Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee

by Meera Syal

  About the Book

  On a winter morning in London’s East End, the locals are confronted with the sight of a white horse skidding through the sooty snow, carrying what looks like a christmas tree on its back. It turns out to be a man covered in tinsel, with a cartoon-size turban on his head. Entrepreneur Deepak is on his way to get married. As he trudges along, he consoles himself with the thought that marrying Chila, a nice Punjabi girl (a choice which has delighted his surprised parents) does not mean he needs to become his father, grow nostril hair or wear pastel colour leisure wear.

  Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee is the story of Deepak’s bride, the childlike Chila, and her two childhood friends: Sunita, the former activist law student, now an overweight, depressed housewife, and the chic Tanja, who has rejected marriage in favour of a highpowered career in television. A hilarious, thoughtful and moving novel about friendship, marriage and betrayal, it focuses on the difficult choices contemporary women have to make, whether or not they happen to have been raised in the Asian community.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chila

  Chapter 2

  Sunita

  Chapter 3

  Tania

  Chapter 4

  Spring

  Chapter 5

  Sunita

  Chapter 6

  Chila

  Chapter 7

  Tania

  Chapter 8

  About the Author

  Also by Meera Syal

  Copyright

  LIFE ISN’T ALL HA HA HEE HEE

  Meera Syal

  For all our mothers and daughters

  And the East London ‘kuriyaan’

  You Know Who You Are.

  1

  NOT EVEN SNOWFALL could make Leyton look lovely. Sootfall was what it was; a fine drizzle of ash that sprinkled the pavements and terrace rooftops, dusting the rusty railings and faded awnings of the few remaining shops along the high road. They formed a puzzling collection of plucky bric-à-brac emporiums (All the Plastic Matting You’ll Ever Need!) and defeated mini-marts (Cigs ’N’ Bread! Fags ’N’ Mags!), braving the elements like the no-hopers no-one wanted on their team, shivering in their sooty kit. Grey flecks nested in the grooves of the shutters of the boarded up homes, abandoned when new roads were put down and old ladies died; they settled silently on the graves in the choked churchyard, giving grace and shadow to long-unread inscriptions – Edna, Beloved Wife; Edward, Sleeps with the Angels – and dressed the withered cedars in almost-mourning robes of almost-black. Pigeons shook their heads, sneezing, blinking away the icy specks, claws skittering on the unfamiliar roof which had once been the reassuring flat red tiles of the methodist church and was now a gleaming minaret, topped by a metal sickle moon. The moon at midday, dark snow and nowhere to perch. No wonder they said Coo.

  An old man picked up a frozen milk bottle from his front step and held it up to the light, squinting at the petrified pearly sea beyond the glass. He’d seen an ocean like that once, in the navy or on the TV, he couldn’t remember which now.

  ‘You waiting till the whole bloody house freezes then?’ his wife called from inside. A voice that could splinter bone.

  And then he heard them. Nothing more than an echo at first, muted by wind and traffic, but he felt the sound, like you always do when it brings the past with it. Clop-clop, there it was, no mistaking it. And then he was seven or ten again, in scratchy shorts with sherbet fizzing on his tongue, racing his brother to open up the coal shute at the front of the house before the cart drew up and the man with the black face and the bright smile groaned, his sack on his back, freeing swirls of dust with every heavy step.

  ‘Come here!’ the old man shouted behind him. ‘Quickly! You hurry up and you’ll see a . . . bleedin’ hell!’

  The horse turned the corner into his road, white enough to shame what fell from the sky, carrying what looked like a Christmas tree on its back. There was a man in the middle of the tinsel, pearls hanging down over his brown skin, suspended from a cartoon-size turban. He held a nervous small boy, similarly attired, on his lap. Behind him, a group of men of assorted heights and stomach sizes, grins as stiff as their new suits, attempted a half-dance half-jog behind the swishing tail, their polished shoes slipping in the slush. A fat man in a pink jacket held a drum around his neck and banged it with huge palms, like a punishment, daring anyone not to join in. ‘Brrrr- aaaa! Bu-le, bu-le bu-le!’ he yelled.

