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.

Chapter 16

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.

‘Shall we go in here, Lucy? You love Benetton, don’t you?’

We look through the racks of clothing. Everything I choose is somehow too dull, too tailored, not to Lucia’s liking.

I find a long red dress made of jersey and spandex with a square-cut top, three-quarter sleeves and slits up the sides that end demurely at the knee.

‘What about this? Come, let’s go try it on.’

In the changing room we peel the jeans off. ‘I told you, we should have put you in something else. This is such a pain to do, Lucy.’

I put the dress over her head and it is too tight. I call to the salesgirl, ‘Can we get this in a size forty-four, please?’

A few minutes later I make Lucia walk out of the changing room to look at herself in the full-length mirror. The dress catches over all her fat bits, but the colour is strong and makes her look healthy. ‘I like it,’ I say.

Lucia tugs at the material around her waist and pulls at it, irritated. ‘No,’ she says.

‘Okay. We’ll keep looking.’