Chapter 1 Komal
Argleton Weather Watch: Enjoy this lovely warm evening while you can, because it’s the last one we’ll have with a week of rain on the way. May I suggest having sex with a bowl of ice cream?
“…THE WASTEWATER SYSTEM REQUIRES EXTENSIVE works to maintain its integrity, with repairs focused on the Victorian pipes beneath the village green, which need to be uplifted and replaced—”
I shift my weight in the uncomfortable plastic chair, the kind of chair designed to punish anyone with a spine. A loud, judgemental SQUEAK reverberates through the community hall.
Acting Mayor Augustin Durant glances up from his boring agenda of maintenance issues, a line appearing across his brow as his amber eyes land on me. I smile sweetly and do it again.
SQUEEAAK.
Beside me, Councillor Mowbray stifles a giggle.
I breathe in deep, relishing the familiar scent of council meetings – lemon cleaner, printer ink and the ghosts of arguments past. Augustin’s frown deepens and a familiar sense of triumph washes over me.
I’ve pissed him off, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
I don’t know why I’m like this. To everyone else in the world, I’m bubbly, bright, people-pleasing Komal Ahuja.
My friends and family call me Madam MacGyver because I can fix any problem.
I never have a bad word to say about anyone.
But if Augustin Durant so much as breathes in my direction I turn into this chaos gremlin.
Maybe it’s the ex-soldier in me, because when I walk through the community hall doors on a Wednesday night, I’m ready to commit all manner of war crimes so I can stick my flag of victory right through Acting Mayor Durant’s thick skull.
Just the sight of that man makes my blood boil.
Which is a pity, because if I were to look at him academically, he’s quite attractive, in a pinched, weasel-headed sort of way.
He has dark wavy hair that’s always just a smidge unruly, falling over amber eyes framed by absurdly long lashes.
No white guy is supposed to have lashes that long or dark – dark lashes are our thing.
It’s desi law, and he’s breaking it. He also has the kind of aristocratic nose and stately bearing that suggests he either rode horses a lot as a child or has a stick permanently wedged up his arse. I suspect the latter.
He glares at me now, hands folded, posture immaculate, his flashy watch catching the flickering fluorescent lights. “If Councillor Ahuja would terribly mind sitting still until I’m finished with my wastewater proposal—”
“Is the acting mayor policing a woman’s body?” I ask sweetly. “Do I not have autonomy to stretch my legs or is that only for the male members of the Borough Council?”
I extend one leg, causing the chair to let out a long, ominous CREEEEEAK. A vein above Augustin’s eye throbs.
We’re only twenty minutes into the meeting, and I’ve got the vein already! This is the highlight of my shitty week.
“Perhaps,” I continue, holding my hands out, palms up, as if I’m surrendering, which Augustin should know I’d never do, “if the acting mayor had approved my father’s proposal for refurbishing the community hall, his boring agenda wouldn’t be interrupted by squeaky chairs.”
Augustin’s full lips form a firm line. “If I made the council agenda based on what entertains an Ahuja, this meeting would already be on fire. And Senior Councillor Ahuja’s proposal was absurd.
If you recall, he wanted to paint the walls in lurid stripes and have us sit on chairs shaped like circus animals. ”
“It was whimsical, something this village could do with more of.” I smirk. “Your chair was going to be an owl.”
He blinks. “Because of my wisdom?”
“Because you perch up there with your majestic feathers,” I point to his diamond-encrusted wristwatch, “and you blink judgementally while chaos unfolds.”
Councillor Mowbray makes a choking noise, but everyone else looks a bit uncomfortable.
Of course they’re all on his side. Despite having all the personality of a zoning by-law, Acting Mayor Augustin Durant has this annoying habit of being so polite and fastidious and obsessed with procedure that people actually trust him.
Acting Mayor Augustin Durant.
The words still itch. Because they were supposed to belong to my father.
Papa’s back in hospital. After his last round of chemo, he was nearly back to normal, running his restaurant, Chirag’s Takeaways, and campaigning hard for his whimsical (and sometimes wildly impractical) village ideas.
He’s been weak, but he felt like my papa again.
And then last week he went in for a routine scan, and we found out that the cancer has spread to his kidney.
He had a big operation over the weekend to remove it, and he’s going to be recovering in the ward for a while.
It’s not fair. Papa’s supposed to be our mayor.
Chirag Ahuja is beloved in the village, and, unlike Augustin, he has ideas that could actually make Argleton and the surrounding borough a better place to live.
Instead, my papa is lying in a hospital room and Augustin is running council meetings with a gavel.
Yes, he brought his own gavel. I bet he spoons it at night.
But with his popularity and the election fewer than three weeks away, Augustin and his gavel will soon be the mayor for real. And there’s nothing I can do about it except make his life utterly miserable, a role for which I am uniquely suited.
Durant clears his throat. The microphone – which he insists on using even though there are only eleven other people in the room – gives a polite little cough in response.
“If we can return to the issue at hand. For safety reasons, and to allow unimpeded access to the infrastructure beneath High Street, all commercial premises will be required to close during daylight hours for the next four weeks, starting Monday.”
Excuse me?
The room goes quiet.
He can’t be serious.
But Augustin Durant is only ever serious.
