The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters. Balli Kaur Jaswal
did anything to deter men from pissing on the walls, as they were intended. Judging from the acrid whiff of urine in the air, probably not.
A valet with gel-slicked hair approached her and asked if she needed a taxi. ‘In a moment,’ Jezmeen said, looking over her shoulder. Rajni was coming out of the lift, wearing beige linen pants and a flowy silk blouse which matched the scarf wrapped loosely around her neck for covering her head later.
‘Where is Shirina?’ Jezmeen asked. She self-consciously smoothed out the wrinkles in her own cotton kameez top. How did Rajni have the patience to press and iron everything, even on holiday?
‘She was still asleep when I called her room,’ Rajni said.
‘Must be the jet lag again,’ Jezmeen said.
The punishing heat burned through Jezmeen’s clothes. They returned to the lobby and sank into the plush sofas. The air bore the potent smell of disinfectant. At the reception desk, a woman wearing a red blazer held the phone to her ear. ‘This is your wake-up call, sir,’ she said and then she nodded and replaced the receiver.
‘Did you sleep well?’ Rajni asked.
‘A few hours,’ Jezmeen said. ‘You?’
‘I never sleep well in hotels.’
The television screen mounted on the wall flashed brightly. It was the morning news but the presenter only took up a small square on the screen. Banner ads rolled across the length of the screen and neon columns showed the latest stock market figures. It was like watching a casino machine.
‘I was watching one of those sing-along shows on TV last night,’ Jezmeen said. ‘Mum loved those.’
‘Mum and Dad used to watch them together,’ Rajni said. ‘Dad would hum along and Mum would shush him for ruining the song.’
Jezmeen smiled. ‘I think I remember that.’ It was hard to know which early memories were hers and which were constructed by Rajni’s recollections but she thought she could hear Dad’s off-key humming. She was only five years old when he died, and sometimes she envied Rajni for having known Dad for so many more years. Jezmeen longed to say things like, ‘I got my laugh from my father,’ or ‘My father used to say that.’ A sense of legacy would help her feel less lost, especially now that Mum was gone too.
‘I do the same thing now when those shows come on,’ Rajni said.
‘You hum along?’
‘I shush Kabir.’
No surprise there. ‘And does Anil watch as well?’
‘He did when he was little. Now he pops in his earphones and just watches whatever he wants on the iPad.’
That sounded like Anil – hypnotized by a world beyond his parents’ living room. Since he hit adolescence, Jezmeen had only seen about three emotions register on her nephew’s face: sullen, bored and enthralled (but only by whatever was on his phone). His intrigue factor had spiked only briefly over the weekend when she spotted him skulking around the perfume counter at the mall. Excited that he might have a girlfriend (and at the prospect of torturing Rajni with the info), Jezmeen had waited for him to leave before sidling up to the counter girl to get the scoop. ‘He wanted something mature,’ she sighed, throwing a sorrowful look at the Sugar N Spice line for teen girls. Jezmeen was disappointed too. All of that anticipation and Anil turned out to be buying a gift for his mother, whose birthday was next month.
‘Should we call Shirina again or something?’ Jezmeen asked. ‘She might have gone back to sleep.’
‘Give her ten minutes,’ Rajni said. She glanced towards the hotel lifts. ‘Do you think it’s weird that she didn’t tell us about visiting Sehaj’s family till yesterday?’
Jezmeen shrugged. ‘Maybe she got the dates confused. It sounds like she’s been really busy.’
Rajni frowned. She didn’t look satisfied with this response, and truthfully, neither was Jezmeen, but it seemed that Shirina had become another casualty to marriage, like so many other women Jezmeen knew. Appointments were never set in stone and they often brought their partners along to dinner at the last minute.
‘Is it just me, or does she look … different?’ Rajni asked.
‘She’s gained weight, hasn’t she?’ Jezmeen said. She wanted to sound concerned but she could hear the glee in her voice. Shame on you, a voice scolded Jezmeen.
‘I was thinking more about those dark circles under her eyes. She looks worn out.’ There was pleasure in Rajni’s tone as well. Jezmeen decided it couldn’t be helped. All their lives, Shirina never had a blemish – on her face or her character. If they had to be petty to find one – or two! – so be it.
‘I feel bad,’ Jezmeen said anyway. ‘Maybe something’s going on.’ That would certainly be interesting. After a lifetime of meeting parental expectations, Shirina was long overdue for a crisis. Develop a pill addiction. Join a cult. Something. It would certainly take the pressure off Jezmeen to be the default family screw-up.
‘I gained a bit of weight in the year after I got married as well,’ Rajni said. ‘If anything, it’s good to see some meat on her bones again. She was so skinny for her wedding. Near the end, she was on a steady diet of leaves and broth.’
Rajni had a point. Shirina had been a little obsessed with her figure. ‘I remember going over to Mum’s to help decorate the house for the wedding a couple of days before Sehaj’s relatives arrived. She’d bought all those fairy lights, which took ages to put up and we lost track of time and ordered pizza. Shirina ate one slice and then went to the gym for two hours,’ Jezmeen recalled. She had admired and secretly envied Shirina’s discipline. At an audition the next day, Jezmeen had to suck in her tummy to prevent the casting director from seeing the paunch created by her six slices. She didn’t get the role.
‘She’d tell us if she was pregnant, wouldn’t she?’ Rajni asked.
‘Shirina’s quite private about her life these days,’ Jezmeen reminded Rajni. Shirina hadn’t told them anything about searching for an arranged marriage online. She never even mentioned her courtship with Sehaj – all six months of it – until he came to London to meet her in person and proposed on their second date. Everything happened quickly from that point and nobody objected because Sehaj was such a catch – good-looking, wealthy, and from a respected family. Then she said yes, and moved all the way to Australia. If that wasn’t an effort to keep her distance from her family, Jezmeen didn’t know what was.
‘That’s not something she’d keep from us though,’ Rajni said.
‘Probably not, but I don’t think we’re necessarily the first to know about things with Shirina.’ Were we ever? Jezmeen wondered. For as long as she could remember, Shirina had preferred to keep her thoughts and emotions closely guarded. Next to her, Jezmeen always felt like she was exaggerating whenever she expressed her (admittedly wide and varied range of) emotions.
‘I wish it weren’t like that,’ Rajni replied.
Jezmeen shrugged. ‘It’s her choice,’ she said, although she had been hurt when Shirina announced her engagement. Why didn’t she even tell Jezmeen she was seeing someone?
‘It’s a shame if we can’t communicate. I’d like to think we can talk about things with each other.’
Jezmeen noticed that Rajni had turned to face her and was giving her a Meaningful Look. Oh, don’t you dare, she thought. They were not going to talk about Mum in the same space as speculating over Shirina’s weight gain. In fact, Jezmeen was determined to not discuss Mum’s final moments with anyone, least of all Rajni.
‘The weight gain is probably just a post-wedding thing,’ Jezmeen said. She made a deliberate shift towards the television screen and stared intently at it. The flashing graphics gave her an instant headache but at least Rajni couldn’t try to engage her in any more conversation. The newscaster wore a grim expression,