Friday, 25 March 1994
From the cupboard by the backdoor, Mrs Singh seized the cotton sack by its neck, bumping it off the shelf, and dragged it towards her. Wearily, she pushed her cup into the soft beige flour and scooped out enough for her dough, flinging it into the mixing bowl with a heap of sugar and a pinch of salt. Making a hollow in the centre of the mound, she splashed a blend of water and yoghurt inside and began to mix it with her hand, kneading it harder and harder with her fists, her tongue muttering curses.
As the night drifted by, she had laid alone on her mattress wide awake, a single bed sheet pulled over her. She could not wait to release all that she held inside when her husband finally came up, but he never arrived. Staring through the gap in the curtains, she had watched as the dark sky gradually turned a lighter blue, revealing the silhouette of clouds hanging above them. At first, she had ignored the starlings chirping outside that had tried to call her from her bed, longing for sleep, but in the end they won. As the hand on her alarm clock pushed past six and dawn finally broke, the streetlights switching off one by one, she arose, pulling herself from her bed. She had realised hours ago that her husband would not be joining her.
Wearing the same loose cotton trousers and black choli as yesterday, she had moped down the stairs jadedly, sidestepping the squeaky floorboards on her way. In the living room, she had found her husband sleeping on the sofa again, snoring loudly. She had watched him for a while, wondering if he might stir, but when his snorts seemed to grow only louder, she had turned away and skulked into the kitchen, closing the door behind her firmly. Now her dough would absorb her rage, becoming smoother and smoother as the minutes wore on.
Perhaps she would be creative today, she thought, concocting a filling in her head. She might add onion and potato, she told herself but was soon reaching for the garam masala, the ground coriander and turmeric, and searching in the fridge for the last root of ginger. From the draining board, she retrieved the frying pan and set it on the cooker, dumping the leftover potatoes from last night in the spitting oil with a freshly diced onion. Surely the smell would wake her husband now, she thought, unconcerned as it wafted throughout the house, pungent with burnt chilli.
‘I’ve made you breakfast,’ she announced fifteen minutes later, softening her voice a degree.
He murmured at first, and only half opened his eyes. ‘What?’ he muttered, ‘Oh. What time is it?
‘Time to get up if you’re going to deal with Satya before she goes to school,’ she told him, but he simply sighed, resting his head back on the cushion and ignored her. ‘It’s what you said you’d do,’ she added firmly.
‘I need to open the shop early this morning,’ he replied finally, lifting himself from the sofa, ‘Let’s wait until this evening. It’ll be better.’
Before him, his wife shook her head impatiently. ‘You don’t need to open early,’ she told him querulously. ‘You won’t have customers until nine if you have any at all. When was the last time you had a paying customer?’
‘Yesterday, if you must know.’
‘Really? And what did they buy? A packet of batteries?’
Remaining silent would have been better, but he gulped and let out his mistaken retort. ‘Much more than that, if you must know. Much, much more than that. And that’s why I have to get there early, because they’re coming to take it this morning. I have to go. I have to be there. It’s important.’
‘Let me guess,’ she mocked irascibly, ‘you sold a toaster? A good one. Not a cheap one. And a box of Hoover bags. They’re not cheap, you know? They’re all going bagless nowadays. It’s quite a niche.’ She laughed at him. ‘Well, it’s not enough of a niche to justify opening your shop an hour early. There’s no need. You have things to sort out here.’
‘I have a meeting with my solicitor,’ he said.
‘How convenient,’ sighed his wife bleakly, gaping at him with contempt.
For a second, she decided to return to the kitchen, but a moment later stopped in her tracks and returned to him. ‘Nothing ever changes, does it Vijay?’ she yelped tiredly, ‘I’ve given up waiting for you to join me in bed, but at least you could think of the rest of your family.’
‘Oh don’t start this again,’ he snapped back at her.
‘No, I will start. You need to start thinking of others besides yourself and your bloody business. I don’t think you appreciate how serious the situation between your children is.’
‘And I don’t think you understand how serious the situation with my business has been. If we’d lost it, we would’ve lost everything. They would’ve repossessed the house. We would’ve lost the car. We’d be out on the street.’
‘So you keep saying, Vijay, but here we are after all these months. Still here, still hanging on. While your family falls apart.’
