The Twilight Garden by Sara Nisha Adams

Author:Sara Nisha Adams [Adams, Sara Nisha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2023-05-15T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

MAYA

December 1985

DING DONG.

‘Mum!’ Hiral trotted in from her bedroom. At ten, she was more like a little lady than a child, dominating the house.

‘Yes, beta,’ Prem replied.

‘Dad! You’re not Mum,’ Hiral chirruped back.

‘Sorry, beta,’ Maya pulled the quilt up to her chin, her breath visible.

‘Who the f—’ Hiral stopped herself. Her parents waited for her to replace the profanity she’d picked up from Alma. ‘Who on earth is ringing the bell?’

Ding dong, the bell went again, right on cue.

‘Not our bell, beti,’ Prem croaked. ‘It’s Auntie Alma’s.’

‘Auntie Alma has visitors? On Christmas Eve?’ Hiral and Maya replied in unison. Maya glanced at the brass carriage clock, ticking loudly on her bedside table – it had been a prize from a charity raffle Erol had run in his shop a year ago, and had replaced the garish green-glowing radium one they’d first bought. Alma had won it, but she’d hated it: ‘Ugly bloody thing, like something my grandma might have,’ she’d said, and dropped it into Maya’s handbag so as not to cause Erol offence.

It was twenty to ten in the morning. Alma hated people ringing the doorbell before eleven. ‘It’s uncivilized,’ she’d say. ‘Before eleven, I’m in my dressing gown. And no one wants to see me with my bits hanging out.’ Maya, in all the years she’d lived next to Alma, doubted Alma even owned a dressing gown.

Maya opened the front window, letting in a gush of winter air. Prem shuddered. ‘Shut that window, Maya! Are you crazy?!’ He buried his head under the quilt, book and all.

‘Sorry!’ She leaned over the window ledge. On the street, she could see multicoloured tinsel and Christmas trees in bay windows, coloured Christmas lights wearing flower-like plastic crowns, flashing reds, blues, greens, oranges and pinks in her neighbours’ front windows, plastic statues of jolly-looking Father Christmases perched on doorsteps, and a sign hammered into a flower bed saying Father Christmas, Stop Here!

The sky was dull, overcast, the air crisp and cold, but the street, it carried its own warmth, its very own festive cheer.

Maya dropped her gaze to Alma’s doorstep. Standing there were Ade and Yusuf, now full-grown men in their early twenties, their arms piled high with old ice-cream cartons in lieu of Tupperware, and flower-patterned Pyrex dishes covered with tinfoil.

‘Boys!’ Maya called down, and they looked up at her. ‘How lovely to see you!’

‘Hello, Auntie Maya.’ They smiled and shrugged their shoulders instead of waving, their hands too full. ‘Dropping some non-Christmas items round for you all … we thought we’d drop them with Alma, but … we’re a bit early for her, aren’t we?’ Yusuf said, nodding towards the door, still firmly shut. ‘It’s before eleven …’

‘Maybe a little …’

Alma’s door finally creaked open wide. ‘Merry Christmas Eve!’ Ade and Yusuf’s bright voices chorused, followed by Alma’s tell-tale groan.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Alma snapped, churlish as always in the face of affection. Maya, Prem and Hiral giggled.

‘We wanted to thank you. And say Merry Christmas!’ Yusuf said hurriedly.

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