Chapter 5
The boy burrowed deeper under the covers, curling into himself with a small, stubborn huff.
“Too early, mummy,” he mumbled, voice thick with sleep, dragging the blanket over his head and moving into the warm spot she just vacated. Their little garret on the fourth floor of the converted apartment building was drafty—the cold morning breeze slipped like a thief through the cracks.
Asha sat on the edge of the narrow bed, her nimble fingers burrowing under the blanket to smooth over the curve of his shoulder before moving in for a tickle. “I have to get to work, baba.”
“Ammaaa…” he whined, reverting to Amma again as he clutched the covers tighter.
Ever since he started school, Amma had given way to 'mum' or 'mummy'.
Just a month ago, she had stayed up late to bake a cake in an aluminium pot filled with beach sand for his fifth birthday.
She had cut it into neat little pieces and sent it to school.
He had returned with a smile and an assortment of sweets, pencils and pebbles that his mates had given him.
He was adjusting well, especially since he seemed to have a knack for rugby.
Asha smiled despite herself, her face worn over months of mornings just like this. “You can sleep while I clean. I have a little surprise for you.”
There was a pause.
Then the blanket shifted, just a little. Two twinkling brown eyes peeked out at her before his mouth opened in a wide yawn.
“Okay,” he yawned, like a king granting permission to a subject.
Her chest felt full for a fleeting second and she offered a silent prayer to God. His eyes were hers, the shape of his mouth too. A mirror she hadn’t asked for, but couldn’t look away from. She preferred not linger on the parts of him that were like the man responsible for his existence.
“Brush your teeth and put our uniform on.,” she said softly.
He nodded, already sinking back into the pillow for that one more minute.
She had to carry him to the bathroom, strip his pyjamas while he protested and shivered and hand his toothbrush with a frown that brooked no protest. She watched as he brushed his teeth, thought wistfully that in a a couple of years, he would have had his Upanayanam ceremony if they were still back at home.
But the stars had shown them a different path.
She rose and slipped into the small bathroom, the light barely more than a dull glow. As she went through the motions—washing her face, untangling and tying back her hair in a braid—her mind drifted, as it often did during these precious moments of solitude, to those first days.
***
That morning six months ago, she had woken at five like she had for years.
It was the restless edge of a life that had taught her to sleep with one eye open.
The timbers and floorboards of the old building creaked like the house was alive and watching. But there were no footsteps, no sign of anyone around.
She had waited a few uncertain minutes at the door. Then she had risen and woken the boy, and together they had gone through their morning ablutions.
The cleaning supplies weren’t hard to find, stacked in a cupboard near the back, smelling faintly of bleach and the sour staleness of old cloth. Mavis had not told her exactly what was required of her, so she had started with the common room.
Either Mavis or her husband must have done a brief clean-up.
But there were still sticky beer stains and what was possibly vomit in one corner.
So, she got to it, scrubbing the floors until they gleamed while the boy wrapped himself in one of her shawls and slept in a booth seat.
Next came the window glass—polished until they caught the faint grey of dawn creeping through the windows.
Then, the tables were wiped down. She worked efficiently, with the practice of a lifetime spent doing these tasks—with her head down and hands moving while her thoughts wandered.
By the time the front door creaked open, everything was sparkling.
Patrick's heavy boots rattled the wooden floors, startling her into standing up abruptly.
He had stopped for a second, looked around before spotting her scrubbing a stubborn stain off the wall. The room gleamed in a way it probably hadn’t in years.
He grunted and kept walking to the back kitchen.
She might as well have been a part of the furniture.
“We start at six,” he muttered, not even looking at her as he passed. “Not paying you for the extra hour.”
Asha had stood there for a moment, cloth still in her hand. Then she nodded once, though he hadn’t been watching, and turned back to the suspicious brown stain.
Work was work.
Mavis followed five minutes later. Her shrewd blue eyes skimmed over Asha's bent head and wandered over the gleaming furniture before finally landing on the boy cocooned and asleep within his blanket in one of the booths.
“Here’s some bread an’ cheese for you an’ the lad,” she said, not even askin’ if she’d had breakfast. “Make sure you eat, yeah? There’s loads needs doin’.”
Then, she had started setting the tables for the lunch crowd, moving the upside-down chairs to their rightful place.
With nothing more to do, Asha had taken herself upstairs.
The first floor needed more effort. There was dust in every corner and along the skirting board and obscure stains that had settled into the grain of the wood. It seemed like the two common bathrooms hadn’t seen proper attention in months.
She had tied a cloth around her face and carried on.
That was how Mavis found her in the afternoon, bent over a basin, scrubbing hard with the smell of bleach in the air.
“Lordy,” Mavis had said, stopping in the doorway, one hand braced against the frame. “I get someone once a month t’do this.”
Asha had straightened quickly, pulling the cloth down her face.
“Alright, love,” Mavis went on, eyes scanning her with a quick, sharp assessment. “What did you say your name was?”
“Asha.”
“And the little one?”
“Tanay.”
The boy had been sitting just outside the door in the corridor, exactly where she had left him, drawing on a piece of packing paper.
Mavis’s stoic expression seemed to ease just a fraction when he gazed at the bent head with long curly hair. The boy was handsome..
“Have you eaten?” she asked.
Asha hesitated. “No.”
“There’s bread downstairs. And eggs. Make yourself some tea.”
She seemed to hesitate, as if wondering if she should say something.
“You might want to remove that nose ring. The boy needs a haircut,” she said gruffly before walking away.
And that had been that.
That night, Asha had removed the nose ring she had worn since she was three and replaced it with a tiny unobtrusive stud.
She had cried silent tears while Tanay slept as she had shed yet another part of her.
