Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee

by Meera Syal

  Sunita was shuddering quietly now, taking in small shaky breaths. Chila was talking to the cab driver, who stood uncertainly in the doorway, assessing his cargo of misery.

  ‘Jonathan?’ Tania called, mounting the first couple of stairs. He poked his head around a banister, the grin wavering slightly. ‘Um, it’s just . . . I’ve got a couple of friends with me.’

  ‘Oh bring ’em all, Tans. More the merrier.’

  Tania flashed him what she hoped was an alluring smile. ‘That’s sweet of you, but one of them . . . well, she doesn’t hold her alcohol like you do and I ought to get her home before she freaks out too much.’ Jonathan straightened up. She had forgotten how tall he was and how, in certain lights, he resembled a slightly fanatic headmaster.

  ‘Well the thing is, Tans, I thought we could maybe have a quick chat about your doc proposals for the Cutting Edge slot.’

  Tania’s neck prickled. She had been angling for a producer’s credit and had worked for weeks on several ideas she considered hard-hitting and ballsy enough to warrant this step up in the company.

  ‘They weren’t what I expected, frankly,’ Jonathan continued cheerily. ‘And we have to get these in by next Monday. So see you up there, yeah? Good.’

  Good. Excellent. Triffic. Jonathan had a list of friendly farewells which basically meant, Do as I say or prepare to remove this stapler from your arse. His reputation as a smiling executioner made everyone distrust him and long to work for him because he treated his staff like family and the competition as expendable vermin. Tania’s palms sweated slightly as she descended the stairs, just in time to see Sunita being helped into her coat.

  ‘You’re sure you don’t want me to come with you?’ Chila asked, buttoning Sunita up briskly. Sunita shook her head. ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be at casualty. I don’t know . . .’

  Sunita was fortunately too preoccupied to catch the wave of relief that washed over Tania’s face. Instead, she was trying to juggle the scenarios playing on a loop in her head. Sunil on an operating table, his small chubby limbs spread-eagled under a bright white light, Sunil bleeding on to his yellow Tigger pyjamas, Sunil lying blue-lipped and bloodless on a steel-topped table. She dived into her grief and discovered another layer underneath, a hot stream, slow moving and thick as lava, which bubbled its way up into her mouth and made her babble to herself on the long car ride home.

  ‘The one night I go out . . . He couldn’t look after them for one night. I leave them with him and he does this . . . I left their pyjamas washed and ironed on their beds, I left food ready on the cooker, I even left their favourite books out at the right pages for their bedtime story. I set the sodding video for his documentary on male rape in case he missed it while he was looking after the babies . . . our babies. Why did this happen when I did everything right?’

  Somewhere a demon rattled its box and Sunita heard it. She let the thought that had been lying dormant, curled up and waiting in the only corner not filled with images of dead babies, speak to her. He does this on purpose. He does it so I’ll be scared to go out and leave them again. Sunita pushed the thought away. She checked the chains on the box and sat on it for good measure. She felt calm. She got out of the cab in the hospital forecourt, paid the driver, walked towards the brightly lit Accident and Emergency sign, and vomited in the pansy-filled flower pots beneath it.

  Two hours later, two long hours in which Tania had flitted from table to table, her attempts at cheery banter so bright and brittle that she felt, at moments, transparent, Jonathan finally motioned her over. She made her way through the press of bodies, alcohol and smoke fumes shrouding them like a caul, briefly passing Chila who seemed deep in conversation with a group of people Tania didn’t know. She couldn’t see Chila’s face, only the faces of those around her, animated with amusement, listening intently as Chila’s hands made small graceful arcs through the blue haze.

  ‘Not what I expected, Tans,’ Jonathan began without preamble, handing her a glass of champagne. ‘Bit samey, I thought. Touch of the earnest ghetto creeping into your ideas. Surprised me, actually . . .’

