Someone Else's Shoes(46)

“This is unreal,” Jasmine is saying, reaching into her handbag. “I mean, I’ve heard some shit but this is next level.”

She is opening the door of her apartment by the time Nisha realizes the woman has just taken a two-bus journey across London simply to find her.



* * *



? ? ?

The apartment is the smallest Nisha can remember ever being in, every wall and surface stacked with neat plastic boxes stuffed full of clothes, or hanging devices bearing drying washing. There are clothes everywhere, hanging from the backs of doors or folded into neat piles on chairs or chests of drawers.

“Grace?” Jasmine motions Nisha into the little kitchen and walks straight back out again. “Did you do your homework?”

A voice emerges from another room, over the sound of the television. “Done it.”

“Done it or actually put some thought and effort into it?”

“Who’s with you?”

“Nisha.”

Nisha perches on one of the stools beside the fold-out table and takes off her jacket. The apartment is stuffy with the smells of home cooking and a sweet, musky perfume. On the hob something meaty is stewing gently, obscuring the window pane with a fine, flavored mist. It makes her realize how accustomed she has become to the nothingy, chemically cleaned smell of the hotel room. Then she remembers that she can no longer stay there after tonight. She has a plan involving the bed beside the laundry rooms at the Bentley but she is not sure how long she will get away with that.

“Well, don’t be rude, Grace! Show your face!”

A girl of thirteen or fourteen pops her head around the door. She gazes at Nisha, who gives a hesitant wave.

“Oh! You’re quite pretty.”

She hears Jasmine’s burst of laughter before she walks back in. “She’s training for the Diplomatic Corps.”

“I meant it nicely! That Greek woman you brought in looked like she’d been run over.”

“Did I bring you up to be this rude to guests in my house?”

“Sorry.” Grace is clearly not sorry at all. “Do you work with my mum?”

“I do.”

“Are you the one who didn’t know how to clean a toilet?”

Nisha thinks for a minute. “Probably.”

“Did you put on the rice like I asked?” says Jasmine, lifting the lid on one of the pots.

“It’s in the bottom oven with the lid on.”

“Thank God. I’m so hungry. Grace, clear your things off the table, please.”

Jasmine busies herself around her, pulling plates from cupboards and bustling past her to the living room where she lays the small table beside the television. Grace fetches cutlery, casting shy glances at Nisha as she sits in the middle of it all, unsure what to do.

“You’re American, right?” Grace edges past her. “Have you been to Disneyland?”

“I took my son when he was your age but he didn’t like it much.”

“Why?”

“He doesn’t like rides. He prefers movies and computer games.”

“Boys always like computer games. My mum won’t let me have them.”

“She’s smart. His shrink says they are basically crack cocaine.”

“What’s a shrink?”

“A . . . a psychiatrist. A person who helps you with your head.”

“Is your son crazy?”

Nisha hesitates. “Um. Probably a little. Aren’t we all?” She smiles.

“No,” says Grace, and fetches a tea-towel.

There is a small settee in the room and an armchair on which a large pile of bed-linen teeters, its corners pressed with blade-like precision. An ironing-board stands on its end beside it. As Grace brings glasses and a jug of water, Jasmine places the laundry in clear plastic bags Nisha recognizes from the hotel, securing each with a small strip of sticky tape. Jasmine sees her staring at the Bentley monogram.

“They throw them away after one use so I basically think of it as recycling.”

“I thought I had a lot of clothes,” Nisha says.

“Oh, they aren’t mine.” Jasmine motions her to sit down at the table. “Those are ironing and alterations.”

“What?”

“That’s what I do when I’m not at the hotel. Ironing and alterations.”

Nisha stares at her. When Nisha finishes her shifts at the Bentley she is so exhausted it’s all she can do to walk back and climb into a shower. The idea of starting work again is unthinkable.

Jasmine brings the lamb stew to the table and dishes up. The food, rich and delicious-smelling, steams gently on the plates beside fluffy white rice and greens. It is the first home-cooked meal Nisha has eaten in two weeks. Once she might have picked at it, inwardly calculating protein versus fiber and pushing aside the white rice. But now she mixes them together greedily with her fork, soaking the rice in the delicious gravy, eating in huge, hungry mouthfuls. She eats fast and barely stops to speak. She has finished her plate before the other two are even halfway through theirs.

“Aleks not in today, huh?” Jasmine says, until Nisha looks up and pauses. “Go on, help yourself.”

She hadn’t realized how much she had come to rely on his daily meals, or that Jasmine had noticed this. Nisha waits just a moment, then spoons more onto her plate. Jasmine chats to her daughter about her homework and what she has to do for school tomorrow and then, when she is sure Nisha has had enough (she has: her stomach is actually hurting), waits while her daughter clears the plates and takes them through to the kitchen. Then she turns to Nisha.