The Handsworth Times

by Sharon Duggal

  He runs his dry fingers across the brittle scratchiness of the night’s stubble, wondering how the path of his life has swerved in this direction. He remembers his optimism and the sense of adventure felt on the boat from Bombay to Liverpool almost 22 years earlier, when a pretty, red-haired waitress singled him out from all the other young Indian men with the same Raj Kapoor hairdos and shouted, ‘Hiya Elvis,’ each time he passed her by in the canteen. When she spoke directly to him the other passengers turned and gawped, sniggering at his embarrassment as he shuffled away. Now in the cold bathroom in Church Street, the same waitress appears to him as a grainy daydream, she stands by the flaky doorway, winking flirtatiously at him with the same cocky smile across her face as when he imagines her late at night as he pushes himself into the yielding body of his wife. Mukesh shakes away the vision and begins scraping at the black shadow around his chin with a used razor. He finishes his morning ablutions by clearing his nostrils, holding each one down in turn and blowing out great globules of blood-tinged snot into the sink with the other. In the kitchen, Usha mixes Ready Brek in a bowl and gags at the sounds escaping from the flimsy door of the bathroom.

  Mukesh arrives at the factory later than usual that day, with only a few minutes to spare before the bell rings. Small groups of men gather in front of the chained gates – fathers next to sons, uncles and brothers side by side. A drone of voices fills the air and the noise seems more heightened than usual. Mukesh glances around at his colleagues, sensing the unease amongst the men but he avoids eye contact and instead wills the day to be uncomplicated. The buzz of the voices around him brings to mind the noise of the many honey-bees Kavi and Billy caught and trapped in jam-jars one summer as a game. They only released them when Mukesh insisted they do so, but by then the bees were frantic and the boys had to stand far back and throw stones to dislodge the lids or break the glass to free the creatures without getting stung. Mukesh had clipped their ears that day and the boys had sulked for hours, making him wish he’d let them be with their childish games, however cruel they were.

  Johnny Isaacs, a wide-eyed handsome man, barely beyond adolescence, stands next to Mukesh at the factory gates. He is deep in conversation with Amrit, the short, stocky shop steward, well-liked for his geniality and fairness.

  ‘They are taking the piss, man,’ Amrit says loudly. ‘We have to get all the men to join us. You have to get the Jamaicans and other West Indians to join us, Johnny, they listen to you, they knew your dad and they trust you. We all have to fight this together… once they cut the tea break they’ll be cutting dinner next. What they’re really doing is cutting wages, innit? It’s their way of doing it, thinking we won’t notice, like.’

  ‘Nah man, I don’t even drink tea, man. I ain’t bothered really, so long as there is time for a fag. Just want to hold on to the job, got a babby on the way and that you know,’ Johnny replies.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Johnny. We have to stand together or they just take the piss out of us.’

  Amrit turns to Mukesh.

  ‘What about you, Mukesh, yaar, you going to join with us? Can you survive without ten minutes for a nice little drink in the afternoon?’

  Mukesh turns and walks away, ignoring the sound of the sucking teeth behind him. He heads towards some large metal bins at the side of the factory entrance, fingering the small hip-flask in his pocket.

  ‘He needs to pull himself together or he is going to be the first out of here,’ Amrit says to Johnny.

  ‘Must be hard, man, losing your boy like that – not so easy to pull yourself together,’ says Johnny. Amrit nods.

  Amrit and Johnny are amongst a small group from the factory who had gone to Billy’s funeral. When Mukesh returned to work the day after the mourning period Johnny patted him on the back, mumbling condolences and kind words but Amrit and some of the other men avoided him, lowering their eyes when he passed by, unsure of what to say. Mukesh prefers it this way. More recently some of the men joked about his clumsiness around the machinery.

  ‘Mukesh, you smell like a pub at last orders,’ Amrit tells him one morning after pushing him into the toilets out of earshot. ‘You need a break from soldering. The men are worried you’re going to hurt yourself… get burnt, or worse still you will hurt someone else.’

  Two days later Mukesh is called into Hardiman’s office.

