by Meera Syal
I’ve seen it happen right before my eyes, the most frightening and speedy transformation since Jekyll and Hyde (the Spencer Tracy version, natch). One moment, my friend Meena was describing how she’d sacked three of her staff and organized a buy-out of a rival firm in her lunch hour, the next she was simpering her way around her husband, who stood at the top of the stairs, baffled by a piece of complicated equipment called an iron. She was so apologetic I thought she was going to do a Basil Fawlty and give the iron a damn good thrashing for confusing her man. If any of her colleagues had dismissed her, patronized her, ordered her, spoken to her the way the man she loves spoke to her then, she’d have wiped the floor with their battered carcasses. Instead, Meena smiled and said sorry.
I’ve seen it happen a little with Sunita, although she’s hardly a high flyer; Akash was canny enough to clip her wings before she’d realized her potential. But I’ve seen enough to recognize it for what it is: our collective shameful secret. We meet the world head up, head on, we meet our men and we bow down gratefully, cling to compromise like a lover who promises all will be well if we don’t make trouble. We hear our mothers’ voices and heed them, to make up for all the other imagined transgressions in our lives. Everything else I can pick up or discard when I choose; my culture is a movable feast. Except for this rogue gene which I would cauterize away if I could. Unlike Sunita, I don’t just wave the placards and wear the badges. Unlike Chila, I don’t sit back and trust to the fickle workings of fate. I made a choice about the kind of life I wanted to have. When things go belly up, Chila always blames karma, Sunita blames her failed university career, I blame no-one but myself.
Jonathan was right, remarkably, when he said that choosing whom you love is the most political decision you can make. It was for all of us. We three girls managed the oft-quoted juggling act until it was time to find a man. See how I combine this bindi with that leather jacket and make a bold statement about my duality? Look! I can go to a rave one night, and the next morning be cooking in the communal temple kitchen! Watch how I glide effortlessly from old paths to new pastures, creating a new culture as I walk on virgin snow! And then it was time to cut the crap and own up to who we really were.
Chila didn’t have much choice. Coming from the most traditional family and obviously not college material, they were lining up boys for her before she left school. Ironic, really, that the girl who most wanted to Do the Right Thing was considered defective material. Her parents assaulted the marriage markets on all fronts: the matrimonial bureaux where they find a perfect match by matching up your heights and income brackets, the notice boards in the temples and community centres where your personal details are displayed along with the times for yoga classes and the winner of the under sevens trampolining competition, and, of course, the gossip grapevine. God knows who said what about Chila, but judging by the men she was offered, her word of mouth was not great. Families would turn up at her folks’ home dragging strange boys behind them, boys who had been shut up and hidden away and had limps and squints and bewildered smiles. They would stumble in, blinking in the daylight, wearing brand new too-small suits, sit staring at the sweetmeats while their parents pretended their sons were actually international tycoons disguised cleverly as idiots. I don’t know how Chila kept her dignity. I hated her fucking family for what they were offering her, hated the other bastards for what they thought she was worth. And the amazing thing was, under all that pressure, Chila always said no. She would wait, she said. I don’t know for what, we all thought. And look what happened.
For Sunita, it was always different. Her parents were considered the coolest around. Yeah, her brothers got away with murder, but her mum and dad always insisted she should get her education and then think about marriage, if she wanted. They offered to do some introductions, and even said if she found someone herself, they wouldn’t mind (unless he was a black Muslim with no job, in which case they would kill her). The subtext was, choose anyone you like, preferably a Hindu Punjabi with prospects . . .
I would love to have interviewed her folks for the doc. Her dad insisted they call it ‘Assisted marriage, no arranging in this house. We help, we advise and we leave it to her. Just like your upper classes, although I would never have put Diana and Charlie together. Whoever matched them needs a good slap.’ I’m sure the reason me and Sunny have our spats is that I’ve spent most of my life wishing I had her parents. And with all that, the silly cow lets her pants do the talking and goes and chooses Akash.
