‘Toothpaste is nice and it’s more convenient. You should try it. You might like it,’ she said dubiously. There was only so much change a man could take.

She cleaned her face with a wet cloth, starting with the vermilion pottu in the centre of her forehead. She wiped it sideways. The remnants looked like a shooting star. Priya didn’t wear a pottu anymore, unless she was wearing a sari. She mostly wore slacks and shirts, even t-shirts. She wasn’t as tall as Nala or as fair, but she was still very beautiful.

‘What did you think about the lady we met today?’ she asked.

‘Which lady?’

‘The one at the Plaza—the Tamil one who knew Priya. She was funny.’

‘Funny?’

‘Yes, funny. A little strange or rude or something, don’t you think?’ She tried again to get support.

‘She seemed fine to me. It was quite nice of her to introduce herself and help us,’ he replied.

‘I don’t know if she was really trying to help us, to be honest. She had a funny way of talking. She referred to me as Priya’s mother.’

‘You are Priya’s mother.’ Rajan was irritatingly rational.

‘Yes, but in Colombo, no one would come up to me and say, “Are you Priya’s mother?” What a ridiculous way to introduce yourself. Everyone knows who I am.’

‘Well, we’re not in Colombo anymore,’ he sighed wearily, turning the lid tightly on the last of his teeth-cleaning powder.

•

At 6:30 in the morning, Nala and Rajan went down to the fish markets at Flemington to choose the largest, meatiest crabs. The market reminded her of Kollupitiya, but teeming with Australians and a surprising number of Chinese people shouting at each other. The language was different. She liked the smoothness of its consonants, which were at variance with the harshness of the hand gestures that accompanied it. Colombo had its share of Chinese restaurants. The food was sweet and sticky, not like their food. But she had never seen so many Chinese people before and she realised she was staring.

She wasn’t sure what crabs she was looking for. Ayah usually chose them while flirting inappropriately with the crab karaya. The old woman would circle the crab cart parked in the dust outside the front gate, her bowed and rickety legs causing her to walk with a lateral rocking movement, much like the animals she was inspecting.

Dark and mottled shells: that was what she needed, she remembered now. She pointed out a few of the larger crustaceans at the back to the vendor. He was intent on selling her the smaller, greener ones writhing at the front of the stall.

‘You don’t get to choose, love. You just tell me what weight you want and I give them to you,’ the man insisted again.