by Meera Syal
As the old women finally reached the pavement, helping each other negotiate the dizzying six inches of kerb, the car behind screeched in front of Tania, narrowly missing her bumper and the startled pensioners, and gave a final blast of horn before its driver sped down the broadway, spewing exhaust fumes in its wake.
Tania was used to being cut up by angry young men. She could feel them seethe as she drew up to junctions in her black and chrome four-wheel drive, feel them nudging each other, pointing, mouthing endearments and then obscenities when she refused, steadfastly, to respond. It had always been the same with Asian blokes; they didn’t know whether to seduce her or slap her. Oh, she had played the game when she was younger, learned how to tread that fine line between tramp and tease, flirting just enough to make the boys feel flattered, but not too much, to make them think she was giving it away for free, training her eyes to promise what her body would not deliver, until she was married, of course.
She was rather good at it too. Even now, driving along the broadway of Little India, every corner held memories of a conquest, a secret assignation, a gently worded rejection, a humiliating heartbreak. The Lotus Café, with its all-year-round Christmas decorations, an island of yellow tinsel and red paper bells, where she had eaten cheese pakore and exchanged furtive greasy kisses with Jaz, the trembling sixth-former, who would blush the colour of tandoori chicken with one glance from her eyes. Pradeep’s Sweet Mart, manned by a family of minuscule Gujeratis, spooky clones of each other, even the children and the grandparents, all with the same pudding-basin fringe and doleful monkey eyes. They would stand in the kitchen doorway and stare sorrowfully at Tania at a corner table, whispering with her beau of the week. At hourly intervals, one of them would be despatched with another cup of tea or plate of chaat, banging it down pointedly, making the sugar crystals jump in their chipped, green glass bowls. Tania never looked directly at any of them. She was dizzy with her own beauty, drunk with freedom. If her parents didn’t mind where she was, why should they? But every time she left, there they all were, arms folded, brows furrowed, huddled under a calendar of a fat, blue baby Krishna with his fingers in the butter churn, tiny simian judges, secure in their goodness, revelling in her sin. Lahori’s Kebab Hut, where Maz the would-be DJ had tried to grope her on the stairs and, after she’d refused him, informed anyone he met she was a desperate tramp who would give you a hand job for a free lassi.
The Delhi Silk House, where her mum would drag her at the beginning of every summer, the wedding season, insisting she would not shame the family by wearing last year’s fashions. While her gasping mummy ran her work-worn hands over waterfalls of silks, mountains of beads, snowstorms of sequins, Tania would be out the back, giggling with the lads who worked at the halal butcher’s next door. On one occasion, her mother had actually suffered an asthma attack while perusing some hand-sewn sari blouses, probably brought on by the price tags, and Tania only found out when she finally went back upstairs and saw her mother slumped on the floor, still gripping her net shopping bag. For a moment, Tania had had the strangest sensation that the world had turned to stone, that Medusa herself had slithered through the rails of glittering fabrics, around the display cabinets gaudy with gold sets, intricate and heavy, smug in their velvet casing, swivelled her hissing head around the room of terrified matrons and gum-chewing teenage assistants and struck them mute and solid where they stood. Only when she came closer did she realize Mummy was sprawled at the painted feet of the shop mannequins, specially imported big-bosomed dummies with permanent beehives and sad almond eyes, gesturing uselessly to something on a far off horizon. ‘Mama! Wake up. Why have they left you on your own?’ Tania shouted, while her mother snatched shallow, raspy breaths. ‘They . . . were . . . all . . . looking . . . for you,’ she whispered, and slumped back, satisfied she had made her daughter feel guilty before she lost consciousness.
Tania blinked rapidly as a kaleidoscope of impressions danced across her windscreen, vivid and yet so removed, holiday slides flickering on a suburban wall; yeah, it was fun but you wouldn’t want to live there. And once her mother had kept her promise that ‘One day you will kill me, Tania,’ and had keeled over at an engagement party, tired with the effort of having to breathe – always a struggle for a woman who’d donated most of her lungs to the laundry where she’d worked to feed her family – there was little reason for Tania to stay. Her father had chosen to move in with Tania’s older brother, freeing her finally, though at that time, she was not quite sure for what.
