Om Shanti, Babe Page 9

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum. You’ll work it out and I’ll help – I can stay off school for as long as you need me to.’

  ‘Oh, Cass, that’s a lovely offer, but you can’t be on holiday forever.’ She gave my hand a big squeeze.

  A single tear had run down her face, following the smile lines at the side of her mouth, and now it was about to fall from her chin. I caught it with the tip of my finger. It shimmered in the sun and then dropped on to the floor.

  ‘Please don’t cry, Mum. You won’t lose your shop, I promise.’

  She wiped her eyes on her T-shirt and sniffed. ‘I’m so sorry, Cass. I know you want to help and I love you for it, but I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do.’

  ‘What does Call-me... I mean what does Mr Chaudhury say?’

  ‘He says not to worry. It’s just Karma, the good and bad things that I’ve done balancing themselves, and everything will work out in the end.’

  ‘That’s just stupid! There must be something we can do.’

  ‘Well, we could stay here, Cass, with Vikram. It would be much sooner than I’d planned, but there are good schools and you could learn traditional Indian dancing.’

  I really hoped she was joking, but she had her super-serious face on. It was worse than I thought. It wouldn’t just be the shop I’d lose; it would be everything I knew.

  I reached out for the camera. If I showed her the picture now, showed her Call-me-V hugging his brochure with his big bad buddy, we could go back to London, and then... what?

  It was so complicated. Whatever I did, something would change. How could I decide? I stared at Lula hoping to find a clue in her face. But she just looked defeated. I was used to Lula fighting for stuff, but now it seemed like my poor mum had no punches left.

  I remembered how happy she looked when she was with Call-me-V, all smiley and girlish. How she’d walked round the big shed, very serious, with a fan of incense sticks, waving perfumed smoke into the air.

  I pushed the camera away again. There had to be a better way to do this, a way that wouldn’t break her heart.

  ‘Don’t sell the shop, Mum, not yet. Wait, just for a bit.’

  ‘I can’t wait any longer, Cass, I’ve flapped around for too long already.’

  ‘Please, Mum.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Maybe I can think of something.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be done, Cass.’

  ‘Please!’

  ‘All right. I won’t do anything for a few more days, but Doré wants to get the estate agents on the case before I lose any more money.’

  She stood up and wiped her eyes again and said she was going to her room to have a lie-down. The way she looked was scaring me. I didn’t mind Lula acting a bit Loopy Lu, but really I expected her to be solid, dependable, sure of everything and able to sort out all our problems. Now I would have to help her. But how? What could I do to make things right?

  I sat on the terrace thinking about what had just happened. I remembered our first day here, Princess Priya, the banana trees, the killer wave and the music-filled party. It seemed like it had all happened a hundred years ago.

  I felt tired and my arms were sore from the rowing. I lay back on the wooden floor, feeling the heat soak into my aching shoulders. I could hear the sea in the distance and slowly my eyes were starting to close. Maybe this was all just a terrible dream. I would wake up on the plane with Bollywood on the TV and drool on my chin.

  I thought at first the shaking ground was in my imagination, but when I opened my eyes I saw that the terrace was definitely vibrating. Was it an earthquake?

  I sat up just as Priya hurled herself across the floor and landed at my feet. She was panting hard, but still trying to speak. ‘It’s him!’ she shrieked, finally managing to communicate something I could sort of understand. ‘He’s coming here, he’s actually coming here in actual real life!’

  ‘Who? And please stop yelling, Priya. Seriously, I’m having the worst day ever and you’re making my ears bleed!’

  ‘Him! Jonny Gold! He’s found his dream beach and it is this one. You’re wrong, Cassia, you’re not having the worst day ever, this must actually be the best day of our lives.’

  When Priyanka finally calmed down, she explained that Jonny Gold’s record label had chosen our beach to film his new song. Then I knew I must be dreaming. Perhaps a coconut had landed on my head and I was concussed, or maybe it was Priya who’d been hit on the head – she was raving enough for both of us.

