‘What is your point, Joey?’
‘Look,’ says Joey proudly, pulling out a small transparent bag from his back pocket. ‘Fancy, a spliff?’
‘You’re a bit young, aren’t you? Where did you get that?’
‘Nicked it from my cousin, Tony. Don’t tell and you can share it with me.’
The two boys sit between a large tree and a crumbling brick wall and smoke the joint that Kavi prepares with Joey’s grass and Rizla papers. They smoke in silence, passing the joint from one to another until Joey speaks.
‘Your Billy was my best mate, Kavi.‘
‘He wasn’t your best mate. You just think he was now because he isn’t here anymore.’
‘I was with him that night. You know, when the riot happened.’
‘I don’t want to know,’ Kavi says, but Joey carries on speaking.
‘I mean, I didn’t see it or anything, I couldn’t have stopped it but I was with him before it happened. We were on our bikes, just messing and then we turned the corner and there was this riot and shit happening so we just went down the first road we could and then we got split up and then…’
‘I don’t want to know,’ Kavi says. He stands up but feels dizzy and sits back down.
‘I haven’t told anyone. I shouldn’t have let him go off in the dark on his own. It’s been six months or something and I haven’t told anyone.’
Kavi stands up again, this time more slowly, steadying himself on the wall as he rises.
‘Nine months!’
‘What?’
‘It’s been nine months, Joey and I don’t want to know about your shit. Who cares if you feel bad? Don’t mention our Billy again, ever. Not to me, not to anyone.’
Kavi walks away, leaving Joey smoking the remainder of the joint. He walks past a bench where an old man lies beneath a blanket of broadsheet newspaper. As he passes by the bench, a blob of grey pigeon mess drops from the sky and lands on the area of newspaper covering the man’s head. The man stirs, grunts and a ragged arm drops towards the ground.
‘What a depressing shit-hole it is out here,’ Kavi says aloud as he makes his way across the abandoned gardens and derelict houses towards Church Street and home.
‘I’m bored,’ says Anila, closing the book in front of her. ‘I can’t be arsed with exams. It all seems so pointless.’
‘You’re clever at all that school stuff, Anila. You’ll be okay. You might even get into a university or a poly like Nina and get out of this place. Not like me – one art ‘O’level and all that. I’m stuck here. Probably end up getting fixed up with some accountant from West Bromwich if I’m lucky.’
‘Give over, Kamela. Nina is right, you need to get out. You can’t stay locked in here scared of everyone. Those girls, well, don’t let them stop you from being who you are.’
‘Oh Anila, you are sweet, bab, but you haven’t really got a clue have you?’
‘Don’t be patronising, Kam. I know more than you think – and I do read books and stuff, about all sorts. I know the world isn’t as straightforward as people think. That, you know, it’s all a bit mixed up – like that Martin Degville and the weirdos that work on his stall in Oasis market and Phil Oakey, Marc Bolan and that.’ She is careful to avoid any direct reference to the moments before the attack in the underpass.
‘Is that what you think, that I’m a mixed-up weirdo? Well, if my own sister thinks that then what hope have I got around here? Leave me alone, Anila.’
‘I’m sorry, but, well, it was a shock seeing you that day. I mean it isn’t normal is it? It’s not as bad as two blokes together though, like in the Naked Civil Servant thing we saw on the telly, but it is still strange, you’ve gotta admit. I mean, what would people say?’
‘Shut up, Anila.’
Kamela sits on the edge of her bed, with her back towards Anila. Anila tries to think of something to say.
‘I’m sorry Kam, maybe I don’t understand but I can try.’
‘You’re not helping, you know?’ Kamela says, shuffling back around. ‘Don’t talk about it – it was just a mistake, a phase or something.’ Both girls go quiet. ‘Do you think I should go to the doctor?’ Kamela says after a few moments have passed.
‘The doctor – no way. He’ll tell Mom and she won’t be able to cope with that. You’ll grow out of it, Kam. They say in Sex Ed. that everything can get confused at our age – hormones and that.’
‘Suppose so… hope so! Don’t talk about it again, Anila.’
