1.4
Throughout her life, Satya’s father had always insisted on driving carefully, eschewing the anarchic habits of his friends, but his speed this Saturday morning felt unavoidable. Wearied by an evening of worry, his car was screeching to a halt at the church gates within just ten minutes of the gaunt man’s phone call. ‘Sat-ya,’ he called out as soon as he saw her in the church doorway, the activist vicar at her side.
If he had been planning to yell at her, Satya disarmed him with her fond embrace. ‘Please don’t say anything, papaji,’ she whispered in his ear as she caught hold of him. ‘There’s something I want to say first.’
Helping her to his car, her father did not respond, conscious of her awkward faltering steps, her skin all bruised and bandaged. As she took her place beside him, he discovered his tongue locked, his lips sealed, powerless to articulate even the simplest sound, let alone the great speech he had been mulling over all evening. All those words seemed frivolous now. He had imagined driving her around the town, showing her old homes, revealing where they had come from and what they had achieved. He had imagined taking her to his shop, to run through his balance sheet, to disclose to her how bad everything really was. He had imagined driving her up into the hills, to share his memories with her as they looked down over the sleeping town. Yet sitting in the dark now, only the smallest of words came to his mind.
‘So speak,’ he whispered finally, forgetting the angry rebuke he had prepared.
‘I know you’re cross…’
‘Naturally.’
‘But give me a chance.’
‘Everyone’s cross, Satya,’ he muttered despondently, turning the ignition repeatedly until the engine spluttered back to life. ‘Your mum and I had another bitter row this evening,’ he added, pulling off.
‘Because of me?’ she asked him, watching the church shrink in the nearside mirror.
‘Because of everything: you, your brother, me, my business.’
‘Well, I’ve been thinking about stuff,’ she said, glancing back at him. ‘I’m going to make a go of it. I’m not going to give up. I hate it, but I’ll make it work, somehow.’
‘Sounds good, Satya…’
‘But it’s going to be on my terms,’ she added hastily.
‘You have conditions?’
‘Well, you want me to be a solicitor,’ she smirked, hoping he might laugh with her. ‘I’ll pursue whatever you want me to, but on one condition…’
‘I don’t like the sound of this,’ murmured her father, turning a corner. ‘I’ve had an earful already. Don’t make things any worse for me.’
Mesmerised by her father’s fast-paced route through the maze of avenues, turning corner after corner, barely pausing at each junction, Satya mulled over the thoughts that had occupied her all evening.
‘I’m going to be a proper Sikh,’ she whispered finally, her gaze far from him.
‘You’re saying we’re not proper Sikhs?’
‘I mean I want to practice our faith. This evening, I realised… it’s the only thing that can help me through all this. Without it… I’d still be lost.’
‘This because you were rescued by some creepy priest?’
At the next junction, they turned right onto a wide tree-lined road, curving south-west. ‘Because I said a prayer,’ she told him, recalling that moment of fearful desperation in the wood. ‘And Waheguru answered.’ She peeked at her father furtively. ‘And so I made a promise. From now on, I’m going to be a real Sikh.’
‘A promise?’
‘To Waheguru… Satnam… Ek Onkar.’ Satya glimpsed at her father timidly. ‘So… so I think I’m going to wear the chuni too.’
‘Are you serious?’ cried her father reproachfully, thumping his steering wheel. ‘After tonight, you want to throw this at me too?’ Irritated, he stared at his daughter stiffly. ‘This is not going to work, Satya. There are no conditions for what we’re asking of you. You just do it. You go back to school on Monday morning, and you do whatever it takes to get on. Your brother will make sure nobody messes with you. You don’t get to set the rules.’
‘But it’s important to me…’
‘No, it’s not, Satya,’ he cried. ‘Your future’s important to you. And that means you put that out of your mind. It pains me to say this, but your mum’s right. You’re just going to have to do whatever you have to. Whatever it takes.’
‘But how? There’s only one nice person at that school.’
‘So stick with her. One is better than none.’
‘It’s not a her.’
‘For God’s sake, Satya,’ he spat, ‘give me a break!’
‘I knew you’d react like that.’
‘Of course I’m going to react like that.’
‘So what am I supposed to do then?’
‘I don’t know, Satya. Make peace with Balvinder. Hang about with her. Do whatever you need to do to make it work.’
‘But that’s what I’m saying,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m going to be a real Sikh. That’s how I’m going to do it.’
Hurtling along the avenue towards the roundabout, her father began grumbling within, still irked by the hour-long argument that only the vicar’s phone call had been able to curtail.
‘You’ll be the death of me,’ he moaned in the end, taking the third exit, straight across.
‘Is that a yes?’
‘No, it’s not. I don’t want to hear any of this ever again. These two years are vital. Your entire future hinges on what happens now. It’s no time to start messing about.’
‘Messing?’
‘Yes, Satya. Find your cousin and stick to her. Don’t screw this up too.’
‘Too?’
‘Like me, Satya. Don’t make the same mistakes as I did,’ he murmured wearily, approaching familiar territory. ‘You do your part, and I’ll do mine.’
Peering at her contritely, he promised her she would soon have the correct uniform for her new school, no longer condemned to wear her old one. He promised her that he would listen more and be less easily distracted. He would have another stab at renewing her scholarship, he said. In short, he promised her the world.
‘Everything’s going to be alright,’ he assured her. ‘We can start over,’ he told her, ‘A new beginning, a new start.’
Beside him, Satya’s heart sank, for she did not believe a word of it. ‘I don’t want a new start,’ she muttered within, gazing beyond the foggy glass into the empty streets, ‘I just want everything back how it was.’
As they neared their house, her silent contemplations only multiplied. ‘My soul wilting like petals in the summer heat,’ she recalled finally. ‘Must escape.’
