‘What?’ Anila says again, distractedly. They have entered The Shoe and Kash is standing in the far corner with his back towards them. Marcus is still talking beside her.
‘We should have a cup of tea again, I said, it was nice to have a chat,’ Marcus repeats.
‘What?’ says Anila still looking towards Kash.
‘You know in the Acapulco.’ Anila doesn’t answer so he follows her gaze into the distant end of the room where Kash is now looking back towards them. He meets Marcus’s eye and nods without a smile. Anila looks down and fumbles in her bag for the stick of chewing gum she spotted earlier. A clap of hands from across the room signals the start of the meeting and Kash promptly turns his gaze away from Marcus and Anila and towards the man standing on the riser on the opposite side of the room. Anila follows his lead.
‘Well, I’ll leave you to it, man,’ says Marcus, moving towards the small crowd gathered around the speaker at the front of the room.
‘Oh yeah, see ya. Oh and ta for the book again,’ Anila says, also looking ahead towards the man on the riser. She hardly notices as Marcus moves away, instead fixing her gaze ahead but desperately trying to keep Kash in her peripheral vision.
Soon the space left vacant by Marcus is filled with others, most of them familiar strangers, As the meeting begins, Anila finds herself packed into the middle of the crowd and a mild sense of claustrophobia starts to envelop her. She looks around for Marcus, suddenly becoming aware of the gap he has left behind. She spots him leaning on a wall near the exit with his head hung low and she wishes she was still standing with him. She wonders why she hadn’t noticed him move away.
‘Brothers, sisters, comrades,’ the speaker begins, ‘we will not allow the scum of fascism to prowl our streets and murder our youth like some rabid dog let off a leash by its hate-fuelled master. Enoch Powell soiled our city with his rhetoric all those years ago and it still continues to poison our streets with its legacy, demonstrated in the sons he spawned who now exist as the National Front. We cannot allow these violent yobs, these murderous imbeciles to march through Handsworth. We have not forgotten our young brother Gurdip Singh Chaggar or Satnam Singh, our neighbour, and we will get justice for these boys and for the other twenty-nine victims of racism slain in the years since Powell made his dangerous speech. We will defend our right to claim this country as our own in retribution for their deaths and for the pillage of our motherlands by the colonialist forefathers of this barbarous scum.’
‘Bloody idiots – they need to be educated,’ Aazim shouts from the front of the crowd. ‘I can teach them a thing or two’, he continues, and there are sniggers all around.
‘Alright, alright,’ shouts Kash, ‘but this is stuff we know already, we don’t need firing up we need planning – the march is in a fortnight. What about strategy? That’s what we need – banner, chants, a united voice.’
‘Strategy? We turn up and kick their fucking heads in – that’s what I call strategy,’ a younger boy shouts across the crowd.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ says Anila without thinking, ‘we can’t behave like they do.’
‘Anila is right,’ says Kash, ‘we are more intelligent than that. We’re not thugs like them – we’ll use the tried and tested non-violent method of restraint and protest. We will be a united wall of strength and that way the police can’t touch us.’
‘Peaceful protest?’ the younger boy says mockingly, ‘What good will that do?’
‘It will stop one of us getting knifed for starters – you can’t put anything past these skinheads, they are out for a ruck – like at the football games,’ Aazim replies.
The meeting is long and voices rise and fall as members of the assembly exchange heated debate about the logistics of their approach to the march. After an hour or so the conversations descend into mini squabbles across the floor until finally Kash steps up to the podium and hushes the crowd down.
‘This is what is going to happen,’ he says. ‘We will meet on the corner of Villa Cross and Lozells Road at approximately 10am. Olive, you are in charge of banners – old sheets, that kind of thing. They should say Handsworth Youth Movement plus whatever slogan you want . We want them to know we are organised and not just a random gathering.’
‘What about HERE TO STAY, HERE TO FIGHT like before? That’s the slogan other groups like us are using, isn’t it? None of this peaceful sissy stuff.’
‘We have evolved,’ says Kash abruptly. ‘Fight does not have to mean violence.’ He continues reading out a list of instructions and locations, delegating roles to some of the inner circle.
‘Anila, you can inform the police that we are planning this demonstration. They can’t stop us but if we tell them it might be better.’
‘The NF is half made up of off-duty Pigs – we all know that. Telling them in advance – you might as well just phone that NF bastard Tyndall up,’ Aazim says.
‘Too right,’ agree others in unison.
‘There will be just a couple more opportunities to get together before the march so we can be unified when we arrive,’ Kash says, bringing the meeting to a close. ‘Those who don’t agree with the tactics come and speak to me after this meeting and we’ll see if we can come to some agreement, otherwise don’t bother turning up on the day if you are just coming for the aggro.’ Finally, he says for all in the room to hear, ‘Anila wait for me afterwards so we can discuss what you say to the police.’