  The old man understood half of that noise, it was brass monkey weather all right, but what did he mean by that last bit? They couldn’t like the cold, surely.

  ‘Another of them do’s down the community centre then,’ said his wife, sniffing at his shoulder.

  Other neighbours had gathered at windows and doorways, the children giggling behind bunched fingers, their elders, flint-faced, guarding their stone-clad kingdoms warily, in case bhangra-ing in bollock-freezing weather was infectious.

  Swamped, thought the old man; someone said that once, we’ll be swamped by them. But it isn’t like that, wet and soggy like Hackney Marshes. It’s silent and gentle, so gradual that you hardly notice it at all until you look up and see that everything’s different.

  ‘Like snow,’ he said, out loud.

  Trigger, the horse, was enjoying himself. Anything was better than the dumpy pubescents he was forced to heave around paddocks in Chigwell for the rest of the week. This was an easy gig, a gentle amble past kind hands and interesting odours. Early this morning, he’d been woken by an old lady in a white sheet breaking coconuts beneath his hooves. She had sung for him. She smelt of pepper. There was none of the kisses and baby talk the stable girls lavished on him to impress the parents, but her patient worship had made him snort with joy. He stepped lightly now, considering he was carrying a heavy-hearted man on his back.

  Deepak had noticed the hostile onlookers, albeit in fragments through the shimmering curtain that hid him from the world, but the cold stone in his chest, hidden beneath the silk brocade of his bridal suit, made them unimportant. He had explained his dank foreboding away many times, over many months now, using the dimpled smile and the mercurial tongue that had made him a business success and rendered matrons in the neighbourhood giddy with gratitude when he graced their kitty parties. Fear of commitment, he’d said to the stone in the spring. Any eligible bachelor taking the plunge is bound to feel some pangs of regret. She is as sweet as the blossom outside my window, and just as virginal. Fear of failure, he’d told the stone as he’d eyed up the passing girls from his pavement café, pluckable, all of them, bruised by summer evening blue. She doesn’t need to prance around in thongs and halter necks, her beauty is beautiful because it’s hidden and it will be mine. Fear of becoming my father, he’d smiled at the stone as he tramped through new-fallen leaves, recalling his parents’ amazed faces as he’d confirmed his choice of bride. A Punjabi girl! They had almost wept with relief, having endured a parade of blonde trollops through their portals for most of their son’s youth. Marrying her does not mean I will become my father, take up religion, grow nostril hair and wear pastel-coloured leisure wear, he told the stone playfully. We have choices. Wasn’t that the reason his parents had come here in the first place? And now it was winter and the stone refused any further discussion on the matter. It was done.

  And there they were, waiting. Ahead of him, the bride’s welcoming committee stood in the doorway of the crumbling hall, garlands of flaming marigolds in their hands. His own Baraat, the menfolk from his side who were his companions on this journey from callow youth to fully paid up member of the respectable married clas
ses, roared their arrival. Bow and be grateful, the man who will take your daughter off your hands for ever is here! His future mother-in-law teetered forward, her face shining; brown moon, white horse, grey snow. Deepak drew his tinsel curtain back over his eyes and felt the warm horse rumble and heave beneath him.

  Chila looked at his toenails and felt a strange sense of dread. His feet were fine; brown, not too hairy, clean enough. But she could not tear her eyes from his toenails as they walked round the fire (about to be wed, head bowed submissively just in case anyone might suspect she was looking forward to a night of rampant nuptials). Ten yellowing, waxy nodules crowned each toe, curled and stiff as ancient parchment, a part of him she had never noticed before, feet that demanded attention because of their glaring imperfection, the feet of a man who might read Garden Sheds Weekly every evening instead of loving her. Chila told herself off. This was unfair, sacrilegious even, on your wedding day.

  Or maybe it was just being prepared, like her mother was. Her mother who had handed over a parcel of brand new and frilly pink lingerie which she had bought as part of Chila’s trousseau, ready to wear when her daughter finally moved in with Deepak tonight, man and wife, all official. Her mother who had coughed with embarrassment as Chila discovered the sprinkling of rose petals hidden amongst the Cellophane, shyly folding in on themselves like her own fingers were doing now. ‘Sweet, Mum.’ Chila smiled, ignoring the subtext in her mother’s eyes, My poor baby will have the dirty thing done to her tonight. Chila had not had the heart to tell her the dirty thing had already taken place many months ago in a lock-up garage just off the A406.

