night had led her initially to a couple of feminist groups based in her university, but they had seemed too small, too earnest, too close to her own department, which she only visited for the odd lecture and to check the post in her pigeon hole. It was on the net that she really found her tribe, other young women reeling from the everyday war on their sex being waged around them, wondering why they seemed to be the only ones who coul
d see the bombs going off, why others around them weren’t as scared and exhausted as they were by the scale of this insidious campaign, so common it was almost banal. From those initial discoveries of fellow travellers, Tara was soon linked up to other regional, national and international campaigns: there was a sisterhood out there, not as visible and vocal and fêted as the one Lydia and her own mother had been a part of decades ago, but better connected. They talked to each other across oceans on flickering screens, spurring each other on with a constant dialogue and the sharing of images and ideas. She read blogs and posts from women in Afghanistan setting up secret beauty parlours, schoolgirls in Pakistan defending their right to attend school, mothers in Argentina holding placards for their disappeared children, Indian Dalit women fighting daily abuse by landowners, survivors of domestic cruelty in Chicago. In every country, the scars of ongoing battles lessened her own, eased the prickling of healing skin which gradually hardened into close-fitting armour. Strange how the same machine that had always made Tara feel like an outsider, like the frump in the corner of the party always missing out on something, was now her guide and companion, her portal and her balm, all her loneliness soothed away by its benevolent blue light.

  Tara began idly chipping away at a corner of the peeling wall with her thumbnail, hearing raised voices and slamming doors somewhere far along the corridor. She wondered if anyone had turned up to claim her. Lydia had advised her during their brief exchange not to answer any questions until she had a lawyer in attendance. She’d promised to call a couple of solicitors she knew and find out who might be able to come out at this late hour. Tara knew saying ‘No comment’ to their questions wouldn’t help much; in the end it was her word against the police. She’d followed the usual drill that was drummed into the group before every demo: be like Gandhi-ji and resist peacefully through non-cooperation. Their tactics might have worked if it hadn’t been for a breakaway gang of young men – who knew where they were from – their faces obscured by scarves and hoods, who decided to snatch the embassy flag from its pole, breaking down railings in their quest. Someone thought it would be a fun idea to urinate on a nearby statue of some colonial official. Stones from the embassy’s rockery became makeshift missiles, cars swerving to avoid the flying debris, ploughing into demonstrators and officers.