The Handsworth Times

by Sharon Duggal

  ‘Colin Boyle?’ Mukesh scours his memory for a recollection of this man, but he has none.

  ‘Colin, you know, the big man from rivets. It is very sad. He was due to retire next year and enjoy his life. Always talking about the grandkiddies. You know? Colin – a bit on the racist side – only ever called Johnny sambo and that.’

  ‘Ah yes, I know Colin. That is very sad,’ says Mukesh. ‘Is this why you are calling me, Amrit? A funeral? I can’t go to a funeral, Amrit.’

  ‘No, no Mukesh – not the funeral. The men haven’t been invited to that, just a family event it must be. That is not why I am ringing. I am ringing because we have an order from the Continent and Bedford is worried about getting in too many new men who don’t know what they are doing. Hardiman has put him in charge while he disappears off to his holiday apartment in Torremol-whatever. Remember, he made us look at the pictures in the brochure?’

  ‘What are you talking about, Amrit? Torrel-whatever?’

  ‘Shush,’ Usha says, ‘just listen to him won’t you?’

  ‘Well the good news is that Bedford has decided to drop the disciplinary.‘

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was in the process of talking with the Union to make your case – they were looking into special circumstances because of what happened to your boy. They told me to contact the Indian Workers Association -I was going to tell you but before I could he called me in and said to tell you to get back to work.’

  ‘Oh, thank god!’ Usha exclaims in Punjabi.

  ‘When?’ Mukesh asks.

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you, God,’ says Usha again.

  ‘Be quiet,’ Mukesh snaps at her.

  ‘Don’t be late, Mukesh – eight-thirty okay? A bit earlier so we can talk to Bedford first – settle things and that. It’s been a lot of weeks since the suspension and the men, well they won’t say anything about the strike or the picket line. They understand you have been under a lot of stress since the accident with your boy last year.’

  Usha, still listening, puts her palm against the wall for support at the mention of Billy.

  ‘Is this strike business sorted, Amrit?’ asks Mukesh.

  ‘Well, there is still a dispute, it is ongoing, but please just stay at home if we have another day of action, Mukesh. Losing one day’s pay is better than having no job at all. It can’t have been easy for your wife and children.‘

  After the phone call Mukesh disappears upstairs and crawls into bed – the sheets are still warm and he quickly slips back into a heavy sleep.

  The next morning, Usha opens the curtains in the bedroom at 7am. The day is bright and outside the Church Street houses Errol, the milkman, is doing his rounds. He nods to Usha as she opens the curtains and she nods back expressionless, knowing that he is as fully aware of the family’s unpaid bills as she is. Usha looks around the illuminated bedroom, it is tidy now and only the most subtle smell of sleep hangs in the air – the breezes through the open window having cleansed the air during the night. She makes her way over to the bed.

  ‘Come on Mukesh,’ she says, ‘I have made tea and toast for you downstairs and your lunch sandwich is ready.’ Mukesh doesn’t stir.

  Usha turns on the small radio on the bedside table. The presenter is chatting about Gatport Airwick and it takes her a second or two to realise it is a joke in spite of the presenter chuckling at his own play on words. A familiar tune begins playing, fading in over the chatter of the presenter. Usha turns it up and she tries to place the song but only vaguely recalls the English girls singing it at school and dancing around the playground in pairs. The memory is from way back in her youth when she was barely an adolescent, soon after she had left the bustling, vibrant squares and lanes of Phagwara with her mother and brother to join her father in the drab, rainy streets of Handsworth. It was a time when rock’n’roll had hardly begun and the only songs played in her home were a couple of Hindi soundtracks on chunky, crackly vinyl, bought by her father when he first came to England in the mid-1950s for work. The soundtracks helped alleviate his homesickness at the time and later became a welcome alternative to the others in the house from his own singing as he prepared home-grown coriander and mint for the chutneys he made at weekends. Usha finds herself silently mouthing the words to the song on the radio. The song is romantic, about a boy and a girl dancing and kissing in the moonlight; it is lively but it makes her want to cry. She turns the volume down a little as Mukesh makes a groaning noise from under the sheets and she remembers why she is there.

