‘That shop is waste. You need to get out of it.’
‘I know! That’s why I’ve come back. But how do I do that when my mother doesn’t want to quit?’
‘Why don’t you ask your massi to help.’
‘Massi?’
‘Your mum’s li’l sister, innit.’
I looked into his pupils to check he wasn’t stoned. Or rather, to check he wasn’t more stoned than usual.
‘The one who died in a car accident, you mean?’
‘Not what I heard.’ He sipped his drink. ‘Might be around still.’
With that he burped out loud, glanced at my thin arms and made another point that was beginning to make sense to me. ‘You really should think about doing some weights. Get hench, man. Truss.’
9 – JACKIE
THE MOP HANDLE, on reflection, probably has more in tune with the prosaic nature of shop defence than the ninja star or the samurai sword. At least, Tanvir’s self-defence weapon of choice, in his early days of shopkeeping, was a pound of keys on a heavy chain. Meanwhile, when, one evening in the winter of 1969, a young man in a cream raincoat and blue velvet trousers ran into the shop, slipped in his snakeskin shoes and went sliding across the floor into the crisps rack, Mrs Bains reached, instinctively, for a bottle of Stanley’s Oven Cleaner.
‘No!’ protested Jim O’Connor, holding his left hand up in semi-surrender. ‘Not in my face!’ He was bleeding, but it was difficult to tell where he was bleeding from. ‘Boys. Breaking into your car. Your van. Outside shop.’ He made a gesture which was meant to mimic steering but actually made him look like he was pulling a toilet chain. ‘I saved your van!’
Mrs Bains got the gist from his hand actions. It took a certain amount of imaginative effort to get your head around the notion of a gora defending an Asian property, but the story was in all other respects commonplace. Paki-bashing was becoming such a casual pastime for white youths that Dhanda was encouraging the Indian Workers’ Association, or the Wolverhampton Council for Racial Harmony, or whichever activist organisation he was currently courting, to form vigilante groups and self-defence committees in response. The shop’s van had been vandalised so often that the garage owner next door would joke that they may as well leave it with him permanently.
‘You’re putting the van into vandalised,’ he would laugh when he saw Tanvir getting behind the wheel.
‘Haha,’ Tanvir would laugh back. ‘Jes. The van into vandalised.’
Mrs Bains kneeled over the injured salesman, emitted a plaintive ‘hai’ and, muttering out loud about how human civilisation was degenerating and entering the age of kaliyug, she took her ever-versatile chuni and began wrapping it around his injured hand. She hollered out for Tanvir as she did so. ‘Bangooo! Oi, Bangoooooooooo!’
Tanvir Banga heard the call. In truth, there were people in parts of West Bromwich who probably heard it. He pulled out those aforementioned keys on a chain, and as he came running up from the stockroom in the basement, instinctively grabbed something else that might work as a weapon: a large cooking spoon. But he dropped both on seeing O’Connor on the floor, working out from his suit, briefcase and demeanour who he was and what might have just happened.
‘Police,’ he shouted. ‘I will call police.’
‘No, p-please,’ responded O’Connor from the floor.
‘Yes, police, I call now.’
‘No. I said “please”.’ He waved the hand that was now wrapped in turquoise chiffon. ‘No real damage.’
It was not a point that Tanvir was keen to argue. Everyone knew if you were black or Asian you could not trust the authorities to take your side. However, Mrs Bains insisted something had to be done for this brave gora, and, with several customers now waiting to be served and several others gawping on, she suspended her instinctive distrust of the whites, and her habitual concern in shielding her daughters from unsupervised contact with young unmarried men, and insisted the two girls, who were preparing pakoras in the kitchen for the occasion of Tanvir’s birthday, look after him. Mr O’Connor would not be able to leave without first being cleaned up and fed; a friend of the shop was a friend of the family; one never knew when God was visiting in disguise; etc.
