‘Right,’ Nikki said, but she was aware of the thickening tension in the room. Arvinder was lost in thought. Gaganjeet had held a tissue to her nose to catch a sneeze that seemed frozen in place from the time Rita and Meera made intimate contact. Bibi nodded slowly and sagely, still processing the story’s details. Then she spoke.
‘This kind of thing is more common than you think,’ she said. ‘Two girls in my village were rumoured to serve each other as well, but I believe they just used their hands.’
These words unfroze Gaganjeet. There was a sudden flurry of activity in her seat – sneezing, coughing, zipping up a purse and picking up a walking stick. ‘I really shouldn’t be in class when I am unwell. My apologies,’ she told Nikki. Her knees made a pistol-snap sound as she stood up and hurried out of the classroom.
‘You’ve scared her,’ Preetam accused Tanveer. ‘Why would you write such a story? This isn’t a class for women who do perverted things.’ Tanveer dropped her head once again. Nikki felt a flash of irritation with Preetam. ‘Tanveer has told a story about pleasure,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it matters who Rita and Meera find that pleasure with.’
‘It’s unnatural. It may as well be science fiction,’ Preetam said. ‘And these two women have husbands. They’re cheating.’ She shot a pointed look at her mother.
‘Maybe they consider it practice. Or something which enhances their bedroom lives,’ Sheena said. ‘In the next scene, their husbands return home and our Rita and Meera put on a little performance for their husbands. That’s a good night for everyone.’
‘Why do their husbands have to come home?’ Arvinder asked. ‘Maybe these women are content like this. We don’t have to have men in all the stories.’
‘Intimate relations are to be shared between men and women,’ Preetam said. ‘You’re encouraging these sorts of stories as if all of us were dissatisfied with our husbands.’
‘You’re lucky your husband treated you well. Not everybody had that luxury,’ Arvinder shot back.
‘Oh, Mother, please. He provided for you didn’t he? He gave you a roof over your head? He worked; he fathered your children. What more could you want?’
‘I would have liked some of what the women in these stories are getting.’
‘It sounds like you did get it,’ Preetam muttered. ‘Just not with the man you were married to.’
‘Don’t judge me, Preetam. Don’t you dare,’ Arvinder said.
Preetam’s eyes widened. ‘I don’t have any secrets. If you accuse me of anything, you’re just lying.’
‘That’s right. You don’t have any secrets. You have no reason for any secrets. Your marriage was happy. Have you ever stopped to think about why that was? Because I let you have choices. I said no to the men who emerged from every corner as soon as you came of age. I didn’t care if they said my daughter was pretty and could marry into a well-known family – I wanted you to have your pick.’
‘Maybe we should stop for a while,’ Nikki suggested, but Arvinder shushed her. ‘Nikki, don’t try to play the peacemaker. Some things need to be said and they’re going to be said now.’
Arvinder returned her firm stare to Preetam. ‘The adjustment period for some women was horrific. You weren’t still a little girl like Tarampal. She was ten. You weren’t like me – hastily mismatched with a man a foot shorter than you because both families were trying desperately to consolidate some drought-stricken land before it lost its value. Your father felt so small around me that his stick was limp all the time, and when I dared to complain once that we never had sex, he threatened to throw me out of the house.’
The outburst stunned everybody into silence. Nikki’s mind raced. Of all the revelations hammering around in her mind, she could only focus on the most horrific. ‘Tarampal was ten?’ she whispered. The room was so silent her words seemed to echo across the walls.
Arvinder nodded. ‘Her parents brought her to a pundit when she was ten and according to his palm reading, she was destined for nobody else but him. He told them that she would have five sons with him, and that they would all be wealthy landowners who would not only take care of her but also ensure the prosperity of their grandparents. They were so excited by these prospects that they disregarded his age – thirty years her senior – and got her married to him. They came to England about ten years later.’
‘What happened to his predictions then? Tarampal only had daughters,’ Sheena said.
‘I imagine he blamed her for it. They always do.’ Bitterness laced Arvinder’s voice.
‘Most of us were about that young but we weren’t sent to sleep with our husbands until we were older,’ Bibi said.
‘How much older?’ Nikki asked.
Bibi shrugged. ‘Sixteen, seventeen? Who can remember? The next generation got away with marrying a bit later. Surely your mother was about eighteen or nineteen.’
‘My mother went to university first,’ Nikki said. ‘She was twenty-two.’ Even that seemed an impossibly young age to make such permanent choices.
‘University.’ Arvinder looked impressed. ‘No wonder your parents raised you in proper London. They’re modern.’
‘I’ve never considered my parents modern,’ Nikki commented. She considered all the arguments about short skirts, talking to boys, drinking, being too British. Pleasing them had been an endless battle that she was still fighting.
‘But they were. They knew how to speak English before they came here. We built Southall because we didn’t know how to be British.’
‘Better to keep to our own kind, or that’s the idea at least,’ Sheena said. ‘My mother was so nervous coming to England. She’d heard stories of Indian kids being beaten up at school. My father arrived here first and convinced her that Southall was a place with our kind of people and we would fit right in.’
‘If you had any problems in this new country, your neighbours would rush to your side and bring you money, food, whatever you need. That’s the beauty of being surrounded by your community,’ Arvinder said. ‘But if you had a problem with your husband, who would help you to leave him? Nobody wanted to be involved in other families’ personal affairs. “You should be grateful,” they said if you complained. “This country is spoiling you.”’ She directed a stern look at Preetam. ‘I gave you all the happiness I couldn’t have. You loved your husband, your marriage. Good for you. I survived mine.’