From the corner of her eye, Anila sees Marcus heading towards the exit. He is deep in conversation with Olive Benjamin and Anila feels an urge to catch up with them and be in their company. Instead, she stays rooted to the spot as the room empties around her. When the last few men move away from Kash and drift towards the exit a hush fills the room. Anila edges towards the nearest wall and into the shadows; she is uncomfortable in the cavernous empty space and the wall offers solidity. She looks around the room for any remaining people but sees only the silhouette of Kash standing on the opposite side of the room with his back to her. She feels nervous and wonders if she has time to slip out of the exit and catch up with Marcus and Olive or whether she should make some excuse to leave about being needed at home by a certain time, but before she has a chance to weigh up the possibilities Kash appears beside her. Anila is startled by his sudden presence but it is too late to hide her alarm.
‘Thanks for staying,’ Kash says but she can barely hear him above the loud pounding in her chest.
Kash stands so close she can again feel his breath on her face. This time there is an unsavoury tang to it and she tries to step backwards to distance herself but finds she is already against the wall.
‘So what about the police?’ she stammers. ‘What? Who do I call?’
‘We can talk about that later,’ Kash says. His face is so close now that she is breathing in his breath. Anila moves her face to the side, away from him. ‘C’mon,’ Kash says pushing himself against her and shifting her face back to centre with his hand, ‘you are an attractive girl, Anila. Even with that short hair.’
‘You’re hurting me, get off,’ Anila says firmly, but Kash pushes his lips onto hers so she cannot speak. She shoves him away with the palms of her hands, but her strength is diminished and he is back up against her almost immediately; his whole body is pressed onto her so she is pinned to the wall. He fumbles with the buttons on her jumpsuit.
‘Girls wear such stupid clothes,’ he says irritably as Anila tries to shove him away again. ‘C’mon, Anila,’ he says, ‘I know you want this as much as me. I have seen the way you look at me. Don’t be a baby now.’
‘No!’ says Anila firmly. ‘I am not ready for this. Not yet, not here.’
Kash laughs and a drop of his saliva lands on her forehead.
‘Ahh you want me to take you to dinner first and then book a nice hotel?’ Anila tries to turn her face again to avoid his mouth but Kash yanks it back towards him. ‘You
want this, Anila. Don’t deny it,’ he says as he unbuckles his belt with one hand whilst keeping her pinned against the wall with the other. Anila struggles to free herself from him but his weight is on her and she can’t move. Her stomach churns.
‘Please don’t,’ she pleads but Kash pulls down the side of her jumpsuit and smirks before shoving his hand between her legs. She winces and begins to scream. Kash forces his tongue into her mouth to silence her.
‘Don’t be stupid, Anila,’ he says when she tries to bite down on his tongue, ‘this is what happens between men and women. Come, I’ll be gentle.’ Anila takes in a deep breath of air and tries to steady herself. ‘That’s better,’ Kash says and starts to kiss her mouth again. The sourness of him makes her gag and she pushes at him with all her strength once more but it is still not enough to shift him. She tries to scream again but she is mute. Then, it is too late and he is heaving and panting, his face contorted as he bashes her against the stony wall. The pain is searing, like a blade cutting through her, and she closes her eyes and clenches her fists, desperate for it to be over. When he has finished, Kash steps backwards, spits on the ground beside them and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. A small whimper escapes from Anila as her voice returns as a puny thing. She pulls her clothes around her body and she begins to weep, trembling uncontrollably. After a minute she dries her tears with her arm, bends over and vomits. Bile stings her throat and the pain between her legs begins to burn as if her whole body is engulfed by fire.
‘Sort yourself out,’ Kash says roughly, turning away from her. And then, more softly, ‘It’ll be better next time. You’ll get used to it. The first time is always a bit difficult.’ He walks away casually and is almost at the exit when he looks over his shoulder and shouts, ‘Lock up will you? Oh, and don’t wear that stupid thing next time. A skirt or dress would suit you much better, Anila.’
Chapter 24
August is suddenly unbearable as each day becomes more sticky and more humid with no respite from the heat. Days drag on and on for members of the Agarwal household, with each of them acutely aware of the close proximity of the bodies of the others. Heat radiates from them in the small rooms of the Church Street house and intensifies in the areas where they reside most often, collecting as stagnant air in the downstairs rooms where the breezes are more hard to come by. All over the house, windows are wedged open with blocks of wood or rolled up newspapers by Usha at the crack of dawn. She closes them when she is ready for bed late in the evening after all the chores have been done. The attic room is the warmest of all the rooms – cramped with the constant presence of the three teenage sisters, none of whom have ventured out of the house for days in spite of the weather. The piles of worn-once clothes and the dirty-washing basket stuffed with used underwear and sweaty tee-shirts exudes a pervasive odour reminiscent of PE changing rooms.
It is 10.30am and the sun is streaming in through the skylight. All three girls lay on their beds in nighties. Only Anila has a cover on her – a cotton bedspread pulled up high to envelop her head as well as body.
‘Not like Nils to sleep late,’ says Kamela. ‘Do you know what’s up with her? She’s been properly stroppy these last few days. And just stuck up here the whole time.’
‘Perhaps she’s worried about her exams. Don’t the results come out any day?’
‘Nah, she doesn’t care about those – not now she is a born-again militant. Wish she’d get over it whatever it is. She is being a right miserable cow.’