As for Kamaljit and Surinder, they would not have been more startled if their mother had walked into the kitchen with a Shetland pony. Kamaljit simply because she could not ever recall seeing a white person, let alone a white man, in the family’s living quarters before. Surinder, meanwhile, had wiped O’Connor from her head and from her heart, out of a combination of shame and guilt, after her father’s death. His reappearance more than six months later triggered a maelstrom of emotions: squeamishness at the sight of his visible injuries (so much for the career in nursing); panic at the idea that he might betray that they had previously met and, more pertinently, when they had met; confusion over the fact that he seemed much taller and paler than she remembered; desire at the sight of those blue eyes; and then acute self-consciousness at the possibility of conveying any of these feelings. She didn’t know what to say or what to do, even whether she should cover her head as she did with Indian men.
‘Don’t just stand there like donkeys,’ bellowed Mrs Bains. ‘Can’t you see this poor man has been injured? He took on half a dozen boys outside the shop by himself!’ The story was already being amplified out of all proportion and recognition. ‘Get him some tea and food, get his hand cleaned up and sort out his coat. I’ve got to get back to the shop.’ She clapped twice. ‘Jaldi jaldi!’
The girls got to it, Kamaljit preparing food and drink, Surinder removing her apron and retrieving something that resembled a first-aid box from next to the TV in the living room. She returned to the kitchen, where she helped him remove his raincoat, unravelled her mother’s impromptu bandage at the kitchen table and applied antiseptic to his cuts and grazes. O’Connor explained what had happened as she toiled. He was doing his rounds, walking down Victoria Road, making his way to Bains Stores, his sixth meeting of the day, when he spotted some youths hacking at the tyres of the Bains’ van. He remonstrated. They swore at him. And when he returned the volley of abuse, one came up and punched him in the face.
Surinder gasped, and translated the most dramatic elements of the story for her sister’s benefit. But Jim reassured his audience that he had retaliated immediately, connecting on his first attempt. If it had been one or two of them, he could have had them. But it was three versus one, and before he knew it, he had been tripped over, falling over awkwardly on his hand, and by the time he got up, the youths had, after hurling various remarks too offensive to repeat to young women, legged it.
Surinder’s heart beat hard in appreciation and, in spite of herself, an entire relationship with Jim flashed past her eyes in the form of a Jackie magazine cartoon strip. Here they were skating together, her saying ‘Oh, I’m going to fall’ and Jim responding ‘No, you won’t, I’m holding you.’ Here they were in straw hats at the seaside, Jim saying ‘THAT HAT SUITS YOU!’, Surinder replying ‘SO DOES YOURS!’ The pleasure of the fantasy interspersed with a hundred pleasurable questions. Was he in town as a relief rep? Was he back in Wolverhampton for good? But all she could actually manage to say was ‘Does it hurt?’
‘I think it’s fine. It will just be annoying if I can’t pick up my briefcase, or write.’
‘Oh,’ replied Surinder, struggling not to gush. ‘Do you write?’
‘For work. Poetry and prose when I get time. But, you know, when you read a great writer like, say, Thomas Hardy, you just want to sling everything you’ve done in a fire.’
A-level study had rather put her off Hardy, but Surinder often felt the same about her creative efforts in relation to writers like George Eliot and Arnold Bennett, and if her sister hadn’t been there, she might have exclaimed in delight. Instead, she concentrated as hard as possible on fastening Jim’s bandage with a safety pin. He squirmed as she did so, and squirmed even more when Kamaljit, holding a cup up to his lips, encouraged him to take a sip of hot te
a.
‘Too hot?’ asked Surinder.
O’Connor shook his head.
‘Too milky?’ asked Surinder. Everyone knew the goras boiled their tea in water rather than milk.
O’Connor indicated no again, struggling to swallow.
‘Ah, it will be the saunf then.’ Both girls laughed at the memory of being force-fed the concoction as children. They grew up dreading it more than illness itself. ‘It’s a mixture of herbs added to tea,’ explained Surinder, playing along at nurse. ‘I’m not sure what you call it in English. Cardamom? Fennel?’ For some reason she glanced at Kamaljit for an answer. None came. ‘Anyway, it will make you feel better.’