  ‘Get up Mukesh. Remember what Amrit said? Don’t be late.’ Mukesh still doesn’t respond. ‘Please Mukesh. This is not a game. Please get up.’

  Mukesh lets out a prolonged but muffled snore from beneath the covers. Usha prods him and he shifts position, the snoring stops but he remains steadfastly asleep. Usha glances at the clock, it is 7.35am.

  Usha sits at the kitchen table eating the cold toast and sipping the sweet, tepid tea meant for Mukesh. She tries to remember the first few relatively carefree months of her marriage to him when they lived in a small flat on Archibald Road. It was not much more than a bedsit really, but while living there they both had worked long hours to save for the deposit on the Church Street house before any children came along. Usha worked as a secretary for a local firm of accountants. It was a good job for a young Indian woman, especially with an English firm. The money wasn’t very much, even though she had graduated from the technical college with excellent grades in short-hand and touch-typing. She kept working until six weeks before Nina was born. That birth was followed in quick succession by the other four children. She hadn’t worked since, but it had crossed her mind more than once as Billy got older that perhaps she could look for work now she no longer had a younger child at home.

  Usha and Mukesh had married just a few months after he had arrived in England and soon after he had started at the factory with Usha’s older brother, Ravi, who had come home one evening and told their father he had met a nice Punjabi boy from a good caste who would be a perfect match for his sister. Ravi had been married himself for just over a year at that time but still lived in their parent’s house where he and his wife Shashi occupied the living room as a bedroom and Shashi did most of the cooking and housework. Usha didn’t like the idea of going to live with someone else’s family as a housemaid so she was glad to hear that Mukesh had come to England alone, leaving his family back in their village in the Punjab in the same house with the flat roof that had been the setting of the terrible tragedy of their own young son, Naresh. Thinking of it now, Usha connected the two incidents for the first time in her mind – her loss of Billy and the loss of Mukesh’s brother, Naresh. Sipping the cold tea and eating the dry toast, she suddenly felt a pang of deep sorrow for her mother-in-law, a woman she never really had time to get to know, even on the two occasions the elder Agarwals had visited England with tickets bought from money Mukesh had sent them. Usha had always found her mother-in-law rather cold and austere, especially towards Mukesh, but she had felt intense pity when the older women had to journey home alone with the dead body of her husband after their second and last visit to England. The sense of that pity returns abruptly in the harsh light of an English morning and Usha wishes she had had the opportunity or the intuition to console the older woman in some meaningful way while she was still alive. At 8am, Usha makes a fresh cup of tea and places it on the bedside table next to Mukesh.

  At 8.45am, Mukesh knocks on the glass door of Bedford’s office which looks out over the vast factory floor of Hardiman’s. Bedford glances up from his paperwork then back down at his wristwatch and beckons Mukesh in with a hand gesture.

  ‘You are late, Agarwal,’ he says.

  ‘Yes sorry, Mr Bedford,’ Mukesh replies halfheartedly. ‘It is hard when you have been off work for so long to get up on time.’

  ‘You could have made an effort, Agarwal. Didn’t Am
rit tell you to be here for eight-thirty? Do you think I have time to waste waiting for you to turn up?‘

  ‘No, Mr Bedford.’

  ‘Mr Bedford, what?’

  Mukesh looks perplexed.

  ‘Mr Bedford, sir,’ says Bedford and Mukesh repeats it without hiding his contempt.

  ‘You must always call me Sir, right Agarwal?’

  Mukesh stares at the top of Bedford’s head. He notices that on the crown the hair is thin and greying, although Bedford must be at least ten years younger than himself; his own hair is still the same jet black it has always been, in spite of the last year.

  ‘Yes sir,’ he says grudgingly.

  ‘Alright,’ says Bedford. This is your one and only chance and only because the others have vouched for you. Have you stopped drinking?’

  ‘No!’ says Mukesh.

  ‘No?’

  ‘I only drink in the evening… sir! I am recovered from the daytime drinking now after time off. It was the rest I needed to recover from the daytime drinking.’

