Marriage Material

by Sathnam Sanghera

  She ran to the counter to find a man standing in the middle of the shop, smiling broadly and bearing a large briefcase. A sales rep. One of the balding, itinerant, middle-aged white men in shiny suits, hyping goods under the pretence of retail ‘advice’ who were a blight upon shop life. But this rep was not typical. He was young – about twenty-one. He was dressed in a long polo coat, tied at the waist with a sash. His extravagant blond hairdo must have required the use of a dryer and hairspray that morning, and when he spoke, he did not do so in a Black Country drawl, but in a sing-song Irish lilt.

  ‘All right, love. James O’Connor.’ He held out his hand. ‘Call me Jim. What’s yer name?’

  Actually, what he said, as a result of a slight stutter, was, ‘All right love. James O’Connor. Call me Jim. What’s yer n-name?’

  Surinder, unused to unsupervised contact with male strangers, resisted eye contact and whispered a reply.

  ‘Sue-rinder, did you say?’ he asked, his fringe flopping above his blue eyes. ‘That’s a nice name.’

  Was it? She had never thought about it, beyond being grateful that she had not been named ‘Kamaljit’. She blushed and felt self-conscious about her lack of make-up, her unbrushed hair, her Indian clothes.

  ‘I’ve got an appointment to see Mr Bains at 1.20.’

  He meant Tanvir Banga. But the mistake was so common that even Mrs Bains didn’t bother correcting it any more.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ replied Surinder, her chuni slipping down the back of her head and down her neck. ‘They’ve all gone out for a while. Should be back soon.’ She glanced at the electric clock above the front door, its second hand rotating smoothly around its face, the one thing in the house that moved without making a racket. ‘In about an hour.’

  ‘They involved in the havoc up the road? Quite a crowd, TV cameras and everything. It’s like the Queen is visiting or something.’

  The analogy was a good one. The last time there had been such mayhem in Blakenfields it had been sparked by a passing visit from the Duke of Edinburgh. But while her mother’s enthusiasm to join the crowds was joked away that time, with her husband teasing Mrs Bains that she clearly identified with the Queen, and Surinder amusing the household by pointing out the other parallels between royal and Punjabi life (the predisposition to living as an extended family in a house together, the cohabitation with parents after marriage, the preference for arranged marriages, etc.), this was insane.

  Surinder rolled her eyes and explained, suddenly finding an outlet for her frustration. She intended to make just one point: that the whole thing was pointless given that the Transport Committee was only running the buses on a caretaker basis until the new West Midlands Passenger Authority formally took over. But after she had mentioned this, she thought she might as well emphasise the hypocrisy of the fact that Dhanda, the man in charge of the protest, did not even wear a turban. Then she pointed out that Mr Dhanda and Mr Jolly were more interested in how the dispute played in the Punjab than in Britain, regardless of the consequences for Sikhs living in Britain; that 90 per cent of the male Sikh community were clean-shaven and had given up the turban, and Sikh women didn’t wear turbans at all, so it could hardly be said, as was being claimed, to be a community or a human rights issue; and that the turban was actually, in her view, the least relevant tenets of the Sikh faith.

  ‘Basically, they’re reducing a whole religion to a dress code,’ she concluded.

  O’Connor looked taken aback, and when he laughed, Surinder realised she might have overdone it. ‘I’m guessin’ you’re not on their side then?’ He put a hand on the counter. ‘I don’t see why they shouldn’t just let people wear what they want. Where I come from, everyone looks the same. Never know who is going to be behind the door here.’ He looked at her in a way she had not been looked at before. ‘Sometimes you get some pleasant surprises.’

  Surinder was not sure what she was more taken aback by – the idea of a white person supporting the turban campaign, that he had ignored her arguments entirely, or the compliment. As she reeled, he launched into a frankly circuitous account of how he had ended up in the town. The story went that he had been hired by his employer some six months earlier, as a sales rep, beating some 500 applicants for one of five jobs; he wanted to work in London, where he lived and where there was real money to be made, but before being given a patch he had to spend several months working across the company, including standing in as a relief rep in various parts of the country; he had spent the previous week in Birmingham and returned home at the weekend only to be told he had to get on the train again to spend this week in Wolverhampton.