  ‘Assembly line, Agarwal. There’s been complaints from the men, you’re going to get hurt or hurt someone else. Can’t take the risk, like. Not with you teaching all them young ‘uns. It’ll just be temporary, mind, until you can refocus, you know what I mean, mate?’

  But Mukesh doesn’t know what he means, except that from then on he spends each day placing small metal casings over the bolts on uniform metal sheets repeatedly. He doesn’t tell Usha about the demotion.

  Mukesh unscrews the hip-flask, takes a long swig of the fiery whisky and licks the few dribbles that linger on his lips before returning the flask to his pocket. From the other side of the bins, the noise of the men rises like a wave as Hardiman’s shiny black saloon pulls up to the factory gates. Ruddy-faced, Hardiman squeezes himself out of the front passenger seat into the swarm of waiting men. Colin Boyle, an older worker at the factory, shouts out from the small crowd towards him.

  ‘We can’t work for nothing you know, Boss.’

  ‘Plenty fitter, younger men that’ll be queuing at the dole office for good jobs like these, Boyle,’ a stern voice replies. ‘I’d get to work if I were you and nip this complaining in the bud.’

  The reply is not from Hardiman but Stan Bedford, Hardiman’s brother-in-law, second-in-command at the factory and driver of the car. Hardiman and Bedford enter the building, slamming the heavy steel door behind them. The men follow them and queue like a line of ants at the entrance.

  ‘Bloody fools, all this nonsense just for tea-breaks,’ Mukesh mutters to himself before joining the clocking-in line.

  Chapter 10

  When September is at an end, Nina leaves home.

  ‘It’s university, Mom, just like you wanted.’

  Usha stares at her blankly.

  ‘I will be back most weekends, honest,’ Nina continues, and they both nod, convincing neither themselves nor each other.

  Usha reaches for her daughter’s hand and squeezes it tight, stroking the back of Nina’s soft fingers with her thumb.

  ‘Will you eat properly, beta?’ she says. ‘Promise me you will look after yourself.’

  ‘Of course I will, don’t be all daft, Mom.’

  Nina disappears towards the stairs to pick up her hold-all and rucksack. Usha breathes in the lingering scent of her daughter as she passes by and then moves towards the living room to slip on her old fashioned dogtooth coat and grab her handbag from the settee.

  ‘I can’t take a day off work for this,’ Mukesh had said earlier that morning, even though Eugene had offered them the use of his van again. ‘Already, there has been too much time off this year. They are not happy about it.’

  ‘Your son died, you didn’t go on holiday,’ Nina says loudly as her father leaves the house. He doesn’t say goodbye. ‘Well fuck you too,’ she mutters under her breath as the front door closes behind him. Outside, Mukesh leans against wall and takes in three long, slow breaths to steady himself before he moves on.

  The bus journey to Digbeth Coach Station is a slow and silent one. Usha grips Nina’s hand tight, thumb and forefinger clasped around her wrist as if the young woman is a toddler. Mother and daughter stare at the colourless day out of the dirty bus window, watching the dreary streets of Birmingham whizz by under relentless drizzle. At the station, Usha pushes money into Nina’s hand – some of which was left in an envelope marked ‘Nina’ on the table next to where Mukesh sleeps. Most of the money had been slipped to Usha previously by her own parents when they came to say goodbye to their first grandchild, telling Nina how they couldn’t be prouder of her
and gifting her a list of Hindu surnames so she could seek out others like herself at university. The rest of the money has been saved up by Usha by scrimping on food shopping so there would be more loose change from housekeeping for the jam jar, now concealed under the sink. Nina untangles herself from her mother’s embrace as Usha begins to weep.

  ‘How can empty become emptier?’ Usha mutters. She kisses her daughter’s damp hair and watches as Nina disappears around the side of the coach towards the baggage hold. Nina boards and finds a window seat. She waves at her mother through the grime-covered window and Usha waves back. Usha wipes away the tears that now flow relentlessly down her face.

  As they left the house Kamela had shouted her farewell to Nina for all the street to hear.

  ‘Escaping from the shithole – you are the lucky one. Not trapped in this nightmare anymore, clever clogs. Wish I could see the faces of those shitty teachers when they find out you’ve actually gone to university just like the posh white kids from the Grammar… this’ll show them.’