The girls return to their books and away from each other. After a minute, Anila speaks again.
‘It’s so boring since Billy died – nothing to look forward to.’
‘There wasn’t before either, remember?’
‘I know, but it has made it seem more obvious – you know, everything being a hassle, it all seems sort of, I dunno, magnified, like white people hating us all and blacks hating whites and Indians and Pakis hating each other and no jobs and stuff – it’s so boring. Bloody hell, Kamela, when you start thinking about it, it’s no wonder you and Kavi are not bothering to go out the house.’
‘Don’t take the piss, Anila.’
‘I’m not, I’m being serious. I’m sick of it all.’
‘Don’t you think enough has happened with the rioting all over the country and a war on now, and people bloody starving to death and what with Billy and Dad and the trouble at the factory and that? What else do you want to bloody happen?’
‘I’m bored of it all being miserable. I just want something to change. There’s nothing wrong with that is there?’
‘Well go and bloody change it then. Just leave me out of it. I have had enough of trying to make sense of what is going on out there, never mind in here.’
Anila replies more somberly.
‘I miss Billy. I think I see him sometimes in the street, but it always turns out to be someone else.’
‘I miss him too,’ Kamela replies softly while fiddling with the transistor radio on her bed. Ebony and Ivory crackles out from the small speaker and she turns it off again immediately. ‘Put something decent on the record player, Anila, will you? And turn it up loud!’
Chapter 16
Mukesh tumbles out of bed as he stretches his arm into the darkness to stem the loud ring of the alarm clock on the bedside cabinet. His body thuds to the floor and he knocks the side of his head against the edge of the cabinet, a glass of water topples over, cracking as it hits the surface; the cold water drips onto Mukesh’s bare arms.
‘Bloody bugger,’ he mumbles under his breath and begins to feel about in the pitch blackness under the bed. As his fingertips touch the stiff leather of his hip-flask he breathes a sigh of relief and clutches tightly on to it as he pulls it towards him.
Usha is already wide awake, even before the disturbance in the bedroom. She turns over in the bed, curls up into a small ball and squeezes her eyes tightly shut. She tries to block out the sounds of her husband fumbling around in the dark but she cannot. Mukesh pulls on his work clothes noisily, making no effort to be quiet. She waits for him to leave the room before stretching out into a more comfortable position. The room is still in the shadows and yet again the sun has failed to break through the thick, grey clouds of dawn. She lies on her back, eyes open, looking into the darkness, wishing the day to be over before it has even begun.
When he is dressed, Mukesh slips the hip-flask into his trouser pocket and heads to the bathroom, taking a swig on the way. He pauses to top up the contents from the bottle of whisky hidden deep behind the tins in the cupboard next to the cooker. After a few moments he closes the front door behind him and heads for the factory, leaving the rest of the household seemingly asleep.
The ground is covered in a coating of dew and Mukesh’s feet slip and slide beneath him. He takes another small swig of the whisky, it burns the back of his throat but does nothing to
steady his feet. His empty stomach rumbles deep and hollow and he tries to remember when he first found he needed the whisky so early in the day, when it became more necessary than a hot cup of tea in the morning or it became the first thing he thought of on waking up, but he cannot. He craves another swig before he reaches St Silas’ Square and he looks around before pulling it out of his pocket; most of his work colleagues live in these streets.
Hardiman’s is a short walk from the house but this morning, after a night of vivid dreams and fitful sleep combined with the precarious path underfoot, Mukesh is slower than usual. He stops to rest a moment, leaning against the brick wall of the nursery school on the corner of Wills Street. He pulls his jacket tight around himself and lights up a cigarette with shaky hands. As he walks, images of the previous night’s dreams invade his mind, appearing and disappearing like flickers on the television. The dreams are all of his children: Billy’s face is that of the burning boy, flames melting his flesh like candle wax; Nina is running down a busy road, dodging traffic, without so much as a backwards glance; Kamela lays in a pool of her own crimson blood, her face in shreds like torn fabric; whilst Anila swims in a bath of urine and excrement, the shit sticking in clumps to her skin and hair. The images of Kavi are the ones he wants to block out most of all: in them Kavi’s face merges with his own as his son staggers about, filthy and drunken like the tramps that sleep in the doorways of the Lozells Road or on the benches around the Bomb Peck.