  ‘Sorry, going on, ain’t I? It’s being on the road all by yourself so long.’

  Surinder nodded sympathetically, feeling better about her own turban digression, but in the process triggered another lengthy speech, this time about Black Country nightspots, in particular the Catacombs nightclub, which he had visited the night before, and where the music and dancing was taken so seriously that for the most part men and women ignored each other.

  ‘You been?’

  ‘Not my kind of place,’ Surinder replied, failing to add that nothing was her kind of place unless it was the shop, the temple or, at a push, school.

  O’Connor finally recalled the point of his visit.

  ‘Don’t suppose Mr Bains left a cheque? He’s due a payment. Or left any empty tins for collection?’

  Surinder glanced at the sheaf of papers lying next to the till, at least fifty sheets thick, containing an assortment of letters and bills, organised according to a system comprehended only by Tanvir. There was no chance of finding anything in it, but she offered to search around for the used sweet tins. On returning with three, having taken the opportunity to fix her hair in front of a mirror while doing so, she found that O’Connor had let himself behind the counter and was rearranging the sweets and chocolates in the glass cabinet. This was something all the reps tried to do – they called it ‘merchandising’, rearranging displays to give their products prominence and thereby boosting potential commission. But most weren’t so brazen.

  ‘Ahem,’ she coughed.

  ‘Just tidying up,’ he laughed.

  ‘You’d better put everything back exactly as you found it.’ She imitated her mother’s tone of voice. ‘I will never hear the end of it.’

  O’Connor did as he was told, thanking Surinder sheepishly for the tins, remarking on the layout of the shop as he did so, saying they really should consider altering it, selling newspapers through a window hatch was very old-fashioned, there was no logic to the confectionary displays at all; and then, back on the other side of the counter, he lifted up his briefcase, plonked it on to the counter, unclicked the locks and turned it around so that Surinder could examine the contents.

  It was a surprise to find it contained not a single file or document or piece of foolscap. Instead, rows and stacks of neatly arranged chocolate. On one side, bars and brands she recognised. On the other, samples wrapped in anonymous coloured foil. The whole thing was lined with silk and reminded her of the chocolate boxes she had played with as a child. She was rarely allowed at the contents, but if you ran your fingers across the insides, and drew in the aromas, you could almost replicate the experience of eating chocolate. O’Connor pulled out two small bars wrapped in red foil and waved them at Surinder.

  ‘Want to try our new brand? This stuff is still in d-development. You’ll be among the first in the world to taste it.’

  Surinder arched an eyebrow, sceptically, and glanced at the shop door. She fancied the chocolate, but felt uneasy at the same time. It didn’t take much to become talked about on Victoria Road. Smiling when giving a member of the opposite sex directions, or not covering your head as you served a male customer, was enough to be viewed as evidence of an affair. Nowadays her mother didn’t even stand for her talking to the paper boys. Besides, these reps, spending week nights in local hotels, partaking of too many cafe lunches, were famed for their ability
to get shop owners to order stock they didn’t need. Tanvir was forever complaining that if you ordered fifteen of something they would encourage you to take twenty; if twenty-five, they would suggest thirty. It was the reason Bains Stores was still flogging Christmas boxes of chocolate even though it was Easter.

  ‘Like I said, I’m not in charge here. You’ll have to come back.’

  ‘I’d worked that out, love. Just need to practise my sales patter, don’t I? How will I ever get better if I don’t practise?’

  She glanced at the clock. ‘All right, but be quick.’ She wanted to add, ‘before someone comes in’. But instead, gesturing at her textbooks, she said, ‘I’ve got to get back to my work.’

  Jim handed over one of the chocolate bars. ‘Now, let me get this right.’ It was unclear whether he was addressing her or talking to himself. ‘The thing is, I am not meant to give the customer the chocolate immediately. It is important to create a sense of theatre. So if you were a customer . . .’

  ‘. . . which I’m not . . .’

