My mouth is dry and there’s a bad smell coming from it. I want to lie on the ground and stay here. I think of who I can call and, suddenly, I’m overcome with tears. I feel there should be someone I can call. Someone who’s doing this with me.

I get up and move towards the car, reach for the phone in my handbag and dial Mallika’s number. Nothing. I get in and start the engine. The dogs begin to howl in confusion. I go back up the driveway, through the gate to Valluvan’s house. I’ve never driven there before because I was always embarrassed to show them my car, but I don’t know where I must go and what has happened.

There’s no place to park so I stop the car a little ahead of the house, blocking the small tarmacked road. The door of Valluvan’s house is open, as always. I stand at the threshold, lean my body in. ‘Valluvan,’ I say. ‘Are you here?’

Lenin, the boy, appears. He is taller and there is a new mannishness to his limbs. ‘Hi akka,’ he says. ‘Did you bring me chocolate?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Is your father here, or mother?’

His face closes. ‘Amma,’ he shouts, and runs out of the front door.

I hover there, not sure if I should go inside and wait, or keep watch here. Lenin is stroking the flanks of the car doors admiringly. He opens out the side mirror and smooths down his hair, juts his chin out and makes faces at his reflection.

‘Nila,’ I shout. ‘Nila, are you here?’

Nila sees me at the door. Her hands are full of clothes. ‘Where have you been?’ she says, accusingly.

‘What’s happened?’ I say. ‘I don’t understand what’s happened.’

She drops the bundle of clothes on the floor and starts beating her forehead softly. Tears stream out as she begins to convulse. A noise starts coming from within her – a harsh, painful sound. No words that I can understand except for ‘they are coming for us’.

‘Who?’ I say. ‘What’s happened? Where’s Mallika? Where’s Lucy?’

‘How can you ask this?’ she keeps saying.

I pick up the clothes and heap them on the two jute stools by the almirah.

‘You,’ she says, her body shaking slowly now, as if she were dizzy. ‘You can leave whenever you want to, but what about me, what about my children?’

‘Nila,’ I say, shaking her. ‘Tell me what it is. I don’t understand anything.’

At seven I walk down the stone path to the beach with a torch. The dark comes so quickly here, turning the edge of day into something altered and treacherous.