The Handsworth Times

by Sharon Duggal

  ‘Can’t you bloody hear me, Usha? Suspended! No work until they tell me to come back.’

  Mukesh kicks the remainder of the crockery and cauliflower across the lino floor before staggering upstairs towards the bedroom. On the way out of the kitchen he grabs the half empty bottle of whisky from the cabinet.

  Mukesh sits on the edge of the bed and lights a cigarette. He throws the flickering match into the washing basket by the door without thinking and within moments a cotton sari blouse begins to smoulder as the match flame ignites the fabric. Oblivious to the small fire growing in the corner, Mukesh rests the cigarette in the bedside ashtray and lays his head against the pillow. Almost immediately his eyes close and he slips into a drunken sleep – once again the burning face appears and is transformed to the visage of Billy; his boy melting away into liquid – a dissolving face without eyes.

  Kamela is lying on her bed listening to the inane banter of a radio deejay as the acrid smell of burning cloth travels up the staircase towards her attic room. She edges open the door with her foot to investigate the smell and the gap is just wide enough for her to see a smoky haze seeping up from the landing below. She jumps up and heads down the stairs. As she reaches her parents’ bedroom, flames are beginning to flicker above the rim of the basket towards the wardrobe and the curtains just beyond. She grabs a damp towel from the back of the door and stops the fire before it manages to spread beyond the buckling plastic criss-cross of the washing basket. Mukesh sleeps on, tossing and turning and moaning as the smoke gathers around him in a cloud. Kamela waves the towel above him, dispersing the smoke until all that remains of the fire is the bitter odour of burnt plastic mingling with the stench of beer and whisky emanating from Mukesh’s sleeping body.

  ‘Bloody idiot,’ Kamela thinks as she watches her father lying on the bed in a restless slumber.

  She grabs the bottle of whisky from the bedside table and opens the window wide before leaving the room. Once back in the attic she leans against the closed door, takes a large swig of the whisky and savours the strong, burning sensation in her mouth before shoving the bottle deep under her bed.

  Chapter 17

  Most dry days Anila walks the longest way home she can after school. Today as she walks she thinks about her conversation with Nina on the phone two days earlier. It is the first time since the Easter holidays that her sister has phoned, and this time it is to tell Usha that her grant instalment hasn’t arrived and could she send her something? Anila answers the phone.

  ‘How you doing, Nils?’ How distant her sister sounds, Anila thinks.

  ‘Oh, you know – same old, same old. Kavi doesn’t go to school still and Kamela still doesn’t go out and Dad is just hanging around like a bad smell now he’s been suspended. I think Mom is going mad just cleaning around them all the time.’

  ‘Blimey, is she still doing that? I don’t know how you put up with it and all, Nils. Come and visit me. I could send you some money for the train fare when my grant comes in – after your exams I mean. There are some great parties up here.’ There is a pause before she speaks again… ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you about someone I met at one,’ she says. A conversation about boys is a first for the sisters.

  ‘Nina – have you got a fella? Or maybe, it’s a lady-friend,’ Anila says jokingly. ‘You students get up to all sorts I’ve heard.’

  ‘Don’t be disgusting, Anila. God, what the hell have you been reading? Anyway, shut up and let me tell you. I was a bit drunk, like and… there’s no one else in the room is there?’

  ‘No, go on spill the beans… is he Indian or what?’

  ‘You can’t tell anyone, Anila, okay?’

  ‘Just tell me, go on what’s he like? What’s his name?’

  ‘Imran.’

  ‘Imran! What, like the cricket player?’ Anila bleats.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But that’s a Paki name isn’t it?’

  ‘Paki is a racist term, Anila, I thought you knew better.’

  ‘Nina, are you going out with a Pakistani bloke? Oh shit, Dad will kill you… and Mom. He’s not from round here is he?’

  ‘No, Leeds. Oh, Anila, he is bloody lovely though and really clever. He’s in the year above… and it has kind of got serious if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Nina, you haven’t, have you?’