“Sorry?” My voice echoes in the silent room. “What did you just say?”
Augustin’s gaze flicks over me, like a cat regarding a fly. “Councillor Ahuja, you heard me perfectly fine. Do you have an actual question?”
I stand. My chair squeaks like a toxic ex begging me to return.
“A question implies you’ll give a reasonable answer, and that’s not possible.”
There’s a cough behind me. Councillor Bolger becomes engrossed in the previous meeting minutes. Councillor White mouths “not again” to Mowbray, who is reaching for the plate of Jaffa Cakes.
“As I was saying, shops and businesses will be able to open their doors from six pm onwards, after the work crews have gone home. We will install makeshift bridges to allow access over the open drains. This should mitigate—”
“Let me get this straight,” I huff. “You want every small business in the village to become nocturnal?”
He’s insane. He can’t ask people to do that.
What about Papa’s takeaways? It’s already struggling without him in the kitchen. If we lose our lunchtime customers, we’ll be in trouble. The last thing my parents need right now is more stress.
What about my business? I’ve been spending so much time helping out my family that I’ve been neglecting it, but if I can’t open the tourism office during the day, how will I attract the tourists who stop by the village on the London coaches?
What if the only thing I can do is fly tours at night?
My blood freezes.
Anything but that.
Papa would have a creative solution. He should be the one leading council meetings in his ridiculous hats and presiding proudly over the village fair and approving all of my tourism initiatives without a fight.
Instead, we’re going to get stuffy Augustin and his stormwater system and a month of lost revenue.
Cancer is a dick.
“It’s a temporary inconvenience.” Augustin’s eyes flash with exasperation, as if I’m the one being unreasonable.
“You say temporary inconvenience, I say financial ruin. People won’t change their shopping habits to the evenings because you decree it. They’ll go to a nearby village, and Argleton shopkeepers will lose their loyal customers.”
“If they’re so quick to shop outside of the village, how loyal were they?
” Augustin spreads his hands. Behind him, I catch the flicker of green.
The potted plant by the window almost looks as if it’s trembling in sympathetic rage, which is of course absurd, as plants have better taste than people and would never sympathise with Augustin Durant.
“If you’re concerned about the financial implications, the council may be able to offer limited compensation, but it will require us to dip into the arts and culture fund—”
“So you’ll take money from events that bring in much-needed tourism revenue and make people happy to fund some stupid pipes—”
“Kooky festivals are not essential. Delaying the stormwater works further risk catastrophic failure. And with the severe weather patterns forecasted for the winter months—”
Okay, that potted plant is definitely trembling. How odd.
“Whose fault is it that the wastewater system needs repairing?” I fire back. “Could it be a certain councillor who spent the entire village improvement fund on buying retractable sunshades without considering how they would attach to the Grade I listed buildings around the green?”
A murmur of agreement ripples through the room. The retractable sunshades weren’t Augustin’s finest hour. He pauses, his jaw stone, his shoulders tight with tension. The air thickens, like clouds rolling in before a storm.
“Councillor Ahuja,” he says stiffly. “Please sit down and allow me to finish my—”
“Not until you explain how you plan to look the shopkeepers of this village, like Celeste Lucas, and Mina Wilde, and Beth Duncan, and Isis and Dora Meriwether, and my own father, in the eye and tell them you don’t care about their livelihoods.”
Tendrils spill from the plant pot, uncoiling across the floor. The maintenance volunteers really need to get the plants under control. Maybe they should hire the Guerilla Gardener and get a little whimsy into this place.
“I am looking you in the eye,” Augustin says. That’s technically true. His amber eyes are locked on mine, the edges ablaze with flames that bleed into unfathomably dark centres. “And I’m telling you that this village matters more than individual inconvenience.”
That does it.
I think of Papa in his hospital bed, and how Augustin has reduced everything he cares about to individual inconvenience, and I grab the nearest thing, which happens to be a small helicopter-shaped stress ball I had made to give to corporate clients and now require when I’m in the same room as the acting mayor, and lob it at his stupid, unfairly attractive head.
The ball arcs perfectly through the air, the kind of throw that would have had got me on the Indian cricket team.
Augustin touches his fingers to his watch, and I catch the tiniest peek of a tattoo trailing the edge of his starched cuff. It looks like a vine twisting around his wrist.
Somehow, despite all my time playing backyard cricket with my Papa and nephews, the ball misses Augustin entirely. It hits the potted plant.
Actually, it looks like the plant slams into the ball, wraps it and drops it harmlessly into its trailing foliage. But that’s impossible.
I must be too angry to throw straight.
Augustin consults his notes. “No matter how many missiles Councillor Ahuja lobs at my head, the fact remains that the wastewater system needs upgrading. Either we vote to accept my proposal or we form a subcommittee to investigate other options. All in favour?”
Of course everyone’s hand shoots up. The last thing anyone wants is another subcommittee.
I keep my hands firmly balled into fists at my sides. Augustin flashes me a smug smile as he bangs his gavel and opens the floor to general business.
As Councillor Mowbray steps up to give her report on the Guerilla Gardener’s latest pothole installation, Augustin sweeps past me to take a seat.
“This isn’t over,” I say.
By the window, the pot plant shivers.