The pakoras weren’t such a struggle: Kamaljit threw several fresh ones into the pan of oil and O’Connor polished off two in quick succession. And as Surinder started brushing his raincoat clean of mud, discovering a paperback edition of The Mayor of Casterbridge in the inside pocket as she did so, he regaled the girls with an account of his morning before it was ruined by thugs, acting out bits for Kamaljit’s benefit. He had visited a sweet shop in the town centre which also functioned as a bicycle accessories shop, and where bars of chocolates were displayed alongside canisters of 3-in-One Oil; an old lady on the other side of town, who bought branded chocolate in large quantities, only to unwrap it all, break it up and sell it in jars, insisting it tasted better that way; and then an Italian who couldn’t pronounce any brand names and was almost impossible to make any sense of. O’Connor did an impression of the man, gesticulating wildly, getting overemotional as he talked about ‘da family’ and the glory of his homeland. ‘Zis chocolate eees good. But zee chocolate in Italia is fackin’ great!’
The girls giggled along giddily, Surinder at the accent and the risqué cursing, Kamaljit at the slapstick actions.
‘Some characters in this town,’ Jim continued. ‘Though I hope all my days here are not going to be so eventful.’
Surinder suppressed another gasp. So, he was going to be around for a while! And O’Connor was just remarking on what a nice laugh the sisters shared, how pretty they both were, making sure not to compliment one more than the other, when Tanvir strode into the room. He appeared with his hands clasped behind his back, like a member of royalty inspecting a line of foot guards, bolt upright, as if he had Mrs Bains’ umbrella stuck down the back of his shirt. His pristine turban, which he spent half an hour tying each morning, using a knitting needle to push stray hairs underneath the material, and beard, which he smoothed down with mustard oil, were by now the wonder of Victoria Road.
‘Kamaljit,’ he said in English. ‘Come, come. We need hand in shop.’
Surinder cringed at his English and his accent. Her pet hate at the moment was the way he greeted male customers with the remark ‘Good morning, gentleman,’ when it was often the afternoon, and when he actually meant ‘sir’.
‘Oh,’ responded Kamaljit. ‘Give me a minute.’
She cleared up the food and the tea and dishes and left Surinder and Jim in the kitchen together. There followed two short conversations in two parts of the shop between the two men and two women, which, even if you ran them end to end, would amount to no more than a minute, and which, even if you were nearby, you would have struggled to follow. But the quietest, shortest exchanges are not necessarily the least significant.
In the kitchen, Surinder and Jim alone.
Jim (whispering): ‘Is he all right? He looked a bit off.’
Surinder: ‘Don’t worry about him. He’s always a bit off.’
Jim: ‘As long as it wasn’t something I said.’
Surinder: ‘Really, there is no problem.’
Jim (a hand on her arm): ‘It’s nice to see you again, after so long, Sue.’
Surinder (pulling away): ‘. . .’
Jim: ‘I came back to the shop a few weeks after we met. But there was no sign of you. Just your brother.’
Surinder: ‘He’s not my brother. He works for the family. My father died.’
Jim: ‘Oh. I’m so sorry.’ (Averting eyes) ‘I wanted a patch in London, but when Wolverhampton came up, I thought I’d take it.’ (Pause) ‘I was wondering if I could take you to d-dinner one day?’
Surinder (blushing): ‘I’m not really allowed to go out in the evenings.’
Jim: ‘Could I take you to lunch then?’
Surinder: ‘I’m at school at lunchtime.’
Jim (boldly): ‘Breakfast?’
Surinder (firmly): ‘I’m not allowed to see boys at any time of day.’
Jim: ‘So which school are you at anyway?’
Surinder (whispering): ‘I don’t think I should tell you.’
Jim: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll work it out.’
Meanwhile, in the shopfront, Tanvir is serving a customer, Mrs Bains is cleaning the floor where O’Connor slipped and Kamaljit has to step over a rivulet of foam as she walks towards the counter.
Kamaljit (to Tanvir): ‘So?’
Tanvir (to the customer, brightly, in English): ‘Thank you very much, gentleman. Hope you’re enjoying the weather.’
Customer (reaching for a wet umbrella): ‘Hardly.’
Kamaljit (to Tanvir): ‘And?’
Tanvir: ‘What?’
Kamaljit: ‘You said I was needed?’
