She kissed him and handed him the toasted sandwiches filled with spicy potato curry. He kissed her back. She was different since the baby had arrived—lighter, more relaxed.

On the weekends he worked as a GP for a radio service. Spending endless hours in a sweaty car, he went to far-off suburbs, misleadingly called Frenchs Forest or confusingly called Castle Hill, which was very different from Castlecrag.

Today his call-outs were in Lakemba. As he threaded through the warren of streets in Sydney’s west, he said the same prayer he had said every day for the last thirteen months.

‘Please Lord, let my life become useful to others, let me not have left my home in vain.’ He took a deep breath and remembered the courage of his father, of Rajan, of all the men before him who had worked hard for their families.

He repeated the words of Lord Krishna to the warrior Arjuna: Who are you to be afraid? Do your duty and leave the rest with God.

He perched the Gregory’s Road Atlas dangerously on his lap and prayed that the patients of Lakemba had seen Sri Lankans before and would not call him names like yesterday’s call out. And, as he saw signs for Chullora, he prayed that he would find Lakemba.

•

Priya positioned the bouncer next to the paint tray and gave Smrithi the rubber teething ring to play with. Vivek sat cross-legged next to the baby, with a pile of Ladybird books, flicking the pages and pretending to read to himself. She had picked them up from a St Vincent de Paul’s shop. Vinnie’s, she corrected herself, passing him another toasted sandwich.

Siva still couldn’t find work as a specialist, so she was setting up a GP practice in an old, run-down fish-and-chip shop. Reluctantly, Siva had asked Rajan for help, borrowing the bond and the first month’s rent. Priya quietly asked him for a second, third and fourth month’s rent without telling Siva. Rajan agreed without telling Nala.

‘You’d like Homebush, Appa,’ she said to him. ‘There’s a growing Indian and Sri Lankan community here; it’s a lot like Wellawatte. They need a GP they can relate to, especially a woman. It’s the perfect opportunity for us.’

It’s the perfect opportunity for us, she repeated to herself.

She surveyed her new surgery with the beginning of hope. Ayah was right about the sugar soap, it cut through the greasy membrane that covered the walls. Siva’s shoulders ached, but he kept scrubbing, until the aged colour, an uncertain yellow, emerged.