With the Surtees, the situation was rather unique. Whenever Mr. and Mrs. Surtee fought, she did not cook any dinner. Instead, she pulled out all his pyjamas from the cupboard and set fire to them, saving the ashes and charred wisps in a dinner plate to set before him when he came home from work.
“The result,” said Shirin Aunty, “is more business for you. Every two or three months, after they make up, Mrs. Surtee will give you a large order for pyjamas. But you must pretend it’s normal, or she will get rid of you.”
Dina’s collection of domestic portraits continued to grow as Shirin Aunty rendered descriptions of the Davars and Kotwals, the Mehtas and Pavris, the Vatchas and Seervais, and added them to the portfolio. “You must be getting fed up with all these details,” she said. “Just one last thing, and the most important: never measure the misters for their inseam. Ask for a sample to sew from. And if that is not possible, make sure there is someone present when you measure, a wife or mother or sister. Otherwise, before you know it, they move thisway-thatway and thrust something in your hand which you don’t want. Believe me, I had a nasty experience when I was young and innocent.”
This last bit of advice was uppermost in Dina’s mind when she was taken to meet Fredoon, a bachelor who lived alone. Shirin Aunty warned her not to go alone to his flat. “Although he is a perfect gentleman, people’s tongues are mischievous. They will talk that some funny business is going on. Your name will be spoilt.”
Dina did not care about people’s tongues and felt no danger from Fredoon, though she was prepared to bolt if he ever asked her to take his inseam. To reassure Shirin Aunty, she said a friend was always with her. What she did not say was that the friend was Fredoon. For that was what he soon became. His commissions consisted mainly of little frocks and short pants and pinafores; to help Dina, he presented clothing on birthdays to the children of friends and relatives instead of envelopes stuffed with rupees.
Their friendship grew. Dina often accompanied him to textile stores to help him select material for the gifts. After the shopping, they would stop for tea and cakes at Bastani’s. Sometimes Fredoon invited her back to his flat for dinner, picking up fried mutton chops or vindaloo on the way. He was always encouraging her to try new frock patterns, assert herself forcefully before her clients, demand higher rates.
Over the next several months, Dina became more confident about her abilities. The sewing was easy, thanks to her sister-in-law’s training. And when there was something tricky, she consulted Shirin Aunty. Her visits brought the two old people such pleasure, she went regularly, pretending to be confused by something or other: ruched collars, raglan sleeves, accordion pleats.
The sewing produced snippets of fabric every day, and Shirin Aunty suggested collecting them. “Waste nothing — remember, there is a purpose for everything. These scraps can be very useful.” She quickly demonstrated by making a lumpy sanitary pad.
“What a good idea,” said Dina. Her budget needed all the help it could get. The textile stuffing was not as absorbent as the pads she used to buy, but the homemade ones could be changed more frequently since they cost nothing. As an added precaution, though, she wore a very dark skirt for the duration.
Work made the hours pass quickly in the little flat. While her eyes and fingers were immersed in the sewing, she acquired a heightened awareness of noises from the flats around her. She collected the sounds, sorted them, replayed them, and created a picture of the lives being lived by her neighbours, the way she transformed measurements into clothes.
Rustom’s policy regarding neighbours had been to avoid them as much as possible. A little sahibji-salaam was enough, he said, or it led to gossiping and kaana-sori that got out of hand. But the washing of pots and pans, ringing of doorbells, bargaining with vendors, laundry noises, the flop and slap of clothes thrashed in soapy water, family quarrels, arguments with servants — all this seemed like gossip too. And she realized that the noises from her own flat would narrate her life for the neighbours’ ears, if they bothered to listen. There was no such thing as perfect privacy, life was a perpetual concert-hall recital with a captive audience.
Sometimes, the old pastime of attending free concerts tempted her, but she was reluctant to resume it. Anything which seemed like a clutching at bygone days made her wary. The road towards self-reliance could not lie through the past.
By and by, when the tailoring had settled into a comfortable routine for Dina, Shirin Aunty taught her to knit pullovers. “There is not much demand for woollen things,” she said, “but some people order them for style, or if they are going to hill-stations for a holiday.” As they progressed towards complicated patterns, Shirin Aunty presented her with her entire collection of design books and knitting needles.
Lastly, she instructed Dina in embroidery, with a warning: “Needlework on table napkins and tea-cloths is very popular, and pays well. But it’s a great strain on the eyes. Don’t do too much, or it will catch up with you after forty.”
And so, three years later, when Shirin Aunty passed away, followed by Darab Uncle a few months later, Dina felt confident of managing on her own. She also felt very alone, as though she had lost a second set of parents.
Contrary to Nusswan’s conviction that no one would blame him for Dina’s leaving, the relatives quickly grouped into two camps. While a few, professing neutrality, felt comfortable on both sides of the line, at least half were staunchly in support of Dina. To show their approval of her independent spirit, they came out with numerous ideas for money-making ventures.
“Butter biscuits. That’s where all the cash is.”
“Why don’t you start a creche? Any mother would prefer you to look after her children, instead of an ayah.”
“Make a good rose sherbet and you won’t have to look back. People will buy it by the gallon.”
Dina listened with gratitude to everything, inclining her head interestedly as they formulated their schemes. She became an expert at non-committal nodding. When the tailoring was slow, she filled their orders for cakes, bhakras, vasanu, and coomas.
Then her friend Zenobia had a brainwave about in-home haircuts for children. Zenobia had fulfilled her schoolgirl ambition: she was now chief hairstylist at the Venus Beauty Salon. After the shop closed at night, she instructed Dina on a wig glued to a plaster-of-Paris cranium. The comb kept getting caught in the cheap mop’s knotted strands.
“Don’t worry,” she reassured Dina. “It’s much easier with real hair.” From the surplus in the shop she put together a kit of scissors, hair clippers, brush, comb, talcum powder and powder puff. Then they made a list of friends and relatives with children who could be used as guinea pigs. Xerxes and Zarir’s names were left out; though Nusswan would have welcomed the opportunity to save on haircuts, Dina felt uncomfortable now in his house.
“Just go after the brats, one by one, till you have cropped the whole jing-bang lot,” said Zenobia. “It’s only a question of practice.” She monitored the results, and soon declared Dina trained and ready. Now Dina began going door to door.
After a few days, however, the enterprise folded without a single haircut. Neither she nor Zenobia had remembered that most people regarded hair clippings within their dwellings as extreme bad luck. Dina related the misadventures to her friend, how the thought of hair hitting the floor made the prospective clients hit the ceiling. “Madam, you have no consideration? What have we done to you that you want to bring misfortune within our four walls?”
Some people did offer her their children’s heads. “But only if you do it outside,” they said. Dina refused. There were limits to what she would do. She was an in-home children’s stylist, not an open-air pavement barber.
Afterwards, she did not hang up her clippers for good. Her friends’ children continued to benefit from her skills. Some of the little boys and girls, remembering the practice haircuts, hid when Dina Aunty arrived. As she got better, they were less afraid.
Through all this, there were lean times when it was difficult to meet the rent or pay the electricity bill. Shirin Aunty and Darab Uncle, while they were still alive, had often tided her over with a loan of forty or fifty rupees. Now the only alternative was Nusswan.
“Of course, it’s my duty,” he said piously. “Are you sure sixty will be enough?”
“Yes, thank you. I will pay it back next month.”
“No rush. So tell me, have you found a sweetheart?”
“No,” she replied, wondering if he suspected something about Fredoon. Could someone have seen them
