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My plan to do absolutely nothing has gone to shit. I knew it would, given that I’m at my in-laws, but I didn’t realise it would spoil quite so quickly and quite so much.
Here I am, the clock having barely struck 11am, grinding rice. Grinding. Rice. Who does that? Isn’t that what ready ground rice is for? My mum, who’s accepted that it’s her life’s work to fold hundreds of samosas every year, doesn’t grind rice like this. She buys the packet stuff.
What’s worse is that, to ensure even grinding, I’m using the smallest cup that comes with the blender. The one the size of a cappuccino. The one that comes with every blender, yet nobody ever uses. Or at least we never did. The painstaking process involves filling two thirds of the cup, grinding meticulously, then adding the crumbling rice to a silver bowl. Then repeat, again and again. I’ve been at this for half an hour and I’ve only done four cups. It’s going to be a long morning.
Now, it’s not like I’m doing this alone. My mother-in-law is busying herself chopping onions and bashing ginger in a metal pestle and mortar. It’s also not like she directly asked me to do the grinding but the unwritten rule is, if your mother-in-law is in the kitchen cooking, you offer up both hands in service.
In all the time I’ve been married, this is a new chore. One that I don’t want to make a habit of. And what’s the auspicious occasion for such a laborious job? We’re making soy fita, the steamed rice dumplings that are such a ball-ache to make, because... the little princess requested it. Couple that with the arrival of an unexpected guest from Oldham, and here I am with rice granules in my hair, sprinkled on my outfit and who knows where else.
I could lynch M’s sister. I’m so pissed off at having to do this. I’m also hungry, as I forgot the rule of filling my face with bread in the morning.
To make matters worse, this lady (who is apparently a very distant cousin of M’s, so I have to call her sister despite her being a white-haired woman in her late sixties) is watching my every move.
I could do with having M here but as is becoming frequent, he is missing. My wish to have a sociable husband with lots of friends has come back to bite me on the arse. Every time we’re up north it’s like a boys’ reunion. He’s currently playing golf with Jam, who I only ever see in London, where I’m footloose, wearing skinny jeans, and not elbow deep in rice residue. What would he think if he saw me now, a complete juxtaposition of my other self? Would he be shocked? Or does he know that’s the way it is when married girls go back to their in-laws house? It’s probably the latter, as it’s the most open secret of all.
While we’re on the subject of Jam, I’m not being funny but given that they’re joined at the hip in London, do they really have to catch up when we’re up north, too? What new ground could they possibly have to cover?
“What you cook today?” the cousin asks from beneath her hooded black headscarf. She looks like a badger - small, hunched, rounded and grey-haired.
“Lamb curry with soy fita,” M’s mum answers for me. “And got fish and chicken from yesterday.”
“We also made soy fita. And my bahu made shingara and coconut samosa. I tell her, why make so much?” She laughs while recounting this tale.
My mother-in-law lets out a wry half-smile. “Very good. It always easier when they no work. What else they do?”
Ooh burn! M’s mum just did the Bengali equivalent of sticking it to the badgering old lady.
“Yes, work is good for little bit. But then who look after house? Who look after kids?” says M’s very old cousin.
My mother-in-law stays silent. Then, she says: “That’s true.”
I wish she said more.
As I refill the cup with rice and blitz with the grinder, it occurs to me that my mum’s right. My career is my currency. It’s my get out of cooking card. It’s my reason for not having kids card. I’ve wrapped so much of myself in work, and so much of my work in me, that sometimes it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
“My woman want even more children. Three not enough.” The old cousin cackles.
I find it uncomfortable the way she refers to her daughter-in-law as the ‘woman’. It’s an outdated turn of phrase, and one that has hidden connotations of holding power. Her daughter-in-law, I am told, is a woman from back home who knows exactly how to handle herself in the family. She is the lady of the household. At the same time, she is more than that. She is a person. Not an aide to her mother-in-law. Not her woman.
“And you? Do you like it being empty?” She gestures towards my stomach.
My mother-in-law, who at this point is busying herself near the cooker and as far away from this nosey bag as possible, may not have heard what she said. I did. It cut me.
I’m not desperate for kids. I’m not broody. But what if I was? Would that have even occurred to her? Does she think everybody is a fertile, baby producing machine? The brazenness astounds me. Is this the sum total of my worth? If I don’t produce kids pronto, have I not fulfilled my end of the marital bargain?
Nobody gets it. My mum just thinks I’ll get another job, no problem. If not, surely M can cover us both for a while, in the way men used to. My sisters think the same. They’re kept women, too. They can buy what they want, when they want, without thinking of the financial implications.
I’m glad my in-laws are none the wiser about my redundancy. Judging by this old lady’s attitude, If they had an inkling I’d be out of work next month, I’m sure they’d be on my case about having kids. I’m glad they don’t know. As far as I’m concerned, they’ll never know. They don’t need to.
Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no.
I can feel it. The heat is rising in my face, flooding my cheeks and filling my head. I can’t do this. Not now. I can’t cry in front of my mother-in-law, or the other nosey cow.
“I’ll be back,” is all I can muster before my voice starts to tremble.
My father-in-law, who’s been assuming his usual indifference in the lounge, briefly looks in my direction as I run through the room, before returning to his Bengali talk show.
***
I hear the front door slam. Good, the old bag has gone.
Must compose myself. There’s only so long I can loiter in our temporary bedroom before I’m summoned downstairs to face the music and the food. I can’t go down like this though, all blubbery and cried out. I go to apply my cream blush in the mirror and then realise I needn’t bother. The deep plum shade is no match for my already flushed cheeks. Don’t even get me started on the puffy eyes. There is absolutely no way of denying I’ve had a session of ugly crying. I can’t let them see me like this. What would they think? What if my mother-in-law asks me what’s up? How would I explain when I can’t pinpoint the exact thing that upset me? I don’t know if saying it’s been a torrent of shit would clearly convey my reason for tears.
There is a knock on the door and then, in true Bengali style, the handle is turned before I have a chance to respond. I guess I’ll have to think of something to tell them.
“What’s going on?” asks M, in chinos and a jumper that are far too formal for a weekend but perhaps fitting for a round of golf.
What to say? Where to start?
“Isn’t it enough seeing Jam all the time in London, without you... buggering off and leaving me in the lurch here, too?” Well, that just rolled off my stammering tongue before I had a chance to think about it. I guess it’ll be my jumping off point.
“Why? What happened?” He comes down and sits next to me on the bed.
One of the things I’ve learnt, mainly through the errors of others, is that you do not, under any circumstances, badmouth your in-laws to your husband. You reason, you explain rationally, you may even complain in polite tones. You do not bitch in the heat of the moment.
“What hasn’t happened? I’m there working like a dog downstairs, while that old woman is... watching and judging with her beady old eyes. Not your mum, your old cousin. I’ve been grinding rice all morning because your sister wanted it. Why doesn’t she bloody make it herself? Whenever the shit-stirrers come over, they go on about how a woman should do things, how a wife should be. Yet the daughters swan around doing nothing, coming and going as they please. Hypocrites the lot of them. I hate it. I hate this.”
Okay, so that didn’t come out as I had intended. However, all I can do is look to see his reaction.
M gets up and heads to the door.
Oh... shit.
“Wait! What are you doing? Don’t say anything!”
M ignores my pleas and stomps down the stairs.
Oh... my... God. What have I started?
There’s shouting. All from M.
“Why? Why do you have to do this? Who wants soy fita now anyway?” is one of the sentences I can make out amongst muffled noise.
I can’t hear what my mother-in-law is saying in response. Should I go down there? I guess I’ve got to defuse the detonator I set off.
I tread carefully down the stairs, not knowing what carnage I’m entering. My father-in-law hasn’t moved from his armchair.
He mumbles to himself: “Never heard this before.” He doesn’t notice me skip past him, thank goodness.
“We’re not gonna come again!” says M, which seems a little dramatic.
“Leave it. It’s fine,” I say, trying to bring the voice of calm, despite crapping myself.
The front door slams again. If this is M’s little sister, hopefully it will be accompanied by the sound of dainty feet running upstairs. If I could be telepathic, I would say: ‘Don’t come in here, girl. Save yourself!’
“And you!” says M, shouting in the direction of his stunned sister who made the mistake of entering the kitchen, likely checking in on the progress of her soy fita. “You need to pull your finger out.”
“Huh?”
“You never do anything and just wait for it to be done. You need to start doing your share around here!”
“I do!” M’s sister’s voice shrinks under the accusations being levelled her way. “I hoovered yesterday, before you guys came.”
Did she?
“Well... so... good!” M falters but doesn’t lose the anger in his tone, which is something I’ve never heard before. “You shouldn’t expect that everything is gonna be done because we’re here.”
He then turns to my mother-in-law, who is furiously wiping ground rice dust from the counter. “You encourage her! Always like, ‘what do you wanna eat? What should I make?’ Always creating work!”
“What I do?” asks M’s mum. “I just want to make nice thing when you come.” She continues cleaning, without making eye contact and unwittingly wipes her eyes with the cloth, spreading rice dust on her forehead and hair.
I better say something. “Here, I’ll finish this.” I reach to take the cloth from her hand. She snatches it back.
“No need! I do it!”
Oh boy, she’s pissed off with me. She probably thinks I put him up to this. She’ll think I said: ‘Go downstairs and tell them to bugger off!’ It doesn’t matter what I say or how I argue it, it’ll always be seen as my fault.