Tanvir: ‘Did I?’ (Straightens boxes on the counter) ‘Oh yes. The moment has passed. I’m sorry for dragging you away from that gora.’ (Bitterly) ‘You sounded like you were having such fun.’
Kamaljit (glancing at her mother): ‘What?’
Tanvir (still straightening the boxes): ‘You heard what I said.’
Kamaljit (whispering): ‘I was just doing what my mother asked me to do. You should be ashamed of yourself for thinking anything else. Ashamed.’
It may seem rather out of character that Mrs Bains did not overhear any of this, and that she did not suspect anything was awry in the months that followed. After all, she watched her daughters like a hawk, was aware of their movements, the slightest alteration in their respective moods. But she had for months now been distracted by the task of running the shop and the all-consuming search for sons-in-law.
The response had been overwhelming, with photographs of prospective husbands arriving from as far afield as India and America, and the number of men exceeding more than two dozen. The girls were young, after all, and attractive, and had British passports. However, Mrs Bains was surprised to discover that she enjoyed no part of the matrimonial process. Marrying off her daughters should have been the pinnacle of a lifetime’s work, the satisfying conclusion of nearly two decades of nurturing and development, but she came to loathe the formal arranged-marriage tea parties which marked Sunday afternoons even more than Tanvir, who would thrash around the shop for the duration.
It did not sit easily with her to be succinct, or servile with strangers. She hated the cold physical evaluation of Kamaljit and Surinder, as they made brief appearances to serve tea – a process which, along with the awkward chit-chat, made her feel like a pimp. She lacked the ability to let people down gently or take criticism. The sheer amount of choice, meanwhile, stoked her indecision. In the first three months of the search she rejected men for failings including: not being educated enough (for Surinder); being too educated (for Kamaljit); being of ‘too pukka’ a complexion – i.e. too dark (for Surinder); having a limp; having a squiffy eye.
Though when it came to Surinder, some men could not take a hint or even no for an answer. If Mrs Bains said her daughter wanted to work, they would suddenly see the appeal of a career wife. If she said Surinder did not want to live with in-laws, they would suggest moving out. Two of the men who declined Kamaljit expressed an interest in Surinder instead. One of Surinder’s rejects appeared in the shop every day for a week afterwards, mooning about the magazine stand in the hope of catching a glimpse of his beloved. In turn, the only outright rejection Surinder received was on the grounds that ‘my son is looking for a simple girl’, the insinuation being that Surinder was complicate
d and troublesome, which in the arranged-marriage market was one of the worst things you could say about a girl. Mrs Bains did not take the feedback well.
‘What do they mean, “not simple”?’ ranted Mrs Bains at Mr Dhanda, who had turned up uninvited at Sunday lunchtime, and was hanging around the kitchen as Mrs Bains turned out paronthas. ‘They cook, they go to the temple, they work hard. No one, I tell you, no one, is more simple than my daughters.’ She brushed a square of rolled-out dough with ghee, and thrust it on to the thava. ‘But then if by simple they mean “mentally subnormal” like that boy, then it’s true.’ The edges of the parontha snapped and crackled. ‘It is true my daughters are not mentally subnormal. I tell you, that boy couldn’t even look me in the eye. Let alone his future wife. His own mother, the fiteh moon, had to tell him when to pick up a samosa, when to try some barfi. Then they say he is training to be a doctor. Leh. That boy, I tell you, is the one who needs medical attention.’
With the parontha lightly cooked, she brushed some more butter on it, browned it all over and slapped it on to a plate. Dhanda took it, without asking, and, not even waiting for it to cool down, tore off a corner, dipped it into some achar and wolfed it down. A bolt of irritation shot through Mrs Bains. Dhanda’s offer to buy the shop had been filed away and forgotten, along with all the other things she found too difficult to confront, but she had nevertheless, since Mr Bains’ passing, struggled to establish the boundaries of a relationship with her husband’s old friend. His unsolicited advice was hectoring, his omnipresence intrusive. And as she began to make some more dough for the extra paronthas she would now, inevitably, have to churn out, this feeling intensified.
‘Of course, you might be looking too far,’ said Dhanda, speaking with his mouth full, pouring himself some tea.
Marriage Material Page 13