Om Shanti, Babe Read online

  He picked the book up, read the title and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘It just slipped out of my hands.’

  ‘Do you wish to have it back?’ He held the book out to me and we both stared at the mangled remains.

  ‘No, thanks. I’ve got another one.’

  ‘I can only pray that it is a little more worthy,’ he sighed.

  ‘Oh, there you are.’ Lula had come through the gate and she looked tired. ‘Move over, Cass, I’ve had a right cow of a day and I really need a shower.’

  She marched straight past us and into the house. I noticed Call-me-V’s surprised look and guessed he hadn’t seen Lula in a stress-strop before. I followed her up the stairs and sat out on the roof, listening, as the water ran and ran. Lula hardly ever shouts. It’s like the bad mood seeps out of her skin and she has to wash it down the plughole before she can be nice again.

  I stared out across the empty garden. There was no one for me to talk to and nothing for me to do until Lula got out of the shower. I got a cushion off my bed and picked up the Peacock book.

  Things were getting worse for Una and by a super-weird coincidence there was a character called Vikram in it now. He was an ex-prince who lived in a huge house and was in love with the wicked stepmother/governess, too. Alix, the governess, tried to ignore him and pretend nothing was happening, but everyone could see what was going on.

  I felt sorry for Una, like she was a friend in trouble. But then I thought, if I had a real friend I wouldn’t need a book one.

  That evening I sat staring at a heap of clothes cascading out of my case. Lula had banned the shorts and anyway, even plastered in Odomos, being covered up would stop the mosquitoes gorging on my flesh like it came with extra fries. Jeans and a long-sleeved kaftan were at the top of the heap, so they would have to do.

  We were having dinner at a local restaurant. Lula said the owner, Mr Rao, told you what was on the menu and that was that. I was a bit nervous about the food. Even though we sell Indian stuff, the shop keeps Lula too busy to cook properly in the evenings and we eat a lot of random ready meals. She used to get the organic ones, but lately it’s been whatever’s on the whoopsie counter.

  Dad loves restaurants, the fancier the better, and he always books ahead. When we go for our Dad-Daughter bonding sessions he always treats me to a big dinner. The waiters seem surprised sometimes, when we arrive. Like they knew Dad’s name, but they weren’t expecting him to have a family.

  He’s really fierce about table manners and he drilled me about not using my left hand for eating in India. He even threatened to write poo-paw on it, to remind me why I shouldn’t. He told me mathematical zero was invented in India, so I didn’t see why toilet paper hadn’t caught on yet.

  Lula had a headache and decided we should walk the short distance through the streets. I was hoping her bad mood would keep Call-me-V out of the way for the evening or, even better, the rest of the trip. But no, there he was, smiling away as he guided us to the restaurant. He had got dressed up and he even looked sort of handsome. I thought Mrs Chaudhury must have been sad about being left behind and I was a bit disgusted that Lula didn’t invite her, too.

  On the way, I saw a lady sitting in the dust on the opposite side of the road. She didn’t have proper fingers on her hands and she was holding the stumps out to the people passing by. I couldn’t help staring at her even though it made me feel sad and a bit sick.

  A man walked by her, talking on his mobile phone. I saw his gold watch catch the light as he tossed some money on the ground, but he didn’t look at her. He didn’t even stop talking on his phone.

  The restaurant was full, but Lula saw some Indian business friends and we joined them at their table. I wanted to sit next to her, but her friends had brought their little kids along and so instead I became children’s entertainer for the evening.

  Over their chatter, I could just about hear Lula talking about threads per inch and shipping costs. I needed to learn about this stuff too, but it was too noisy in the restaurant to listen properly.

  The waiter brought a mixture of dishes on a big platter. In the middle was some naan bread and a bowl of soupy lentil stew. The kids got stuck into the food straightaway, scooping chunks of coconut-scented fish on to the naan and topping it with a dollop of yoghurty stuff.

  I was thinking about having a try when Lula said she was sorry there weren’t any chips, but that if I wanted she would order an omelette or something for me instead. She said it quite loudly and the whole table stared at me. It was totally humiliating and my appetite instantly dried up with shame. Why didn’t she just mash a baby banana and have done with it?

