8.2
Ten minutes passed before it dawned on her that her companion would not be returning to her, a glass of water in hand perhaps. She had put her foot in it once more, she lamented, kicking herself. It took her another five minutes to muster the courage to approach him again, to deliver the apology hastily composed in her head. When she thought she had formulated the right set of words arranged in the right order and had set upon the right tone of voice with which to express them, she tiptoed through to the kitchen timidly, intent of mending whatever she had broken. She would not mention that name again, she decided, cognizant that it seemed to end in a bitter strop whenever she did.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, finding him staring out into the overgrown garden, his back to her.
‘Don’t be,’ he muttered, without looking at her.
‘But I am,’ she said, remembering the apology she had planned, which had just vanished into thin air. ‘I’m sorry I keep prying… opening old wounds.’
‘Those wounds were already open. No, they’ve been festering for years, to be honest. They never healed. I’m the one who pours salt in them constantly. It’s me.’
There was nothing beyond the grimy pane of glass to occupy him for so long, except his regrets. The scene before him was a tangle of ivy, knotweed, thistles, nettles and knee-length grass, turned yellow and brown by the rain and cold.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, glancing back at her at last, ‘sorry for being a grumpy git. Let me get those bags for you.’
As he disappeared through into the hall, Satya congratulated herself for the clean countertops, now degreased and cleansed of a year of grime, and for the sparkling white enamel on the cooker, and the old vinyl beneath her feet no longer sticky and gross. All those hours had paid off, she thought, cutting through the tacky yellow film that had coated every surface with two bottles of Flash, half a dozen pan scrubs and an abundance of relentless patience.
‘Here we are,’ said Ben, depositing the bags on the floor by the door. ‘You really are too kind to me,’ he said, peering into them again. ‘I don’t know what I did to deserve all this,’ he sighed, ‘I don’t deserve it, you know? I’m embarrassed.’
‘You deserve to eat,’ she offered with a shrug. ‘Perhaps this is my langar. Everybody deserves to eat, rich or poor.’
From the largest bag, Satya retrieved the pressure cooker and set it down on his electric stove. From another, she fetched a packet of red lentils and two large tomatoes still attached to a single green stem, which released its earthy aroma when she pulled them apart.
‘Now watch me,’ she told him, beckoning him closer. ‘Watch and learn.’
At the sink, she rinsed a cup of lentils under the running tap, pushing her finger through them to edge out the dirt and grit that always seemed to find its way into the bag. When she had finished, she poured them into the stainless-steel pot on the cooker and poured three cups of water over them. Momentarily, she glanced back at him to make sure he was paying attention.
Following her intently, he watched as she chopped the tomatoes into pieces, their succulent flesh disintegrating under her knife, shedding their yellowish seeds across the plate in a pool of watery juice. ‘Throw these into the pressure cooker,’ she told him, passing him the plate.
A pinch of turmeric powder followed, then a pinch of chilli and a dash of cumin. The coriander powder warranted a teaspoon. She used the same one to dig out half a spoon of garam masala, tossed into the pan with a pinch of salt. ‘Measure out two tablespoons of the oil,’ she said, passing him its plastic bottle.
‘Which spoon is that?’ he asked, searching the cutlery drawer, brought to order by his fastidious companion just last week.
‘The teaspoon is the little one you use for stirring tea. The dessert spoon is the one you use for eating pudding. The table spoon is…’
‘The one for eating tables?’ he grinned.
‘No, that big one there,’ she said, grabbing hold of it and waving it before his eyes.
‘Is that not a serving spoon?’ he asked her, ‘Or is it a soup spoon?’
‘It doesn’t matter what type of spoon it is,’ she replied, ‘just use that one to measure out the oil.’
‘Oh, okay,’ he said, and he did as she said, splashing the yellow liquid on top of the other ingredients.
‘Good,’ she said, ‘now stir it all together. A wooden spoon would be best, but you don’t seem to have one.’
Beside her, Ben peered into the pot. ‘That’s easy,’ he said as he pushed the mixture around with his spoon.
‘Easy peasy, lemon squeezy,’ she replied with a smile, nudging him sideways, ‘But I better do the next part.’