  Tania watched the bubbles rushing madly to the rim of her glass. She scrolled through her proposal ideas: the new Asian underground music scene, the Harley Street scam in replacement hymen surgery for Asian and Saudi women, the balti kings of Birmingham. Not one mention of arranged marriages, for fuck’s sake, no heavy exposés of mad Muslims, nothing involving hidden cameras. She had talked through all her ideas with Jonathan just two weeks ago and he had claimed to love them all. She wanted to ask the question that hovered at her lips during so many meetings where a panel of forty-something white men told her what was important and real. All those moments where she had sat tight-lipped and buttocks clenched as Rupert or Donald or Angus nibbled on ciabatta and explained to her what it meant to be Asian and British, at least for the purposes of television.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she began, surprised at how steady her voice was, ‘what you mean exactly, Jonathan.’

  ‘Well, it’s victim mentality TV, isn’t it? Let’s look at these strange brown people and admire their spunk or pity their struggles. What about the happy stories? What about the Asians who like who they are, who just get on and do it and . . . live? Yeah?’

  Tania cleared her throat. ‘Well, the idea about Asian millionaires. Can’t get much more of a success story than that. Or the balti kings, they’ve transformed the—’

  ‘No more restaurant gigs,’ Jonathan interrupted tartly. ‘And no more chinging cash registers. We want the human angle now. How people love, who they love, that tells you more than a skipload of earnest statistics . . . Hi, David! Got over Edinburgh yet?’

  Jonathan turned away but placed a proprietorial arm on Tania’s back, telling her to wait. She felt herself stiffen in response. Her fingers curled instinctively into a fist and she wondered if she might hit him. She could not work out why or how he had suddenly acquired this streak of sentimental zeal. ‘Political with a small p’ was Jonathan’s catchphrase. Usually, anything that reeked of sob TV was thrown out, along with papers, coffee cups and, on one occasion, a laptop computer, with the cry, ‘If that’s the best you can do, call up fucking Desmond Wilcox and give me a break!’ She briefly mourned all the human interest stories she had proffered over the last year. Maybe it was the male menopause finally taking hold. He was showing all the classic signs, squeezing into inappropriate denim, quoting bits from Loaded magazine, finding topless calendars funny in a post-modern, blokey sort of way, acquiring a sudden and passionate interest in football . . . Who had he been talking to?

  Jonathan turned back to her in mid-chuckle. ‘What’s wrong with not having a problem, innit?’

  Tania blinked. ‘What did you just say?’ Everything fell into place, noisily, with a final bang.

  Jonathan looked over at Chila, who was now on a low settee, her face open like a flower. ‘She’s a remarkable woman, your friend. Do you know how rare it is, how much people want to see and have what she has?’

  ‘What, an off-the-peg Indian suit and a mock Tudor porch?’

  ‘Innocence,’ continued Jonathan. ‘What a story, eh? Holding on for her Prince Charming, finding her soulmate through an arranged marriage. You couldn’t make this stuff up.’

  Tania swallowed what felt like a large fur ball. ‘Let me just get this straight, Jonathan. You want me to do a doc on arranged marriage? That heads the crappy cliché list along with corner shops, long-suffering Indian waiters and smiling beggars whose gangrenous stumps hide a wisdom we will never understand.’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I said do something on her, and others like her. Relationships. The new religion of the millennium. Take a note of these buzzwords, Tans: curious, restless, landmark, a unique insight into ordinary people on an extraordinary journey. Got it now? Triffic.’ He snaked off into the crowd.

  Tania swung the other way, finding herself standing over Chila, who looked up at her warmly.

  ‘Shall we go?’ Tania s
aid, feeling inexplicably betrayed.

  Chila snuggled happily into her red velvet chair in reception, watching her clever and pretty friend on the phone. She liked watching Tania when she did not know she was being watched. She liked having a friend who made heads turn as they walked out together, who moved through parties like the one tonight with such grace and ease. Chila had been surprised by how easily she had managed to talk to people this evening. Tania was always going on about how shallow and cliquy some of this crowd were, but Chila had been amazed at how interested everyone had been in her, asking her millions of questions, laughing at her tales from suburbia, wanting to know about her family, where she grew up, her lovely husband.

  Deeps had sounded a little strange when she had phoned him up on his mobile a few minutes ago. ‘Why aren’t you at home?’ he had demanded.

  ‘Well, neither are you, jaan.’ Chila had wanted to launch into a detailed account of the glamorous folk she had encountered but he interrupted her sharply.