  I must have been giving her a proper ‘Yeah, right!’ look because she dragged me back into the house and barged into Saachi’s office.

  Saachi was talking to someone on the phone. She looked a bit cross and parked the receiver back with a thunk as Priya launched herself into ‘She-doesn’t-believe-me-but-it’s-true-Amma-isn’t-it?’

  Saachi snorted and said, ‘Om Shanti, my eye!’ and that yes, it was true, but she couldn’t imagine why anyone would be happy to have the honky-tonky circus coming to town and why didn’t we go away and find something useful to do?

  Priya dragged me back into the garden and we headed for the hammock. She was practically hyperventilating with excitement and I was glad when she sat down. She swung her legs over the side of hammock and gave the ground a shove with her feet.

  ‘We have to get him to notice us, Cassia! We have to get on TV!’

  ‘Agreed, but what did you have in mind, besides super-loud squealing, of course?’

  ‘Aren’t you the one who’s the dancing queen?’

  ‘Well, yes, but...’

  ‘No buts, this is serious business! You have to get some kind of dance routine together so I can make the costumes and then we can show Jonny Gold when he comes to the beach, and he will see that I am super-talented, and Amma and Daddy-ji will understand that being in fashion has good earning potential and let me go to college in London.’

  She gave the ground another hard shove and the hammock swung wildly over the flower bed. She had it all worked out, and I had to admit it was a killer idea. Not just for her, but for me too. If I could get on to Jonny Gold’s video, show him what a brilliant dancer I was, then he’d probably want me to be in all his music videos, pay me loads to choreograph and even tour with the band. And I could talk to him about the hotel.

  He would hate the idea of the development, his lyrics were so spiritual he was bound to be an eco-freak like Saachi. And because he was such an important person he would be able to stop the hotel being built.

  Then I could tell Lula and Saachi about Call-me-V and his sneaky investments and Saachi would chase him back to Kochi. And Jonny would be so happy with my dancing he’d buy loads of stuff from the shop and Lula would be able to keep it open after all, and she’d be so happy she’d hardly notice Call-me-V had gone and we could all hang out together in London. It was perfect, utterly perfect!

  A fly landed on my arm. I looked down to swat it away and saw that the swirly mehandi tattoo Mrs Chaudhury had painted on my hand was almost completely faded. She had told me to be careful what I wished for, but this was a real wish come true and nothing could go wrong.

  ‘All right, Priya, let’s get started. First we need some music!’

  ‘No, first we need some outfits!’ She swung out of the hammock and jogged back to the house, shouting, ‘Come on, Cassia, hurry up!’

  Priya was on a life-changing mission and it was all a bit scary. How was she so sure of what she wanted? Maybe big ambition ran in her family. Whatever, I was happy to get carried along by her unstoppable energy. I struggled to escape from the folds of hammock which had wrapped me up like a banana skin and followed her up the stairs.

  When I got to her room, she was already throwing great heaps of clothes on to her bed and muttering. It seemed safer to stay out of the way, but she pulled me back into the middle of the room and flashed one top after another under my chin. They all looked good enough to me, but within a few minutes she had three piles heaped on the bed.

  A
s each outfit was tested she stared for half a second then barked ‘Yes!’, ‘No!’, or ‘Maybe’, which decided which pile it joined. Just as I thought I was going to faint with all the stand-still-and-stand-up-straight stuff, Priya finally announced that she was satisfied and what did I think?

  She propelled me towards the opposite wall. I looked at myself in the mirror. The bluey-green silk was the same colour she’d chosen for me for the bridesmaid’s dress, the one I’d seen in the sketch-pad and ripped up in a fit of jealous temper. The fabric, edged with gold, bounced light on to my face making my skin look caramel-creamy, instead of the pale freckled wreck I was used to seeing. It made my eyes look bigger too, and the mass of frizzy curls I so hated glowed around my head.

  My lips widened as I smiled at myself. Priya had loaded my arms with bracelets from an overflowing jewellery box and now she was stitching a patterned scarf to the bottom of my jeans.

