Chapter 2
Further down the bar, a woman had been pulling a pint.
She was large-hipped and brisk, with her orange frizzy hair pinned carelessly under a scarf.
Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of human bodies packed in a crowded room.
She set the glass down with a thunk in front of a grizzled old man and looked at the petite stranger with open curiosity.
“We’ve a room upstairs,” she said. “A small one, nothing fancy.”
The large man from before who had shooed her off exhaled in annoyance.
“Mavis!”
“Oh, hush,” she shot back without even looking at him.
“As though we’ve not let this lot sleep upstairs when they’re too pissed to find the road.”
A few men chuckled.
The woman behind the bar wiped her hands on her apron and came round to the front. Up close, her weathered face softened a little at the sight of the sleeping child.
“It’s seventy pence a night,” she said in a matter-of-fact way. “And you can stay a couple of days, no more. After that you’ll have to find somewhere proper. Can you manage that, love?”
The young woman nodded quickly, as though afraid the offer might be snatched back.
“Yes. Thank you. Yes.”
Mavis gave her another assessing look, her sharp grey eyes missing nothing.
She took in the hollows beneath the woman’s cheekbones, the tiredness that bowed her slender shoulders, the tiny shiver that ran through the child.
She noted the threadbare clothes, a few sizes too big, and the woman's face, barely past girlhood. Whatever she saw seemed to satisfy her.
“Come on, then,” she said, as if saving her questions for another day.
“You look frozen.”
She ignored her blustering husband and took the suitcase from the woman’s hand before she could protest. Though she gave a little grunt at the weight of it, she did not comment as she waddled towards the stairs at the back, her joints creaking painfully.
The woman adjusted the boy against her shoulder and followed.
Behind them, the room resumed its noise, now that the show was over.
The woman could feel the stares between her shoulder blades as she quickly turned the corner towards the narrow stairs at the back.
Her gaze stayed lowered. The wood creaked underfoot.
The child stirred and gave a small fretful murmur into her neck.
“Nearly there,” she whispered, smoothing a workworn hand over his back, though she did not know if it was true.
The landing upstairs was dimmer and colder than below. A single bulb flickered weakly in the corridor. The wallpaper had once been patterned white with blue flowers but had long since faded into a weary yellow. Somewhere a tap dripped. Floorboards groaned underneath their feet.
Mavis led her to the last door and pushed it open with her hip.
The room was small enough that one could stand in the middle and touch nearly everything with only a few steps.
There was a narrow iron bed pushed against the wall, a washstand with a cracked basin and pitcher, one chair with a wobbling leg steadied with a block of wood, and a chest of drawers with peeling paint.
The window looked out over the back alley where bins crouched in the gathering dark.
The curtains were thin and floral, trying valiantly and failing utterly to make the place cheerful.
A faded blanket lay folded at the foot of the bed, thick but scratchy-looking.
“It’s clean,” Mavis said in a tone daring contradiction.
“Water in the basin if you need it. Common bathroom down the hall. End door on the left.”
She set the suitcase down. The young woman murmured her thanks again and carefully extracted her purse from the inside of her bra. She then counted out the money for the two nights' stay in Mavis's outstretched hand. Their eyes met over the little boy's head, one knowing, the other grateful.
Mavis hesitated in the doorway, as if embarrassed by her own gruff kindness. Then she grunted and said, “Wait there.”
She disappeared before the woman could reply.
The boy was awake now and blinking, bewildered by the unfamiliar room.
His little fingers clutched his mother’s collar.
She set him gently on the bed and removed his shoes.
His feet were icy. He watched her solemnly as she tried to rub some warmth into them.
He was too sleepy to ask questions and her heart sank as she listened to his stomach rumble.
Their last meal was a sandwich they shared that morning before boarding the bus.
When Mavis returned, she carried a tray with a bowl of stew, a hunk of bread gone a little stale, and a glass bottle of water.
“There,” she said, placing it on the washstand. “It’s hot.”
The smell rose rich and heavy into the room—stock, onions, root vegetables, and the dense unmistakable scent of meat cooked long in broth.
The younger woman looked at it. For an instant something unreadable crossed her face, gone too quickly to name.
“Thank you,” she said softly. Then, as if remembering her manners, she said, “I am Asha. This is my son, Tanay.”
Mavis nodded then tilted her chin towards the basin. “There’s water there enough for a wipe-down. And keep him covered tonight.”
She looked thoughtfully at the child. “These old rooms get cold before dawn.”
The words came out gruffly. Then, after a pause, she added, “Get some rest while you can.”
The door shut behind her.
Asha stared at the closed door before carefully throwing the latch and checking that it was locked.