  I just picked at the naan bread and watched the tinies demolish the chicken. They had a kind of milk smoothie thing for pudding and my impersonation of a walrus with drinking-straw tusks made them laugh themselves into exhaustion until they fell asleep in their chairs.

  I watched to see if Lula had noticed me not eating, but she was getting deeply into work stuff. I tried to interrupt her and she looked a bit cross.

  Then Call-me-V said there was an internet café nearby and why didn’t I take a tuk-tuk and ‘do some surfing’ and Lula said ‘what a good idea’, and that she’d be along soon, and then she gave me another bundle of rupees.

  Call-me-V stood up and said he would escort me there. Why couldn’t he just mind his own business? I didn’t want him trailing around after me, pointing out ‘historical monuments from our colonial past’ like some history teacher.

  I said I had to go to the bathroom and when no one was looking I sneaked out of the side door. Lula probably wouldn’t notice I’d gone, she was so busy being best buddies with Call-me-V and not taking any notice of me. Maybe she wouldn’t even care.

  Next thing I knew I was out in the night, by myself, trying to choose between a gang of auto-rickshaws.

  One of the drivers dropped his cigarette butt into the dusty ground and walked towards me. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘The internet café on Church road, please.’

  ‘I know a better one, I will take you there, much better prices.’ He pointed me towards his tuk-tuk. It was painted in swirls of neon and had a Ferrari sticker on the front. Lining the dashboard were plastic figures of Elvis Presley. Their hips jiggled and twinkled in the glare of the street lamps.

  ‘My mum said I have to go to the one on Church Road.’

  ‘My one is better, very popular with tourists, come!’ He was standing right in front of me. I could smell cigarette smoke on his breath.

  ‘It’s OK, thank you. Maybe I should just walk.’

  ‘It is very, very far to walk, you must please come with me.’

  I looked back at the door of the restaurant. Light and loud voices spilled out on to the street. I wanted to go back inside, but I was too embarrassed to face everyone. If I couldn’t even take a tuk-tuk by myself they’d think I was a real baby. I looked at the other drivers laughing together in the dark.

  ‘Just take me to the internet café on Church Road, please.’ I held out the bundle of rupees.

  ‘Hey, stop hassling her, yah!’ An arm reached out and pushed down my outstretched hand. I recognised the girl from the bookshop. She said something else to the driver. I didn’t understand it, but she sounded pretty annoyed.

  His friends were laughing at him now and he looked down at his feet until she’d stopped scolding. ‘OK, OK, don’t shoot! Please, please, lady, get in.’

  The girl held my wrist and pulled me towards the tuk-tuk. ‘Actually, I will ride with you, if that’s OK?’

  ‘That would be great, thanks.’

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Cassia, I’m from London.’

  ‘So, how are you getting along with your book?’

  I told her that Una had just met Ravi, the poet boy who lived in the garden, and that she was sneaking off to see him at night. I said I thought it was nice she had someone to talk to.

  She shook her head and patted my hand. �
�As a matter of fact it is going to get worse before it is getting better.’

  There was a computer free at the internet café, so I bought a packet of crisps and settled down for an hour in the online world. Dad had already emailed with a reminder about washing my hands after you-know-what and not drinking the tap water. The man spent his life laughing at danger but where I was concerned...

  I was impatient to catch up with the online gossip about Jonny Gold, so I did a quick reply to Dad making it sound like I was on intravenous boiled water and covered in a layer of sunscreen as thick as icing sugar. Trust my luck to get his hair and Lula’s pale skin.

  The news from Gilded Bear records was a real eye-popper. It seemed Jonny had flown from London to Bangalore to make a music video for Om Shanti, Babe. He said he ‘wanted to be close to the spirituality that had inspired the new song’.

  I was so surprised I actually said, ‘OMIGOD!’ out loud, which was practically a hanging offence in our house. Bangalore was almost up the road, in India terms, which meant I could actually be sharing air with the golden one. I’d been in supercrush mode over Jonny for nearly a year and just the thought of him made my hands shake so much I could hardly type straight.