  ‘. . . which we have established you are not, I would say, “I want you to try my chocolate”, and then I would unpeel the chocolate like this.’ He unwrapped the foil in one smooth movement, not leaving any of the paper stuck on the bar. It was a neat trick. Unlike the chocolate in the jars that lined the walls of the shop, it was smooth and unblemished. No sign of dustiness or ashy-whiteness. ‘And then I would cut off a piece with this.’ He produced a small knife from another compartment of the briefcase. ‘And then I would present the whole thing to you on one of these tiles with a flourish.’ He put on a theatrical voice. ‘Would you like to try my new chocolate, young lady?’

  ‘Yes please, Mr O’Connor,’ repeated Surinder, playing along at shop.

  ‘BUT,’ he said. ‘You are not meant to eat it straight away. You see, taste isn’t actually the only sense that matters when it comes to flavour. Do you know which other sense is important?’

  ‘Smell,’ responded Surinder immediately, reciting a passage from the book she had been memorising the day before. ‘As you chew, you’re forcing air through your nasal passages, carrying the smell of masticated food along with it. Without the interplay of taste and smell, humans wouldn’t be able to grasp complex flavours.’

  ‘Proper swot, ain’t we?’

  He looked impressed, broke off the corner of his piece of chocolate, rubbed it between his thumb and index finger until it softened and held his finger under her nose. Surinder closed her eyes and drew in the rich aromas of vanilla and cinnamon. Behind them, the scent of O’Connor’s citrusy cologne. Taking another piece of chocolate, and putting it into her mouth, she pushed the melting chocolate around with her tongue.

  ‘Mmmm,’ she hummed in appreciation. ‘Are those raisins?’

  ‘Yes. And can you work out what the raisins taste of?’

  She took another bite, rolled the chocolate around until it coated her tongue, and after a while guessed, ‘Coke?’

  ‘Not quite. It’s something people sometimes have with Coke though. No? You should also be able to taste rum. You’re sampling our next brand, Old Kingston, a special blend of milk and plain chocolate with rum-flavoured raisins.’ He put on a Jamaican accent and sang an excerpt of a song which was going to be part of a forthcoming advertising campaign, but as he did so Surinder spat the chocolate she had been enjoying out into her hand.

  ‘Was my singing that b-bad?’ he laughed, offering a handkerchief.

  ‘I’m not allowed to drink,’ explained Surinder, between coughs.

  ‘Hahaha. Don’t worry, you won’t get drunk.’

  Surinder hacked into the handkerchief. ‘It’s against my religion to drink.’

  ‘Oh.’ He handed her an information sheet which showed the ingredients. ‘Actually, it doesn’t really contain rum. Just flavourings. Look.’ He handed her the wrapping and as Surinder examined the list of ingredients he launched into yet another rambling story, this time about a club in Blackpool which apparently hosted fantastic Northern Soul nights, despite having a policy of serving no alcohol whatsoever. ‘I take it I have failed in my sales pitch then?’

  Surinder wiped the corners of her mouth, feeling intense embarrassment. ‘Yeah. You get two out of ten.’

  ‘TWO!’

  He looked crestfallen. Or he pretended to.

  Not looking her in the eye, he added, ‘That’s a shame because I’d give you nine. At least.’

  The remark hung between them, and then the shop bell tinkled.

  Surinder’s tone and posture changed in an instant. ‘Tanvir will want to see written proof of the order before he agrees to payment,’ she pronounced formally, making eye contact with the customer who had just entered.

  O’Connor seemed unsettled for a moment, but got the message. ‘Of course,’ he said as Surinder busied herself with fetching some Cheddar for Mrs Gill. ‘If you could let Mr Bains know to send money by post it would be appreciated.’

  As Jim shut the door behind him, a draught shot through the house and made it slam loudly against the frame. Surinder fretted briefly that the noise might have woken her father. But there was no need to worry. He couldn’t have been more oblivious. Having heard his daughter laughing and joking with a male stranger, he had tried to get up out of bed to make his presence felt, and in the process of doing so had tripped and smashed his head against the floor.

