‘I suppose so. Kulwinder didn’t have a chance of getting into Tarampal’s home, let alone searching it for a sample of Maya’s handwriting.’
Nikki dropped her head to her hands. ‘It’s sickening, Sheena,’ she said. ‘We’re sitting here, almost certain that an innocent woman was murdered.’
‘But there’s no way to prove it,’ Sheena said. ‘Remember that, Nikki. Don’t try to be a hero here. It doesn’t work.’ Before stepping out of the car, Sheena adjusted her collar in such a way that it swallowed her pendant and made it disappear.
Chapter Eleven
Geeta was gesticulating wildly. Her henna-dyed beehive quivered from the force of her movements. ‘Then they told him his shoes were too muddy to enter their country. Can you believe these people? Luckily Nikki and Mindi don’t have to travel anywhere for work. These Customs officials can be so fussy.’
‘I thought Customs in Australia was strict about muddy shoes from overseas because of foreign soil particles mixing with theirs,’ Harpreet said, ignoring Geeta’s subtle jibe at her daughters whose unimportant jobs didn’t take them overseas.
‘Leh. Foreign soil. What’s so foreign about Britain’s soil? No, I’m telling you, these people were giving him a hard time because they thought he was Muslim.’
Having already invited herself to Harpreet’s home for tea, Geeta was pleased to have an audience for her grievances. Her intentions of boasting were never subtle. In the past ten minutes, she had mentioned her son’s trip to Sydney no less than four times. Harpreet wished she had gone to the temple yesterday. She had avoided it because she knew Geeta was an avid attendee of all Enfield gurudwara’s weekday programmes; then she ran into her in the Sainsbury’s car park. She checked the clock. Still at least an hour before Mindi would finish her hospital shift and return home.
‘Suresh said Sydney is very much like London,’ Geeta tried again.
‘What was he doing there?’ Harpreet asked.
‘His company sent him there for a conference. All expenses paid. They even flew him on business class. He said, “Mummy-ji, only the bosses fly on business class. There must be some mistake. Nowadays there are so many budget cuts that even the CEOs are flying in economy. But they said, no, no, there’s been no mistake. All part of the company perks.’
‘That’s very nice,’ Harpreet said. She had no news of her children to boast of. Mindi remained unmarried and Nikki – well Nikki had not said anything about her Southall job since starting. Earlier this afternoon Nikki had brought the box of sweets and then hurried off, claiming to have some appointment just as Harpreet was about to ask again how her job was going and what exactly she was planning to do with it. Harpreet got the vague sense that the job was not a subject Nikki wanted to discuss, which likely meant that she had quit, just like she quit university.
Geeta responded to Harpreet’s silence with a look of pity. ‘Children will do as they please,’ she said generously.
Not your children, Harpreet thought. But then who wanted sons like Geeta’s – grown men who still called her Mummy? ‘How is your yoga class going?’ Harpreet asked to change the subject.
‘Good, good,’ Auntie Geeta said. ‘Improving my blood flow. We need this kind of exercise. The teacher is a very lean woman but she’s in her fifties. She says she’s been practising for only a few years but she’s gained a lot of flexibility.’
‘Hanh, yoga gives you a lot of strength.’
‘You should join us on Tuesday evenings.’
Harpreet could think of nothing worse than attending a yoga class with Geeta and her gaggle of friends who spent more time backwards boasting than downward dogging. ‘Personally, I prefer the gym.’
‘You joined a gym?’
‘A few weeks ago,’ Harpreet said. ‘I just brisk walk on the treadmill and ride the stationary bike sometimes. I like going in the mornings. It gives me more energy.’
‘Energy for what?’ Geeta asked. ‘At our age, we should be slowing down.’ Disapproval clung to her words.
‘Everybody is different,’ Harpreet said.
Leaning forward to pick up a piece of ladoo, Geeta’s kameez dipped forward, revealing a deep line of cleavage. ‘What I like about yoga is that it’s all women. Is your gym unisex?’
Harpreet’s face burned. She was trapped into answering Geeta’s question. So what if there were men at her gym? ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Come to yoga,’ Geeta said. It was a reprimand. ‘There are other women like us there,’ she added.
‘Hanh, women like us,’ Harpreet said vaguely. If a uniform and a code of conduct could be issued to Punjabi women over the age of fifty, Geeta would have designed it.
‘How is Mindi doing?’ Geeta asked.
‘She’s well. Working today.’
‘Found anybody yet?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Harpreet said. This would be the default answer until Mindi was ready to get engaged. The truth was, Mindi had been seeing someone but she hadn’t mentioned him lately. Harpreet was afraid to ask. On one hand, she wanted Mindi to find someone and settle down. But it meant returning each evening to an empty home and Harpreet wasn’t ready for that.
‘She’d better find somebody quickly, nah? If she spends all this time looking and comes up empty, it looks bad.’
‘She’ll find someone,’ Harpreet said. ‘There’s no use pressuring the girl. She can think for herself.’
‘Of course she will,’ Geeta murmured.
Harpreet poured the last of her pot of chai into Geeta’s cup. Black specks of Lipton leaves dotted the surface. ‘Come, I’ll filter them out,’ she said, taking the cup from Geeta’s hand. In the kitchen, she searched for her sieve and remembered having to throw away the one her mother had given her to take to England after Nikki and Mindi used it to scoop their goldfish out of its tank. She felt a pang of sadness. What was home without her family?
Geeta was brushing crumbs off her lips when Harpreet returned. ‘No sugar, please,’ she said with the nobility of a dieter. But no combination of yoga poses would eliminate those ladoo calories, Harpreet thought with smug satisfaction.
‘Now tell me,’ Geeta said after taking a sip of tea, ‘have you heard about these stories?’
‘What stories?’
‘The stories,’ Geeta said.
Harpreet found it difficult to mask her irritation. Why did people prefer repeating rather than explaining themselves? ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Geeta set her cup on its saucer. ‘The stories that have been passed around the entire Punjabi community of London. When Mittoo Kaur told me about them I laughed and didn’t believe her. Then she brought one of the stories to my house. She said that she had read it aloud to her husband and after that …’ She shook her head. ‘Well, people get affected by these things.’ She stared at Harpreet as if this would help her absorb her point. ‘They had sex on her sofa,’ Geeta whispered.
‘What? She told you this?’
‘I was surprised as you are but the story was very involving.’
‘What’s the book called?’ Harpreet asked.