If it meant the difference between fitting in and standing, out, she would do whatever it took for her son’s sake.
***
By the end of that day, she had been on the floor, picking empty glasses.
The pub had filled quickly—noise and laughter waxing and waning. There was the sharp tang of ale and sweat in the air. Tired men with faces dusted black filed in after another long day. Most watched her like she was a novelty item in the grocer’s shop.
She had moved carefully between the tables, tray ready, eyes skimming the tables for more empties.
Mavis and Patrick had been running the place on their own ever since their youngest son moved away to find work in Manchester. Though they didn't say it, it was good to have an extra pair of hands.
The curses and banter filled the air.
“Bloody useless—”
“Watch where you’re—”
She nodded, apologized, cleaned up and kept going.
Patrick had reluctantly allowed Tanay to sit behind the bar, a thunderous frown on his face.
“Tell him to keep well out of the way,” he had growled while his walrus moustache quivered.
But when Asha had gone to check on Tanay, a new colouring book had magically appeared along with a box of crayons. There was a box of chips and ketchup next to him. An empty glass of milk sat next to him.
Asha had anxiously checked on him between rounds, each glance a small reassurance.
As the night progressed, she learned how to anticipate and how to ignore.
Sometimes, as she passed, a hand would brush, as if by accident.
A squeeze. A linger.
She pretended not to notice.
Work was work.
She needed this job.
And then there was the big man with silver eyes.
He sat in the back nursing a beer but his eyes seemed to follow her. He had sat with another man with grey, curly hair and a face darkened with soot.
But his eyes had followed her until Mavis had told her off for the two broken glasses and then sent her off to bed with the day's wage counted out into the palm of her hand.
A shiver had run down her spine, as she felt his attention like a touch on the nape of her neck as she picked her sleeping boy up and made for the stairs.
***
Asha blinked, the present slipping back into place as she finished tying her hair. One day had blurred into another—long, aching stretches of the same routine. Morning slipped into afternoon. Afternoon slid into night.
And then, without her really noticing, days became weeks.
Weeks folded into months. One, then six. The boy had started school and she was now working two jobs. Life was hard but there was food on the table and a roof over their heads.
At first, everything had revolved around the pub.
The early starts. The smell of stale ale and cigarette smoke clinging to her clothes.
She was a quick learner. She soon realized she needed to make herself indispensable to Mavis.
She learned which customers to avoid, which ones tipped, which ones got handsy and how to smile shyly and angle herself just out of range without making a scene.
Patrick still grunted more than he spoke, but he still set the boy to work counting pennies or helped him with his homework behind the counter.
Mavis watched her with eagle eyes. There was another pair of quicksilver eyes that watched her still.
And more than once, he had caught her hand when she reached for an empty glass with a knowing look on his broad face.
Those nights, she still remembered the feel of his callused thumb on her wrist before he let go.
Another night, long before she had a place of her own, she had slipped upstairs to take a toilet break between orders.
The bathroom light was harsh, a single bulb that buzzed faintly overhead. She washed quickly, splashed water over her face and then she stepped out.
The light from the narrow hallway fell behind a large man blocking her path. It stretched his shadow forward and swallowed hers.
He stood in the narrow corridor, broad enough to fill it, the bulb beyond him blotted by his frame. She couldn’t see his eyes, just the still outline of him.
Her heart seized, sharp and sudden when he recognised him.
“Don’t be scared, girl,” he said in a husky growl.
His voice was a low lazy baritone, not threatening in any way. But it made the fine hairs on the back of her neck and arms stand on end.
Asha lowered her gaze immediately. “I need…I need to get back,” she mumbled in no more than a whisper.
She tried to sidestep him but he moved with her like he could predict her next move..
The corridor felt smaller with him in it.
She tried again, a little quicker this time.
He didn’t let her pass.
She stood there, her head bowed, her breath shallow as her shoulder hunched, as if trying to make a smaller target. Every part of her was pulled tight with the awareness of him.
Then he stepped closer, close enough that she could feel the heat of him against her skin. He smelled of a mix of coffee, ale and sweat. There was soot on the bridge of his aquiline nose and on his cheek.
The wall pressed cold against her back. Without her realizing it, he had backed her into a corner.
Freedom tantalised just beyond her reach.
He leaned in slightly and she felt it—his breath at her hair followed by a slow inhale. He did not touch her.
Asha couldn’t move or even breathe from terror.
She felt like prey that knows the moment of struggle might be the moment it loses everything.
After a few seconds, though it felt longer, he stepped back.
“I don't force women. Come out when I knock tonight,” he grunted.
Asha did not look up, just flattened herself on the wall.
He moved aside and she ran for the stairs even as her legs threatened to give way beneath her.
She didn’t look back.
***
That night, she finished her shift as usual.
When she finally lay down beside her son, she didn’t sleep.
She listened to the familiar creak of old wood fighting age, to footsteps that weren’t his.
And finally, there was a soft knock around midnight.
Her entire body went rigid.
Another knock.
For long painful moments, she didn’t dare breathe. She was only too aware that all that stood between them was a flimsy lock and a spindly chair.
Her hand found her son in the dark, and curved herself around him.
The silence stretched. Then she heard a harsh sigh and heavy footsteps retreating.
The familiar sounds of the night reigned again.
Asha lay there for the longest time, eyes open and body unmoving. She didn't dare examine how she felt.
***
Weeks later
It started with an extra hour.
“You can sew?” Mavis had asked one afternoon, eyeing the neat way Asha had mended a torn apron.
Asha nodded.
That was how the second job came about.
The seamstress’s shop down the road needed a shop assistant.
And one week later, Mavis told her of a small apartment that her friend wanted to rent. And for the very first time in her life, Asha had a home which was all hers.
***