What would her father say if he heard about it? What would the other Asians who lived nearby think of her and Motichand? But if there was one thing she’d learnt about her husband in the few weeks she’d spent with him in India, it was that he was oblivious when it suited him. Could she trust him? In Gujarat, she’d never been alone with a male who wasn’t a relative no respectable woman would be left alone with a man she wasn’t married or related to.

He’d left her there with a stranger roaming the house. Back soon,’ Motichand called out, leaving a spare set of keys on a hook and slamming the door behind him. He used to look after an English widow for a while, she lived on her own, nothing to worry about. Motichand called out something in Swahili to December, who was sweeping the veranda. ‘I am going back to the dukan now,’ said Motichand. Jaya looked at the paper, a mess of scribbled words written in Gujarati with notes for the Swahili translation. ‘Here, I have translated the main things you’ll need, so you can get December to help you with anything you want.’ Motichand thrust a scrap of paper into her hand. She didn’t linger, going back outside onto the veranda. Jaya unpacked a few items in the bedroom she’d share with Motichand, a simple square with two large beds. Jaya pulled her chundri tighter around her face and turned her head away, as she’d been taught to do with all men for the sake of propriety. His rigid brows made him look as though he was annoyed but then he flashed a brief smile, his eyes narrowing into crescents. He was already too old to be considered a boy by a good few years, closer to her own age in fact, but Motichand had explained on the train that the name ‘house boy’ was the label for all male servants here. ‘Everyone has house boys here.’ĭecember was tall and slim, with a head of thick hair like unspun cotton. ‘And this is December,’ announced Motichand proudly, waving his hand towards the man in the corner of the courtyard, as though he was another feature of the house, like a brand-new radio or a stove. This home was bigger than any she’d ever seen. It was a larger house than the one that she’d lived in for the past year back in Gujarat, crammed in with Motichand’s brothers and mother.

Running along three sides of the yard were a kitchen, a walk-in storeroom, a sitting room with two wooden armchairs, three bedrooms and a small enclosed space with a tap for morning ablutions. The single-storey building was painted pale green like the inside of a pea pod. The house was centred around an open yard. Everything was different, strange, the buildings, the air. How far away her father was, her brothers, her home.

They stopped briefly at Motichand’s dukan, which did indeed seem to have anything you could ever need and many things you’d never want, but she couldn’t take it all in. Outside the train station in Kampala, the roads were three times as wide as those in her village.

Kololo hill by neema shah