  ‘Move, didi!’ her brother Raju hissed, pushing her round the holy fire. She could not look up even if she wanted, weighed down by an embroidered dupatta encrusted with fake pearls and gold-plated balls. The heavy lengha prevented her from taking more than baby steps behind her almost-husband to whom she was tied, literally, her scarf to his turban. She would have liked to wear a floaty thing, all gossamer and light, and skip around the flames like a sprite, blowing raspberries at the mafia of her mother’s friends whose mantra during all her formative years had been, ‘No man will ever want that one, the plump darkie with the shy stammer.’ But she had shocked them all, the sour-faced harpies, by bagging not only a groom with his own teeth, hair, degree and house, but the most eligible bachelor within a twenty-mile radius.

  She stole a sneaky glance at Deepak, who was checking his profile in the fractured reflection of the silver mirror ball above their heads, each winking pane with its own tiny flaming heart, a thousand holy fires refracted in its shiny orb. Bloody hell, he was fit and he was hers. She wanted to celebrate. But instead she was mummified in red and gold silk, swaddled in half the contents of Gupta’s Gold Emporium, pierced, powdered and plumped up so that her body would only walk the walk of everyone’s mothers on all their weddings, meekly, shyly, reluctantly towards matrimony. Chila tilted her head with difficulty and took in a deep gulp of air before she began the next perambulation, glad of the momentary rest while Deeps adjusted his headdress. She locked eyes with Tania, sitting straight-backed on the front row. She’s looking a bit rough today, thought Chila, with an unexpected tinge of pleasure.

  Tania shot Chila a reassuring wink and just managed to turn a grimace of discomfort into an encouraging smile. She ached all over and the new slingbacks she’d bought in five minutes flat yesterday had already raised blisters. She was squeezed between two large sari-draped ladies, fleshy bookends who exchanged stage whispers across her lap, giving a wheezy running commentary to the great drama unfolding before them.

  ‘You see, how nicely she walks behind him? She will follow his lead in life. That is good.’

  ‘Oh, now the father is crying. About time. Daughters are only visitors in our lives, hena?’

  ‘Hai, they are lent to us for a short while and then we have to hand them over to strangers like—’

  ‘Bus tickets?’

  ‘Hah! But then where does the journey end, hah?’

  ‘Hah! Yes. Only God knows, as he is the driver.’

  ‘Now the sister is howling. I’d howl if I had a moustache like hers . . .’

  Tania leaned forward pointedly, hoping to obscure their view of each other and save herself another half-hour of homely wedding quips in stereo. But the women merely adjusted themselves around her, heaving bosoms into the crevices of her elbows. She suddenly remembered why she had stopped attending community events, cultural evenings, bring-a-Tupperware parties, all the engagements, weddings and funerals that marked out their borrowed time here. She could not take the proximity of everything any more. The endless questions of who what why she was, to whom she belonged (father/husband/workplace), why her life wasn’t following the ordained patterns for a woman of her age, religion, height and income bracket. The sheer physical effrontery of her people, wanting to be inside her head, to own her, claim her, preserve her. Her people.

  Tania checked her watch, angry at herself for hoping that the wedding might be running to schedule. Indian time. Look at the appointed hour and add another two for good measure. Memories of family picnics, outings to relatives’ homes, rare but treasured cinema visits, where she would bring up the rear, mute with shame at her clan’s inevitable late entrance. ‘So what if the food’s cold/the park shuts in ten minutes/the film has started?’ her father would boom. ‘Nobody minds, hah?’ Tania minded so much she got migraines. She closed her eyes as the priest began another mantra, willing the familiar words to take her back in time and get rid of the small voice that chanted in time with the distant finger bells, the voice that said, You don’t belong.

  Sunita slipped into an empty seat at the back of the hall, just as Chila and Deepak were making their final round of the fire. Nikita stood at her side, shivering in her pint-size silk suit, so cute on the hanger and sodding useless in the snow.