“Always out when the real work starts!” M’s not done. “You shouldn’t be out that late, anyway.”
Please stop talking, M. Please, just shut up.
“I was just at my friends.” M’s sister’s voice is now quivering.
“Yeah, that’s what you’re telling us.” M takes on a strict, fatherly role which doesn’t really suit him. Especially as his broken Bengali is causing him to splutter and stumble over his words.
M’s sister leaves abruptly. I can hear the gulping, distorted cry typical of someone who isn’t quite a child but not yet a woman, either.
“Eh, what’s going on?” M’s dad enters the room about five minutes too late.
“Nothing!” M and his mum say in unison.
***
The afternoon is horrible. Nobody talks to anybody. We eat last night’s leftover curries, that M’s mum had made, in silence. The heat was turned off the fresh lamb curry once the meat was cooked and before the potatoes and water were to be added. The soy fita never got made. The dumplings were never rolled into their little egg shapes and, instead, were left in a mountain of dust in a silver bowl, the debris of which were still visible as M’s mum didn’t do a very good job of mopping it up. I guess it was the shouting that put her off.
We’re all sat in the living room, M’s mum and dad taking an armchair each, while I have the long three seater-sofa to myself. M keeps popping in and out, to check on me in between watching the football in the front room.
Every attempt at small talk, generally around if mum wants more rice, or if I should get her a glass of water, is met with the same response: “No, I get it.”
My father-in-law, however, is more obliging. “Yes, tall glass water. One half hot, one half cold.”
I go to the kitchen, glad to be bestowed with this duty. I wash the glass extra carefully, scrubbing until it’s frothy, then polishing it with a kitchen tissue until it’s gleaming. I usually skip that part. I fill the glass with cold tap water to the halfway mark, then top up with freshly boiled water from the kettle. I may or may not have skipped this bit in the past too, and used water from the hot tap instead.
“We got lemon,” M’s mum informs her son when he pops back in during half-time. I wish he’d just pick one place to eat and bloody sit there.
“Shall I cut a slice?” I ask, looking for a job, any job, to do.
“No, I’ll get it,” says M.
I shrink back into my seat.
M returns with his slice of lemon and pops one on my plate, and one on each parent’s.
“When I go into Manchester, do you need anything from the fish shop?” asks M.
“The big shop?” M’s mum’s face lights up. “Yes, get a hilsha fish.”
“How will I bring such a big fish back?”
“You big enough.” She looks at M’s stomach, which has gotten softer of late.
“Can I just get some ready cut pieces.”
“Na na! You no even know what fish they use. Maybe not fish, maybe snake.”
“They won’t be snakes.” M laughs.
“Na beta,” M’s dad calls him son for the first time. “I saw on news they use snake instead of fish and cut so it looks same.”
“If you say so,” says M.
I can’t believe it. They’re all acting like the shouting show that took place just a couple of hours ago never happened. I mean, it’s good not to hold a grudge, but even so...
M leaves to buy fish so I am left behind, hands covered with a slick of oil and a coating of rice. My plate is still loaded with half my lunch but I’m no longer hungry.
The room falls quiet again, with only the Bangla channel providing some much needed white noise.
“Salaam alaikum. You a’right?”
I was so fixated on the news that I didn’t even hear the door open and my younger brother-in-law come in. He looks browner than usual, with his bald head sporting a shiny finish.
“I’m alright,” I say, so glad for his unassuming presence.
***
“You shouldn’t have talked to your mum like that. Or your sister,” I tell M, breaking the uncomfortable silence at the start of the journey to my mum’s. After an afternoon of quiet, I just want to scream.
“What should I have said?”
“I don’t know. But you shouldn’t have shouted like that.”
“Okay, well next time I won’t say anything then, I’ll just leave you to it.” M’s voice is raised, not as loud as before, but still a decibel or two higher than usual. I don’t like it.
“No, I’m not saying to leave me to it. It’s just...”
“Look, how am I supposed to help you when I don’t know what you want?”
This grown up family politics is hard. Harder than I ever imagined.
“I don’t know what I want, either.” I finally find some words worth saying. “I guess... sometimes... I just need to know you’re there. I just want to whinge to you. It’s not always about fixing something, sometimes I just need to moan.”
M goes quiet. “But you were upset. It’s hard to see you like that.”
“I know and I appreciate that but I think by shouting at everyone, it’s made things worse. I’m glad you’re sticking up for me but I don’t want to damage my relationship with your family.”
“It’s not that bad. They’ll get over it.” M laughs at my seemingly melodramatic ways.
“You say that but some words stick. Even if they’re fine with you, they won’t be with me.”
“Nah, they’re not like that. That’s not how it is.”
“It is,” I say. “That’s exactly how it is.”