The House of Hidden Mothers (31 page)

‘I'm the last person she'd tell,' Lydia said. ‘I suppose all we can do is just what we've always done … be there if she needs us.'

‘How very noble,' Tara muttered.

Priya snaked an arm around her shoulder. ‘Come on, sweetie, you know how much this means to your mum … how long she's been waiting …'

Tara shoved Priya's arm away and stood up. ‘This was your idea, wasn't it? This whole weird lab-rat thing.'

‘Lab rat? Darling, if it's good enough for Sarah Jessica Parker and co … and quite a few of the Bollywood folk are starting to do it now.'

‘Baby as accessory. Too busy to breed … I knew Mum could be shallow occasionally, but if that's the reason …'

‘You know it isn't!'

‘Maybe she doesn't,' Lydia interjected. She turned to Tara. ‘She was trying a long time with Toby, the miscarriage really took it out of her …'

‘Miscarriage?'

‘Quite late, thirteen weeks, I think …'

‘She never told me. But then she wouldn't, would she?'

‘She didn't want you to worry, sweetie.'

Priya edged carefully towards Tara – like I'm some care-in-the-community case raving on a bench, Tara thought. She was trying to recall any memory she might have of her mother being sick, absent, depressed. No, there Shyama stood in her mind's eye, as combative and unbreakable as she'd always been. But all the while she'd been on this campaign, this mission of blood and pain. There was a flicker of sympathy somewhere, but too deeply buried to bother her much now.

Priya was next to her; every time she raised her eyebrows, the clingfilm around her head squeaked softly. ‘Listen, in India this … process has been going on for centuries, family members having kids for each other.'

‘She's not family, is she? Or maybe she is now, God knows … I'm sure we will have some lovely cosy chats across the breakfast table for the next few months. I mean, didn't either of you ever once say to my mum – who is nearly fifty, by the way – that this just may be the most stupid thing she's ever done?'

Priya's gaze swivelled to Lydia, who spread her hands in resignation.

‘And that's why she's gone all huffy with you?' Tara finally understood why her mother had apparently dumped one of her oldest friends. ‘Unbelievable.'

‘I probably could have handled it better,' Lydia offered, following Tara as she stomped towards the door. ‘And anyway, it's done now. Tara?'

‘What?'

Tara knew she was behaving like a bratty seven-year-old, she knew that's what they both saw now, Lydia and Priya, these women who had watched her grow up. Maybe that was the problem, that in their eyes she would only ever be Shyama's little girl. And yet what she had wanted this evening was some time alone with Lydia, to tell her about what had happened with Charlie. She hadn't thought through what she would say, how she would introduce the subject: ‘Hey, you'll never guess what happened to me the other week!' or ‘Hey, should I be reporting this somewhere?' or ‘Hey, do I just write this off as part of becoming a woman?' How was it possible to feel so raw and helpless and yet so very old? Priya's arrival had ended any hope she'd had of asking these questions, and she simmered with frustrated disappointment.

‘Tara,' Lydia repeated gently, ‘I know this is going to be really challenging for you …'

‘Save it for your patients,' Tara snapped, and left.

The two old friends continued chatting for a while, Lydia providing a stream of cups of fresh mint tea which she threw back like shots. She knew she would be pissing like a Trojan for most of the night, but at least the monster inside her had stopped snapping its jaws. The hunger for a drink had gone and she was becalmed, floppy as a beached seal. They discussed their concerns about Tara, about Shyama and Toby, their empathy tempered by the shameful thrill they both felt at the unfolding saga.

‘You know, whatever happens,' Priya said, ‘at the end of the day, there is going to be a new baby arriving. Generally when that happens, everyone calms down a bit. You can't go round screaming at each other when there's this cute little thing needing your protection. I swear I wanted to strangle my mother-in-law right up until she walked into the delivery room, and then—'

‘You made up?'

‘God no, but I didn't want to kill her any more. I hadn't got the energy, frankly. And she's been a bloody life-saver when I've been working away. You rally round when it comes to the kids, that's all I'm saying.'

