The Reading List(18)

Rohini stood up and shuffled over to her papa, tapping his shoulder gently. Mukesh was grateful Rohini knew that if she gave him a hug he would burst into tears. He hated to cry in front of his girls. She left him in the room, the door wide open. In Rohini language, he knew that meant: ‘I’ll give you some space, but just call me if you need me.’ She might have been his bossy daughter, but she could be kind too.

Rohini insisted on making a full thali (she’d conveniently brought her own ingredients, even though Mukesh had insisted she didn’t need to) and the three of them were now tucking into badh and kadhi. Priya’s favourite.

‘Rohini, beta, you treat me so well.’ Mukesh scooped some up with his fingers. Rohini never made food quite as thiki as Naina had, which was perhaps a good thing as he couldn’t deal with the spice so much now anyway.

As soon as she’d finished eating, Priya wasted no time in jumping up from the kitchen table and headed back to the living room, to dive back into her book.

‘Rohini,’ Mukesh said, ‘is Priya always this quiet? Her head always in books?’

‘She just likes to read, Papa, it’s fine. Mummy did that all the time, and she definitely wasn’t quiet.’

‘But I never hear her talk about her friends, things she likes to do other than reading. Your mummy liked books, but she always had friends over too.’

‘Yes, Papa, Priya does other things. Have you ever asked her?’ Rohini wasn’t looking at him when she said this, but he felt the sting as though her eyes were boring right through him.

‘Well, no, but …’ Mukesh stammered.

‘She has two best friends, Papa, Christie and James,’ Rohini continued. ‘They’re very nice, and quiet like her.’

‘She has those two friends to visit?’

‘Papa, kids don’t do that these days. They play together at school. In the break times.’

Mukesh wondered whether ‘these days’ was a thinly veiled way of saying ‘you’re so old, Papa!’ He thought of the group of boys who were often out playing on his road, laughing and shouting and sometimes saying bad words with the kind of enjoyment you only get when they’re new to you, recently learned. Those boys were out there almost every day, when it was sunny, even in this day and age when people were scared of letting their children live lives at all. Rohini, this time, was wrong.

He thought of Priya, sitting in the living room.

She was lonely. Her ba had died when she was 9; she had been old enough to really feel her loss. He knew what it was like to lose your best friend, your life partner, but he’d never allowed himself to wonder how Priya would have felt losing her best friend too. Naina understood her – when Priya was quiet, Naina had helped her open up. How did Priya feel now that she was gone?

Rohini shuffled to the living room; he followed behind, until the phone trilled. Mukesh diverted his path, slowly, creakily, trying to prove to his daughter he didn’t need to be completely looked after.

‘Hello?’ he said, not recognizing the number as he picked up the phone.

On the other end of the line, he heard his friend Harishbhai yapping away without even uttering a greeting.

‘Bhai! You must help me. Something very, very urgent has come up. Sahilbhai has dropped out of the mandir’s sponsored walk. You must step in. I told them immediately I knew Mukeshbhai would do it, he is a good man, his Naina would have put him forward in a moment. You are going to help, yes?’

Rohini was watching intently, her brow furrowed. Mukesh’s first instinct was to put the phone down immediately – to tell Rohini it was telesales, but no matter how annoying Harish was, he couldn’t be so rude.

‘Harishbhai, please, what do you mean?’

‘Mukeshbhai, my friend, Sahilbhai has sprained his ankle. The walk is in a week’s time, he cannot take part, and we do not want to lose any of his sponsorship.’

‘But no one will ask for their money back, surely? It is charity.’

‘You never know, bhai, not everyone is so generous like you, me, Naina, ne?’

‘So, you need someone to fill his spot …’

‘Ha, precisely. You can do it?’ Harish asked, but they both knew that this was not a question.

‘Bhai, my back. You know. Bad back.’

Harish continued talking, as though Mukesh hadn’t spoken at all. He signed off with, ‘Back schmack. Thank you – we meet at the temple next Saturday at eight in the morning. Thank you, bhai. Thank you.’

Mukesh looked at his daughter, who had now turned to Zee TV and was bopping her head in time with the theme music.

‘Who was that?’ she asked, absently.

‘Your fua, Harishfua.’

‘What does he want?’ Rohini looked up at her father now, disdain on her face. She disliked Harish as much as Mukesh did.

‘He wants me to fill in for Sahilfua in the mandir sponsored walk next Saturday.’

Rohini laughed. Mukesh remained straight-faced. Rohini stopped laughing.

‘You know it’s ten kilometres this year?’

Mukesh gulped: he hated walking for anyone other than Naina. She used to have a little book about the best walks in London. She would always complain that they lived in the capital city of England and had barely ventured outside Brent in all their years. Besides, on Saturdays he usually just took the day very slowly, called up his daughters one at a time, spoke to his grandchildren and caught up on Gardener’s World (even though his garden was nothing more than paving slabs – he liked how nice and easy it was to maintain) and then Blue Planet, again. He didn’t know if he was up to breaking his routine quite so drastically. He’d already ventured out to the library … throwing the sponsored walk in the mix was bound to be one step too far.