Her husband did not respond with words, but he looked at her sternly as if she was insufferable and then charged from the room, banging the door into its frame on his way. Upstairs he would take a shower, shave his overnight stubble, and put on his smartest suit, knotting his favourite tie at his collar. When he returned downstairs a quarter of an hour later, he retrieved his briefcase from the living room, pushed his feet into his best polished shoes by the door and reached for the door handle.
‘Don’t you walk out of that door, Vijay,’ shrieked his wife, hurrying into the hall at the rattle of the sliding top bolt.
‘I’m going to work,’ he replied, and he pulled the door wide open.
‘Have some respect for me, Vijay,’ she cried with tear-filled eyes, rushing forward to close it again. ‘I prepared you breakfast. I don’t deserve to be treated this way. Don’t walk out on me and leave everything to me. You’re the man of this house. Act like it.’
‘Yes, I am the man of this house,’ he shouted back, pulling it open again, ‘so don’t tell me what to do.’
‘Listen to me, Vijay,’ she yelled, flinging herself against the door, ‘I need you here. If you do nothing, Sukhbir will explode, I promise you. And I can’t deal with it. I need you here, Vijay. Your family is falling apart.’
‘What’s going on?’ came the voice from the stairs, driving their gazes back along the hall. ‘You’re not going to work already?’ asked Sukhbir sombrely, moping down in his tracksuit, driving his fists into his eye sockets tiredly.
‘I have to open up early this morning,’ replied his father fleetingly. ‘I have my solicitor coming.’
‘Sod your solicitor,’ grumbled Sukhbir, ‘I heard all that shouting last night. We all did. Mum told you what Satya’s been doing. Aren’t you going to punish her like you punished me? That’s what you said you’d do.’
Hastily, Mr Singh consulted his watch; perhaps he could spare an extra five minutes, he thought. Looking at his son, he placed his briefcase back on the floor again and hobbled towards him. ‘Come,’ he said, guiding him towards the kitchen, ‘Come and have breakfast with me.’
As they took their places at the table, Sukhbir’s mother almost managed a smile, setting a plate of parathas in front of them. ‘Dig in,’ she told them, pouring a cup of tea for them both, ‘There’s plenty. I’m making more.’
Sukhbir took one of the flaky flatbreads and began tearing it to pieces, but he did not eat any of it; he just stared at his father instead. In turn, his father tried to beam back at him, pushing a piece past his own lips, but it only caused him to scowl at him even more, staring at him petulantly.
‘Why do you hate me so much, dad?’ he asked in the end, shredding the paratha into even smaller pieces.
‘Hate you?’ asked his father, ‘I don’t hate you.’
‘Yes you do. Look how you treat me. This is the first time you’ve ever asked me to have breakfast with you. But I know why. You’re going to tell me why Satya always has to have special treatment. You’re going to tell me all that bull about her going off to university, getting a top job and lifting us out of our supposed destitution. Did it never occur to you that we might go to university too? Or does it have to be Cambridge?’ Sukhbir sneered at his father. ‘I hate you too, dad,’ he carped. ‘You treat her like she’s a saint and you treat the rest of us like we’re thugs. And you treat us like we’re thick when we’re not. She’s not the only one with brains. She’s just the only one who gloats about it.’ He nodded his head assuredly. ‘But worst of all you treat her like she’s perfect, when clearly she’s not. She’s the worst. None of us has ever done anything like she’s done, but still you treat her like she’s some angel. You can’t even work up any anger at her. You’re too busy shouting at mum.’
He glanced at his mother for a moment, watching as she carried on frying more parathas, pretending that she was not listening. ‘Look what you did to me when I missed an afternoon of lessons, just once. Do you remember what you did to me? I’ll never forget it, dad. I thought you were going to kill me. And I could’ve reported you, you know? I could’ve gone to the police. Social services would’ve been all over this house. But I tried to forgive you at first. In fact, I think I did. I told myself it was your right, that I deserved it. Yes, for a while I even felt sorry for you. I felt sorry that I’d disappointed you. But I don’t feel like that anymore. Not since I saw what happened when Satya did ten times worse than me and nothing happened. I skipped lessons for two hours; not even half a day. She skipped school four days in a row and you did nothing. She deserved ten times what I got, but you just did nothing. And now you’re doing it again. It doesn’t matter that she skipped school again, that she’s running around with some white boy. It doesn’t matter that she’s telling huge lies all the time. To you, nothing matters when it’s Satya.’
