11

A few clouds were hanging around the snowy peaks when Ria came downstairs two days later. A bank of cloud out over the foothills to the east was blocking the sun. Covered in mists and without sunbeams the glossy tips of the glass mountains were hidden.

In the background she could hear the faint noise of a woman slapping washing on a rock down at the stream and the sounds of bus and taxi horns along the road to the village.

Madhu’s wrists and inner arms were bandaged and she looked pale next to her sister.

‘You can do this, Madhu,’ Daya was telling her as Ria watched.

‘I’m not going. No.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No, not there.’

Ria had never got on with Madhu, but she felt sympathy now seeing the events had driven her to self harming.

‘It’s the only way. I will be with you all the way. In Delhi we can get everything sorted for you. Everything.’ Daya made her look in her eyes. ‘Everything, you understand. They will fix it.’

Hesitating a moment, Ria went over, sat next to Madhu and held her hand. Daya had told her about the pregnancy and the plans to help her in Delhi.

‘I’m not staying with them.’

‘When things are right — they will find someone for you.’

‘I’m not getting married, I’m not going there. Not the cousins in Delhi.’

Still holding her, Ria said to Madhu, ‘You want to stay here in the village and face it all? People shunning you, talking behind their hands. You can go away now, and everything will be all right. How will you survive?’

Madhu stared at Daya. ‘Don’t tell me: “I told you so.”’

‘I will be there. We will look after you,’ Daya said.

‘They will make me—’

‘Make you?’ Ria wondered how they would deal with the pregnancy in Delhi.

‘You can’t keep it, Madhu—’ Daya rubbed her thighs. ‘What else is there for a woman? What else can we do?’

‘My studies—’

‘You can do it in Delhi,’ Ria took her hand and rubbed it.

‘You think so? That mob think I’m some street girl. They’ll get me married quick then—’ Madhu continued, ‘They’ll tell me what to do all the time.’

‘You do it for the family, Madhu,’ Daya said. ‘Not just yourself.’

Dickie entered the veranda with a necklace of saffron flowers, stepped over to Madhu, who did not resist, and put them round her neck.

Daya addressed her sister again, ‘Madhu?’

Madhu lowered her head. Sadie came downstairs with Krish and coming over held out the baby for Madhu who turned her away. Sadie took a step forward with Krish and held him to her again, but she shook her head and tightened her hands in a ball.

‘Hold him, Madhu—’ Ria said, taking her hands and unfolding them. ‘It’s just a baby.’

‘I don’t want a baby—’

‘Krish wants to go to you,’ Sadie nodded. ‘Take him.’

Ria and Daya guided Madhu’s hands up to the child and she took him tearfully.

Krish smiled up to Madhu, making her smile back while Ria and Daya had their arms around her.

Sadie pulled out an object from a knitted bag, came to Ria and handed it to her. ‘Yours.’

Ria unfolded the leaves surrounding it, finding inside a little piece of quartz shaped like a miniature part of a line of mountains. Holding back a yelp of joy, she smiled at her sister.

‘Sadie.’ She explored it with her fingers. ‘The other bit. The glass mountains. Thank you. Dickie. We can put it together.’ Ria stood and hugged her sister who held on embarrassed. She kissed her on the cheek and left her, leading Dickie to the wall at the edge of the veranda.

‘Sadie, thank you,’ Dickie took out his piece and they sat on the wall and put them together, chatting and laughing.

Sadie followed them. ‘For a moment the other day I thought we had lost her — Madhu. I realised how much they all mean to me.’ Sadie looked abandoned and tired without the baby in her arms. She was pale and had bags under her eyes. She stood watching them and they watched her silently. ‘Ria,’ Sadie said. ‘Give Dickie the land.’

‘Sadie?’

‘Give it to her.’ Sadie’s shoulders were slumped, she leaned heavily on one leg. ‘Dickie. You have it. The land.’

Ria smiled at her. ‘Sadie, that’s wonderful, really good of you, you won’t regret it. When we get home I’ll make sure you get the money.’

Dickie stepped forward to hold Sadie’s hands. ‘We’re together again. You were the girl who stood up for me at school once. I was different, everyone saw that, even when I was little. I was an easy target. You saved me from beatings so much that one day I heard a boy say: “Don’t hit him, Sadie will get you.” I want to do business with someone like that.’