It would only take a boot to break through the flimsy barrier but the latch gave her an illusion of safety.
Beneath their feet the muffled life of the pub seeped through—laughter rising through floorboards, the dull thud of boots, a burst of singing from below, a glass breaking followed by a cheer.
The woman stood for a moment without moving, as if unsure of what to do.
Then she crossed to the bed and unfastened her son’s little coat. His fingers had gone clumsy with cold. He began to complain at once, in the thin stubborn voice of a child too tired to bear discomfort bravely.
“Amma, it's so cold,” he said through chattering teeth.
“I know.” Her own voice had gentled. “Just a little while more and we will sleep.”
She rummaged in the suitcase, pushing aside neatly folded clothes, a tin box, a packet wrapped in cloth, until she found a worn flannel. She poured a little water into the basin and tested it. It was chill enough to make her wince, but not freezing.
With quick, efficient hands she stripped the boy down to his shorts while he squirmed and protested weakly.
“No, Amma, no, cold—”
“Hush.” She bent and pressed a brief kiss to his hair. “Only for a moment.”
His skin pebbled under her touch. At nearly four years, he was all angles and child-round softness, his ribs a little too visible, his belly not gently rounded the way it used to be.
The little knot of hair atop his head had loosened completely now, and she smoothed it away from his forehead as she wiped his face, neck, arms, chest, back, each movement practiced and tender.
He wriggled and huffed but submitted in the end, his eyelids already drooping while his body was shaking from the chill.
When she had finished, she rubbed him briskly dry with a thin towel and tucked him beneath the thick blanket.
“Wait…”
Only then did she look again at the bowl of stew.
It steamed faintly in the lamplight. Chunks of meat floated among the potatoes and carrots.
She did not dare tell Mavis that she had never eaten meat.
She did not wrinkle her nose or set the bowl aside.
Had anyone from her Brahmin community seen her now, they would have cast her out and considered her dead.
Now, she simply stood there, eyes lowered to the bowl, her expression resigned save for the smallest tightening at the corners of her mouth.
Food was food.
Quickly, before Tanay nodded off again, she fed him, ignoring his protests about the food tasting funny.
The boy was hungry and soon the stew disappeared save for a little broth and a small chunk of bread.
As the boy drifted off, she tore off a bit of bread and dipped that in the broth.
Hunger had long ago become a thing she negotiated with rather than conquered.
Tonight, she could only count her blessings for the roof over their heads and the food in the bowl.
The boy was curled onto his side, still muttering about the cold, though sleep was taking him already.
Then, she undressed herself as far as modesty and the chill would allow and washed in the same hurried manner—face, throat, arms, the back of her neck, beneath her breasts, the dust of the journey from her feet.
She moved with the mechanical economy of someone who had become used to the lack of privacy and had learned to do everything quickly.
She remembered the times when the boy would not leave her alone even to go to the toilet.
When she straightened, water dripped from her wrists and darkened the already worn fabric of her dress as she pulled it back on.
Then, she piled their coats on top of the blanket and slid beneath it beside her son.
The bed was narrow. The mattress dipped toward the middle. The blanket scratched at her chin. But warmth gathered quickly between their bodies. She turned onto her side to face him, one arm curved protectively over the diminutive shape beneath the covers.
In the weak light, dark shadows lay beneath her eyes, hollows carved by worry and sleepless nights.
Her mouth, even at rest, was tense with restraint.
Yet none of it could fully disguise the beauty beneath.
Her face was finely made, the cheekbones delicate, the skin a deep dusk-brown that seemed to hold its own warmth even in the cold room.
Her lashes were long and her lips soft and full though now cracked from wind and thirst. There was something arresting about her that hardship had only dimmed, not destroyed, like a gold nugget waiting to be found in a stream.
The little boy sighed in his sleep and shuffled closer.
She watched him for a long time.
Outside, somewhere beyond the alley and chimneys and rows of soot-dark houses, the town went on with its light.
Men drank below them. Doors opened and shut.
A car grumbled past. Farther off, a whistle sounded from the direction of the railway.
Wakefield did not know them yet. It had not asked their names, nor where they had come from, nor what had driven them here carrying all they owned in one battered suitcase.
But for this one night, there was respite.
The woman lay still, eyes open in the darkening room, listening to her son breathe.
At last, she reached out and touched the curve of his cheek with two fingertips, as though to reassure herself that he was still with her, that after all the miles and fear and closed doors, she had managed to bring him to a place that had walls and a lock and a blanket against the cold.
Only then did she drift away. The shadows under her eyes remained, like bruises left by a life that was not yet finished with her.