A Suitable Boy(125)

They talked quickly, because there was no privacy in the house, and at any moment anyone could walk into Priya’s room.

‘My father’s here,’ Priya said. ‘Downstairs, talking politics.’

‘We will always be friends, no matter what,’ said Veena suddenly, and started crying again.

Priya hugged her friend, told her to have courage, and suggested a brisk walk on the roof.

‘What, in this heat, are you mad?’ asked Veena.

‘Why not? It’s either heat-stroke or interruption by my mother-in-law – and I know which I’d prefer.’

‘I’m scared of your monkeys,’ said Veena as a second line of defence. ‘First they fight on the roof of the daal factory, then they leap over onto your roof. Shahi Darvaza should be renamed Hanuman Dwar.’

‘You’re not scared of anything. I don’t believe you,’ said Priya. ‘In fact, I envy you. You can walk over by yourself any time. Look at me. And look at these bars on the balcony. The monkeys can’t come in, and I can’t go out.’

‘Ah,’ said Veena, ‘you shouldn’t envy me.’

They were silent for a while.

‘How is Bhaskar?’ asked Priya.

Veena’s plump face lit up in a smile, rather a sad one. ‘He’s very well – as well as your pair, anyway. He insisted on coming along. At the moment they are all playing cricket in the square downstairs. The pipal tree doesn’t seem to bother them I wish for your sake, Priya, that you had a brother or sister,’ Veena added suddenly, thinking of her own childhood.

The two friends went to the balcony and looked down through the wrought-iron grille. Their three children, together with two others, were playing cricket in the small square. Priya’s ten-year-old daughter was by far the best of them. She was a fair bowler and a fine batsman. She usually managed to avoid the pipal tree, which gave the others endless trouble.

‘Why don’t you stay for lunch?’ asked Priya.

‘I can’t,’ said Veena, thinking of Kedarnath and her mother-in-law, who would be expecting her. ‘Tomorrow perhaps.’

‘Tomorrow then.’

Veena left the bag of jewellery with Priya, who locked it up in a steel almirah. As she stood by the cupboard Veena said: ‘You’re putting on weight.’

‘I‘ve always been fat,’ said Priya, ‘and because I do nothing but sit here all day like a caged bird, I‘ve grown fatter.’

‘You’re not fat and you never have been,’ said her friend. ‘And since when have you stopped pacing on the roof?’

‘I haven’t,’ said Priya, ‘but one day I’m going to throw myself off it.’

‘Now if you talk like that I’m going to leave at once,’ said Veena and made to go.

‘No, don’t go. Seeing you has cheered me up,’ said Priya. ‘I hope you have lots of bad fortune. Then you’ll come running to me all the time. If it hadn’t been for Partition you‘d never have come back to Brahmpur.’

Veena laughed.

‘Come on, let’s go to the roof,’ continued Priya. ‘I really can’t talk freely to you here. People are always coming in and listening from the balcony. I hate it here, I’m so unhappy, if I don’t tell you I’ll burst.’ She laughed, and pulled Veena to her feet. ‘I’ll tell Bablu to get us something cold to prevent heat-stroke.’

Bablu was the weird fifty-year-old servant who had come to the family as a child and had grown more eccentric with each passing year. Lately he had taken to eating everyone’s medicines.

When they got to the roof, they sat in the shade of the water-tank and started laughing like schoolgirls.

‘We should live next to each other,’ said Priya, shaking out her jet black hair, which she had washed and oiled that morning. ‘Then, even if I throw myself off my roof, I’ll fall onto yours.’

‘It would be awful if we lived next to each other,’ said Veena, laughing. ‘The witch and the scarecrow would get together every afternoon and complain about their daughters-in-law. “O, she’s bewitched my son, they play chaupar on the roof all the time, she’ll make him as dark as soot. And she sings on the roof so shamelessly to the whole neighbourhood. And she deliberately prepares rich food so that I fill up with gas. One day I’ll explode and she’ll dance over my bones.” ’

Priya giggled. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it’ll be fine. The two kitchens will face each other, and the vegetables can join us in complaining about our oppression. “O, friend Potato, the khatri scarecrow is boiling me. Tell everyone I died miserably. Farewell, farewell, never forget me.” “O friend Pumpkin, the bania witch has spared me for only another two days. I’ll weep for you but I won’t be able to attend your chautha. Forgive me, forgive me.” ’