  I listened to the track online. The words were all about being chilled out and it had a sitar bit for the chorus, but it didn’t sound as Indian as I expected.

  I was still reading Jonny Gold’s amazing song lyrics when I saw Lula waving at me from the doorway. There was no sign of Call-me-V and I logged off. I tried to tell her about Jonny Gold, but she was in mini-rage mode and I was too tired to make her listen.

  She gave me a long boring lecture about not sneaking off, and how I’d offended Call-Me-V and embarrassed her in front of her business friends and blah blah blah. She was warming up for the dead-in-a-ditch speech when we got back to the guest house and I crawled into bed, pulling the sheet over my head.

  I thought it would be nice sharing a room, but Lula was an angry million miles away. I warned her that the moment she started snoring I would take her credit card and demand my own room.

  She just frowned and said, ‘Good luck squeezing another penny out of that!’ Then she said she had jet-lag and went back downstairs, leaving me by myself in the dark again. She obviously cared more about what Call-me-V was doing than me.

  As I lay there, listening to the traffic noise and dogs barking, I wished I was back at home, cosy under my own duvet instead of sweating away in India, frizzy-haired and friendless.

  In the middle of the night I got up for a drink of water. Lula still wasn’t in bed and I sat by the window, looking out on to the garden. Shadows of two people danced on the lawn and I leaned out to take a better look. Through the branches of the lantern tree I saw Lula and Call-me-V. They were standing very close together, holding hands. Then he leaned forward and kissed her on the lips.

  At stupid o’clock I woke up with my arms all tangled in netting. Itching feet told me that some little visitors had got through the layers of Odomos and bitten me. I scowled at the geckos lurking by the skirting board. I’d had a bad dream. I felt a knot in my stomach and rubbed my head.

  Suddenly my dream came screeching back into my head. Only I knew it wasn’t a dream. Lula and Call-me-V had been kissing in the garden in the middle of the night. I’d seen them with my own eyes.

  I felt sick. It was just like the Peacock book, only Call-me-V wasn’t Ravi, the handsome poet, he was our driver and Lula wasn’t Una, she was my mum! Poor Mrs C! I just lay there, eyes shut, watching an action replay of the stomach-churning kiss over and over in my head until I thought I was going to heave.

  ‘Five minutes, Yogi Bear!’ Lula shouted from the bathroom. She was singing to herself. It was a happy sound, totally tuneless, but happy. How could she be happy?

  I put my head back under the bed covers. Lula shouted again from the bathroom. She’d found a Yoga class and said it might be good for my dancing. But I didn’t feel like dancing now, I felt like screaming. I dragged myself out of bed and hunted around for a clean T-shirt.

  In the guidebook it said that Yoga was a really big deal here and there were lots of different styles to choose from. There was even one where you just stood around and laughed. I’d read that Yoga started over two thousand years ago and, if you practised it every day, it was supposed to make you feel ‘at one with the divine’. They did it at our community centre and the ladies always looked quite cheerful coming out. As I pulled on my leggings, I thought it would take more than Yoga to make me feel cheerful.

  We walked the short distance across town to the class. The streets were already busy with people hurrying along. Lula said the loudspeakers I could hear were calling people to pray in the mosques.

  Small piles of burning rubbish were dotted along the pavement. A man was sweeping dry leaves on to the piles. It looked like the smoke was making his eyes hurt.

  It was practically dawn, and I couldn’t believe Lula didn’t get a tuk-tuk. Where was Call-me-V? I thought he was supposed to be our driver. Then I realised he was probably still snoozing in bed with poor Mrs Chaudhury and I had to rub my eyes hard to get rid of that picture, too.

  What was I going to do? Lula and Call-me-V couldn’t get it together, could they? Mrs Chaudhury would die of a broken heart. What if he came and lived with us in London? Would he help Lula run the shop instead of me?

  Maybe we should just fly back home now, before it was too late. I could pretend to be very very sick or something. Then I remembered school and realised I was trapped here in Kerala, with my mad irresponsible mother and her horrible cheating boyfriend.

