‘Turn up your hearing aid next time,’ Arvinder said.
‘I don’t need to,’ Manjeet said. She tucked her scarf behind her ear to reveal the hearing aid to the class. ‘This has never had a battery in it.’
‘Why would you wear a hearing aid if you didn’t need one?’ Nikki asked.
Manjeet dropped her head in embarrassment. ‘Completes the whole widow look,’ Sheena explained.
‘Oh,’ Nikki said. She waited for a further explanation from Manjeet but she simply nodded and stared at her hands.
Preetam raised her hand. ‘Excuse me, Nikki. Can we change the start time back to 7 p.m.?’
Nikki sighed. ‘I thought 7.30 worked better with your bus schedule.’
‘It does, but if we finish earlier, it means we can get home at a decent hour.’
‘Thirty minutes doesn’t make that much difference does it?’ Sheena asked.
‘It does for Anya and Kapil,’ Preetam said. ‘And what about Rajiv and Priyaani?’
Nikki guessed these were her grandchildren but then the other women let out a collective groan. ‘Those bloody idiots. One day they’re in love, the next day she is confiding to the servants that she wants to marry someone else,’ Sheena said. ‘Don’t change the time, Nikki. Preetam’s just wasting her time following a television series.’
‘I am not,’ Preetam said.
‘Then you’re wasting electricity,’ Arvinder chided. ‘Do you know how much our bill was last month?’ Preetam shrugged. ‘Of course you don’t,’ Arvinder muttered. ‘You waste everything because you’ve always had everything.’
‘Do you two share a home?’ Nikki asked. She noticed a resemblance. Both women were light-skinned, with the same thin lips and striking greyish brown eyes. ‘Sisters?’
‘Mother and daughter,’ Arvinder said, pointing to herself and then Preetam. ‘Seventeen years apart, but thank you for thinking that I’m that young.’
‘Or that Preetam’s that old,’ Sheena teased.
‘Have you always lived together?’ Nikki asked. She could not imagine a world where she would live with Mum into her senior citizen years and retain her sanity.
‘Only since my husband died,’ Preetam said. ‘How long has it been – hai!’ she suddenly cried out. ‘Three months.’ She took the edge of her dupatta and dabbed at the corners of her eyes.
‘Oh, enough with the theatrics,’ Arvinder said. ‘It’s been three years.’
‘But it’s still so fresh,’ Preetam moaned. ‘Has it really been that long?’
‘You know very well it has been,’ Arvinder said sternly. ‘I don’t know where you got this idea that widows have to cry and beat their chests every time their husbands are mentioned but it’s unnecessary.’
‘She got it from the evening dramas,’ Sheena said.
‘There. Another reason to cut back on the television,’ Arvinder said.
‘I think it’s very sweet,’ Manjeet said. ‘I want to be sad like that too. Did you faint at his funeral?’
‘Twice,’ Preetam said proudly. ‘And I begged them not to cremate him.’
‘I remember that,’ Sheena said. ‘You made a huge fuss before passing out and then you woke up and started all over again.’ She rolled her eyes at Nikki. ‘You have to do these things, see, otherwise people accuse you of being unfeeling.’
‘I know,’ Nikki said. After Dad died, Auntie Geeta had come over to visit, black rivulets of mascara running down her cheeks. She wanted to mourn with Mum and was surprised that Mum remained dry-eyed, having done her crying in private. When she noticed a bubbling pot of curry on the stove, she became indignant. ‘You’re eating? I had nothing after my husband died. My sons had to force it into my mouth.’ Feeling pressured, Mum refrained from eating the curry and then wolfed it down after Auntie Geeta left.
‘You are all lucky to be able to grieve like that,’ Manjeet said. ‘Women like me don’t get a funeral or any sort of ceremony.’
‘Now, now, Manjeet, don’t go putting it on yourself. There are no women like you. Just men like him,’ Arvinder said.
‘I don’t understand—’ Nikki said.
‘Are we going to do any work or is this another class of introductions?’ Tarampal interrupted. She shot Nikki a disapproving look.
‘We have less than an hour now,’ Nikki said. She handed the books out to the women. ‘There are some alphabet exercises in here. She gave Sheena a letter-writing worksheet she had printed off the internet.
The remainder of the lesson passed slowly and silently, with the women scrunching up their faces in concentration. Some looked tired after a few tries and put their pencils down. Nikki wanted to find out more about the widows but Tarampal’s presence kept her nervously on task. As soon as the clock struck 8.30, she told them they were dismissed and they filed out quietly, putting their books back on the desk. Sheena ducked past her and said nothing, clutching her letter in her hand.
The next lesson was on Thursday. All the women were promptly seated when Nikki arrived with an alphabet chart that she had found in another charity shop. ‘A is for apple,’ she said. They repeated ‘Apple’ after her. ‘B is for boy.’ ‘C is for cat.’ By the time they got to M, the chorus had faded. Nikki sighed and put down the chart.
‘I can’t teach you to write in any other way,’ she said. ‘We have to go through the basics.’
‘My grandchildren use these books and charts,’ sniffed Preetam. ‘It’s insulting.’
‘I don’t know what else to do,’ Nikki said.
‘You’re the teacher – don’t you know how to teach writing to adults?’
‘I thought we’d be writing stories. Not this,’ Nikki said. She picked up the chart and went back to the letters, and by the time they got to Z for zebra, the chorus was loud. There was a glimmer of hope – they were trying, at least.
‘Right. Now there are a few writing exercises so we can learn about how to form words,’ Nikki said. She flipped through the workbook and copied a few words on the board. As she turned, she heard urgent whispers but the women stopped talking when she was facing them again.
‘The best way to learn to spell words is to sound them out first. We’ll start with the word “cat.” Who wants to repeat after me? “Cat”.’
Preetam’s hand shot up. ‘Yes, go ahead, Bibi Preetam.’
‘What sorts of stories would you have us writing?’
Nikki sighed. ‘It’s going to be a long time before we can start writing stories, ladies. It’s really difficult unless you have a sense of how the words are spelled and how the grammar works.’
‘But Sheena can read and write in English.’
‘And I’m sure it took her a lot of practice, right, Sheena? When did you learn?’
‘I learned in school,’ Sheena said. ‘My family came to Britain when I was fourteen years old.’
‘That’s not what I mean,’ Preetam said. ‘I’m saying that if we tell Sheena our stories, she can put them in writing.’
Sheena looked pleased. ‘I could do that,’ she said to Nikki.
‘And then we could give each other advice on how to improve the stories.’