Outside it’s dark and smoky. I reach for my spectacles and torch, and make my way downstairs to check the gas. Then I come back upstairs and go across the landing to Lucia’s room. She’s sleeping on her back, the bottoms of her feet meeting in a foot Namaste, hands thrown up over her head. Watching her like that, I want to climb into the bed and fan her thin brown hair against my chest and shoulders.

Out on my balcony, where the phone signal is strongest, I call Mallika.

‘Where’s all this smoke coming from?’ I ask. ‘Are you burning another snake? How many times have I told you they’re not poisonous!’

‘No, Ma. It’s not a snake. Today is Bhogi. Everyone is burning their old things. You should close the windows.’

I’d forgotten about this tradition of people hauling all their useless things to burn in preparation for the New Year. I bolt the shutters and windows and climb back into bed to fall into a fearsome sleep, thinking only that I should remember to buy Mallika a new sari the next time I go to Madras. She’d expect it for the New Year.

A few hours later, Lucia’s at the bed, tugging at the covers. ‘Wake up, Grace, wake up.’

She doesn’t let me change. ‘Fast, fast,’ she keeps shouting, so I pull on a robe and find slippers for my feet. Downstairs, Mallika looks sullen, wearing one of my old cardigans over her sari, arms wrapped tightly across her tummy.

We set off down the driveway – Mallika and Lucia ahead of me, marching. Lucy’s thighs rub-squeaking against each other in pyjamas.

I take note of how many holes there are in the brick compound wall. That’s where the goats come through – there and there. I marvel at how nicely the bougainvillea is coming along – huge, heaving hedges of magenta and orange sprawling over the brickwork. A speckled woodpecker sits in the middle of the path, making his noise, then disappears into a gulmohar.

The dogs are arranged like a question mark on the ground by the gate. Kat, Preity, the three mothers – Hunter, Thompson and Flopsy – ungainly and heavy-titted. By the gate on the ground there’s a package of newspaper with rice and meat. At first I cannot comprehend the scene, but then I see smears of vomit and blood around the mouths of the dogs and understand they’ve been poisoned.

‘Get that out of here,’ I say to Mallika. ‘Anyone could pick that up and eat it.’

We come back with gloves and shovels. The poor, sad, dead dogs. Their black bodies are hardening in the sun and beginning to stink. Mallika asks if she should call for help. ‘A man would be useful,’ she says.

‘No, I don’t want anyone in here,’ I say.

It takes hours to dig the holes. The sun is strong and a scratch of pain starts from my lower back and spreads into my shoulders. I plug on obstinately until the work is done. We wrap the dogs in plastic first, then sheets, and lay them in the ground. Lucia wants to say a prayer for each of them. ‘Oh Father,’ she starts, the rest of her words nonsensical, flowing out of her in some kind of litany.