She slowed down as she passed Riz’s Music Mart, comforted by the group of teenagers that always hung around outside. This had been her favourite place. It had been a Saturday morning ritual, coming down here with Chila and Sunny, wanting to be the first to bag the latest Hindi film soundtrack, and later on, the bootleg tapes flooding in from Birmingham and Southall of the British bhangra bands. It must have been about fifteen years ago when Riz, the doped-out manager, had slotted a grubby-looking cassette into the shop’s sound system and carefully turned the volume to bleeding ears level.
‘You curies get a load of this band. British Punjabis, like us, recorded in one of their uncle’s garage. Not those fat geezers in the John Travolta suits, swinging their medallions, singing about the bleeding harvest and birds in wet saris. This lot ain’t much older than you.’
And the three of them were almost knocked back by the wall of sound and fury that came at them from the speakers. The drums they knew, their parents’ heartbeat, folk songs sung in sitting rooms, the pulse of hundreds of family weddings; but then the guitars, cold steel and concrete, the smell of the Bullring, the frustration bouncing off walls in terraced houses in Handsworth, hurried cigarettes out of bathroom windows, secret assignations in libraries, hurrying home with a mouthful of fear and desire. The lyrics parodied I Love You Love Me Hindi film crooning, but with subtle, bitter twists, voices coming from the area between what was expected of kids like them and what they were really up to. Chila hadn’t much taken to this new sound; she’d put her fingers in her ears and wandered off to the Lata Mangeshkar section, oblivious. Sunita had said ‘Wow! Yeah’ and possibly ‘Wicked’ (a new phrase that was just coming in, via their one and only black friend, Judith), but had decided not to buy the tape, not this time. Tania had practically begged Riz to let her take the bootleg home, where she played it for hours in her bedroom with the curtains drawn, until her father had banged on the door and threatened a beating with his shoe unless she turned down that howling from hell.
And now, what were they playing? Tania pressed a button and the jeep windows rolled down smoothly, allowing a blast of spiced air into the car, overlaid with car horns and the excited chattering of the teenagers on the pavement beside her. She recognized, with surprise, a line from one of her favourite old Hindi songs, but repeated scratchily, laid over jerky violins and a soporific single sitar note, with a pounding acid beat below it. She wanted to go with it, she felt a familiar tug and wanted to abandon herself to the sound, but she was wrong-footed, tripped up by the fractured lines of melody, alienated by the electronic thrum that throbbed like one of her migraines. She wanted to dance but didn’t know the steps to this one.
The teenagers lounged easily against each other, girls in customized Punjabi suits, cut tight, set off by big boots and leather jackets, others in sari blouses twinned with khakis and platform trainers; one of them had placed bindis all around her perfect belly button. The boys favoured tracksuit tops or kurtha shirts, love beads and pierced eyebrows; one of them had a turban, another wore his long hair in a thick plait that lay like some fat black snake on his back. Some of them smoked. None of them noticed Tania. They weren’t looking over their shoulders, wondering who was watching. When did it become easier? Tania wondered, with a sharp stab of envy. She had a powerful urge to stick her head out of the window and tell them that they were standing on her street corner and if it hadn’t been for her and all the mini-wars she had fought on this road, maybe they wouldn’t be loafi
ng around in their mix and match fashions listening to their masala music with not a care in the world. But once she realized she sounded like her dead mother, she turned the wheel sharply instead into Sunita’s road.
Tania double parked, left her hazard lights on and negotiated the weeds and strewn plastic toys that led to Sunita’s front door. The garden was a lush jungle, borders and beds overgrown years ago. The plastic recycling tub next to the front door was the neatest thing in the vicinity, bulging with carefully stacked Sunday supplements and a dozen red wine bottles. The posters tacked to the bay windows confirmed that the state of Sunita’s garden was a statement rather than an accident. ‘VOTE FOR MUHAMMED AZIZ, YOUR LOCAL LABOUR CANDIDATE’ said one, the other advertised some benefit three years ago for Somalian refugees.
