From a small home shrine, Kali, the Hindu goddess of transformation, watches over a suburban British house with burglar-guards on the windows – it’s like a prison. Inside, Ash battles her dementia-ridden mother, a South African Indian who refuses to eat, shits herself on purpose and is lost in the Apartheid of her youth. The bills are mounting, so Ash sells antiques piecemeal to a Dealer who cheats her. In response to it all, Ash has developed a strange, writhing lump on her shoulder that grows bigger and more disgusting with each new insult. The Nurse’s next visit brings bad news: Mummy is entering terminal decline and losing her swallowing reflex. She gives Ash a grotesque feeding tube. But Mummy refuses to eat through it. The lump becomes so big, Ash slices into it. Among the blood is a strange black substance. Can it possibly be? But it is – it is audio tape.She spools some onto an old cassette, and plays it: different voices — a clipped British accent, and a brutal Afrikaaner one. Her mother’s voice joins the refrain: “You are wholly nothing.” Ash thinks she knows what to do. She confronts the cheapskate Antique Dealer and tries taking charge of Mummy, but the lump is growing again and her mother still refuses food. More tape erupts from Ash. She listens to it: ‘Wholly nothing’ on repeat – or is it ‘Nothing holy’ – or ‘Holy nothing’? It’s hypnotic. Ash uses the tube to feed the tape to her mother, who willingly accepts it. Clutching the image of Kali, Ash leaves the house in peace.
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