His father stared back at his son astounded, trembling within, his face almost drained of all colour. ‘You’re not the only one who’s tired, Sukhbir. I’m tired of hearing how all you did was skip school for a couple of hours. I’m tired of hearing it over and over again. You know as well as I do that it’s what you did when you skipped school that I objected to. But that’s our little secret, isn’t it, Sukhbir? Heaven forbid anyone discover what you really did.’
‘You would’ve done the same thing if you were in our shoes. Doesn’t what you did to me prove it?’
‘Sukhbir, I’ve made mistakes in my life. Do you think you’re the only one who thinks about that day? Do you think I wanted to do that? I think about it every day. I’d do things differently if I had another chance. I wish I could…’
‘Save it, dad. It’s a bit too late for remorse now. It sounds a bit cheap coming after everything Satya’s done. You could’ve said sorry a week ago and I would’ve accepted it. You could’ve said it just two days ago. But now? When you’re faced with what you did to me because of her, it just sounds cheap. It’s just a lie. You’re not sorry. It’s just dear little Satya can’t possibly be allowed to suffer what I suffered. And you’re surprised when I ask why you hate me.’
‘I don’t hate you, Sukhbir,’ replied his father insistently, shaking his head vigorously.
‘You do, dad. You hate us all. All except your dear little Satya.’ He glanced at his mother again; he was sure she would agree. ‘And let’s see what happens to Satya, shall we? Let’s see your almighty rage. See: nothing. Even after everything mum told you last night, you’re not even angry. You’re just itching to get back to your shop. How do you think we feel, dad, when you have more time for your solicitor than you have for us? How are we meant to feel?’
For a short while, Mr Singh said nothing at all, but Sukhbir’s eyes wrenched his soul. ‘It’s just bad timing,’ he said in the end, spying the clock on the cooker. ‘There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s something I can’t avoid.’
‘Then go, dad,’ bellowed his son. ‘Go to your shop. Just forget about us. You know what you have to do.’
He remained motionless for a few moments more, but soon Mr Singh was back on his feet. ‘It’s just bad timing,’ he insisted again. ‘I’ll come home early this evening. I’ll deal with Satya then.’
‘Aren’t you at least going to tell her off?’ demanded his wife, running after him again. ‘Can’t you at least do that?’
Glimpsing at his watch, Mr Singh simply shook his head. ‘I haven’t got time now,’ he told her, pulling the door open at last. ‘I’m already late. I’ll deal with her this evening.’
From the living room window, Sukhbir watched as his father tugged his car door shut, shook the engine back life and pulled away from the curb. ‘This family’s a joke,’ he cried furiously, thundering back up the stairs to get ready for school.
Following after him a few moments later, his mother wandered into his sisters’ room and began to disturb them from their sleep. Pulling the curtains open, she gazed at the three of them as the morning light streamed in. When they began to stir, she told them it was time to get ready for school. When their heads dropped back onto their pillows again, she told them that she had prepared a rich breakfast, which she would be serving up in ten minutes’ time. When they still did not move, she yelled at them instead and told them they were going to be late.
A quarter of an hour later, Meeta, Jaspreet and Sukhbir assembled in the kitchen, taking their places at the table as their mother distributed her latest batch of parathas from the grill, where she had been keeping them warm. Their uniform reinstated but their hair still untidy, they dug into their breakfast hurriedly, tearing their parathas to pieces, while gulping down mouthfuls of tea. For them there seemed to be some urgency, but for their sister there seemed to be none.
When she finally meandered into the kitchen, responding at last to her mother’s fourth holler from the hall, Satya was still wearing her insubstantial camisole and diminutive shorts, drawing derision from her siblings. Staring at her, her mother demanded to know why she was not yet dressed. Glaring at her, her brother asked her if she had no shame. Swearing at her, Jaspreet complained that they were going to be late for school because of her. Though she could have bawled back at them, Satya just shrugged her shoulders and sat down amongst them. When her mother dropped a paratha before her, she picked at it and pushed it around her plate, but none passed her lips. Her sisters were conscious of her snivelling and the streams of tears running down her cheeks, but they ignored them, munching their breakfast in silence.
‘Satya,’ began their mother finally, ‘you don’t have to have it if you don’t want it. There’s yoghurt in the fridge. Shall I get you some?’ Shaking her head, her daughter sank further in her place, yet more tears flooding her eyes. ‘I’ll put something in a bag for you,’ she added a moment later, unable to help her pity as it welled up within, ‘you might be hungry later. Go and get ready for school.’
