Nikki remembered Arvinder holding out her palms and saying Tarampal wouldn’t be interested in them. Now she understood what Arvinder meant. They were empty; there was nothing to take from a widow. ‘She knows it’s not worth it,’ Nikki mused. ‘How do you know all of this, Sheena?’
‘For my birthday last year, I decided to pamper myself with a manicure from Chandani’s. The girl doing my nails told me about it. She said that Tarampal’s main victims are also the salon’s regular clients – those rich women we saw in the langar hall the other night. Tarampal’s husband left behind a list of people in the community who had consulted him about their indiscretions. He had records of what people told him and the prayers he prescribed to them. Tarampal uses the list against people. Maintaining an honourable reputation in this community is worth a lot of money to those families, especially those who can afford it. Like the parents of Sandeep Singh – that boy who picked her up in the white car after she stormed out of class that night. He’s gay. His mother had approached Tarampal’s husband to get him to adjust his behaviour somehow. Sandeep often drives Tarampal around to pay off his debts.’
‘How much do people have to pay her?’ Nikki asked.
‘Whatever she demands. Of course, she doesn’t put it that way. She tells them that she’s continuing her husband’s work, that she puts in requests for special prayers in India to put them on a righteous path again. She claims that the money goes towards fees to cover long-distance calls and travel expenses for her prayer agents. It’s all done with lots of sympathy and smiles but everyone knows she’s running a thriving enterprise on shame and secrets.’
‘Wow,’ Nikki said. She recalled the hardened look that crossed Tarampal’s face when she talked about honour and shame. No wonder she took it so seriously; it was her livelihood. ‘It’s hard to imagine Tarampal running any sort of enterprise.’
‘She’s very skilled. She truly believes she’s making things right, offering some sort of service to restore people’s pride. The people who pay her end up believing it too, otherwise they wouldn’t part with their money.’
When discussing Maya’s suicide, Tarampal had struck Nikki as rather unsympathetic, her concern largely focused on Jaggi’s reputation. Nikki had thought Tarampal was simply being overprotective but now it made more sense. ‘It’s sort of ingenious,’ Nikki admitted. Sheena narrowed her eyes and started to say something. ‘Not that I condone it. I won’t be inviting her to return to our classes,’ Nikki added.
‘Good,’ Sheena said. She looked relieved. ‘I don’t need her poking around in my business.’
‘That’s fair enough. The only one permitted to poke around in your business is Rahul,’ Nikki said with a grin.
‘Nikki.’
‘I couldn’t help it.’
‘There’s nothing going on between Rahul and me.’
‘Still?’ Nikki asked. ‘Come on.’
Sheena dropped her voice and gave an exaggerated flutter of her eyelids. ‘We met up for dinner last weekend.’
‘And …?’
‘It was very nice. He took me to a restaurant in Richmond. We drank wine in a restaurant that overlooked the Thames. After dinner we walked along the river. He wrapped his jacket around my shoulders when the breeze became too chilly.’
‘How lovely,’ Nikki said. Sheena’s eyes glistened with the excitement of new love. ‘Are you going to keep seeing each other?’
‘Maybe,’ Sheena said. ‘If we can keep meeting up outside Southall for a while, then yeah. I didn’t run into a single Punjabi person in Richmond. At first I was afraid of being seen – it’s not that far away and my in-laws have loads of relatives nearby in Twickenham. But I forgot about all of that. You don’t notice who’s watching when you’re enjoying yourself. You don’t care either.’
‘Would Tarampal try to blackmail Rahul as well if she found out?’ Nikki asked. The tension returned to Sheena’s face.
‘He wouldn’t have enough to offer her,’ Sheena said. ‘She’s more interested in wealthy people, remember?’
Nikki shook her head. ‘Here I was feeling sorry for her, being caught in the middle of that awful tragedy.’
Sheena looked at Nikki sharply. ‘She spoke to you about Maya?’
Yes, Nikki began to say, but then she considered what Sheena had revealed about Tarampal. A seed of discomfort lodged itself in her chest. Once again, she felt like a complete outsider. For every question she asked, there were hundreds more that went unanswered. ‘I only know what she told me,’ Nikki finally said.
‘And I’m sure she told you a very good story,’ Sheena said. She clutched her handbag and made her way towards the door so quickly that Nikki had no chance of asking her to stop.
Chapter Ten
Kulwinder’s bones told her she was back in London. Before the pilot announced the landing, she felt the rheumatism seep wetly into her body. In India, she had been able to climb flights of stairs and to push her way through the throngs of people. Her sandals had clapped against the soil of her ancestral land, announcing her arrival. Now she was in Heathrow, wearing trainers with an old salwaar kameez and being ushered by a grim-faced attendant into the customs queue.
Her last trip to India had been with Maya. They had spent hours in bazaar stalls, feeling the fabric of exquisite saris crinkle beneath their touch. Kulwinder had bought Maya a pair of small gold hooped earrings. ‘Oh, Mum,’ Maya had said, a smile spreading across her face as she picked them out of the box. ‘You didn’t have to.’ But Kulwinder had been overcome by a sense of generosity towards her daughter during that trip, and she kept on buying her things – as if knowing that their remaining days together were numbered, she had been tempted to give her the whole world.
‘Passports – Internationals over here, British citizens here,’ the attendant called, forcing her back to the present. The line began to break as people moved into their designated rows. The attendant made her announcement again when Kulwinder was approaching the front of the queue. She held Kulwinder’s gaze.
‘Can I see your passport, ma’am?’ she asked. She wasn’t unkind about it exactly, but expectant, as if she already knew Kulwinder’s story. Kulwinder handed over her passport. ‘British,’ she informed the attendant, who returned her passport and walked away, pretending not to hear her. This had happened before. She had grumbled to Maya about it, who didn’t understand. What do you expect them to think, Mum? Maya would ask, staring pointedly at Kulwinder’s clothes in a way that made her wonder how it was possible to love your daughter and dislike her so much at the same time.
Sarab was waiting on the other side when she got out. He gave her a chaste squeeze of the hand and asked, ‘How was it?’