down, do some push-ups against the wall, and jog around the room. The buzzer rings. At once, I’m on the floor again, my ear pressed to it. I can’t hear anything for a few minutes. Someone, probably Federico, has walked all the way down to the front door, and then walked up again, slower this time. There are some exclamations, followed by silence. Then there it is. The sure waft of cheesy dough. The wily bastards have ordered pizza! I jump up and look out of my window. In the distance I see the delivery man. He’s from our local and they do really good pizzas. There’s the usual pepperoni and chicken sausage and farmhouse, but they also do goats cheese and caramelized onion, butternut squash and spicy bacon. My tummy moans, long and slowly. All of a sudden, I desperately want pizza. I’ve eaten nothing but Federico’s kale chips and tonic water since yesterday, my stomach turning at the thought of food after what I did to Simon, but now I can smell it. I can smell the pizza. In fact, I’m pretty sure I can hear them chewing. I pace around the room for another five minutes. Argh! I hate them so much!
I give in to the inevitable and walk slowly downstairs where a small army seems to be crammed into my living room.
‘Talk some sense into her, men don’t like it if you take them for granted,’ my Auntie Pinky says as soon as she sees me. She is munching pepperoni pizza.
I leap at a random pizza box and inhale half a slice in two bites. I close my eyes. It’s the tastiest thing I’ve ever eaten. Spicy sausage. I shudder it’s so good.
I turn around to look at the assembled company. ‘Hey Auntie Pinky, Uncle Jat,’ I give them a wave. I munch up the rest of my slice and grab another one.
Of course my Uncle Jatinder – my mother’s brother – and Auntie Pinky are here. They are always here. They are self-appointed custodians of everything. Everything that anyone in the GIF does or wants to do has to go through them. If you’re getting a job, a haircut, a mortgage, a pet, a manicure, a degree, a marriage license, a wax, it has to be discussed with Uncle Jat and Auntie Pinky so that they can tell you the best way to go about it.
Auntie Pinky is short and plump, her hair is uncoloured with two white wings (we call them the East Wing and the West Wing) that make her look like a zebra crossing. Uncle Jat has soft curves, he wears glasses with a gold chain attached and his hands gesture softly when he talks. He wears kohlapuri slippers even in the dead of winter and sneezes soundlessly by squeezing his nose. He doesn’t look it, but he is very good at all things finance. They own a catering business, an empire really, that supplies Indian restaurants with dessert.
‘Let’s not heckle the girl, Pinky,’ he says.
‘Thanks, Uncle Jat.’ I munch on the crust. Even the crust is good. Crunchy and skinny and cheesy, just the way I like it. ‘I ate frogs’ legs on pizza once,’ I say to no one in particular.
My parents, Uncle Jat and Auntie Pinky are all jammed into the one sofa in the room. It isn’t a large living room and the GIF is making it leak at the seams. Federico is sitting on the cane rocking chair. I have nowhere to sit, so I stand leaning against a wall.
Suddenly Auntie Pinky slaps her head with a hand. She gets up, walks to a large shopping bag that is sitting in the corner of the room, brings out an enormous plastic box and starts laying homemade cupcakes onto a tray, since apparently several boxes of pizza are not enough to feed our small GIF army.
‘I came prepared,’ Auntie Pinky says, holding up the tray, ‘with Rilla not having a tray.’ She turns to look at me. ‘What do you do when you have guests anyway, Rilla, please tell me?’
‘I don’t,’ I say.
‘Well, you have Simon. I expect he comes around all the time,’ Auntie Pinky says. ‘What?’ she says, turning around and looking at everyone – even though no one has said anything. ‘I’m a liberal. They were nearly married. You think I don’t know that he comes around all the time? Anyway, you should own a tray, Rilla. A man likes to know he’s appreciated.’
‘And I need a tray for that?’ I goggle at her.
‘How do you bring him a cup of tea?’ Auntie Pinky says, raising her eyebrows. She forgets the cupcakes for a second to fixate on this fresh disaster. ‘Seriously?’
‘He brings me – used to bring me – a beer out of the fridge,’ I respond.
‘Oye, what are we living in? An episode of Friends?’ Auntie Pinky says.
‘Anyway,’ Uncle Jat says, opening his eyes wide and looking at us significantly, ‘let us not make a mountain out of a tray.’ He chuckles at his own joke. ‘Look, Rilla, we will take care of everything.’ He wipes his fingers on a tissue. ‘We’ll get the criminal record dropped first, then we’ll talk to Simon. People make mistakes all the time. I spoke to his father on the phone this morning …’
‘You did what?’ I shriek. I unpeel from the wall like someone whipping off a plaster – in one quick definite motion.
Uncle Jat is unperturbed. ‘We are in a precarious position, after what you did. But I called him and I said let us not cry over spilt milk. I said, in my humble opinion, the girl is afraid of – you know – the hanky-panky business. Indian girls are shy like that.’
I groan. ‘I want to die.’ I slump against the wall again and close my eyes.
‘I said maybe we can settle the matter over a drink.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He was most amenable. Very reasonable man. He said he wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing me like that. And of course the wedding would be back on, there was no negotiation necessary. White people know how to be rational, I have always said that.’
‘It is all right, Rilla. We have your back,’ Auntie Pinky says. ‘I will make chicken tikka masala if necessary. And we will serve the finest scotch. Nothing is too good for you.’ She smooths her sari. ‘And also the situation is desperate.’
My mother’s family were well-off when she was growing up, but Uncle Jat has taken ‘well-off’ to a new level. His dessert empire keeps going from strength to strength, providing desserts not only for Indian weddings and parties, but increasingly for big events like Wimbledon and Royal Ascot. Instead of distancing him from the rest of the family, this wealth has made him feel like he owns everyone. No, that is a mean thing to think. It’s more that he feels he has to take care of everyone, make sure that they are living their life correctly. He is of the mind that there is no problem that can’t be solved if you have money to throw at it. Uncle Jat and Auntie Pinky like to tell you where you are going wrong, and then be the ones to fix it.
My mother Renu is crammed into a corner of the sofa, perched in about two inches of space. She is accusing me with her eyes. As far as she is concerned, if things have gone wrong in my life, it is no one’s fault but my own. She is wearing a plain navy sari today, probably to express that this is a sad, sombre day. An African Bee-Eater brooch holds her sari in place, given to her by one of her Ugandan students. She teaches Life in the UK classes, telling her students that people in this country eat with a knife and fork, that they don’t squat on toilet seats, that mince pies have no meat in them, and that Henry VIII beheaded his wives because divorce was not allowed back then. She tells them that the first fish and chip shop was opened in 1860 by a Jewish immigrant.
Her chin is trembling and she’s doing her hand-flapping thing. ‘If you only thought of other people for once. What will happen now, what will become of you? What will Simon’s family think of us?’
I