Satya felt grateful for the change of tone, but she did not reply. She felt grateful for the tiniest jot of sympathy, but she said nothing as she rose back to her feet and started for the door. Deep down inside, she cherished the infinitesimal trace of compassion—her mother’s miniscule expression of love—but she did not look back at all. She wanted to escape the eyes of her siblings and run far, far away. She would escape, she told herself, pulling the kitchen door open again.
‘Now wait a minute,’ yelled her brother suddenly, leaping up from his chair and rushing around the table, ‘this isn’t right.’
Before she had seen him coming, Satya found her right arm locked in his ever-tightening grip. A second after that, she felt the base of her back collide with the granite worktop, her head thumping against a cupboard door. A second later, she belched as his fist struck her abdomen. He had walloped her two or three times before she thought to curl backwards, cowering into the corner, protecting her face beneath her forearms.
‘Stop it, Sukhbir,’ pleaded his mother, attempting futilely to grab hold of him. Momentarily she managed to drive his gaze away from his sister, but his hands flew on.
‘That’s what she deserves,’ he shouted breathlessly, ‘not all this lovey-dovey sympathy. This family’s a joke.’
He would smack her hard and where it hurts, he told himself, thrusting her forearms out of the way and flinging her against the kitchen units again. Without warning, he clobbered her chest, sending her coiling away from him in agony.
‘Don’t do that, Sukhbir,’ cried Jaspreet abruptly, racing into the gap between him and his sister, pushing him backwards.
‘Why’s everyone taking her side?’ he complained crossly, ‘She’s the one in trouble.’
‘I’m not taking her side,’ she replied, ‘but you don’t hit girls there.’
‘You shouldn’t hit girls anywhere,’ whined Satya.
‘Oh, shut your face,’ sneered Sukhbir, driving Jaspreet out of the way to strike her again.
‘Sukhbir!’ shouted Jaspreet and her mother as one, as they both grabbed hold of him and pulled him away from his screaming sister.
‘It’s what she deserves,’ said Sukhbir, trying to fight himself free.
‘Never hit a girl like that,’ muttered Jaspreet nervously.
‘I know, I know, it hurts. That’s why I did it. I’m not stupid.’
‘Yes you are if you think it’s okay,’ she replied, restraining him still as Satya ran away. ‘It’s not.’
‘I don’t understand why you’re taking her side suddenly,’ moaned Sukhbir in frustration, irritated by their efforts to prevent him from following after her.
‘We’re not taking her side,’ insisted Jaspreet, guarding the door from his approach.
‘Just let your dad deal with her, Sukhbir,’ added his mother firmly.
‘Ha! Good one. And where is he?’
‘He’ll be back early this evening. Just be patient, Sukh. I don’t want you fighting with your sister. Just leave her alone. I don’t want to hear you’ve been fighting with her at school. I want you to stay away from her today.’
‘She needs putting in her place.’
‘Yes, but that’s not your job. Leave it to your dad to sort out. Do you hear me?’
It took a while for Sukhbir’s fury to leave him, but eventually, he seemed to calm down. ‘Fine,’ he said in the end. ‘I won’t break her back today but if dad doesn’t deal with her this evening, I will. This is his last chance. And hers.’ Nodding his head, he made his way back to the door. ‘Move,’ he said when his sister tried to block his passage again.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked.
‘I’m going to get by bag and get on my way.’
Reluctantly, Jaspreet stepped to one side, but their mother followed after him and stopped him at the foot of the stairs. ‘Jas can get your bag for you,’ she told him resolutely.
‘I have to pack my books,’ he said, ascending regardless. ‘She wouldn’t know which ones.’
‘Okay,’ sighed his mother in defeat, ‘go and do it, but don’t talk to your sister. Just leave her alone.’
‘Oh come on mum, I’m just packing my bag. Give me more credit.’
Standing aside, she watched him ascend the stairs, listening as he paced into his bedroom. There he packed his bag and put his jacket on as promised, but when she was no longer paying attention, he tiptoed across the landing, glancing over the banister rail on his way to make sure, and entered his sisters’ room, discovering Satya sitting on the end of her bed in tears.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said when Satya looked back at him alarmed. ‘I’m not going to thump you again, much as I’d like to. I’m just warning you, Satya: I’m watching every move you make. If dad won’t deal with you, I will.’ He scoffed at her again. ‘I promise you,’ he said, ‘I will.’
