‘The red disc is the queen. She’s the most valuable piece, so she sits in the centre. All of the other pieces go around her in a circle.’ She clustered the eighteen black and white discs in the middle of the board, protecting the queen at its heart.

‘Where’s the king?’ Vivek asked.

‘There isn’t one,’ she replied.

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know, I never thought about it. Perhaps the queen isn’t married,’ she laughed.

‘Like you?’ he asked, spreading the holy ash around the surface of the board the way he had seen his grandmother do with her carom powder.

‘Yes, like me.’

‘What about that man who came to the house yesterday, Dhara mami? Is he your boyfriend?’ Smrithi asked. Dhara took the child’s left hand and arranged her fingers on the board, her index finger hooked over her middle finger, spring loading it.

‘Position your hand like that, Smrithi, and flick the striker disc with your middle finger. Aim for your colour. So if you’re white, use your striker disc to hit the white discs into the corner.’

Smrithi tried to keep her fingers locked in the posture she had created. Vivek was not as easily distracted.

‘Was that your boyfriend? Ahilan?’ he asked again, stating the name he had heard from the conversation yesterday.

‘No, concentrate on the corner. He’s just a friend from work. Did you hear us chatting, while you were spying, children?’ she asked.

Chastened, the children looked at each other, and Vivek spoke for both of them. ‘No, mami. We tried to, but Ayah caught us.’

‘So she should.’ Dhara was relieved. Ayah knew who Ahilan was and the old woman had heard the conversation before.

Ahilan often spoke to her in lists: ‘We need sterile surgical packs, but the heavy-duty ones with extra dressings, sutures and needles. Also: gloves, Savlon packs, pain killers; not just paracetamol, strong ones too—morphine and pethidine if you can get it. This time, I’ll get: plaster of Paris kits, IV fluid packs, antibiotics—oral and injections, blood substitutes—’

The list went on. Each month it became longer.

Dhara hadn’t lied to the children; he was a friend from work.

‘He’s handsome,’ Smrithi ventured, with a naughty smile.

‘Yes, actually, he is,’ she replied, flicking her striker disc hard into the centre of the board. The circle broke and the pieces scattered, leaving the queen exposed.

•

Smrithi dropped to her hands and knees and pushed Clive out of the way, using her entire body weight to move the dog.

‘He’s getting fatter,’ she groaned and shoved him carefully, one last time.

‘He’s just getting older, like all of us, mahal.’ Dhara smiled and sat next to her in the doorway to the kitchen. The midday sun had moved to the other side of the house, leaving the kitchen shaded and cool.

‘What kind of dog is he?’ Smrithi asked.