‘I hope so. I just hope Shyama remembers she's got another child.'

Priya sipped her tea and briefly checked her mobile phone.

‘I didn't think she'd go through with this, you know. I mean when I found the clinic I thought she'd have a sniff at it, think through what it meant, starting all over again at our age with a baby, and then … just give up.'

‘When have you ever known Shyama to give up without a fight?'

‘I couldn't do it again.' Priya suppressed a small shudder. ‘The sleepless nights, the inane baby talk.'

‘Then why did you—?' Lydia began.

‘Because she was in pain and I'm her friend. And maybe it's not up to us, or anyone, to tell someone when it's the right time to stop chasing a dream.'

‘That's quite sensitive, for you.' Lydia smiled.

‘Well, I remember how I felt when we were trying and it didn't happen for months … that blind panic and desperation. It makes you crazy. So now it's happening, we get on board, right?'

Lydia hesitated. ‘It's Tara I worry about.'

‘Tara's jealous, that's all. When Maya was born, I bought Luka a DS and said it was from his new baby sister. Still didn't stop him trying to tip her out of her Moses basket for a few weeks, but he adores her now.'

‘She talks to me. Tara, I mean, she …' Lydia hesitated, aware, even with Priya – or maybe especially with her – of the dangers of breaching confidentiality. ‘She's troubled. She was before all this, and now … it just isn't great timing for her.'

‘Look, sweetie, and don't take this the wrong way …'

Lydia stiffened. All Priya's sentences that began thus generally did go the wrong way.

‘But you don't have kids and so …'

‘So what?'

‘All I meant was, teenagers are incredibly selfish and incredibly dramatic. I know mine aren't there yet, but all my hormonal nieces and nephews are usually round my place moaning about their parents and quite casually breaking their hearts and shredding their nerves at every opportunity. That's what parents are, at this stage, emotional punchbags. I'm going to send both of mine to boarding school the minute I smell a whiff of it, I swear …'

‘So you're saying I'm not allowed an opinion because I'm not a mother?' Lydia said evenly.

‘No, I'm saying sure, you know loads from your work, your patients …'

‘Clients, and thanks very much for your endorsement.'

‘Come on, Lyd … I didn't mean—'

‘What did you mean, then?' Lydia stood up and took the mugs to the sink, aware that Priya's was still half full. ‘Do you realize how many assumptions the world makes about women who don't have children? That we're weird? Selfish? Neurotic? Tragic?'

‘Lyd … I asked you years ago why you didn't have kids and you said—'

‘I said what was acceptable at the time. That Keith and I couldn't. Because at least then we had a modicum of sympathy, as opposed to this patronizing shit you're chucking at me now.'

In the silence, the whirr of the fridge, the hum of the central heating thrummed between them, thickening the air. Priya searched her friend's face for a hint of anguish that would give her a clue to this outburst. Lydia looked as she always had: groomed, lithely in control. Well, we all have secrets, Priya concluded. Skeletons come tumbling out of every cupboard in my house: Marco in Milan, George in Lisbon, the memorable all-nighter in Paris, although not memorable enough to recall an actual name. True, the early encounters hadn't remained secret from her friends, it had been fun to share them out, to see the shock and, she thought, grudging envy on their faces at the thought that she was someone who really was ‘having it all'. It was also the main reason why she had never encouraged cosy get-togethers with either Shyama or Lydia and their partners; she had enough taste not to parade her husband in front of them, compromising their friendship. But lately she hadn't wanted to share so much – and the affairs were less frequent. She had no doubt they would both approve of this, considering it proof that at last she was seeing sense, living a mature and healthy lifestyle uncluttered with corrosive duplicity. The truth was that she didn't get as many offers, sometimes none at all, despite her ferocious grooming. Something had happened in the last year, something beyond the odd tiny wrinkle, the slight slackening of inner-thigh muscle tone. Maybe it was something hormonal: she wasn't giving off the same bedroom smell, the one that allowed her to reel in a man with the merest flick of an eyebrow. It was as if someone had taken a large eraser and was slowly rubbing her out, pore by pore. Why else, when she walked across a hotel lobby, did she not attract a single male glance?