Sunita opened the door before Tania could ring the bell. Tania groaned inwardly, confronted with an all too familiar scene. Nikita was hanging onto Sunita’s leg, whining sleepily, while behind them, Akash vainly walked a screaming Sunil up and down the cluttered hallway. Sunita was squeezed into a velvet dress which was already crumpled where Nikita had been holding onto it. Her hair was unbrushed and she had obviously had no time to apply make-up, as Tania could now see, for the first time, the greyish puffy bags underneath her apologetic eyes.
‘I think Sunil’s teething. He’s been crying non-stop since I got home. Sorry, Tania—’
‘Sunny! You can’t do this to me again.’
‘He won’t settle, Tans. What can I do?’
‘He’s with his dad, isn’t he?’ Tania muttered, shooting a glance at Akash, who smiled thinly back.
He shifted his bawling son to his shoulder, suddenly aware of the hole in his jumper sleeve and wondered if the overhead light revealed his recently discovered bald patch. Fleetingly, he remembered the article on Viagra he’d cut out from some magazine last night and hoped fervently it was not lying anywhere in Tania’s vision.
‘No. You go, sweetheart,’ Akash said smoothly. ‘He’ll drop off soon. Or I’ll go deaf. Either way, I’m happy.’
‘I don’t have to go you know . . .’
This was Sunita’s mantra on the rare occasions she did venture out without a child surgically attached to her side. She looked pleadingly from Akash to Tania, begging acceptance from one, patience from the other. She searched Akash’s eyes for any hint of disapproval, sensing his disappointment that she was leaving him holding the babies, when she knew he had a paper to finish that evening. She glanced quickly at Tania, hoping she would not pick up the wrinkle of distaste that had accompanied so many of their aborted evenings, Tania’s reaction to the bad smell of motherhood that always spoiled their fun.
Sunita wondered if she did actually smell; she still had haldi stains on her fingertips and although she’d scrubbed and scrubbed her hands, garlic did linger, didn’t it? Her breathing quickened. Small scrabbling insects began inching up her spine. She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe deeply. What was it her yoga teacher had told her during pre-natal classes? In with the new air, out with the old air, bear down on the exhale, not too hard, ladies, as we don’t want all those unwanted piles afterwards, do we? Sunita still had hers. That made her give up and open her eyes. Miraculously, Akash had gone into the kitchen. She could hear him opening the bribe cupboard where the sweetie stash was, while he murmured soothingly to Sunil in a baritone monotone. She turned to Tania.
‘What did you do?’
‘I just told him this was our first reunion since Chila’s wedding and you were dying to see the pictures.’
Sunita picked up a hairbrush from the floor and hurriedly dragged it over her scalp. ‘And?’
‘And I said that only a man with a severe Oedipal complex and possible castration fears would stop his wife going out on the razz with her mates.’
Sunita stopped in mid-brush.
‘It’s always best to use the language they understand, Sunny. Now get your coat, you’ve pulled!’
Sunita grabbed her puffa jacket off a lopsided peg and only began laughing when she was sure the door was shut behind them.
Nevertheless Akash heard it. He handed Nikita another bag of Milky Stars and wondered if they were laughing about him.
‘He’s really getting into it, you know,’ said Sunita, enjoying the smooth purr of the jeep and the faintly naughty smell of pristine leather. ‘I mean, I thought when he gave up law, he’d go into this big depression because it was his childhood dream. You know, brown barrister in white wig overturning the fascist system. But therapy is such a growth industry, he says, and transcultural therapy, which he’s so perfect for because he’s bilingual, that’s where the money is.’ Sunita knew she was gabbling now, talking too fast and smiling too hard, but it was the only way she could push away the anxiety curdling her stomach. It always made her feel better to talk about Akash. She fondly imagined, hoped, that somehow, he would know. That he would pause at the kitchen counter and smile to himself, comforted that his absent wife was still thinking about him.
‘And there was me thinking therapy was about helping people,’ Tania said, smiling. She lit up a cigarette and handed it to Sunita, praying the nicotine would go straight to her friend’s head and end the manic monologue.