  ‘Haven’t what?’

  ‘You know – done it with him – with a Paki bloke from Leeds?’

  ‘Shut up Anila. Grow up and stop talking like some idiot from Handsworth. There is a whole world out here and it’s one where it doesn’t matter which side of the bloody partition your ancestors came from. For goodness sake, at least he isn’t black.’

  ‘You sound like a Handsworth idiot now, Nina. You know as well as I do that a Muslim boy is worse than a black boy to some people around here – we all know what Indians and Pakis think about each other and that. Anyway, go on, what was it like – did it hurt?’

  ‘Anila, just get Mom to phone us will you? Room 401 remember. I’ve got to go. Don’t tell anyone, promise?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  A few weeks have passed since the young men with trestle tables were outside school and now Anila finds the leaflet with the black fists screwed up in her pocket. She reads it over and over again and examines the illustration of the fists closely. She thinks about Marcus calling her feisty, it isn’t a label she has had before but something about it makes her feel good. Anila switches her mind to Nina living a new life in a different world, away from the Agarwal family in some far off northern town. She imagines the boyfriend, Imran, as if he is some hero from a Bollywood film, twirling Nina around by the hand on a tropical beach. Anila is embarrassed by the naffness of the image she has conjured up but then, unexpectedly, her imaginings move into daydream and Imran transmogrifies into Marcus, and she into the girl. Marcus is pressing his lips to her wet mouth, his body is pushed up against hers and they are naked. Her hands feel the spikiness of his short afro; his hands explore parts of her body which are unexplored even by herself. They are no longer on the Bollywood beach but down the back alley off Carpenters Road where she stops to have a sneaky cigarette on the way home sometimes. She shakes her head to get rid of the daydream. A dull menstrual ache in the pit of her stomach is followed by the sensation of moisture between her legs. ‘Shit’, she mutters, wondering if she has time to slip home and use the bathroom before the meeting on the leaflet starts – it is at 5pm that day.

  Anila tries to enter the meeting hall at the back of St Silas’ Church quietly but stumbles over a discarded bucket by the entrance as she rushes to escape the rain that has just begun to fall. Almost thirty young men are already crammed inside the small, dank, windowless room. Most of the men are Jamaicans and other West Indians but many are Asian too and some turn to look at her after her noisy arrival. She stares back, surprised to see these young men gathered together; the only place she has seen young Asian men gather in such numbers before is at the sprawling weddings that pack the temples, gurdwaras and school halls of Handsworth at weekends and where men, young and old, congregate in clusters along corridors, eyeing up the girls. It is a different kind of eyeing up she senses now.

  Anila has arrived just as the first speech is building to a climax. The crowd jostle for space at the front of the room, patting one another on the back, nudging each other like schoolboys before a football match. The speaker is standing on a plastic chair at the front of the room. The chair wobbles as he shifts about on it. He is a small, scrawny young man with blue-black hair cut short in a crop close to his head. His eyes are eager, shining out against fine facial features – he is like a raven, Anila thinks. Kash Ram, she hears someone whisper as the speaker begins to talk. His voice booms out strong.

  ‘It is my belief,’ he says, ‘that when people are attacked, they have the right to act in self-defence. The nature of that defence depen
ds on the nature of the attack. I believe the defence of Black people – and remember brothers we are all black here whether our origins are in Africa or in Asia – who are menaced by the threat of fascism makes the organisation of defensive groups like this one an absolute necessity.’

  Anila is instantly transfixed by the man. She has never seen or heard anyone like him. He is not a bit like the images of the white, spiky rock stars that cover her school books and adorn her wall or the young West Indian and Indian boys that are her neighbours and her fellow school pupils. Kash Ram is barely in his twenties, he is small and the same shade of brown as she is, yet he is articulate and confident like a much older, more important person. The crowd in the room begins to holler and cheer as the speech draws to an end. There is a palpable camaraderie enveloping the room.