‘You should learn Hindi, Ria,’ Daya came over to them. ‘It can be so poetic. I should teach you. And a sari for you, or Punjabi Suit.’

‘Can we really do this together?’ Ria said.

Daya shook Dickie’s hand, then she said, ‘We can have lots of contracts. We can build up a good business.’

‘Without me,’ Madhu brought Krish back and handed him over to his mother.

‘You’ll always be part of us,’ Daya assured her.

‘In deepest Delhi — with a stupid husband.’

Ria spent the morning on the roof talking with Dickie, Sadie and Daya until they got thirsty and sent Ria down to get some juice.

Bijal was sitting on the opposite end of the bench as Madhu, with Padma standing over her.

Madhu looked over at her father. ‘It’s you who have to go. Everything you have done to this family, to Mummy-ji.’ And turning to her mother said, ‘You are a fool if you let him stay. You are not going to give in. He can’t keep having the best of both worlds and pulling the family apart. Mummy-ji?’

‘Stop that now,’ Bijal shouted.

‘Listen to your daughter,’ Padma said. ‘You have found a new life, it’s not the one where we are swimming in a waterfall anymore. We loved then, but you have a new love now.’

‘I’m still here, still your young Bijal.’

‘He has gone now. He lives up a hill on a piece of land, that’s where his happiness is. You must go there, that’s where you belong now.’

‘This is my home.’

‘It was, Bijal,’ Padma said with tones of sadness. ‘But that has gone and our lives go different ways.’

He shook his head.

‘You will go, Daddy. If you love us,’ said Madhu, ‘You will not keep wounding the family. Nobody wants you here anymore.’

He stood, shaking. ‘You don’t speak like that. Not to me. You have brought shame on us. I am the father of this house.’

‘Those days are gone, Daddy-ji,’ Madhu spoke quietly.

‘I built this house. My wife and daughters do what I tell them.’

Madhu looked up at him. ‘The shame is yours.’

Daya had heard her father shouting, and coming down the stairs watched him shaking with rage. ‘No Daddy. You leave Madhu. And you leave Mummy-ji.’

Scowling at his eldest daughter, the sides of his mouth down, he bunched his fists. ‘You are dividing the family, Daddy-ji,’ she said. ‘You cannot have both. What about poor Mummy-ji. You will live here and go up there and keep her suffering? That is not right. I love you, but you must go. Yes, I will carry on with the shop, I am still your daughter, but you don’t belong here anymore.’

‘You tell me to leave my own house, you—’ he shouted.

Daya looked him in the eyes. ‘If you stay, I cannot help you in the shop.’

‘You Daya, my daughter, and you threaten me?’

‘No more contracts,’ Daya was firm.

‘And you will not be part of our new business,’ Padma added.

Bijal fumed. ‘You don’t tell me—’ He shook his fist, pushed past Ria and strode off.

Padma smiled. ‘I will not cook for him and clean for him, that will make him go.’

They laughed.

Madhu said, ‘You told him, Mummy-ji — at last. After all these years, the way he treated you—’

‘He put food on the table,’ Padma still sitting, clasped her hands. ‘He sent you to college. He loved you all. He is still your father. I loved him—’ She was in tears. ‘He took me to waterfalls—’

‘It was hard, Mummy-ji,’ Daya said. ‘But we are with you.’

‘And you are going, Madhu,’ Padma was still tearful. ‘Like your father, you don’t belong here now, you have another world to go to. It will be better in Delhi, a big city with lots to do and people to see. Your auntie there will sort things out and find you a nice boy.’ Padma smiled, patting her arm.

Daya led Ria along the path by the side of the house. Clouds had evaporated round the peaks. It was too late for the early morning splendour of the reflected light, but the mountains stood snow tipped and rugged. Below, buildings trailed along the road and houses were dotted up the lower slopes. Above, the sky seemed to move the peaks with its motion of high cloud.

‘She will be all right? Madhu?’ Ria said as they watched.

‘A girl without a husband can’t be pregnant, not in the village. How can she survive?’