  ‘This outfit is totally amazing, Priya!’

  ‘Fusion clothes for a fusion girl. You know you are actually very 21st century, Cassia.’ She was busy changing into a version of my outfit in pink and gold. Standing side by side we looked like an advert for toothpaste and global harmony.

  I went to my case and took out the present I had bought for her in London. ‘Here, Priya, I hope you like them,’ I said.

  She unwrapped the tissue paper and I watched her face break into a huge smile as she slid the bracelets over her arm. ‘Very urban cool, Cass! How did you guess this is exactly my style?’

  I muttered something about Top Shop and she gave me a hug. I found the scented oil Mrs Jaffrey had given me in Kochi and splashed it on our outfits. The room filled up with the smell of flowers.

  ‘That smells delicious!’ Priya said. ‘Come on, Cass, it’s time to teach me how to dance!’ She snapped the lid of her laptop open and pushed it towards me.

  Looking at her Jonny Gold playlist, I realised that, compared with Priya, I was just an amateur. She had everything downloaded, absolutely everything, including some mixes I’d never heard. She plugged in a couple of speakers and Jonny Gold’s beautiful voice came pouring into the room like runny honey.

  I lifted my arms up high above my head, ready to start dancing, and the bangles tinkled as they cascaded down from my wrists. The Golden One had only got to the first chorus of Galloping Soul when Saachi came blasting in after him.

  ‘Girls, you really need to keep the noise down. I’m trying to work, you know.’

  ‘But it’s Jonny Gold, Amma!’

  ‘Well, please take Mr Karma Cola and his music somewhere else.’

  ‘But we need to dance!’

  ‘Cassia, I was hoping you had some time to help me, as a matter of fact. Your photos of the mangroves were excellent and now it is important to catalogue them properly so they can be used as evidence.’

  I wanted to say yes, but before I had a chance Priya jumped up.

  ‘She can’t help you, Amma. She’s helping me!’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Saachi said.

  So Priya explained our plan to her, how getting on the video would help to stop the hotel.

  Saachi looked a bit sceptical and I realised I would have to choose between dancing with Priya and working with Saachi. I really wanted to do both, but there wasn’t enough time.

  ‘Could I help with the cataloguing tomorrow?’

  ‘OK, if you really need to practise now, go to Vikram’s workshop. The electricity is on and I’m sure he won’t mind.’

  I was about to argue – I really didn’t want to bump into Call-me-Sneaky today, but Priya had already scooped up her laptop and was shoving me towards the door.

  There was a breeze scudding up from the beach and our scarves twirled to escape, kite-like, into the sky. I thought our costumes looked a bit stagey for a normal day. But I saw how people looked at us and smiled. Priya obviously had a talent for this whole dressing-up thing.

  She talked non-stop all the way up the road about how she really wanted to do fashion and how she’d had to keep it secret from her mum and dad because it wasn’t a serious enough career for them. She’d worked extra hard at school so they couldn’t accuse her of wasting time reading magazines and shopping.

  In Dubai, with her dad, she raked through every designer shop in the city, noticing what had sold well and what was still dragging on the rails. She’d search out vintage stuff online, too. She’d shown me a tailored wool jacket with huge shoulder pads that Lula had brought over for her on last year’s buying trip. I remembered it hanging in our wardrobe for ages. Priya had taken it apart like a clothes surgeon. She stripped it down to the skeleton, exposing the guts so she could see how it was put together.

  For Priya, fashion wasn’t just frocks, it was practically a science project and I recognised that same obsessive head that Lula got when she was looking at fabric. I felt a twinge of jealousy. Maybe Priya should be the one to help save the shop. She probably had loads of good ideas and Lula obviously loved her.

  Then I remembered Priya was my friend. It wasn’t a competition. She cared about Lula and about me. She didn’t think I was a big-mouth loser, which was what Rachel thought. The dresses she’d designed for the wedding were beautiful, especially mine.

  ‘I’m sorry I ripped up your sketch-books, Priya.’