Standing at the cooker, Satya pushed the lid down firmly on top of the pot and twisted it clockwise towards the handle, locking it in place. Satisfied that she had done it properly, she turned on the heat and watched as the spiral rings began to glow. ‘Prepare to be amazed,’ she told him, as she set the stainless-steel pot in place.
Soon it was hissing and whistling and jumping about, causing Ben to wince and duck every few seconds, fearing the impending explosion that would rip them both to shreds. Once, he ran for the cover of the door, hiding behind the doorframe as a cloud of steam jetted into the air, deafening him with is screeching blast.
‘Relax,’ laughed Satya, taking hold of it, ‘it’s not that bad.’
He watched instead as his friend removed the pan from the heat, released the pressure and opened the lid, sending another plume of steam wafting into the air. Moments later, she had served the orange broth into a bowl, presenting it to him on her upturned palms.
‘What dark art is this?’ asked Ben, slurping up a spoonful.
‘That, Ben,’ she said, ‘is called cooking.’
‘But so fast. Like magic.’
‘I told you,’ she grinned. ‘One easy peasy, delicious, red lentil curry cooked just perfectly. And there’s more where that came from.’ She could not help but laugh at his astonishment. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ she asked, watching as he ravenously devoured the spicy dish, ‘This clever pot will change your life completely.’
‘That was delicious,’ he said as he reached the bottom of the bowl, sorry to have consumed it so quickly.
‘I’m glad,’ she replied, wondering if that had been his first meal of the day. It certainly looked like it.
Smiling at him kindly, Satya gestured towards the sink and nodded when he simulated the act of washing up, confirming his childish uncertainty. As he rinsed his bowl and dried it with a clean tea towel, another of last week’s gifts, she went searching through her shopping bags again, crouched down on her knees.
‘Now it’s your turn,’ she said, handing him two large potatoes and a knife. ‘Peel them and cut them into cubes,’ she told him.
‘Peel them? Are you joking?’
‘Oh my God, Ben,’ she cried, pushing him to one side at the sink and stealing the first potato back from him. ‘Watch and learn,’ she said as she scraped it clean. ‘Now your turn,’ she said, handing the knife back to him.
How it had only taken her a minute, he did not know, for five minutes on he was still at it. ‘Good,’ she said, when he finally proclaimed victory, ‘Now cut it into pieces.’
When he had overcome his first challenge, Satya instructed him to rinse half a cup of lentils under the tap. This time he imitated her more precisely, pushing the lentils around with his finger, though he was not sure why that was necessary. He imagined that his finger must contribute something to the flavour. A moment later, he was pouring them into the bottom of the pan, swilling one and half cups of water over them, followed by a splash of oil.
‘Now place the stand over them,’ she said, handing it to him, pointing out the dimples on the side of the pan that would hold it in place. On top of it, she placed the steel basket, sliding it into place. ‘Pour in one cup of rice,’ she told him, watching as he followed suit. ‘One teaspoon of cumin,’ she added, throwing in a bay leaf after it. ‘A splash of oil, a pinch of salt,’ she said, ‘and get me two cups of water. You pour them in.’
Ben did as she said, then watched as she balanced a small plate on the edge of the basket, jamming it between the hinge of the handle and the wall of the pot. ‘Potatoes,’ she said, ‘put the potatoes there. And sprinkle a little salt.’
‘So far so good,’ muttered Ben, but he looked worried.
‘Don’t let this pressure cooker bully you,’ she chuckled, showing him the lid. ‘This thing used to terrify me too, but we’re friends now. Just clamp it in place like this, and stop thinking about it. It’s not going to explode. It’s not going to blow your head off. Just relax. Now breathe, count to three. Step away from the cooker. Are you ready? Turn on the ring.’
‘That’s so stressful,’ said Ben, fleeing to the corner of the room.
‘You’re in safe hands, Ben. It has a safety valve. If we really screw up, you might have some complex washing up to do, but at least you’ll live to see another day.’
‘Cooking’s not really my thing,’ he stuttered, edging forwards cautiously, disturbed by the frenzied hissing. ‘Me and cooking don’t get on.’
‘Oh, you’ll be alright,’ she laughed, patting him on his back.
‘Doesn’t it remind you of Ms Carlton,’ he asked, ‘with all that dreadful whistling?’