By the time Mukesh approaches the factory gates it is already past 8.55am and the hip-flask is almost empty. It takes him a few minutes to notice the line of men beyond the first set of gates blocking the doorway to the main part of the factory.
‘Hello yaar,’ Amrit shouts jovially towards him. ‘Good you can join us. I was thinking you would just stay at home this morning.’
The seventy-plus crowd begin a slow hand clap as Mukesh gets closer and he turns around to see who they are clapping for. As he does so he notices other men arriving with placards and faces he recognises from the factory floor carrying piles of an unfamiliar red-top newspaper.
‘What is going on, Amrit, why is no one working?’ The words slur out on a wave of whisky breath. Amrit’s face drops.
‘You don’t remember? We have been talking all month about this one day strike. Don’t tell me you have just come to work as usual, Mukesh?’
Another voice from the crowd says,
‘Too pissed to take any notice that’s what’s going on there.’
‘Really, Mukesh? Did you not remember?’ Amrit says in disbelief. ‘Even from Friday? It is only three days ago and we have been talking of this for months. They are finding ways to reduce our pay by taking away our break-time. There have been ballots, letters from the union, posters – all sorts of things. It is all the men talk about. This is a big deal, Mukesh. They are exploiting us and changing our conditions without discussion.’
‘I don’t talk about tea-breaks,’ Mukesh mumbles. His head is fuzzy and he is beginning to feel nauseous. His stomach rumbles loudly.
‘Well fuck off home then you useless shit. We are all in this together and if you are not with us then you are against us!’ The words are yelled by an anonymous voice from the back of the crowd.
‘No,’ says Mukesh stubbornly, ‘I will lose money if I don’t work. I need to feed my family.’
‘You can’t go in,’ Amrit says horrified. ‘You would be crossing the picket line. Mukesh, do you know what this means?’
‘It doesn’t mean anything, Amrit. You carry on with your children’s games, I need to earn money. This is an English thing: strikes… tea-breaks… pickets… not for us Punjabi men – we work to feed our families.’
The crowd begins to boo and Mukesh looks around at them, staring defiantly into the first set of eyes he meets. He takes out his hip-flask and blatantly pours the liquid into his mouth as he begins to push his way through the jeering crowd. As he turns the handle on the steel doors that lead into the factory the jeers increase, dominated by a chant of ‘Scab. Scab. Scab.’
Mukesh stumbles into the reception area of the factory floor. He looks through the interior windows to the machine-room and notices three or four men towards the furthest part of the room, each has his head lowered and is operating his machine in silence. Mukesh raises the flask and shakes the last small drops of whisky into his mouth. A sense of panic creeps up through his body as the liquid runs dry.
‘Agarwal, what are you doing?’
The voice comes from directly behind and Mukesh jumps at the sound of someone unnoticed so close.
‘Mr Bedford, sir. I am here at work, not like those lazy buggers outside.’ His words stammer out.
‘Is that booze, Agarwal?’ Bedford snatches the flask and raises it to his nose. ‘Whisky, you bloody fool. Are you drunk, man? You are in no fit state to be in this factory, Agarwal.’
The other few men on the floor look up towards Mukesh and Bedford. Mukesh stands with one arm outstretched, his hand flat against the wall for support, but he still sways backwards and forwards like a jittery child.
‘You can’t come to work drunk, Agarwal, you bloody idiot. My god, who in hell is drunk this early in the morning? We have cut you some slack the last few weeks but this is not acceptable. You are completely pissed, man. You can’t operate machinery in that state.’
‘Cut some slack,’ Mukesh repeats, he has never heard the term before and he repeats it a second and third time under his breath.
‘Go home,’ Bedford says, his pink face turning bright red. ‘I am suspending you. This is a disciplinary now. Do you understand?’