‘Well, of course it is, I mean, in the end, that’s why he wants to do it,’ Sunita said, pausing for a luxurious drag. ‘To me, it’s an extension of what he was doing before. Empowering the community, but this time, on a personal level. One to one. I mean, if he really wanted to clean up, he’d go into private practice, but he’s already said, NHS referrals or nothing.’
She hesitated, suddenly light-headed. Indistinct particles swam before her eyes and then the world came back into focus but softer, less important. She beamed at Tania who was staring straight ahead, watching the road. Her pupils bloomed and shrank with the passing headlights.
She doesn’t even blink, thought Sunita, suddenly transported back to a windy corner where she would stand holding Tania’s duffle coat, a nauseous spectator to another playground battle. The opponents changed but Tania’s strategy was always the same. As soon as she’d thrown her belongings at Sunita, Tania would wade in, arms swinging, talons outstretched, teeth bared, and always silent and unblinking. She wouldn’t even flinch when Chila and Sunita took turns in wiping away blood and, on one occasion, trying to reinsert a large molar. ‘Attack is the best form of defence,’ Tania had lisped. ‘Don’t even give them time to think.’ Catfights, the lads called these female bundles. They would stand around the edge of the skirmish, giggling at the hair-pulling and cheering any quick flash of a pair of school knickers when the girls were rolling around on the concrete. But when Tania fought, the boys didn’t laugh. They stood in reverential silence, their hands unconsciously draped over their goolies. No wonder she didn’t end up with an Asian man, Sunita concluded.
Sita, the good Hindu wife, walked through fire for Lord Rama to prove her purity. It was an image that had haunted Sunita throughout her childhood. If he had loved her, why didn’t he believe her? It was only during the first few years of her marriage that she understood the subtext of that altruistic gesture. All those moments when she could have met fire with fire, risen to Akash’s angry bait, let out the nine-headed demons to pull them apart. Instead, she chose to acquiesce, and he became putty in her hands, responding to her sweetness with immeasurable tenderness. Even now, after seven years, she could not remember one screaming match. Some long silences perhaps, some endless sulks, a few slamming doors. But they had not crossed that line, into the war zone where things were said and done which could not be undone. Not yet. A few burns on the soles of her feet were worth that, surely.
She could imagine what Tania’s response would be to any man asking her to enter the flames for him; Tania would push him in and add petrol for good measure. And then invite her mates round for a barbecue. Sunita snorted loudly. Tania grinned at her, enjoying seeing her relax.
‘And what about you? Still cleaning up after white trash, hmm?�
�� Tania raised a perfectly arched eyebrow.
‘Oh, we do get all nationalities coming in,’ Sunita answered, a little too quickly. ‘I know last time we spoke I was feeling a bit down about it. But there’s a reason Citizens’ Advice Bureau is abbreviated to CAB. Any prat can call in if you’re for hire.’
Tania noted Sunita’s defensiveness and let it go. She had seen the pock-marked desk in a gloomy corner where Sunny sat, day in, day out, dealing with the effluence of misery that washed in from the street. She’d once been trapped there for half an hour, having finished shooting early down Brick Lane, some documentary on the yuppie invasion of Bangla Town, and had offered Sunny a free lunch on the company. She of all people should have known there is no such thing. Her penance was to sit like some helpless contestant on The Generation Game and watch the conveyor belt of disaffection go by; see how many you can remember and take them all home with you tonite! The dead-eyed pregnant teenagers, the keening Romanian refugees, the bankrupt city boy still in his Gieves and Hawkes suit but with no place to sleep that night, the distraught father pleading to see his kids, the shaking mother desperate to get rid of hers. And finally, the shuffling old boy, snappy dresser, hanky in top pocket, spittle down his chin, raging against the bloody Pakis – er Pakistanis next door, while Sunita nodded soothingly and took notes with a Garfield pencil. Such a waste, Tania had thought. I should have been shooting in here.
‘That would do my head in,’ she said now. ‘Having to advise some old git on how to deal with the curry smells wafting in from next door. Wasn’t he going to press charges, that guy? Nasal harassment or some such bollocks?’