‘You look tired, Lucy. Didn’t you sleep?’

She shakes her head.

‘Too much noise, right? I know. Shall we have a bath, then? Get going for the day?’

I run the water in the bucket and nudge the plastic stool over with my feet. Lucia’s bathroom is open to the sky, so when I look up I can see part of a new construction next door, black-shouldered kites swooping and darting, clouds in the shape of a dancing bear.

‘C’mon,’ I rally. ‘C’mon, c’mon.’

She stands in front of me, waiting for me to strip her down to panties and brassiere. She has lost a little weight thanks to our daily walks, although she’s still a hearty girl – arms and legs, bum and breasts and face.

She lowers herself carefully onto the stool and I pour mugs of warm water over her. I squeeze a glob of body wash into the bath sponge and hand it to her so she can scrub under her arms and between her toes. There are faint strings of hair along her arms and legs. I refill the bucket three times.

‘More,’ she says, when she sees me about to fetch the towel.

‘Just one more, then.’

I fill the bucket and I do what my grandmother used to do to me. It’s the one fond memory I have of Grandma Loretta. When we used to visit them in Tranquebar, she would make us girl cousins line up in the bathroom, and for each of us, she’d pour a bucket of water over our heads like a waterfall, saying, ‘Karuvi, karuvi, karuvi,’ slowly first, and then whoosh, the final splash, which took your breath away.

I do this to Lucia – ‘Karuvi, karuvi, karuvi’ – and when the water’s finished, she stands, and I wrap the towel around her while I help to remove her wet underwear. Such care to modesty. This is the way Teacher taught me to bathe her. And when she’s dry, on goes the talcum powder, a storm of it. She does this cheerfully, dousing her armpits with talc, then putting out her palm and patting splodges of powder on her face and in the ridges of her neck.

We are having golden days at the beach. The sea is flat, the horizon white. Boats shimmer in the distance, the noise of their motors faint and far. Everything is held in a sun-bleached March lull.

Bagheera was on the lawn with a dead chicken this morning. She had her puppies a few weeks ago, but she still won’t allow us to follow her to them. Mallika thinks she must have had a big litter because of the way she’s skulking around the house, perpetually hungry, her teats swollen and pink. Her three daughters are pregnant too. Lucia is delirious at the idea of so many puppies. ‘After this, we’re bringing the Blue Cross in to fix them,’ I warn her. ‘That’s the end of the puppies. How are we going to look after so many dogs?’