Read Online The House of Hidden Mothers by Meera Syal - Free Book Online

wrinkles and pouches but taut new skin, a reconstructed jawline, a smile too white and wide. Time hurried forward at breakneck speed, having been held back for so long, and they had to run to catch up. And they would soon overtake, judging by how much the flat had increased in value in the last ten years or so. Almost quadrupled. Their modest investment had turned out to be an accidentally smart business move, a large three-bed in a prime location. Such a shame, then, that they could not get into it.
    Sita broke the silence. ‘Look what happens when you do people a favour.’ She shook her head.
    â€˜Mama …’ Shyama began. She was in no mood to hear the whole sorry saga again, but for Sita, the constant retelling of it reaffirmed the injustice.
    â€˜I said to Prem when Yogi asked us’ – she turned to Toby, knowing he would at least pretend to listen – ‘when Yogi said, oh my poor daughter and her family, they need somewhere to stay just until their house is finished, I said to Prem, this is a mistake.’
    â€˜The flat was just sitting there, empty, what could I say?’ Prem said for maybe the thousandth time.
    â€˜I knew as soon as Sheetal and her useless husband moved in, they would never leave. First they stopped paying rent, after just one year.’
    â€˜Sita, they know all this!’ Prem attempted a breezy chuckle, rolling his eyes at Toby as if to say, it’s nothing, this is nothing.
    â€˜And then,’ Sita ploughed on, ‘they build an extension there, they have two children there, and during this time Yogi has got rich enough to buy two flats of his own which he could have given them to live in, no? And then your favourite brother’s daughter sublets the garage – our garage – to a bicycle-repair-wallah, making money from our property whilst they are refusing to give it to us.’
    â€˜Hah, of course, that was naughty,’ Prem conceded. ‘Another biscuit, Toby?’
    â€˜Naughty?’ Sita stared at him. She bit back what she wanted to say so hard she tasted blood. ‘Fifteen years we have been asking, begging them to leave, ten years of fighting in the courts, and you call your niece
naughty
?’
    Prem swallowed hard; the plate of biscuits he held out to Toby shook slightly in his hand. Sita knew she had gone too far, but oh, how much more she could say about her stupidly soft-hearted husband, who could never say no to family. All the times he had dutifully dispatched money to pay for sisters’ weddings, nephews’ graduations, medical bills, over the years. He was the second eldest son, he would remind Sita, as she watched helplessly whilst the bundle of precious, sweated-for notes was sent away without even touching her hands. There goes the new fridge, she told herself, the central heating, the repairs to the car, the remote, longed-for possibility of a holiday. There goes any thought of private education for their only child, when so many of their friends’
oolloo
kids had got to university only because they had the money to pay someone to wring exam results out of their spoiled, vacant heads. There it all goes. And here sat her husband, with a plate of biscuits in his shaky hands, and she felt her own heartburn churning under her breastbone like an acrid sea. They had spent their retirement years fighting for the home they had wanted to retire to, and now they were older and more tired and maybe – but she could not face this thought head-on – maybe it was already too late.
    â€˜He is my brother,’ Prem said softly, placing the plate carefully back on the table. ‘Yogi touches my feet when we meet.’
    â€˜Hah, and he also left you all the restaurant bills when we ate!’ Sita laughed bitterly, patting Prem’s arm as she rose, filling the kitchen with activity, collecting mugs, flicking on the kettle again. Punjabi therapy – hot tea and changing the subject – worked