‘Don’t mention that name,’ she replied, pushing her fingers in her ears.
‘Yeah sorry. So what’s next?’
‘Next it’s your Yorkshire Puddings,’ she grinned, ‘Yorkshire Puds, Punjabi style.’
Into a large bowl, she instructed him to pour two cups of soft white flour, throwing half a teaspoon of salt on top. He was to combine the two ingredients together thoroughly, she told him, as if failure to do so would lead to utter disaster. Ben was unsure if she was patronising him but did as he was told anyway, splashing three-quarters of a cup of water over it afterwards.
‘Knead it with your hand,’ she told him when stirring it with a spoon only turned it into something resembling pathetic breadcrumbs. ‘Get all that anger out of you,’ she added when he only seemed to fiddle with it with his fingers. ‘Stretch it, squeeze it. Do a karate chop if you must.’ That did not seem to help. ‘So tell me about you and Anjana,’ she tried instead, forgetting her earlier vow.
That helped, his fists suddenly pounding the dough viciously. ‘What’s there to say?’ he asked, oblivious to his hands’ betrayal.
‘You tell me,’ she said, watching as his unpromising mixture turned into the prefect springy, pliant dough, soft to the touch. Satya was impressed, taking over only to shape it into a large firm ball, which she coated all over with oil.
‘Anjana was my gift from God,’ began Ben eventually, looking on as his companion set the dough aside to rest.
‘What does that mean?’ she asked him.
‘Difficult to explain, really,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders, ‘It’s just what I always called her.’
On the cooker, the pot had whistled five times, causing Ben to jump out of his skin whenever it ejected a cloud of steam into the air. He would leave the perilous act of opening the lid to Satya, the memory of last year’s ready-meal meltdown still fresh in his mind.
‘Your potato is perfect,’ she told him, lifting out the dish. ‘Your rice looks great,’ she said, fluffing it up with her spoon. ‘That’s the start of a great dal,’ she added, when she removed the layers of stainless steel from within.
‘Ready to eat?’ asked Ben, peering in.
‘Depends if we’re doing it the Punjabi way or the Yorkshire way.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘One will taste bland and boring, the other will be so delicious it will blow you head off. You know which is which.’
‘Let’s go the Punjabi way then,’ said Ben.
‘A wise choice,’ she replied, beaming at him.
From the cupboard, she found a frying pan, setting it on another ring, turning up the heat until it glowed red. Ben was to pour two tablespoons of oil into it now and fry a tablespoon of cumin seeds in the spluttering oil, mixing it backwards and forwards until it went brown. Beside him, Satya chopped a green chilli into fine slithers and threw it into his sizzling mixture.
‘You can mix in the potatoes now,’ she told him, passing him the dish. ‘A pinch of turmeric. A pinch of chilli powder. Half a teaspoon of garam masala. A pinch of salt.’ He added each in turn, and stir-fried them all together until all of the potato was coated in the brown and yellow spice. ‘Perfect,’ said Satya, throwing some fresh coriander leaves on top with a squeeze of lemon. ‘You can serve that in a bowl,’ she told him, pushing one in his direction. ‘One dish down,’ she told him, ‘two to go.’
‘The smell brings back memories,’ said Ben. ‘Good memories.’
‘Of who?’
‘Siddique’s mum, of course. Man, she can cook.’
Retrieving two onions from the bag, Satya began to peel one. ‘I notice you never call him Sid,’ she said, snivelling from the acid vapour, ‘Why’s that?’
‘Because Sid means nothing really. To his friends it just means court jester, comedian, funny guy. That’s all he is to them. I knew Siddique before he became chief of the clan of idiots. I remember him how he was.’
‘And how was that?’ she asked, starting on the second onion.
‘A real mate. My best friend. A brother, even.’
‘It must hurt that you’ve moved apart then,’ she said.
‘Well, that’s just life,’ he replied, watching as she began to chop the onion into tiny pieces. He was glad she had not given him that job. ‘You ask why I always call him Siddique? You can thank princess Nora for that. She told me Siddique means truthful, and I’ve always liked that. Sometimes I hope he’ll reflect, and remember how he used to be, when that name really suited him.’
‘Names are just names,’ shrugged Satya, her eyes filled with onion tears.