  Bedford looks up at Agarwal and shakes his head.

  ‘If there is the slightest hint of you having drunk whisky in the factory you’ll be out. Understood?’ His voice is harsh. ‘You can get pissed up as much as you want after work but not on my watch. That stuff you Pakis drink is a lot stronger than a couple of lunchtime pints of mild at the Oak. We’d get shut down if people found out fellas drunk on cheap whisky were operating our heavy machinery. Understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Mukesh.

  ‘Yes what?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Okay, assembly-line! Johnny will show you where. We are two men short so you are going to have to work bloody hard.’ Then, after a pause, Bedford looks Mukesh in the eyes and says, ‘I didn’t want you back, Agarwal, but the men have persuaded me. If you cock up it’s them you’re letting down, and yourself, not me or Mr Hardiman. Skinny wogs like you are ten a penny in the job centre. I am only doing this to keep the men on side. Do you hear me?’

  Mukesh shrugs and moves backwards towards the door.

  By the time the bell rings for lunchtime Mukesh craves a drink; not a cup of tea in the canteen but a proper drink in the Barton Arms or the Black Eagle or even the Royal Oak would do. His colleagues on the assembly line have nodded politely to him all morning but none have spoken directly to him. They are all younger men, entry-level school-leavers mostly, and he senses that they know all about Billy and about his suspension even though many of the faces are unfamiliar to him. In the mid-morning tea-break some of the older men from other areas of the factory – welders, galvanisers and shop floor supervisors – came to shake his hand. These are men he has worked alongside for many years but the conversations are stilted, without the familiar camaraderie they once shared. Mukesh feels only disdain for the men, young and old, and it is the thought of a pint of cold beer that keeps him going throughout the morning.

  ‘Come and celebrate my return to work,’ Mukesh says to Johnny as they stand side by side in front of the stained urinals just after the bell has rung to signal the beginning of the lunch break.

  ‘Nah, man,’ replies Johnny. ‘You have to keep your nose clean, Mukesh. I’m not going to the pub with you on your first day back. You know they don’t like us going at dinnertime when we have machinery to operate after.’

  ‘Bedford can bugger off,’ says Mukesh, ‘I am going anyway.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, brother,’ says Johnny. ‘It’s your first day back.’

  But Mukesh has already clocked out and is on his way through the door.

  ‘That bloody Bedford can’t tell me what to do in my dinnertime,’ he shouts back towards Johnny. ‘We are not in prison you know. He thinks he can treat me like some low-caste lackey from the Raj days but he goes too far sometimes.’

  The men who lurk around the exit turn to stare at Mukesh; some of them rummage about in lockers for packed lunches and cans of pop, trying hard to look uninterested.

  ‘Get back on time at least,’ says Johnny but Mukesh is out of earshot.

  After a second pint of beer on an empty stomach, Mukesh leans against the bar at the Royal Oak. The ground beneath his feet feels unstable and he holds on to the bar for support.

  ‘Another pint please, barman,’ he says, ‘and a bag of pork scratchings.’

  ‘Where is Agarwal?’ Bedford asks Amrit at 1.35pm. ‘He knows dinner is forty-five minutes. He has only been away a few weeks – he can’t have forgotten what he has known for nigh-on twenty bloody years.’

  ‘He wasn’t feeling well, sir,’ pipes up Johnny from a few feet away. ‘He might still be in the bogs. Shall I check?’

  ‘Do what you want, boy, but if I don’t see him back on the line in ten minutes he is out. Got it?’

  As Johnny walks towards the toilets he takes a slight detour to the entrance and scans up and down the street for Mukesh. He spots him further down Lozells Road, meandering towards the factory gates.

  ‘Shit!’ Johnny says, running towards him. He pulls Mukesh through the gates, into the main entrance and shoves him towards the men’s toilets. He turns on the cold tap and starts splashing cold water into Mukesh’s face.

  ‘What the hell…’ Mukesh begins to speak but tapers off, unable to articulate the words.

  ‘Tell them you don’t feel well and that is why you are wet – tell them you threw up or something otherwise Bedford will have your guts for garters.’