  ‘We cannot allow the police to continue to hound us like dogs for no reason whatsoever while they allow racism to breed like a disease around us, encouraged by politicians. Remember brothers, we are here to stay, here to fight. Handsworth Youth with all our might.’

  These particular words resonate like a mantra.

  Anila breathes in sharply, she is stirred up in a way she doesn’t understand and doesn’t quite know how to control. She steps closer to get a better view of the man on the chair. More of the small congregation become aware of her and there is mumbling and shuffling around the room. Kash Ram pauses, sensing a shift in the atmosphere. He scans the room for the cause of it and rests his eyes on Anila, she is the only girl in the room.

  ‘Hello,’ he says. ‘Good to see you here. Welcome to the Handsworth Youth Movement, may you be the first of many sisters to join and fight alongside us in this struggle.’

  Anila feels a hot blush rise into her face as he addresses her directly. Now all the men turn and stare at her. She moves backwards into a corner and leans against a pillar, partly obscuring her view of the room and it of her. All but a couple of the men turn back to face the front of the room.

  ‘Hey,’ Marcus sidles up to her. ‘You made it,’ he says. ‘Well done, man. You should have dragged that brother of yours along too.’

  Marcus is dressed in khaki, army surplus mostly, punctuated at either end by black boots and jet black hair. Anila blushes again, this time at the thought of her earlier fanciful musings but nevertheless she is relieved to see Marcus’s familiar face in this crowd of strangers. He stands beside her for the rest of the meeting and she can feel warmth radiating from his body; he smells like incense sticks. Kash Ram’s continued speech is distracting and Anila finds herself bemused as the crowd participates in waves of cheers and shouts of bitter protestation, spontaneously sharing stories of police brutality and experiences of racist encounters. Anila concentrates on what is being shared around her whilst still aware of the warmth and smell of Marcus beside her. Two young Indian men intermittently glance over their shoulders towards her and whisper in unashamed disapproval – she knows it is because she is standing next to a black man.

  Three further speakers take to the chair and each repeats the same message with intense and vociferous passion. Towards the end of the fourth speech the metal legs of the chair have begun to buckle. Anila absorbs little about the second, third and fourth speakers but Kash Ram sticks in her head and she wants to replay his speech over and over, like she does with certain songs she has taped off the John Peel Show. As the meeting closes, a heavy, dreadlocked Rastaman presses play on an oversized ghetto blaster decorated with spray paint and stickers. A familiar reggae rhythm cranks up, it is a tune by local boys Steel Pulse, known to all the local kids and often heard booming out from open car windows and shop fronts around the area like an anthem. The men at the meeting nod their heads in time to the music, mouthing the lyrics as they pile out of the meeting room.

  ‘Handsworth shall stand, firm – like Jah rock – fighting back

  We once beggars are now choosers

  No intention to be losers

  Striving forward with ambition

  And if it takes ammunition

  We rebel in Handsworth Revolution’

  For Anila, Handsworth Revolution is a soundscape to the faded Victorian Handsworth Park which she often walks through in the lighter summer months with her siblings and her mother, to visit Bibi and Nanaa on the other side of Handsworth. The park sits like a green heart at the centre of the area, its wide tree-lined arteries clogged with the residue of the ragged life-blood pulsating to this same beat. The opening bars of the song cause a pang of nostalgia and a momentary headache as Anila thinks of Billy mischievously running on ahead when they last walked across that park together, this music playing in the background. After a moment, she begins nodding her head to the music in the same way as the others that leave the meeting, and the song, although familiar, begins to sound brand new, as though she is hearing it for the first time.

  Usha is washing greasy plates with a worn yellow sponge when Anila slips in through the back kitchen door after the meeting. It is just past seven in the evening.

  ‘Hi, Mom,’ she says, flopping into a kitchen chair. ‘I’m knackered.’

  ‘That’s nice, roti is in the oven.’ Usha tilts her head backwards towards the oven while her eyes remain fixed on an oily rainbow across the froth of soap suds in the sink. She speaks as though she is talking to herself.