‘Yeah, maybe. Maybe that’s true. Because if anyone deserved that name, it was Anjana. It suits her way better. Yeah, she’s the truthful one.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ smirked Satya, gathering her ingredients.
‘No, it’s true. She always stands up for the truth. Always stands for justice. If Anjana’s on your side and you’re just, no one can harm you.’
Another layer of oil was fizzing in the frying pan now, bubbling gently on a low heat. ‘Is that really so?’ asked Satya, dropping a bay leaf into the pan.
‘Absolutely,’ he insisted, ‘Totally.’
‘What about the way she treated you?’ she asked, sending a teaspoon of cumin after it.
‘Maybe that was just,’ shrugged Ben, inhaling the delicious aroma. ‘Maybe she was right.’
‘Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she’s just confused.’
‘Nope, not at all.’
‘Maybe you put yourself down too much. Maybe she was a cow.’
‘Never!’ he cried, tipping the onions into the oil, ‘It’s what I deserved.’
Sautéing the onions in the pan, Ben added ginger and garlic, then a chilli slit in half. He followed it with another pinch of turmeric powder, chilli, coriander, cumin and garam masala, familiarising himself with each flavour, frying them all together on a low heat, their tangy aroma filling the room. Next to him, Satya chopped two more tomatoes into little pieces on a plate and passed it onto him, watching as he stirred them in.
‘I’ve known Anjana for years,’ said Ben, stirring his concoction continuously, ‘Since primary school. Nursery even. We used to be on the same wavelength. We were both looking for the same thing. How can I explain it? Like religion, but not religion. Like something we called the truth, if that makes sense. Like, why we’re here and what it’s all for. Like looking for meaning. Something like that. We were both searching, seeking. But she’s sincerer than me. She has this belief in God that I admire. Truth is, I wish I had faith like hers.’
‘She said something like that too. Except she said you were the one who helped her to believe.’
‘No, it was the other way around,’ he insisted. ‘She helped me.’ For a second he turned his eyes away from his mushy paste. ‘Well her and my foster family,’ he told her, smiling. ‘Those were my wonder years,’ he enthused. ‘Yeah, but it was Anjana who kept that going.’
Satya was driving the cooker now, scooping half of the soft paste from the pan and depositing it in a bowl. Over what remained in the pan, she poured a cup of water and stirred the mixture until it resembled the gravy at Ben’s favourite chip shop. Into the gravy, she crumbled a cup of white cheese and set it back on the rear electric ring.
‘I don’t even know what Anjana’s religion is,’ said Satya, stirring her sauce steadily, ‘I assumed she’s Hindu. She has a Hindu name.’
‘Do names have religions?’ asked Ben, ‘Ha, then Benjamin sounds a bit Jewish. My dad would love that, what with his obsession with our Zionist occupation government colluding with the Muslims to displace his master race. Idiot. Ha ha, maybe I’ll call myself Binyamin just to antagonise him. Maybe I should.’
‘Maybe not, Ben.’
‘Yeah, maybe not,’ he agreed. ‘But Anjana? Well, her mum’s Christian.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Well Unitarian, as far as I know, but yep. And her dad: that’s a bit more complicated. He’s an intellectual, so nothing really satisfies him. I guess his family were Hindu, but that’s not really what he identifies with. I’d just call him a seeker.’
‘And that makes Anjana what?’
‘I don’t know exactly. Our discussions got cut short before we ever got there. For a time, she related to the ancient path of Sanatana. But would she call herself Hindu? I don’t think so.’
Ben smiled to himself and nodded his head, recalling an animated conversation he had once had with Anjana’s father while she and her mother had been preparing dinner just like this. ‘Her dad used to say the thing we call Hinduism doesn’t really exist. He said it was more something the British came up with to categorise the people into three neat groups: Muslim, Christian or Hindu. According to him, India had a multitude of cultures and religions up until then. He’d say each new invader just sucked them all up, stuck them together and made them one.’
‘And do you think that’s true?’ asked Satya.
‘Well we didn’t learn any of that in history,’ he shrugged, ‘but I trust Anjana’s dad. He’s a lecturer in something or other.’