And me? Well, I was somewhere in the middle. My father, for all his military bluster, knew that it was impossible to disguise our humble origins. Strangers might believe he was a millionaire in training, but amongst his own, his surname and size of house always defined who he was. So Mum and Dad attempted a few half-hearted introductions, but by then I was out of university, freelancing for local papers and being propositioned by an array of multi-coloured, multi-fascinating, fit young men. It was like being led to a feast and told your diet starts today, those stupid faddy diets where you can only eat one thing for the rest of your life. I’d only ever snacked on brown boy, and too much of that made me slightly nauseous. (That’s the problem with biting the forbidden fruit; nothing ever tastes the same again.)
I did agree to a few meetings with prospective candidates, mainly because it was such fascinating material and a sort of rite of passage I felt I had to go through, like buying your first bra. There was plenty of interest, much to my father’s delight, because of my mother’s loud religious leanings, my qualifications, my reputation as a bit of a looker. On paper I was A1-plus suitable, and they breezed into our lounge, hoping for the best. Then I opened my mouth and within minutes they were scrambling for the door, snacks uneaten, scorching their mouths with quick cups of tea, telling Mum and Dad they would let us know.
The feedback was fairly standard: ‘She is too modern’ (too independent to do as he says and maybe a bit of a slapper); ‘She is too Western’ (speaks bad Punjabi and is definitely a bit of a slapper); ‘He needs someone who will fit in with his job’ (she has a job that will prevent her from supporting his career); ‘We have a joint family system’ (she will never agree to pooling her wages and spending her weekends going to kitty parties with us); ‘He liked her but is looking for someone more like us’ (he fancies the pants off her and finds this terrifying so would rather marry a buffalo with a moustache who won’t go off with his best friend). Mum would weep and waddle around wringing her hands afterwards. My father would shout, throw things and curse the jumped up brahmins who thought they were better than us, curse the world and its donkey for giving him a proud heart and a thin wallet.
So I was resigned to this nuptial pantomime. I got to wear a nice selection of my favourite silk suits, and even looked forward to that moment when I would crack a joke and the creeping terror would slide across some helpless man’s face. After all, any man who can’t meet you without bringing his parents along is hardly the type to make your heart sprout wings and dance the tango.
And then one wintry morning, the tea is brewing, the samosas are fried and waiting, a smart car pulls up outside the house, Mum and Dad arrange themselves at the doorway (Mum always behind Dad as her size sometimes frightened young kids), they open the door and Deepak walks in with his family. My father was practically climbing up Deepak’s parents trouser legs with gratitude that such esteemed and wealthy people would grace his house with their presence. My mum wheezed like some old faithful retainer, force-feeding them home-made nibbles and urging me with twitches and winks to walk forward, serve tea and be nice. And then came that moment, when I handed him a cup with a steady hand and looked up into his eyes and saw . . . the punchline to the joke we both found ourselves in. It wasn’t his looks (though that helped), nor his money (I knew I was going to make as much as him), nor his clothes (although the Paul Smith suit was a relief after the polyester blazers and sensible jumpers I’d seen before). It was recognition, that we were both here out of obligation and som
e curiosity, that we could play the game and take the piss at the same time, that we knew this was an option, but hoped there could be something else, something different. That we wanted to believe we were good, and knew already we were destined to be very bad indeed.
My mother wailed and took to her bed when I turned him down. My father called me a fussy trollop and refused to arrange any further meetings. His father shrugged his shoulders and his mother blamed the greedy, ever-present blondes for spoiling her son’s taste. And then we began dating. It had to be behind our folks’ backs, because we both knew how the system worked. We would be allowed to go out for a few weeks, maybe months, and then a decision would have to be made. (Obviously, a few visits to the cinema and a couple of shared pizzas were more than enough to know whether you wanted to spend the rest of your days with this person.)