  ‘You should have told me, sweetheart, that you were going out. I’ve been ringing home all evening, wondering where you were.’

  ‘I didn’t know we were going out,’ Chila replied in a small voice. ‘I had cooked and everything but Tania wanted to show me her club, so—’

  ‘It’s OK, baby,’ Deepak said quickly. ‘As long as you’re safe.’ He paused for a moment, the hiss of the phone filling the silence. ‘So you went to all the trouble of cooking and they didn’t even bother to come in, eh?’

  ‘Yeah, well. It was only snacks, so . . . But I’ve had a really good time. Missed you though, jaan.’

  Deepak chuckled. ‘We can make up for that later.’

  After he had promised to come and pick her up, and after she had made him blow her a kiss down the phone despite his protests that he was in a restaurant and everyone was watching, she spent a few delicious minutes anticipating their reunion in the soft furry darkness of their bedroom. She closed her eyes and imagined the way the door creaked slightly when he closed it, the soft pad of his feet across their deep shag pile, the pale yellow light criss-crossing the floor (he liked the curtains open and light off; natural ambience, he told her), the weight of him as he moved into her, the strong fingers entwined in her hair, the precipice between pleasure and pain on which she hovered as he held her too hard, loved her too much . . . In her reverie, a bedside light came on suddenly. Something was bothering her, something Deepak had said to her. Then she remembered. ‘They didn’t even bother to come in, eh?’ How had he known that?

  The receptionist called over to her. ‘Your husband’s here. Shall I buzz him up?’

  Tania looked up from the telephone cradle. ‘You go, Chila. My cab’s on its way. You must be tired.’

  Chila stood up uncertainly. ‘Don’t you want to say hello?’

  Tania replaced the receiver carefully. ‘Of course,’ she said finally. She saw his hand first, curled round the banister, and noted with satisfaction that he still bit his nails. And then he was in front of her. She photographed him in hurried stills, pieces of him. Sharp suit, that soft female mouth, curious caterpillars for eyebrows, wedding ring, he needs a shave . . .

  Deepak enfolded Chila in a bear hug and cupped his hand around her face, as if looking for signs of corruption. He saw the same eyes looking back at him, no questions being asked, no secrets glinting in corners. He avoided Tania’s gaze for a few seconds, knowing she was doing the same, their agreement still in place and tacitly sealed with too many kisses he would rather not recall. Ex-girlfriends were not normally a problem, as he had usually been the one to walk away. These mutual it’s for the best separations were the ones he hated, because if you left with good will, it meant it was never really over. Some sparks always lingered, fanned by the hand of friendship. He did not need any more friends, thank you. Marriage was a rebirth for him, a cleansing away of his sorry past, all his karmic junk thrown into the holy fire, taken away by a priest who thought he was Elvis.

  ‘How you doing, Tania?’ He smiled, holding tightly onto Chila, who had already burrowed her small hands into his pockets.

  ‘Good. You?’

  ‘Good.’ Distant sirens filled the pause.

  ‘You need a lift anywhere?’

  Tania shook her head.

  ‘Tans has got a cab booked,’ volunteered Chila, ‘but we should wait with her, hena jaan?’ Chila’s tender Punjabi endearment made Tania fumble for her coat.

  ‘In that case,’ Deepak said, making for the stairs, ‘I’ll go and check if it’s arrived.’

  ‘But the receptionist will . . .’ Chila trailed off as Deepak swept out. She took Tania’s hand, marvelling at how cold it was.

  ‘She’ll be OK, you know.’ Tania nodded dumbly, understanding nothing. ‘I’ve been thinking about her all evening as well. I was feeling a bit guilty, actually, enjoying myself and all that. But I phoned her house about an hour ago and the neighbour said they were on their way back home and he’s fine.’

  ‘Sorry?’ said Tania finally.

  ‘Sunil. Sunny’s baby. He’s going to be fine.’

  ‘Triffic.’

  Deepak appeared at the doorway. ‘Your cab’s here, Tans, and we ought to be off, sweetheart.’

  Chila held Tania close. ‘Don’t be a stranger, eh?’