‘What about in RE?’ she asked. ‘We just had Divinity at my old school. I didn’t learn anything about any religion except the Church of England, and even then I hardly learned anything because the teacher made it all extremely boring. But it’s funny because I probably know more about the Bible than the Guru Granth. My dad’s more likely to be found with an Electrolux manual than anything sacred or profound.’
‘Well at least he reads,’ grumbled Ben, ‘my dad can’t even read his fag packet. You’d never believe someone so opinionated could be such an ignoramus.’
‘So what does Anjana believe then?’
‘Well, I learnt early on not to call her a Hindu,’ he chuckled. ‘I got an earful once when I did. She sounded just like her dad, telling me it’s just a lazy made-up name invented to describe the beliefs of the restless natives when outsiders came to pillage and plunder. I remember that conversation like it was yesterday.’
‘Let me guess,’ smiled Satya: ‘they weren’t really interested in all the different beliefs and practices they found when they arrived in India. Their only interest was in working out how to make off with their resources without anyone noticing.’
‘So she’s given you that lecture too?’ he laughed.
‘Nope,’ she said, removing her pan from the heat, ‘but it’s just the kind of thing my brother would say. Always railing against his oppressor.’
‘Don’t mention your brother,’ he spat, ‘not in the same breath.’
‘But I was right, yeah?’
‘Don’t know,’ he muttered, ‘I think she just thinks it’s too big to define. It’s not one way, or one belief. It’s not one thing at all.’ He glanced at Satya determinedly. ‘Anyway, that’s all just a really, really long ways of saying, no, she doesn’t call herself Hindu. Or, well, anything for that matter. Yeah, definitely not. Labels never impressed Anjana, that’s for sure.’
‘So what is she then? An agnostic like you?’
‘Well, not really. I’m in the undecided camp. She’s definitely a believer.’
‘A believer in what?’
Their second serving was ready now, set in a dish next to the other one, garnished with a few more leaves of coriander.
‘Put it this way,’ said Ben, ‘there are no statues of Ganesh or pictures of Krishna in her house. But she believes in a being that must be necessary to set everything in motion. Whether that’s Brahman or Ar-Rahman, Prajapati or Waheguru… Allah, Elah, Elohim… or God, or just some great unseen force: well it’s all the same. She believes in a oneness, a creator, the source of everything, of both time and space. That’s what she believes in.’ Watching her, he contemplated his own faith too. ‘I think that’s what I believe too,’ he said, nodding. ‘On my believing days, anyway. Some days I’m absolutely certain of it. But other days it seems like mere delusion. Well, that’s the curse of the agnostic. Anjana never has any doubts like me.’
‘It’s strange hearing you speak of her,’ said Satya, rinsing the frying pan clean, ‘because you seem to do so so fondly. And yet when she first spoke of you, it was as if she hated you through and through.’
Ben shrugged his shoulders, nodding his head ever so slightly. ‘She was right. I deserved it. I treated her worse. What she does, what she says: that’s nothing to how I treated her. I’ve done some stupid things in my life. And she was on the receiving end of the worst of them. I became obsessed. I became possessive. I violated her private space. I went too far. And then I blanked her, ignored her, pushed her away. I went too far all over again.’ Ben glanced at her as she returned from the sink. ‘So everything Anjana told you about me on your first day was true,’ he said, ‘Yes, all of it.’
‘But now it’s not?’ asked Satya.
In the long pause that followed her question, Satya slipped the other half of the tomato and onion paste back into the frying pan, and followed it with the cooked lentils from the pressure cooker, completing it with a cup of water, mixing it relentlessly, as if the monotony would pull words from his lips.
‘I don’t know how to explain it,’ he offered in the end.
‘Try,’ she said, shredding another stem of coriander on top of her fresh orange dal.
‘I can only describe it as some kind of connection,’ he said, ‘A connection between us.’ He watched her arranging the new dish next to the others. ‘It’s a weird thing,’ he said. ‘Do you ever say the exact same thing as someone else, at exactly the same time, completely out of the blue?’
‘I don’t think that’s a connection,’ mumbled Satya, ‘That’s just being in the same class, having the same teachers, listening to the same stuff all day long.’
Ben shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe you’re right. I don’t know. But this is what we believed. At least, it’s what I did.’
‘Past tense?’
Ben’s eyes dropped to the floor. ‘I guess so,’ he muttered. ‘Pretty much,’ he added. ‘Yep, ancient history.’