Ria sighted a couple of buzzards high up, rising on air currents, their wings still as they swayed. ‘There’s other ways then?’

‘If you have money there’s always other ways. In the city money can buy you out of all sorts of trouble and shame, money can keep you quiet. Money and career can buy you a husband, money can end a life. A woman in poverty is the lowest form of life. Madhu knows it is impossible for her to stay.’

‘I have the money—’

‘And we can’t repay your generosity, Ria.’

‘It’s your Dharma,’ Ria shrugged, ‘Who you become.’ Ria watched Daya as she stared up at the swirling birds. ‘You’re not happy with this?’

‘It’s already arranged—’

‘I know, it’s all working out for everyone.’

Daya shook her head.

‘Did I do wrong, should have I talked to you first before telling the whole family?’ Ria mistook Daya’s meaning.

She shook her head again, turning to Ria.

Then Ria realised. ‘Madesh? You can’t do it.’

‘The marriage is set, everything.’

‘But you don’t love him.’

‘Love doesn’t have anything to do with marriage for us. Not at the beginning. As a woman you have to learn to love,’ Daya walked a few steps and looked back at her.

‘And serve — a man. Don’t do it, Daya.’

‘I have to, to save the family. You don’t understand, Ria. What is there for me without that? I have had little education and I can’t get work as a woman on her own. Who will support me, what will I do?’ She sighed. ‘His family know about what’s happened with Daddy-ji and they want to go ahead anyway. Many women still don’t have choices in India — not like for you in England.’

Ria came to her and touched her arm. ‘Did you always know yourself? Like Dickie, from young?’

‘Marriage is the only way for a woman here.’

‘So you hide it,’ Ria suspected Daya was in conflict about her sexuality, but it was for Daya to bring that into the open if she wished, not for Ria to push it.

‘India is not ready.’

‘You showed me how to change, to know myself.’

‘Women have to follow the rules. One step out — and shame.’

‘You showed me to be strong,’ Ria could hear the repeated slap of women washing clothes at the river again and became confused about her feelings for Daya.

Daya said, ‘The business with Dickie will take years to get going, to break the way people see her. I have to hold the family together, help Daddy-ji through his feelings when he lives with Dickie, help Mummy-ji find herself. It’s what’s expected, it’s all about the family’s money. We haven’t got so much we can live forever. I’m marrying the son of a hotel owner. I can get lots of tailoring contracts. We have to survive. Us poor women are not free. Not even as free as Dickie.’

‘Love only exists in Bollywood movies then?’

‘It takes a long time for the wheel of India to turn, for women to find their way,’ Daya kissed Ria’s forehead, causing Ria to tremble a little with emotions for her. Daya smiled at her, ‘Perhaps a day will come when this will change—’

Ria held her for a long time and drawing away said to her, ‘Let’s go and watch the women.’ Daya looked at her puzzled. ‘The women washing clothes at the stream. The way they slap them on the rock. And chat with them—’

‘The same rock — perhaps for thousands of years,’ Daya said.

They were about to go when Madhu ran up to them, holding them back. ‘I want it — the baby —‘

‘Madhu?’ Daya couldn’t hide the shock in her expression. ‘On your own?’

‘I could see it in Krish’s eyes when I held him,’ Madhu was excited. ‘I’ll go to the cousins. But I want this baby —‘

‘A woman on her own with a child?’ Ria said.

‘They will help me in Delhi. I will study, get work.’

Daya looked in her sister’s eyes. ‘You’re brave if you do. Is it what you want?’

Madhu nodded and Daya held her hand and led her to the path with Ria. ‘We will help you — and the new little one,’ Daya smiled and they all laughed.

As they began their descent along the rocky path they could hear Dickie banging her drum and singing on the veranda.

‘Shiva rules the skies of our intent,

In the morning he rises in the east

And brings us the confusion of daylight,

Trips our ego with his enlightenments,

Throws chaos, hurt and hate,

Falls and dies in the west,

Destruction, death and resurrection,

Shiva brings change,

The certainty of the change the Buddha sent.

Lie down with your love in gardens with fountains,

The world bangs his drum of anger and hate

But nothing will shake us:

Love can move all things — even glass mountains —’