  Anila, who is standing at the door behind Kamela, simply says,

  ‘Make the most of it, Nina.’

  ‘Too bloody right I will,’ Nina replies.

  It is these words that echo in Usha’s head as she walks back through the damp towards the Bull Ring bus-stops. She blows her nose, wipes her face with the palms of her hands and strides ahead towards the bus marked Handsworth.

  Chapter 11

  One day in November, Mukesh staggers into Church Street at ten past five. It has been a long day at work with tensions building across the factory floor and Mukesh feels his head throb with the quagmire of jumbled-up conversations about tea breaks and strikes which have accelerated over the past few days and have overtaken football talk to become the main topic of conversation amongst the men. As he turns into Church Street, Mukesh fixes his mind on the bottle of whisky that is hidden behind the tea-bags and tins of boiled chickpeas in the small cupboard above the cooker. Further up the street, Kamela and Anila stand chatting in the doorway of the O’Connells’ house, directly across the street from their own. They see their father in the distance.

  ‘Shit, he is pissed again, look Kam, he’s wobbling around.’ Anila quickly passes over a half-smoked cigarette to Debbie O’Connell. ‘We better go in, he looks in a right mood. He didn’t see, did he?’

  ‘Nah, he can’t even walk straight, he isn’t going to see a fag from that far.’

  The girls slip across the road to the alleyway and enter the house through the back door, quickly disappearing up the stairs to their room. In the bedroom, Anila fiddles with the record player, placing the needle part way along the groove on the LP. She turns the volume up to full and the dum, dum dum-dum dah dah of Brand New Cadillac cranks into action, bouncing off the sloping walls and drowning out all other sounds. Anila starts dancing, hypnotised by the rhythm. She moves around the room, twisting up and down to the beat, mouthing the lyrics and singing particular words louder than others.

  … balls… daddy… ain’t coming back… cadillac…

  ‘You’re mad… this is shit,’ her sister shouts across the room as she flicks through Jackie magazine.

  Anila carries on moving and singing along to the music.

  ‘Balls to you… Big Da…’

  Suddenly, the door bursts open and slams against the frame of the bunk beds – a tiny crack appears in the white paint of the door.

  ‘Can’t you hear when your father is calling you?’

  Anila pulls the needle from the record, mumbling expletives under her breath as it scratches across the vinyl.

  ‘Sorry, we couldn’t hear you,’ says Kamela still looking at the magazine.

  ‘No one can hear anything with that bloody horrible music on,’ Mukesh says. He shouts at the two girls without looking at them. Instead he looks around the room at posters of Che Guevara, The Specials and Adam Ant which cover the walls and it is as though he has stepped into a stranger’s house. Then, without warning he lunges towards Anila and grabs her by the ear, twisting it tight until the blood runs out of it. Her face turns a deep shade of scarlet.

  ‘Get off, Dad,’ Anila screams as the pain rips through her body. ‘What you doing?’

  ‘I saw you, Anila, smoking like a dirty kuthi in the street!’

  Before she can struggle free he drags her down the flight of stairs into the bedroom where Usha stands over the bed pulling out sheets and towels from a pile of washing to fold and add to a growing stack.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, Mukesh? Have you gone mad?’ Usha shouts, dropping the linen.

  Kamela is right behind her sister, tugging at her sweatshirt and grabbing at her father’s arm, but before she can pull Anila free Mukesh has let go and is in front of Anila with a raised hand. He brings it down in a hard, sharp slap against her cheek and she lets out a tiny whimper. Then, without warning, a gush of hot urine flows through her knickers and collects in a steaming puddle on the brown carpet below her. Anila stares at the pool of liquid on the floor, transfixed by her own reflection in this putrid mirror.

  ’You drunken fool,’ Usha screams at Mukesh, ‘you have lost one child, Nina couldn’t wait to get away and now you are pushing the others away too.’ Usha puts her arms around Anila’s shoulders and leads her out of the room. Kamela follows.

