*

Lucia’s nightmares have subsided, but one afternoon she screams so loudly all the dogs start howling. I run into her room, and she is standing on the bed hopping about. ‘Mouse, mouse,’ she shrieks. Golly is curled up uselessly in her basket, peering out with no intention of moving. I go to the bathroom and grab a mop with a wooden handle. ‘Where is it?’ I say, and she points under the linen cupboard. I start jumping about too, whacking the end of the mop on the concrete floor, shouting, ‘Get out of there!’ and when the mouse runs – Jesus, it’s huge – I try to beat it but it’s quick, and soon it’s jumping up the blinds. Who knew mice could jump so high? I whack the blinds madly, and the mouse falls on the floor, scrabbling away until I get it. I hit it, a dull thud in the centre of its body. I keep beating it. It’s as though I’m standing outside myself as I do this. Lucia is screaming, the dogs are barking. Mallika has run upstairs to see what the commotion is about. When she sees it’s a mouse, she laughs and picks the dead thing up by its tail. ‘Looks like it was pregnant,’ she says. ‘Good thing you caught it.’

I am shaking and sweating. ‘I’ve never killed an animal before,’ I say.

Mallika grunts. ‘Maybe you should get rid of all these dogs and get some cats instead.’

She walks downstairs swinging the mouse by its tail. I watch her go over to the compound wall, lifting her legs high over the wet brambles. She stands at the brick, steadies one hand over the top of the wall and flings the carcase over. Within seconds a black-shouldered kite swoops down to take this unexpected prize in its mouth and disappears into the sky.

16

There is a ring of traffic around the mall so thick and tightly crammed I feel like giving up and turning around. Midweek, midday, but still we are among a pilgrimage of cars, motorbikes, mopeds, cycles, trucks, auto-rickshaws, buses, scooters – all spewing fumes into the air. The trees lining the street look weak and hung-over. We are here to find a dress for Lucia. She sits in the passenger seat wearing jeans and a striped T-shirt, one chubby leg hitched up under her. Two men on a motorbike at the traffic light beside us look at her transfixed and begin to make faces at her. Lucia carries on with her singing, oblivious to their stares.

Once inside the mall I grab hold of Lucia’s hand. She shakes me away, follows at a distance from me. This is new. Her and me in a public place. I should have brought someone along – Rohini, Auntie Kavitha, my new friend Praveen – someone to bolster my confidence. People are looking, trying not to, but looking anyway. Something about the features of her face – the flattened-out nose, the slanting eyes, the tongue too big for her mouth. I feel, what? Defensive? I want to absorb these stares, divert their looks by talking loudly to Lucia as though she understands everything, as if there is nothing so different about her.