  Lula did her chatty-Cathy act all the way, but I was on silent mode. She looked a bit confused, but I figured that served her right.

  We made our way to Mahatma Gandhi Road and found the school. It was in the downstairs of a building beside a convent. Painted in blue letters on the wall outside, it said, Let us be happy to do what we can. I imagined a hooded nun sneaking out in the night with a spray can and wondered what God would think. Incense drifted out of the front doors.

  Inside it was clean and brightly lit but not nearly as glitzy as the Serenity Spa. Blue Yoga mats were laid out ready, and in the middle there was a small group of serious-looking people, standing completely still and breathing very loudly. Of course, I was the youngest person in the room. Where were all the teen yogis? Oh yes, probably still in bed!

  My stomach gurgled and the teacher gave me an encouraging smile. ‘This is a good sound. Your belly is waking up.’

  ‘Yeah, waking up grumpy,’ I muttered.

  The lesson started with a long stretch the teacher called a Sun Salutation. It was quite easy and made me feel more awake. Then we did some twists and some standing on one leg. I couldn’t keep my balance and hopped around the room for a bit until the teacher caught me. It started to get a lot harder after that and only a very bendy couple were left trying to tie themselves into pretzels. The effort was turning their faces purple.

  Lula seemed to be enjoying it and the teacher kept telling her she was doing really well. Then she lost her balance and giggled when he caught her. What was happening? First Mr Chaudhury and now a yogi! Was she always like this in India? It was a good thing I’d come along to keep an eye on her.

  We got back to the guest house and I went straight upstairs for another shower. When I came down again, breakfast was laid out on the terrace. Mrs Chaudhury seemed a bit hurt when I turned down everything she’d cooked, but how could I eat her food when I knew what was really going on? Though a guilty conscience didn’t stop Lula tucking in.

  I groaned and laid my head flat on the table, on top of the order book.

  ‘You OK, Cass?’ Lula asked. ‘I thought you might like to come to the market with me this morning.’

  ‘I’m feeling a bit sick, actually.’

  ‘Was it the Yoga?’

  ‘Yeah, sort of...’

  ‘Well, I have to go, I’m afraid. Would you mind if I left you behind?’


  ‘I don’t care; you always do whatever you want, anyway.’

  Lula’s coffee cup cracked back on to the saucer. She was staring at me. I knew I was being rude and at home she would have fired off a double-barrelled death-stare. It flashed for a moment, then Mrs Chaudhury came in with more toast and she lowered the guns.

  ‘You are very welcome to stay with me today, Cassia, if you like?’ Mrs Chaudhury was smiling and I felt my face go red. ‘We can do some cooking and maybe you would like a mehandi, m’n?’

  I didn’t know what a mehandi was, but before I could ask, Lula butted in. ‘That sounds lovely, doesn’t it, Cass? Say thank you to Lalitha.’

  I couldn’t believe how nicey-nicey she was being. What was she going to say when Mrs Chaudhury found out? ‘Oops-a-daisy, I didn’t think you’d mind if I lip-locked with your husband. Let’s have a lovely cup of tea.’

  Really... I mean... really!

  After breakfast, Lula and Call-me-V set off in the Green Goddess and I helped Mrs Chaudhury’s kitchen lady clear away the dishes. She made us both a glass of ginger soda, and me and Mrs Chaudhury sat at the table.

  ‘Shall I open the shutters? Then we can have a nice view of the garden.’

  The lantern tree cast a shadow on to the floor. I moved my chair, keeping my back to the open window.

  ‘I think you are a little afraid of Indian dishes, Cassia, m’n?’

  ‘I just don’t like spicy things very much.’

  ‘Actually, food here in Kerala is not so spicy-dicey. Shall we try to make something sweet, like coconut cookies?’

  She fetched some storage jars from a cupboard and set them out on the table in front of me. As she measured the ingredients from each jar in turn, her gold bracelets jangled. They’d probably been a present from Call-me-V. They were so pretty, but she wouldn’t want to wear them when she found out.