| Short Story to the mountain side. The approaching truckers can steer nearer to the valley, to the sheer, mile-long drop; she’s safer nudged up to the spooky mountains. There is a traffic jam, truckers lined up, honking because they can, not in a rush to get anywhere. There is a bawdy exchange of jokes. An orange-turbaned trucker shouts something rude to another driver who laughs into his beard. Alice catches that it is something about the bearded man’s mother. Beard-man responds with a comment about the turbaned man’s testicles. She inches forward, her foot aching on the brake. The road climbs, curving sharply, with no visibility ahead. They pass a large banner advertising hotel rooms at Mountain Dawn View, where the rooms come with a double-bed, clean towels, Star television, and tandoori chicken with Kingfisher beer in the bar. ‘For the Customer That Know’s,’ it says. Alice mentally erases the delinquent apostrophe. ‘I am more of an expert than you, anyway,’ she blurts out. ‘Huh?’ Jacob says, meticulously peeling apart his rows of Kit-Kat and breaking open the silver foil. ‘Oh, driving. We’re still talking about that, are we? How are you more of an expert? Indian blood in your veins, is that it?’ He pops chocolate into his mouth. ‘Or do you just always do everything better than everyone else?’ Alice grinds her teeth. Jacob munches on his Kit-Kat. ‘Can we stop at Morning Dew juice 42 | Inkspill Magazine | Issue 5
bar, and pick up guava juice?’ he says. ‘And we could get some of that pickle for Mum. And maybe—’ ‘Oh, yes! We must,’ Alice cries. ‘We must get some garlic pickle for darling old Mummy. How could we go back to her empty-handed! Poor Jacob won’t get his lovely goodnight kiss if we do, will he?!’ Jacob pops the rest of the Kit-Kat in his mouth. ‘Feeling a little hormonal, dear?’ he says, through the chocolate. ‘At least my Mum gives me a goodnight kiss.’ Alice curses under her breath, then jams the old Honda to a lower gear as they climb higher and clear the trucks. Behind them lies the overnight plane journey from London. Ahead, an old cottage full of books and Victorian furniture that belongs to Alice’s mother Rita. Rita wants nothing to do with the cottage left to her by an old Uncle, or with Shimla where she grew up. She is, as always, helpless. And Alice, as usual, steps in. ‘You always take care of me, Alisha,’ Rita had said, counting her own pulse and taking her temperature. ‘I think I’m having palpitations again.’ ‘My name is not Alisha,’ Alice had said. ‘Oh ho, beta, just because your father named you that.’ She paused. ‘And – and he left us when you were no more than a girl of ten.’ Her lips trembled. ‘Left us with no money, or – or – a roof over our – our head, or – what would I have done without you? You always know what to