The old woman turned the door handle quietly. The house was dark and still. She had heard the soft whimpering for many nights. She knew she would hear it for many more.

For decades she had soothed the pain of other people’s children as though they were her own. She didn’t resent her lot in life. She fed them, bathed them and comforted them. She watched over them all and never judged them.

She hobbled into the room, guided by the moonlight that flooded through the open shutters. The child didn’t like the dark.

She parted the folds of muslin, careful not to startle her, and pulled herself up onto the tall bed. She placed a twisted, walnut-shell of a hand on the child’s hair and stroked the curls back from her wet face.

‘Ala vendahm, patty.’ Don’t cry little girl, Ayah whispered, in a mix of Sinhalese and Tamil. She bent down and kissed Dhara’s head. The girl clung to her and whimpered more, until finally she slept.

•

Dhara covered her mouth and pulled away as Shiranthi reached for her face with a tube of lipstick. Every week Shiranthi would take her on an errand, sometimes real but often contrived. Dhara doubted Shiranthi, an accountant, had any need to go to the library at Colombo General Hospital. Once, Dhara had agreed to go to the market at Fort, but halfway through their shopping expedition, she couldn’t breathe and needed to come home.

Eventually, they had fallen into a pattern of going to the beach at Galle Face Green early on a Sunday morning with Nandan, and the hospital library on Friday evening, when both places were quiet.

‘Just try it, Acca,’ Shiranthi pleaded. ‘It’s called English Rose, which I suppose means it’s paler than other kinds of roses. I don’t know,’ Shiranthi laughed self-consciously, studying the light pink stick. She turned to face Dhara’s mirror and pursed her lips. She applied a coat quickly and pressed her lips together.

‘Now you—’ she turned back to Dhara, holding the lipstick out to her.

‘English Rose? Are you sure I won’t fall prey to postcolonial political mediocrity? Or the heat?’ Dhara parried.

‘Shall I do it for you?’

Dhara nodded. Shiranthi could be as happily insistent as Nala.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘For what?’ Shiranthi asked.

‘For the wedding. I mean I’m sorry I couldn’t come. There were too many … people, and I was …’ she faltered. She was pregnant. If she said the word out loud then she would have to say other words such as: baby and gone, longing and regret. And more words too, that people like Shiranthi and Nandan or even Priya would not understand, words like: duty and home and homeland.

‘Hold still,’ Shiranthi smiled. ‘I understood. We both did, Acca.’ She traced the outline of Dhara’s lips, then filled them in with the colour.