With a fork, Satya fluffed up the rice again and served it onto a large plate. ‘So my question is this,’ she said, watching him shyly, ‘Why did you treat her so badly?’
Ben shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ve thought about that a lot. Used to say I was just messed up. A horrible person. But, in truth… In truth, I was protecting her.’
‘From what?’
He shrugged again. ‘From me,’ he whispered.
‘You protected her from you by mistreating her?’
‘From a life with me,’ he added. Then: ‘From people who’d do us harm because we were together.’
‘I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make any sense,’ said Satya, smiling apologetically.
‘Yeah, because you’re not fourteen,’ he snapped crossly. ‘Of course, now I regret it all. I wish I could do things differently. But back then: it was the only thing I could do.’
‘But why?’
‘I was scared, I suppose.’
‘Of what?’
It seemed like he was holding his breath, suddenly mute. ‘Of the violence,’ he gasped in the end, almost relieved.
‘From your family?’
‘Them and others,’ he muttered. ‘Yeah, but now I think about it all the time,’ he grumbled, ‘That connection we had. I don’t know why I gave in so easily. I don’t know why I threw it away.’ He watched Satya kneading the dough again. ‘For me, it was easy to believe Anjana and me had this connection. It was just so real to me. But maybe I’m just an idiot.’
‘You don’t have to belittle yourself all the time.’
‘I just say how I feel,’ he replied.
Satya was now rolling the dough into a long sausage on the countertop. A moment later, she was pulling it into pieces, which she would roll into small spheres in the palms of her hands. Ben was to do the same, she mimed, showing him how it was done.
‘I feel like she was an answer to a prayer. Back then. Now, we’re just enemies. But back then, we were on this journey together.’ Copying Satya’s movements as she flattened her blob of dough with her fingers, he glanced at her. ‘Yeah, but I don’t expect you to understand,’ he whispered.
‘But I do,’ she said, ‘I’m on a journey like that myself. Trying to find my way. Easier said than done.’
‘At least you have your family,’ he said.
‘My family? Are you joking?’ She laughed aloud at the thought of it. ‘My family isn’t religious. At all! They know nothing. They don’t believe in anything.’
‘But your brother…’
In place of a rolling pin, Satya took to gently rolling out her piece with a glass bottle left behind by Ben’s mother, pushing it in one direction and then another, until it was nearly fifteen centimetres wide and just over a millimetre thin.
‘My brother hates religion. He mocks everything I believe in. Last year he was a Rasta for a month or two, but only because he believed he was destined to be the next Apache Indian. Fortunately, we all persuaded him that Mr Blobby would be a better fit for his talent profile.’
‘But I thought…’
‘In my family, I’m the only one who cares about religion at all. Just me and my grandad. But even him: I don’t know what he believes anymore. He reads too much. He reads everything. He’s like a walking encyclopaedia. I used to think he was my guide. Now I’m just confused.’
From the oven, Satya pulled out a baking tray, grabbing for the wire rack, which she placed down over one of the electric rings. On another ring, she heated the frying pan once more, as hot as it would get.
‘I assumed you were all very religious,’ said Ben, ‘That’s why you grow your hair so long.’
‘That’s just me,’ she sighed as she placed the first roti in the hot pan. ‘Just trying to find my way.’
‘So we’re all seeking then,’ smiled Ben. ‘I thought it was only me and Anjana who cared about this stuff.’
‘Not Siti Noor?’
‘Ah princess Nora: she’s our pole star. Our unshakable driving force.’
‘It’s funny you describe her like that. She always defends you. Right from the start. Even when Anjana and my cousin were warning me about you, she was there shaking her head.’
‘She’s a peacemaker. She doesn’t like gossip.’
‘Sounds like love,’ laughed Satya, flipping the roti over.
‘Not at all. She’s just a good person. I just admire her. Respect her.’ He was rolling his own roti now. ‘But we were never close,’ he added.
‘Not like you and Anjana?’
There was another of those awkward pauses, to be filled with a culinary experiment. Satya tossed her first roti onto the wire rack set above the red-hot spiral element, hoping and praying that it would not stick or burn to a crisp. A second later, she watched in delight as it inflated just like her mother’s over a gas flame. Flipping it over, she repeated the process on the other side, watching it puff up and then deflate. Okay, not Yorkshire Puddings, she thought, flinging the hot roti onto a plate, but it was the next best thing.