So we did all the usual things with unusual intensity: he brushed up my Punjabi, I ironed out his caveman edges and we almost stopped being surprised by how the same we were. He screwed money out of dark corners, I screwed people for stories on windy doorsteps; we loathed each other’s jobs but screwing each other made us equal. We would compare carpet burns, kiss each other’s bites better, revel in the blessed release of finding someone with whom we could play every role, mother, father, daughter, son, and maybe exorcize their power. Conceived in collusion, conducted in secrecy, played out in passion. Inevitable. Inevitable we would burn each other up and out, too alike to be happy, too alike to break up. And it was the inevitability, this feeling of being pulled along by some huge old energy until I fell neatly into my pre-ordained place that made me stop. I knew what would happen: we’d buy a house and become our parents. Like I said, scratch the surface . . . I got wise to what I’d become with him and I made myself move on. And let Chila move in.
So I’ve almost finished filming. I thought I’d do a solo interview with Sunny, to cut in with the one she did with Akash. And then it will be me, Chila and, somewhere in the background, Deepak. I’m not sleeping too well. I close my eyes and see close ups and jump cuts. I will myself to fade out and credits but get distracted by Martin’s gentle breathing next to me. He sleeps like a little boy, limbs akimbo and furry snuffles. But lately, when he’s turned to snuggle into me, I back away. We haven’t talked about this (I’m guessing he’s put it down to pressure of work and possibly, he’s right), but it’s as if something else is in the bed with us. Ghosts on the pillow. I love him intensely when he’s asleep – big blond giant, Viking of my heart – grateful that he’s different enough to free me from my past. I can’t tell him any of this when we’re awake. He wouldn’t understand. Sometimes, you just get weary with having to explain yourself all the time. And sometimes, the fact that he will never understand is perfect.
4
BACK IN VICTORIAN times, the building used to be a workhouse, the largest in the East End of London. The wrought-iron gates enclosing the courtyard were, even then, black with age, rust gathering in the curlicues and half-moons of their intricate fretwork. The stone steps were pitted and yellow, like old man skin, maybe bearing the indentations of unwanted bandage-wrapped babes, thrown on the mercy of the state, no-name no-history children, baptized by abandonment to start all over again.
Fittingly, it then became a Jewish-owned warehouse; three generations of the Offenbachs lived on the premises, leaving Eastern Europe the moment they detected a sniff of sulphur gathering in the air. Bubby Offenbach would sit among the bolts and bales of material, shouting the news to his neighbour across the road, lamenting how the children forgot the synagogue to frequent dance halls with ear-crashing music, wondering if the gates would withstand another kicking from those passing men in black. His grandson took the decision to relocate the remaining brood to Woodford, now that they could buy a house as big as the warehouse itself. He knew instinctively that any roots the family put down would only ever be in shallow soil, so why the sentimentality all of a sudden? He explained to Bubby they would be living cheek by jowl with all his old friends (as near as a sweeping driveway and swimming pool would allow). Relocating the ghetto was all it was, and now their gates were higher and pulsing with deadly current, they could all get a good night’s sleep. All the same, Bubby wept a few hot tears, as many as his lint-laden lungs would permit, when the Offenbach Brothers sign went down, and the Wahaab Brothers sign went up.
Imran Wahaab once enjoyed watching the flimsy clouds float past the golden dome of the newly built mosque, inhaling the familiar chillied aromas ascending from the restaurants below him. But somewhere in the Seventies, the steel shutters had to go up. The old gates creaked and groaned like his joints, moaning at the battering they received from objects lobbed by drive-by bullet-headed men, and graffiti was so tiresome to remove from his windows. He worried because now he could not check which way Jamila and Aftab went to school. There were too many diversions along the way. They came home with too many secrets in their school bags.