  ‘Not hungry,’ says Anila. As she heads out of the kitchen Usha says,

  ‘What about food, Anila?’

  ‘I said, I’m not hungry. Didn’t you hear? Or were you too busy with your washing up?’ She immediately feels guilty for snapping at her mother in this way but the moment has passed and it is too late to take the words back, and she is fairly certain her words didn’t even register with her mother.

  Upstairs, Kavi is lying on his bed strumming his guitar. Anila barges in and perches herself on the side of the bed. Kavi plucks at the guitar strings without looking up.

  ‘Did you go to school today, Kavi?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘What’d you do all day? You need to go to school you know, more chance of a job and that.’

  ‘No Anila, no jobs, no point, no school.’

  Kavi turns to face to the wall. Anila ignores his lack of interest and speaks hurriedly. She tells him about the meeting, about Kash and Marcus, and about the urgency to organise and be part of this group.

  ‘You’ve got to come to the next meeting, Kavi. It’s all young blokes like you. Probably some of your mates and that.’

  When she stops for breath Kavi speaks, still facing the wall,

  ‘Not for me, Anila, no point. No point in very much really cos, you know, we just drop dead in the end.’ He turns back, over and looks straight at Anila as he says this.

  ‘Shit Kavi, that’s so miserable.’

  ‘True though, ain’t it?’

  ‘Billy wouldn’t want you talking like that.’

  Kavi sniggers.

  ‘And that’s so stupid, like. Billy’s not here and we don’t know what he would have said or not said because he isn’t here. Point made! You go to your meetings and stuff but it won’t make a difference to me. And I’m not going to school because it’s shit. In fact, it all shit out there.’

  ‘You are nearly sixteen, Kavi – who knows what will happen in the next few years? You have your whole life ahead of you. You can’t just give up.’

  ‘Stop trying to be so wise, Anila, life is going to happen, yeah, and right now I don’t see how it can be anything other than shit, for me at least.’

  ‘Yeah, but Kavi, the thing is I think there is a way to change it.’

  ‘Not interested, Anila. No bloody meetings are going to make things any better for me. Billy is dead – and the best I’ve got to look forward to is the same as Dad, working in bloody Hardiman’s, having babbies and being stuck in Lozells for the rest of my life.’

  Anila stares at her brother, pitying hi
m but clinging on to her own new-found optimism. His face has the same bitter twist in it as the old man who walks past the school scowling at the kids as they hang over the fence swinging their legs. She leaves him to mope on his bed and climbs the wooden stairs to the attic where Kamela is gently smearing pale green face mask on to her hands. The room smells of cucumber and sour milk. Anila stares at her.

  ‘It was free in the magazine,’ Kamela says, by way of an explanation. ‘Didn’t want to waste it, like.’

  Anila lies on her back on the bottom bunk, her arms folded behind her head. She closes her eyes and goes over the meeting in her head. Her thoughts linger on Kash Ram – his animated face is a vivid picture and his strong, stirring words ring in her ears as she drifts off into a daydream.

  ‘We will refuse to be discriminated against.

  We will rise up and show them we are not weak.

  Together we will succeed.’

  Chapter 18

  Kavi lies across the long settee in the living room. The television mumbles out the banalities of local human-interest stories as the early summer sun streams through the spotless window, illuminating the screen to a practically unwatchable state. The living-room door is open, as are the kitchen door and the back door leading from the kitchen to the garden. A faint waft of singed fish fingers permeates the room. Kavi’s stomach rumbles.

  ‘Mom,’ he shouts at the top of his voice, ‘is there anything to eat?’

  Mukesh sits in the armchair next to the window in the same room as Kavi. He raises his eyes over the top of the copy of the Handsworth Times he has been reading for over an hour.

  ‘You are a lazy bugger, Kavi. Why don’t you make your own food instead of watching this rubbish television all the time?’

  ‘You can talk,’ Kavi mumbles, but the rustle of the paper prevents Mukesh from hearing his son’s backchat.