Blake sent me a photograph recently, of us taken at the dance where we met. I’m showing off my skinny legs in a blousy geometric dress, my waist is encased with a thick studded belt, and every accessory on my person, including my pumps, are variations on the shade of Pepto-Bismol. Blake is smiling widely with his too-white teeth, a pansy wilting in the buttonhole of his shoulder-padded blazer. We are both sporting hairdos that resemble filo pastry – feathery tufts cascading around our emaciated faces.

On the back of the photograph Blake had inscribed: B&G, ‘Summertime’, Kodaikanal, 1994. Love at first blossom?

Back home, in our driveway, there’s a man leaning against a motorbike. As soon as he sees the car he hurries to open the gate and gives us a cheerful salute as we drive through. I pull the handbrake and step out.

‘Yes? Can I help you?’

‘Ah, hello, madam. I’m interested in buying land in this area. Can you help me?’

‘I’m not interested in selling.’

‘But you’re a foreigner, no?’ He squints. ‘How can you own land in India?’

‘I own this land and I’m not interested in selling. Please look somewhere else.’

Before I can climb back into the car, he thrusts a business card into my hand.

‘Sorry, okay, please don’t be offending? In case you change your mind, my name is Jiva. I’m a real-estate broker. Just you call me in case anything is changing.’

Opening the front door I let loose at Mallika. ‘Why aren’t you locking the fucking gate? Don’t you know any bloody fellow can just come in here whenever he feels like? What’s the point of keeping you, I don’t know. What are you people good for anyway?’

Sometimes I sound so much like my father it disgusts me.

PART ONE

1

Return is never the experience you hope for. After all those lost years in America I wanted to walk into the streets and know them, but there is a new tightness to the city, an exuberance that is difficult to understand.

Madras. August 2010. A swell of bodies. At arrivals there’s a crush of families and hotel chauffeurs, bouquets wrapped in plastic and welcome boards. It’s past one in the morning. What kind of parents are these who bring their bawling children out so late into the night?

The air attacks you at the threshold. Heavy, sweaty air, which smells of something that was once sweet, now rotting. Damp in the armpits and crotch. Jeans sticking to thighs.

Taxi drivers and porters are jostling about trying to cadge a passenger. Taxi, madam, taxi? Prepaid customers roll their luggage primly towards Fast Track and Akbar Cars without making eye contact. Madrasis returning home are on their mobile phones, instructing people to hurry and meet them at the pickup point.

Murali is waiting for me in the usual place. He is old and as dark as the night, hairy-eared and half blind. The way he drives, it will take us five hours instead of three, but Ma always valued loyalty over ability, even though she herself could rarely be relied upon to be steadfast.