‘Well that’s all ancient history,’ replied Ben at last, startling her. ‘Those days are gone. Long gone. Now we’re just best frenemies.’ He looked at her intently as he passed her his own first attempt. ‘And that’s all my fault,’ he lamented.
‘Do you really believe that?’ she asked.
‘That it’s my fault? Absolutely.’
‘That it’s ancient history?’
‘That’s just how it is. We can’t change the past, no matter how much Hollywood bangs on about time travelling robots. If they were real, I’d leap back right now.’
Satya smiled, turning the roti. ‘Just like in Quantum Leap? Good old Dr Beckett, leaping from life to life, putting things right?’
‘To be honest, I feel like I’m Sam Beckett already. Stuck in a never-ending nightmare I can’t seem to escape from. Let’s hope my next leap will be the leap home. Freedom. Freedom from all this. A leap out of this life for good. That’s my dream.’
Between them, they formed two more rotis from the dough, waiting for the second one to cook.
‘Well if you need a Ziggy, you know I’m here, don’t you?’ she asked, transferring the cooked roti onto the wire rack. ‘Maybe we can make that leap together.’
Ben smiled at that. ‘Ha! Now you mention it, Siddique reminds me of Al a lot. Strangely unreliable. Always chasing the girls. And mysteriously walking through walls. Well chip shop walls, anyway. Let’s hope you’re a better a super-computer than the hologram he was.’
‘I’m no super-computer,’ she said, ‘but I can tell you what I think.’ She gazed into his eyes. ‘You need to look forward. Stop dwelling on the past. Like you say, you can’t change it, so just move on. It’s gone. Water under the bridge.’
‘If only that was as easy as it sounds.’
‘Just let go,’ she told him, ‘Let it go.’
Ben stared at her crossly. ‘And what exactly is it you think I’m holding onto?’ he snapped bitterly, pulling the second inflated roti from the cooker and burning his fingers.
‘Where do I start?’ she chuckled mildly. ‘Your weekly routine, hanging around some church you refuse to enter? Your fervent defence of Sid? And the elephant in the room: beating yourself up over some relationship that went sour.’ She looked at him kindly. ‘These things are all in the past now.’
‘Until I can say sorry, they’re my present.’
‘Maybe you don’t need to say sorry.’
‘Oh, but I do,’ he complained. ‘It haunts me.’
‘No, you just need somebody to say, “I love you.” And then all these blues will leave you. How do I know? Because I’m the same.’ Satya beamed at him thoughtfully. ‘You just need to remember what happiness is,’ she told him, attending to the last of the rotis.
‘Happiness is an Indian mango in June,’ grinned Ben, recalling more contented times.
‘True,’ agreed Satya, ‘But it’s also having a friend to talk to.’ She nodded her head. ‘This is happiness for me,’ she said. ‘Be happy, Ben.’
‘Happiness is a pressure cooker filled with red lentils,’ he laughed. ‘Happiness is a veg thali every night of the week,’ he joked. ‘Happiness is…’
‘Happiness is to spend time in your company, Ben,’ said Satya, turning the cooker off. ‘That’s happiness to me.’
Between them now laid a stainless-steel tray on the countertop, three bowls full to the rim with an aromatic meal, arranged around the pyramid of rice in the centre, four rotis stacked to the side. ‘Congratulations, Ben,’ said Satya keenly, picking it up, ‘your first thali. Looks wonderful.’
‘All credit to you,’ he replied, following after her, back into the dining room, still devoid of furniture.
‘Let’s go halves on the acclaim,’ she said, dropping to her knees, setting the tray down on the floor between them. ‘Dig in,’ she said, excavating a portion of dal with a piece of roti herself, her eyes enlarged.
‘May God bless you, Satya Singh,’ he replied, satiating his colossal hunger. He meant that more than he could ever express, and he sung her praises within, remembering a faith he had once nurtured, before his perennial cynicism had obliterated it. ‘May God grant you happiness,’ came his silent thoughts.
[1] Song: Mr. Wendal by Arrested Development from their 1992 album 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of…
