Everything alters in the dark. It is one thing to be inside the house watching it, another to be standing outside. A motorbike putters towards us and slows down. I grip Lucia’s hand tightly but she immediately shakes it away. The bike stops next to us. It is Mallika’s half-sister’s husband’s cousin – the one who works as the head gardener at the ashram next door, who lost his young boy to fits. ‘What are you doing walking alone like this?’ he barks at Mallika. ‘We were at the temple,’ she says. ‘Now we are going home.’ The man’s face is wide and angry, his eyes pop out like golf balls. ‘Stupid bitch,’ he says. ‘That lady has a car so why didn’t you drive there? Now is not the time to do all this. There are too many tensions. I’m just coming from Kadalur – there was a bunch of drunkards who wanted to come and make a noise here. All K. Alexander’s men. This Valluvan thinks he’s some kind of hero standing for elections, but he hasn’t paid the right people.’

The man doesn’t look at Lucia or me. All the force of his rage is concentrated on Mallika. ‘Okay, okay, that’s enough,’ I tell him. ‘We’ll be fine.’

We walk away from him and turn into the gate. The house seems far away, but the dogs are running towards us, barking and shattering all the unease. Lucia starts to skip down the driveway, the heavy ghagra choli catching in the weeds, the frangipani crown long demolished. She’s lifting her legs up and down, her sequinned skirt glinting in the torchlight. ‘Wait,’ I shout. ‘Wait, Lucy!’ But she refuses to hear. Up down, up down. She moves at the pace of a heartbeat. I watch the dogs circle her, running around and around in excitement. And it is girlhood, it is love, it is a word caught in my throat. Is that why they say my heart skipped a beat? Because before you can name it, you’re breathing again.

Chapter 26

26

What happens to old lovers? What must we do with them?

They line up in military fashion, in order of height and seniority. Blake, Dawit, Vik. To have lived this long and to have such paltry representation. Was there really no one else? No lone evening of love with a stranger? Are these the only faces I must recall when I’m swimming underwater, trying to bring it all back?