  ‘It’s OK. Now we’re friends, I can do something even better!’

  It turned out there was a major flaw in our brilliant plan to impress Jonny Gold with our talents – and the flaw was Priya.

  I showed her all my best moves, but she just didn’t get it. She looked pained by my choreography, as though she was fighting, not dancing.

  ‘Priya! I thought you liked Jonny Gold!’

  ‘I love him! I just can’t move like that!’

  ‘Look, just watch me and do exactly what I do!’ I begged her for what felt like the zillionth time.

  I swung into the sequence again. Losing my balance a little in the middle didn’t matter because I just added an extra jump and a side step.

  ‘I am doing exactly what you do, but you keep changing it!’

  ‘It’s not a change, it’s just a bit of improvisation.’

  ‘But how can I follow you if you are making it up?’

  ‘How can you be so utterly rubbish at this? I thought all Indian girls were genetically graceful. Just let your body follow the music!’

  ‘I can’t! That jumpy jerking isn’t what my body hears!’ She looked as though she was about to cry.

  ‘Please, try again Priya, you’re doing really well.’

  ‘You just said I was utterly rubbish!’ She sat down.

  ‘I didn’t really mean it, honestly.’ It was a lie but I couldn’t let her give up now – I needed a dance partner. ‘Priya, get up. I’ll stop shouting, I promise.’

  ‘OK, but this is the last time, my feet really hurt. Actually, my everything really hurts.’

  I heard the workshop door open and guessed Call-me-V had arrived. I wouldn’t be able to dance while he was lurking. Why did he have to come in and spoil everything? Wasn’t it enough that he was involved in the development and lying to Saachi? The door creaked shut again.

  Had Call-me-V been spying on us? I felt a shiver of fury go up my spine and I turned round. The bright sunlight streaming through the open door kept the figure in silhouette, making it hard to see. There were two figures in the doorway now.

  The taller one stepped into the light and my heart skipped a beat or three.

  ‘Hello again, London girl, what kind of trouble are you in today?’

  Nandita came in behind Dev, waved to me and settled herself on one of the workbenches. I cued the music and counted Priya in. They both watched us begin the routine without saying anything.

  It started off all right, but after the first chorus I was in deep despair. Nandita giggled as Priya flapped around, biting her bottom lip in fierce concentration. I felt strange with Dev watching, and I realised my body had gone a bit awkward and off the beat, too.


  I knew Nandita couldn’t hear the music, so I was really surprised when, halfway through the second verse, she jumped up and stood facing me and started mirroring every step and twist I took.

  She seemed to have a way of watching me and moving her own body all at the same time, like there was a perfect pathway between her brain and her feet. Perhaps it was the signing that had trained her to know what her body was doing without checking. I didn’t know for sure how she did it, but whatever special powers she was calling on, she could dance Priya into the cheap seats. I was feeling some serious pressure too.

  The track came to an end and Priya flopped down on the ground. I was about to do the same, when I realised Nandita was still dancing. The music had stopped, so she must have had a soundtrack in her head that was driving her movements. But they weren’t anything I’d shown her. She reminded me of the Kathakali actors we’d seen in Kochi, because Nandita wasn’t just dancing, she was story telling.

  I’d never watched dancing without music before and in the beginning it looked strange. I knew Dev and Priya were still in the room and I knew that there was a busy village on the other side of the wooden doors, but the only sounds I heard were Nandita’s feet scuffing puffs of dust up from the dirt floor. No wonder she was so brilliant at netball. She’d move furiously fast, then stop and hold a pose until her muscles must have been screaming.

  At home I swaggered and clowned to my favourite tracks because it made me feel different, special – I could lose ordinary Cassia in a fantasy of glamour and fame. But it looked like Nandita danced to be more real, not to escape into dreams but to escape from them. I could see that she was a dancer, a proper dancer. When I danced I was having a good time, but compared with Nandita, I was just playing at dance. What was it Dev had said about ‘timepass things’ and things that really mattered?