But gradually, as his eyesight began failing and his children had children, a wonderful and strange thing happened: the poky café-dhabas, populated by huddles of chain-smoking old men, acquired large plate windows and eye-scorching neon signs. The old men were ousted by young white people in scruffy clothes, who gratefully ate the same food at ten times the original prices and marvelled loudly at its good value. Buildings previously housing battalions of nimble-fingered women became music stores, supermarkets, boutiques, bars; reinforced glass and welded metal were replaced by open shop fronts, pavement tables, light and airy ceilings. Streets were rechristened with names like Imran’s, and bilingual road signs appeared, thirty years after they were really needed.
How odd, he reflected, so much time and concrete spent keeping the world at bay, and now the world comes smiling and spending to us. So in 1992, Imran Wahaab took down his steel shutters. And in 1998, he sold his business premises to a young Bengali man who did not look like the entrepreneur he claimed to be – too much gel in the hair, too flashy a car to be decent – but who paid, like all the building’s previous owners, in crisp, fresh notes. Two months after the sale, Imran cashed in all his policies and finally retired back to Dacca, where he spent hours in the garden of his modest bungalow, tending a plot of blood-red brilliant geraniums.
The Buzz Bar was already heaving by the time Chila arrived with her party in tow. The repainted iron gates were festooned with blinking fairy lights and the courtyard fringed with lush palms in earthenware village pots. The space had been stripped to its bare essentials: whitewash over bumpy brick walls, exposed timbers, a concrete floor covered with rush matting and khelim rugs, and up near the rafters, at regular intervals, small painted green lizards with permanently surprised expressions.
‘Goodness,’ murmured Chandni in Chila’s ear, ‘he’s spent all this money making it look like my deaf uncle’s village!’
‘Better not visit the bathroom tonight, girls,’ giggled Leila. ‘I for one don’t fancy squatting over a hole after dinner.’
‘Apparently it’s the fashion,’ Chila ventured, joining the long queue in the doorway. ‘What’s it called, jaan, the rusty look?’
‘Rustic,’ replied Deepak with a smile, kissing her head fondly.
‘Oh, I knew that, sweetie,’ Leila snapped back. ‘It’s just that they’re going too far now. I mean soon it will go full circle. We will be over here travelling by rickshaw, wearing some awful cheesecloth monstrosity, and the Indian villagers will all look like people from American soap operas.’
Asif’s voice cut into the women’s chatter. ‘That’s happening already, yaar. Why do you think I bought all those shares in Star satellite? Murdoch’s filling his airtime with wall-to-wall USA imports. In some places, the people don’t have running water, but they do know who’s sleeping with who in Days of our Lives.’
Chila tugged subtly on Deepak’s sleeve. He answered her before she’d opened her mouth. ‘It’s an American soap drama, sweetheart.’
‘We don’t get that one on our cable box,’ Chi
la whispered.
‘Well,’ Deepak whispered back, ‘we’ll just have to get you a bigger box then, eh?’ and patted her hand.
They finally squeezed into the bar, immediately confronted by waiters dressed as bearers offering cocktails on raffia trays and pakore artfully arranged on banana leaves. Three large video screens suspended by saris hung from the ceiling, showing a collage of black and white Hindi movie numbers, kitsch Indian ads, and pop videos from the latest Asian underground bands.
‘My God,’ Manju said, ‘is that what your film is going to be shown on, Chila?’
Chila realized that each screen took up almost a whole wall and her bowels suddenly liquidized inside her.
‘Your face is going to be sooo big,’ breathed Chandni, wondering if her recent surgery would withstand such close scrutiny. At least the trim and tuck she had done down below wouldn’t be obvious to anyone else. Nature was drying her up, from the inside out, and she knew her husband had noticed. Of course it was worth every penny of his hard-earned cash, but even so, her womb contracted sharply with every step. The gold stilettos had definitely been a mistake.
‘Well, that is stardom, surely,’ chuckled Asif as he grabbed a drink off a passing tray. ‘To be up there, everyone watching you! How does it feel, Chila?’
Chila couldn’t think of anything to do except shrug her shoulders and dig her fingernails into Deepak’s arm.
‘I think you’ll have to talk to her agent to get a quote on that,’ Deepak said, making the women whoop in delight.