  ‘Come here, Nikki,’ Sunita whispered, pulling her daughter close to her and moving her sleeping son to the other arm, plumply snoozing in his rabbit-eared Baby-Gro. She rubbed Nikita’s hands and face until she felt the glow returning, and heaved her onto the remaining inches of lap. The pristine magenta suit she’d squeezed into this morning was now a map of motherhood, marked out by handprints, chocolate streaks and a recent vomit stain which bloomed from her breast like some damp crusty flower.

  ‘Look at Auntie Chila, Nikki! She’s getting married, see?’

  Nikita nodded dumbly, absorbing the fairy grotto effects around her.

  This is where it starts, thought Sunita, a little girl at her mother’s knee wanting to be the scarlet princess whose beauty lights fires. Sunita felt a green stab of envy, seeing Chila, dark, dumpy, dearest friend Chila, parading her joy like a trophy. Sunita had been a perfect size eight when she wore her wedding sari. Akash had kissed each of her fingertips that night, awed by their perfection. She used to paint her nails then.

  ‘Mama looked just like Auntie Chila when she got married to Papa,’ Sunita told Nikita with a kiss.

  Nikita blinked. Disbelievingly, Sunita thought.

  Deepak and Chila finished their seventh round of the fire and paused before the priest, who held his hand up dramatically, waiting for hush. Pandit Kumar was pregnant with his own importance at this solemn point, emphasized by his impressive belly, which strained the seams of his beige and gold-trimmed shalwar kameez. He often thought of Elvis Presley at this juncture in the wedding ceremony, how the King would possess the microphone, angle that profile just so to the watching cameras with a daring insouciance, toss that quiff and casually break a thousand hearts. At such moments, Pandit Kumar forgot he was bald, sweaty and bandy-legged. He had the stage, he held the futures of two young lovers in the palms of his hands and he had a god-given duty to put on a good show.

  He shiftily checked that the squinty videoman had adjusted to close-up mode before he cleared his throat, swallowed a sizeable phlegm-ball and began: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, now I will ask the bride and groom to swap their seating, symbo
lically showing that dearest Chila will now pass into the hands of dearest Deepak and his loving family. Her old life as her father’s daughter has ended. Her new life as her husband’s wife has begun. Chila, Deepak, please will you now be seated!’

  Chila gathered her sari about her and did a clumsy do-si-do with Deepak, negotiating fabric and high heels and the coconuts hanging from her wrists until, at last, she came to rest on a seat warm with Deepak’s body heat. She saw Deepak’s mother grinning mistily up at her from the floor. Chila grinned back, suddenly light-headed, feeling her stomach trying to rise up and displace her heart. She realized, with a shock, what it was that had possessed her body. She was happy.

  Deepak reached over and squeezed her hand. He stared from Chila to his mother and back again. So this is what it felt like, he thought, to belong, finally. He leaned into Chila and whispered something into her ear, which made her titter and blush, and precipitated a spontaneous round of applause which began at Sunita’s seat, rippled through eighteen rows of smiling, satisfied guests and reached the platform in a wave of goodwill and joy. The videoman risked an ambitious wide shot of the hall. Pandit Kumar raised a funky fist in the air and shouted, ‘All right! Let’s hear it for Chila and Deepak! All right!’

  ‘So what did he say, then?’ Tania demanded, before lighting up a slim menthol cigarette.

  ‘Not in here, Tania!’ gasped Sunita, instinctively swivelling to the door of the tiny anteroom, ears pricked to the noises of celebration outside.

  ‘It’s locked.’ Tania smiled mockingly at Sunita. ‘Calm down, Auntieji, we will not let the evil fumes ruin Chila’s reputation.’

  ‘I’m thinking of Chila,’ Sunita retorted, cheeks burning. ‘Chila’s mother-in-law’s hovering outside.’

  ‘She’s still ours, though.’ Tania exhaled. ‘Officially, until the doli. So they can wait, hey Chila?’

  Chila wobbled on one foot, trying to squeeze a leg into bright pink silk pyjamas.