  ‘Guts for garters?’ Mukesh repeats and begins to laugh. At first the laugh is just a snigger but it becomes hysterical, like a child unable to control itself. Soon Mukesh is standing by the cubicle shaking with laughter. Johnny stares at him in disbelief.

  ‘Shit, man,’ he says, ‘you really are messed up, Mukesh. You need the doctor or something. Sort yourself out and I’ll cover for you again but I can’t do it for long. Bedford will be checking for you in a few minutes. He is on the warpath.’

  Mukesh stares back at Johnny. ‘Guts for garters’ he repeats and begins laughing again. Johnny leaves the toilets shaking his head.

  Fifteen minutes later Mukesh walks past Bedford’s office and waves at him before walking out the factory door and straight back towards the Royal Oak.

  Usha has made lamb curry for dinner, not the cheaper minced keema they are used to having but actual pieces of succulent meat floating in thick, pungent gravy. The children are already eating the dish eagerly when Mukesh staggers through the front door just after 6pm.

  ‘How was the factory?’ Usha asks cheerfully. She places two buttered chapattis on a plate which she puts on the table, nudging the other plates out of the way to make space. Mukesh doesn’t answer. Instead he opens the cupboard above the cooker, takes down the bottle of Johnny Walker and pours himself a quadruple measure. He knocks it back as Anila, Kamela, Kavi and Usha stare at him. He wipes his mouth.

  ‘What are you all looking at? Bloody hell, can’t a man relax for a few minutes after a hard day at work before you throw all these questions at me?’

  The children turn back to their meals.

  ‘Come and eat Mukesh, before it goes cold,’ Usha says.

  Mukesh pours another large measure of the whisky and begins to sip it. He looks at his family in front of him before turning his back on them and leaving the room, gripping the bottle tightly.

  The next morning, Usha has to disrupt her morning cleaning to run up the stairs and switch off the alarm clock. The shrill ring has been echoing through the previously silent house for a full two minutes. In the bedroom, Mukesh is fast asleep with his head buried deep under the pillow. Usha sighs as she picks up the empty bottle of whisky from next to the bed. She sets about shaking out the clothes that lie discarded in a crumpled heap on the floor and then she starts gently trying to wake Mukesh for the second day in a row.

  ‘Leave me alone woman,’ he says in Punjabi, �
��I am not going to the factory. That Bedford treats me like I am a piece of the shit he has scraped off his shoe. I can’t take this from a gora any more.’

  ‘Anymore?’ Usha says. ‘You have only worked one day in months. What is the matter with you?’

  Mukesh pulls the cover back over his head and ignores Usha’s question. At 9.30am the phone rings. Usha answers it, already knowing it will be from the factory.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Agarwal? Sam Bedford here.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Bedford, he isn’t feeling very well. Sorry,’ Usha says meekly. ‘He should be fine tomorrow after some rest. I will make sure of that.’

  ‘Listen, love, tell him not to bother will you? I’ll send one of the boys around with the paperwork. I’ll make it so as he can get the dole without any problem and we’ll give him a couple of weeks in hand to help you and the kids out, but tell him not to bother coming in again. He sets a bad example for the new men. A lot of them are very young and impressionable, they’ll think it’s okay to be spending half the working day in the pub if I let your husband back.’ He rings off and Usha slides her back down the wall until she hits the floor with a small thud, the phone receiver still held out in her hand.

  Chapter 21

  Anila rushes down the stairs to reach the ringing phone before anyone else does. She is certain it will be Kash. Just the other day he had placed his hand lightly on her shoulder, touching her neck as she counted up the coins from the donations after the meeting. She had blushed as she turned to face him and he had smiled back at her in a way that made her feel slightly strange. He was about to ask her something important, she was sure of it, but the moment was broken when someone shouted a question across the room about the counter-march which was now just weeks away. Later, she was going to talk to Kamela or Nina about it, but she wasn’t sure what exactly she wanted to say – it was hard enough to try and gather her own thoughts about Kash without trying to articulate them, so in the end she didn’t bother to mention it after all. Instead of Kash, the voice on the other end of the phone is Brenda.