He doesn’t seem to be perturbed by our mission or by our flouting of the law. He stands at the gates watching, while Lucia and I cross the jungle of lawn and arrive at the portico, where the front door has been unhinged and dismantled.

The whole place is damp and bereft. The drawing room has been invaded by raspberry brambles pushing up through the floor and cascading through the windows. Cheap whisky bottles and cigarette stubs are scattered in corners. All the grey stone is eroded and the floors are filthy with excrement. Only parts of the walls show evidence of an earlier periwinkle blue with yellow trim.

There are two gaping holes in the walls of the sitting room on either side of the fireplace and the kitchen has been stripped bare. It’s as if someone had redecorating plans and then just forgot the house existed.

There is my bay window overlooking Mount Perumal and Papi’s office shed. The garden that Ma so painstakingly nurtured, completely overrun with devil’s plague.

‘I used to live here with Mummy and Papi,’ I tell Lucia, who has parked herself on the dirty floor and is flipping the sleeve of her sweatshirt this way and that.

I try to imagine how our evenings in Mahalakshmi would have been with Lucia sitting on the rug in front of the fire, crouched over a jigsaw puzzle, her tongue stuck out from concentration, while her stubby fingers slowly pushed the pieces of the puzzle together.

‘We had a dog, you know? His name was Salsicciotto. He was completely white and I loved him.’

At the mention of Salsicciotto Lucia perks up. ‘That’s Mummy’s dog.’

‘Yes, she took him with her when I went to college. Did she bring him with her sometimes when she came to see you?’

‘That’s Mummy’s dog. He’s gone to God.’

I ask the taxi driver to take a photograph of Lucia and me at the entrance of the house before we head down the hills to catch our train.

‘Cheese,’ he says, and Lucia answers, ‘Paneer.’

The picture is blurry, and Lucia is standing on the step above me, making it so that she’s the taller one. Two broken chimneys sprout out of the roof, and behind that, a ring of eucalyptus. We are both opening our mouths, exposing the pink tinge of our gums, and in that tremulous light, it’s possible to believe we are sisters.

Part Three

PART THREE

Chapter 22

22

There’s a tendency in failed marriages to look back and remember it all as suffering.

So much distance between us, but I can still feel the weight of Blake’s thigh on mine. Prosciutto legs. That’s what I used to call him. ‘Get those prosciuittino off me,’ I’d say, and he’d heave with greater force, squashing me until we were both laughing. I still lash out some nights, battling with his imaginary body.