‘Lyd, I would never patronize you, you're far too clever. So you chose not to have kids, no big deal, right? Probably means you will be the only sane auntie Shyama's baby's going to have.'

Lydia paced her garden into the early hours. She knew how to handle this one, the insomnia triggered whenever she dwelt on the choice she had made all those years ago. She had made it clear to Keith what and who he was taking on – a woman who might never feel clean enough of her addiction to be responsible for a child. Mostly, she felt it had been the noble and right thing to do. Other times, when she saw slack-faced teenagers shouting at babies in buggies in the supermarket, or listened to wealthy mothers on her couch who felt drained or trapped by their kids, she had doubts about her long-ago sacrifice. She found herself muttering curses like some home-counties harridan – ‘People like that shouldn't be allowed'– and had to pinch herself hard and read all her badges again to remind herself who she was when she'd made that decision. Choice. We marched for choices. The hardest time was always when she saw Keith with other people's children. She knew how tender he could be – he would have been the kind of daddy who would wipe up goo and sit up all night with a sick child and cancel long-held plans because he was needed. She knew, because he had done all that for her, and more. And that's what made her sadder than anything else.

It was some time before Priya got into her bed, having had to unwrap her sticky hair from its clingfilm cap, wash and blow-dry it, cream her entire body and pluck a horrifically long hair from her chin. How had that one escaped the bloody laser? Anil barely stirred as she climbed in beside him, his laptop still open on the floor beside him, showing columns and graphs moving in slow projections. He never seemed to notice whether she was moisturized or not, whether her roots were showing or whether she was wearing a new piece of underwear. For years she had assumed that he was doing the usual spouse-taking-wife-for-granted routine. But now she thought that perhaps he didn't say anything because it – she – simply didn't matter enough to him. When she had told him about the surrogacy clinic before she approached Shyama with the idea, she'd expected some kind of negative reaction, or at least a degree of suspicion. Instead he had shrugged and said, ‘Imagine not having our kids …' and had looked away. At the time, she had taken that as a vote of approval for suggesting surrogacy to Shyama. Now she wondered if it was a veiled insult, a barbed warning. ‘God, yes, imagine if we didn't have kids, then at least I wouldn't have to stay with you …'

No, ridiculous. Priya wasn't having any of this. She had a whole morning of meetings and if anything was going to keep her awake, it was worrying about them. She put on her padded sleep mask and spooned into her husband's back, her hand resting on the furry mound of his stomach, too tired to feel the slight flinch of his flesh under her palm.

IN AN AGE
full of surprises, perhaps the most unexpected discovery for Mala was how clouds were not what she had imagined they would be at all. From the swollen riverbank, in between the waving sugar-cane stalks in the fields, from her perch on her wobbly stool in her courtyard whilst she watched chapattis rise into floury discs, clouds were blowsy, corpulent pillows far above her head, soft yet firm enough to cradle her weight. Imagine jumping on to one of those,
hena
? Your body would sink into it, like the Pogles' imported feather sofa, so springy you would be bounced back on to your feet. In the aeroplane she had braced herself for the impact as they ascended straight into a bank of dawn-tinted cumuli. Instead the world went grey, metallic vapour obscured her final view of Delhi, her old life exhaling its last foggy sigh until suddenly they were dazzled by bright sunlight again. Now the clouds were below them, but they looked like nothing that belonged to the sky, more like an expanse of curdled buttermilk or a heaving, slow-moving sea, or maybe a shifting desert, all dunes and hollows, forming and re-forming with indolent ease. Somewhere down there were her village, her husband, her pots and pans, her trunk. I could have said no, she thought, so many times; a simple shake of the head and everything would have stopped, and I would be back down there, thinking I could bounce on clouds. But instead she kept saying yes: to Shyama Madam's idea of coming away with her; to fleeing the communal dormitory without a backward glance; to every form thrust in front of her, awaiting her careful signature, which she still felt did not belong to her. Yes, yes, yes, because I know, she told her belly, I know there is no home for either of us there any more.