  Mr Bains wasn’t to the forefront of anyone’s mind when Tanvir, Kamaljit and Mrs Bains returned from the rally. There were more pertinent matters to discuss and dissect, such as the fact that the local paper had sent a photographer and a reporter, and that a television documentary camera crew had appeared to film the entire thing. The journalists were mainly interested in Mr Jolly, but the photographer had taken pictures of the Bains Stores contingent, and Tanvir had, in his beard and turban, been approached to give his views, to Dhanda’s visible irritation.

  ‘And what did they ask you, Tanvir?’ asked Surinder, still high from her encounter with O’Connor. ‘I do hope you told them about your lifelong devotion to the religious symbol of the turban.’

  Tanvir noted the change in Surinder’s mood – she was being as playful as she had been prickly before – but missed the sarcasm. ‘They wanted to know what the Transport Department should do if other groups made similar demands to the Sikhs. You know . . .’ Tanvir made an attempt at his interviewer’s BBC English. ‘What should the Transport Department do if a Turkish member of staff decided he suddenly wanted to wear a fez to work?’

  ‘Was he Welsh?’ teased Surinder, mocking Tanvir’s impression.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just joking. And what did you say?’

  ‘I said, “well, what is a fez?”’ Laughter. ‘And then I said, “The turban is more than hat. For Sikhs, it is who they is. In the last Two World War, thousands of turban-Sikhs fight, with no other protection but turban. It is impotent to them. Very impotent.”’ Surinder suppressed a giggle. Kamaljit, only half following the account, beamed with something resembling pride. Tanvir continued. ‘They said I was very good. Very artic-ka-lute.’

  Tanvir smiled, although he had made a mental note to look up ‘artic-ka-lute’ in his dictionary later and he was still grinning as he took his position behind the counter. And it was after he had re-enacted his TV interview for half a dozen customers, and after Mrs Bains had wondered out loud for the third time if the picture would make that evening’s newspaper, that she went to check on Mr Bains. And it was only after her scream had ricocheted around the shop, after Surinder had called an ambulance, and after Kamaljit had accompanied her parents to the hospital, that Surinder was asked if she had checked on her father.

  ‘Did you go up to look?’ enquired Tanvir as they sat in silence in the kitchen together. The evening paper had arrived, but no one had bothered to check it for Tanvir’s appearance. The saucepan of tea Surinder had brewed, more out of a need to do something with her hands than for reasons of thirst, remained undrunk.

  ‘
Yes,’ lied Surinder, aware that for the previous two years Mr Bains had not been left alone for more than twenty minutes, and yet, distracted by O’Connor, and then daydreaming about it afterwards, she had not checked on him for nearly an hour. ‘Of course I did. I looked in on him three or four times. He was fast asleep. Do you think he’ll be OK?’

  Tanvir evaluated the little evidence that was available. Namely, the diligence with which the ambulance attendant had wiped his feet on the mat as he entered, and the leisureliness with which Mr Bains was taken into the ambulance, encased in ambulance-service blankets. There were no sirens as the ambulance left. It all suggested the medics were not in a rush, which implied, in turn, that Mr Bains couldn’t have been too unwell. ‘I think they would have been in more of a hurry if he was in trouble.’

  ‘Yes. They would have used the siren, right?’ Surinder felt reassured. And guilty about having teased Tanvir earlier. And sick at the idea that her father might contradict her when he returned.

  ‘He’ll be fine.’

  ‘Yes, he’ll be fine.’

  A long pause. The house had never been so quiet.

  He wasn’t fine.

  6 – COMBAT

  THERE WAS NO shortage of surreal things about the English riots of 2011. The sudden but complete collapse of law and order. Scenes in London not witnessed since the Blitz. The strange way events seemed to confirm everyone’s view of the world, whether it was that the police forces of Great Britain had become emasculated as a result of political correctness, or that the underclass, for too long ignored and sidelined, had decided to take revenge on mainstream society.

  But the thing I remember most clearly was the geographical dislocation of it all. I was in Wolverhampton when rioting broke out in London that weekend, helping Mum with the shop, completely failing to get around to the ‘chat’ I had promised to have about her future, and I remember watching images of a bus on fire on a London street. Our flat was miles away from the scene, and Freya and I still hadn’t made up, but my instinctive reaction was to call her to check she was OK.