  As the car accelerated between speed bumps, Sunita supported Sunil’s head, tracing the livid yellow bruise across his temple with a gentle fingertip. His breathing was even, baby breaths, snuffles like a small animal. She tried to breathe with him, wishing she could sleep with such abandon.

  ‘It was an accident,’ Akash said quietly. ‘I didn’t leave him. I saw it happen.’

  Sunita stared straight ahead at the ribbon of unfolding road.

  ‘If it had happened when you were there, I wouldn’t have blamed you,’ Akash said, more loudly this time.

  ‘I’m always there, Akash,’ Sunita replied evenly. ‘Except for tonight . . .’

  ‘Oh for f—’ Akash bit his lip rather too forcefully. He knew his son was asleep, but he was always alert to the power of the ever-vigilant subconscious. And if his son came out with the f-word at nursery, he suspected that unwitting autosuggestion would not be an adequate excuse. He unpeeled teeth from flesh and thought he tasted blood.

  ‘Things happen, Sunita. Accidents happen. I know you spend most of your time trying to make the world turn perfectly and safely but some things you can’t control—’ He broke off to negotiate a junction, risking a quick glance over his shoulder. ‘I only took him in to check he wasn’t concussed. That’s why I didn’t ring you. I knew you would panic. I mean, have you ever considered how much you over-worry? That’s why when things do go wrong, you get it all out of proportion. Don’t you think that’s part of the problem too?’

  ‘Akash,’ Sunita said wearily, ‘I am not one of your clients.’

  Akash crunched the gears angrily. He wanted to tell her about a visualization exercise he had done in his own therapy session last week. He had been asked to imagine that his conscience was a person or an object, to give a solid shape to the guilt and fears that he grappled with. And Sunita appeared in an egg-stained nightie with a child in each arm, looking pretty much as she did right now.

  ‘Well,’ he said shortly, ‘I can recommend a number of good people if you want to see someone.’

  Sunita closed her eyes. ‘Piss off, Akash,’ she said.

  The car glided smoothly onto the A40.

  ‘Now,’ said Deepak, and he put his foot onto the clutch as Chila changed into fourth gear for him. She had devised this dual-control driving game quite early on in their courtship and he indulged her willingly, adding it to the growing list of her unworldly charms.

  At first, her child-like playfulness had worried him, alert as he was to the local whispers of the girl being a few chapattis short of a thali. Of course, Tania had often spoken about Chila, always with defensive affection, as if expecting him, or anyone nearby, to launch into a tirade of abuse about her fu
nny, soft-hearted friend. But then, once Tania discovered that he was seeing Chila, she seemed to change tack, warning him off her, almost as if, and this only struck Deepak now, he was not good enough for Chila.

  So naturally, he began to worry when Chila dragged him into the Disney store to coo over the Beauty and the Beast duvet covers, and when she gathered up fallen leaves, wondering at their colours, and later painted them with clear nail varnish to make a pretty yet handy bookmark. The faces of delight she would pull while eating ice cream, messily and with abandon, the kisses she would lavish on passing beasts and babies, her laugh, a musical honk, full of snorts and side-holding, the way she would grab his arm and cling on to it happily, dragging him along, anxious not to miss the next experience. Deepak was both repulsed and enchanted. If this was a clever tactic, playing the fluffy female to appeal to his manly instincts, it was skilfully done and annoyingly effective. It did make him want to protect her, teach her, and the paternal feelings she aroused bothered him greatly (until he argued with himself that, at thirty-two, she was no spring chicken). Which left the other less savoury option that the woman had suffered some early injury to the head and he would end his days either feeding her liquidized cabbage or accompanying men in white coats to rescue her from motorways and park benches.

  It was only after a month or so, when he had been wavering between jumping her bones or a gentle let-down before moving on, that he finally understood Chila was no actress. He remembered the moment clearly; they were in some West End store, killing time before their film began, and suddenly Chila had disappeared. He found her in the fur department. She had somehow eluded the security chains and was sitting between a couple of mink coats, running her hands slowly over their surface. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted, she trailed her fingers sensuously through the fur, lost in the moment. Deepak’s stomach did a Mexican wave. How could she be so erotic without even trying? She opened her eyes and whispered to him, ‘They are so beautiful, and so cruel. Isn’t that weird?’