Mukesh doesn’t understand and he stays fixed with his arm against the wall as though he is having a casual chat with Bedford at the Barton Arms or the Royal Oak.
‘Get on to your union rep. We will be in touch. Go home, Agarwal and don’t come unless we tell you to.’
The men on the factory floor turn back towards their work as Bedford slams through internal doors towards the management offices. Mukesh, still perplexed, trips as he leaves by the doors he has entered just a few minutes earlier. Bedford’s words have not yet sunk in.
Outside, the men don’t notice as he staggers behind them and heads for the side-gate into the back alley. Just as he is about to slip through the gate a hand lightly touches him on the shoulder. It’s Johnny.
‘What’s going on, brother?’ Johnny says.
Mukesh pauses before blurting out a reply.
‘Suspended, suspended and sent home like a naughty schoolboy.’ He is shaking as he speaks.
‘Shit man,’ says Johnny, visibly shocked. ‘Let me buy you a cup of tea or something. Sober you up before you go and tell that nice wife of yours, eh?’
Within a few minutes the two men are sitting in an otherwise empty cafe around the corner from Hardiman’s, sipping steaming cups of over-brewed tea and milky coffee. Mukesh is grateful for the fried egg sandwich Johnny has ordered for him but it does nothing to alleviate the nausea which churns in his stomach.
‘What you going to do, brother?’ Johnny asks.
‘I don’t know… everything is falling apart, Johnny,’ Mukesh says as his eyes begin to well up with tears.
‘Oh shit’, Johnny mutters to himself as Mukesh begins to weep silently. ‘Got to be going, the others will notice I am not there,’ he says more audibly before standing up to leave. ‘Go on home, Mukesh. You’re no good for nothing today, brother.’
After Johnny leaves, Mukesh dozes in the stiff cafe chair. The middle-aged waitress behind the counter shouts across to ask if he wants another cup of tea, Mukesh jolts himself awake and glances at the wall-clock above the woman’s head – over two hours have passed by. He shakes his head at the woman, she ‘tuts’ and returns to the Handsworth Times on the counter.
Mukesh leaves the cafe and makes his way to Lozells Road and onwards to Church Street. As
he approaches his turning he notices the landlord of the Royal Oak pub sticking a poster in the window – it is opening time already. He enters the pub without hesitation, as though this was his destination the whole time.
‘Mukesh, what are you doing home so early?’ Usha asks as Mukesh stumbles through the back door close to 4pm that afternoon. She is chopping cauliflower at the kitchen table in preparation for the evening meal.
‘Go to hell’, Mukesh slurs back. Usha is alarmed, he has never been in this state so early in the day before.
‘Mukesh, what is wrong? Why are you home? Have you been drinking?’
‘Go to hell I said… and I will follow you. That is where we are all heading to.’
He moves closer to where Usha is standing and she takes a step backwards. The stench of alcohol is overwhelming. He stumbles towards her, knocking over a stack of washed dishes next to the sink; two plates crash to the floor and smash into pieces. Then, without warning he picks up the colander of freshly cut cauliflower from the table and tips it on the shards of smashed crockery.
‘Mukesh, what are you doing? That is our dinner. We don’t have money to waste throwing food away.’
‘I make the money, I can waste the money, working every day, morning till night and even then they don’t appreciate it. They all slowly, slowly go away… and we are left with empty stomachs.’
‘Be quiet Mukesh, you are not making any sense – the children will hear you. They will be upset.’
‘Upset,’ Mukesh slurs, ‘I am upset – no one cares that I am upset. I am bloody upset. All this time in this stupid country, working in that stupid factory, abandoned by my children, suspended by the factory and you, with your Jeyes Fluid and Squeezy and bloody English friends… What about me? Who cares about me in all of this? I don’t even belong here.’
‘Suspended! Mukesh, you are drunk? Go to bed, sleep it off so you can go back to work tomorrow.’
Usha kneels down to clear up the broken crockery with a dustpan and brush. She picks out most of the cauliflower florets, checks each piece and puts them back in the colander to wash.
The Handsworth Times Page 9