‘It isn’t difficult,’ I say. ‘It’s just the repetitiveness of it.’

After Auntie Kavitha leaves, Lucia and I go out on the beach with the dogs. We have five of them now. Raja, our golden one. Bagheera, our Nubian queen, and their three black-and-white daughters – Hunter, Thompson and Flopsy. They rush out of the gate and put their snouts in the air, sniffing to see if enemy packs are nearby. We charge after them, Lucia and I, flinging our rubber slippers in the sand, feeling the scrub between our toes. The dogs run in and out of the waves, wetting their paws, except for Raja, who is afraid of water. We walk past the newly constructed ashram, where white-robed foreigners sometimes drift out to do yoga by the reclining stone Buddha. Past the derelict beach resort with its dead date palms and sagging volleyball net, where on weekends groups of city men gather to drink beer.

We pass the scattering of half-built houses constructed too close to the sea. Muslim fishermen from the neighbouring village are out with their lines. They look like office clerks with long-sleeved shirts and trousers. They must have jobs they can hurry away from, because at four they are standing in the sand with their skullcaps and their small cloth bags of tackle – casting and reeling, casting and reeling. When they see us approach, they lift their lines high so we can crouch under, or they press them close to the sand for us to jump over. They do not like the dogs, and sometimes raise their hands to shoo them away. But they always smile at Lucia. ‘Sister?’ they ask as I pass. I do what I always do when any of the locals try to speak with me. I pretend I am not from this place. I smile benignly with no sense that I have understood their question. I wave at them instead, and Lucia, because she is happy, waves too.

We keep walking till there is nothing but beach and casuarina, shell and flotsam. The dogs are manic. They bite and play, and I imagine because joy is tearing out of them, they turn to us and howl. Lucia and I do it too: raise our heads to the sky and howl as if the sea was a window and we were climbing out of it.

10

A death in the village. All night there are drums. I close the shutters and windows along the west-facing wall, but the pounding-thumping sounds roll through. Mallika tells me that the man who died was an important man – a school headmaster, which means there will be drums all week.

In the morning I find Lucia awake in bed, legs stretched out, her collection of new friends – a ragtag group of napkins, handkerchiefs and socks – lined up meticulously on either side of her. She has given up on her stuffed animals and jigsaw puzzles. All the old toys sit mildewing in the corner. These new friends go everywhere with her. She spends hours picking each one up, gently flipping it forwards and backwards, flick flick flick with her wrists, proceeding to go down the entire marching order, only to start again. Sometimes she sings as she does this, rocking her body forwards and backwards. If one of these friends goes missing, or if I try to put them in the washing machine, she hollers at me, ‘Gimme back blue, Grace … gimme blue.’