  ‘Everything falling apart,’ Mukesh whispers as they leave. He sits down on the edge of the bed and covers his face with his hands. When the footsteps on the stairs fade away, he feels for the hip-flask in his pocket. He unscrews the lid and licks up the remaining few drops of whisky that he can shake into his mouth. The smell of urine begins to permeate the room and Mukesh begins to sob. He squeezes the cold metal of the empty flask until his knuckles are taut and white.

  Chapter 12

  Mukesh is sinking,’ Usha says to Brenda as they sit at the kitchen table drinking sweet, milky masala tea.

  Spring is fast approaching but the sky is the same unfaltering lead grey it has been since before the arrival of the New Year some weeks earlier and the air is still thick with winter. Snow fell ceaselessly throughout December and January, keeping the family confined to the house for most of those months. The children spent long stretches of the day in their bedrooms, reading old magazines, listening to weather updates on the radio or just lying on beds trying to keep warm under blankets. In the evenings they reconvened around the gas fire in the living room to watch unfunny sit-coms and boring period dramas, too cold to make the effort of familial communication. February is midway through and it seems as if the snow will return after only a short respite. There is a sharp, icy chill running past the two women as they chat, even though Usha has put gaffer tape around the edges of the sash window and has left a gas ring burning on the stove all morning.

  Brenda darts her eyes around the small, gloomy kitchen – it looks different, emptier perhaps. It takes a few seconds for her to realise that Usha has removed her gaudy Hindu calendar and the strange little altar of plastic garlands, miniature framed pictures of brightly-clad deities and brass bowls of sugar offerings that usually sits on a shelf above the worktop; any remaining items on the shelf are now covered over with a pink gingham tea-towel.

  ‘What do you mean, sinking?’ Brenda asks.

  ‘Drowning. I mean drowning, like he is moving his arms and legs but cannot swim.’

  ‘In grief you mean? In sadness? That’s understandable, bab, it’s only been a few months, it doesn’t just go away and people react to death in different ways.’

  ‘No Brenda, I am drowning in sadness. He is drowning in whisky.’

  A tiny stream of tea dribbles out of Brenda’s mouth, down the side of her matt pink lips and collects in a droplet on the table top. She begins to laugh, not a small giggle but a full-blown belly-laugh. Usha stares at her, fixing on her animated powdery skin and the bright pink streaks of blusher across her friend’s cheekbones. S
he touches her own face; the skin is bare except for a thin film of Ponds cream.

  ‘Sorry,’ says Brenda. ‘It’s just I had a picture of him at the Grove Lane baths with his stripy pyjamas on splashing about in the water like a sinking kitten.’

  Usha cups a hand over her own mouth as her shoulders begin to silently but rhythmically rise and fall until a rasp splutters out of her pale mouth and becomes a soft giggle, punctuated by high involuntary notes like a chirping bird. The sound spills out into air around them, warming it like an early breeze of a new spring. Eventually, Usha wipes her streaming eyes with the knuckles of her index fingers and sits back on the stiff, wooden dining chair. She catches her breath.

  ‘Not done that since school,’ says Brenda. ‘The last time was in biology when the teacher told us about the facts of life and I thought she was having us on.‘

  Usha composes herself. Her face contorts in the same way it does each morning as she opens her eyes after yet another night where Billy still exists full of life in fitful dreams and episodic bursts of sleep. After a short pause she speaks in all earnest.

  ‘I still didn’t believe these things even after I got married. It took until the third baby before I realised the connection.’

  The women laugh again together, and this time Usha doesn’t try to suppress it.

  ‘You think I am joking?’ she says. ‘I was barely a teenager when I arrived in this country and was married to Mukesh before I reached my twenties. I hardly had a chance to hear the stories that went about the playground.’

  Silence dispels the lighter air.

  ‘Anyway,’ says Brenda, ‘it’s a rollercoaster – grief. No wonder he’s drinking a lot more. We all deal with it in our own ways. It was the same when my mother died.’

  But Usha knows this isn’t true; losing a child is a very different thing to losing a parent. Brenda knows it too. The two women sip their tea quietly. After a moment Usha starts speaking again. This time the words roll out as though she can’t stop them – as though a floodgate has opened. Brenda listens, watching her friend’s face intently, gripped by the words.