‘Yeh I know – she is the one that has kept us all going the last few months.’
‘What would you know, swanning around your fancy uni with your fancy friends?’
‘Fuck off, Kam. Of course I know – why do you think I can’t wait to get back?’
‘Copping out – that is what you’re are doing. Out of sight, out of mind and all that. Anila is right, you don’t even think about us once you are away.’
‘Why are you picking on me all of a sudden? You’ve been hanging around the house for months feeling sorry for yourself – you don’t have to.’
‘Don’t be a bitch, Nina. You know what happened to me, and I went back to college for the last couple of days of term because Mom asked me to. It wasn’t easy you know, not like for you.’
‘You think it’s easy for me? At least you lot are together. No one even knows that I had a brother called Billy up there and that is not easy. It’s like I am betraying him. Every little Indian lad I see reminds me of him. It’s worse if you are far away but I have to get on with it. We all do what we have to do, Kamela, and it isn’t the same for everyone.’
‘Yeah but you never phone when you are there – don’t you think that upsets Mom, and Dad?’
‘Don’t guilt-trip me, Kam. I am just living my life the best way I can. Not everyone can hang around here being miserable – you and Kavi have been doing enough of that for everyone, not to mention Dad. And now Anila has joined the party. I don’t think it will do Mom any good if I phone every time I feel a bit shit.’
‘Perhaps you should phone when you don’t feel shit then.’
‘Fuck off, Kam.’
‘Fuck off yourself Miss friggin’ clever clogs,’ Kamela turns up the volume on the radio and sings along loudly to Come On Eileen which is now blaring out.
‘I hate this song. They used to be good once,’ Nina says grumpily from across the room. She wipes a bead of sweat off her nose and returns to her letter writing.
‘La di dah – not much of a student band, eh? Not moody enough or Northern enough I suppose. See, even us thick, ignorant Brummies know what’s what in Studentland!’
Nina ignores her.
Anila pulls her pillow taut over her head to muffle the sound of the radio, and the sound of her sisters.
Usha pegs out a row of white sheets on the line and, without a breeze, they hang down rigid, almost touching the ground even though the line has been propped up with an old broomstick on a brick. It is still morning but the sun is beating down hard on the parched garden. Usha looks around at the patchy grass and dehydrated hedges and at the discarded bike wheels and bits of plastic toys salvaged from nearby derelict houses. She recalls a moment of looking on unseen as Billy and Kavi sat together on the grass engrossed in a go-cart building project just a few weeks before the accident. Kavi was taking charge and imparting his previous go-cart building experience to his younger brother who hung onto every word. The memory is ephemeral, drifting away before she can cement it in her mind. A powder-blue butterfly flutters around her face and she waves it away, watching as it fades into the distance and disappears over the unkempt hedgerow that separates this garden from the next.
‘You alright, Mom? You look like you are a million miles away.’ Nina’s voice startles her. ‘Is there any bread? I need something to eat.’
Usha looks at her daughter, ‘Where are your sisters?’ She says. ‘We need to talk, all of us, we need to do something.’
‘What you on about, Mom?’
‘Nina, I am worried about this family,’ says Usha. ‘It is over a year now since Billy died and there isn’t a second when he isn’t in my mind but I know that we have to keep on living and moving forwards. I am worried that some of you are not doing that.’
‘I just want some toast that’s all, Mom. This is all a bit heavy isn’t it?’
‘Oh Nina, sometimes you are so grown up and other times you are like a small child. It is the same with Kamela and Kavi and I thought Anila would be okay with her new friends and her interest in political things but even she seems to be slipping back down. What is wrong with her, do you know?’
‘Oh she’ll be fine. Probably nervous about her results. Hey, or maybe she has a crush on someone,’ Nina laughs nonchalantly.
Usha scowls at her daughter and for the first time she notices the new way Nina is wearing her eyeliner – in thick black lines below and inside the lowe
r lid as well as a long line out towards her hairline from the edges of her eyes, just like the khol surma Bibi applied to her own eyes when she was a baby.
‘So, is there any bread then?’ Nina says and then, as if an afterthought adds, ‘By the way, I am thinking of going back to Leeds early. Looking for a part-time job before all the other students arrive. Plus they need me to join a house-share as soon as possible. It’s in Headingley – a nice area. It will get snapped up if we don’t take it.’
Usha continues to look at Nina. She feels as though her eldest daughter has dropped in from another planet. Before she has a chance to respond about the bread or the return to Leeds, Nina has disappeared back into the house.
‘You not going to get up today, Anila?’ Kamela shouts above the music on the radio. She tries to sound cheerful. ‘It’s nice outside again. Warm and that.’ Anila doesn’t respond. Kamela sits on the edge of her sister’s bed, ‘C’mon Nils. What’s going on? It’s not like you to stay in bed this long. You’ve hardly said a word for days. Has something happened to your group? Is it that Jamaican lad, the good looking one? Has something happened between you? I won’t tell anyone, promise?’
Anila turns over to face the wall, the pillow still wrapped around her head.
‘You ill or something? Shall I get Mom?’
‘Leave me alone,’ Anila mumbles from under the bedsheet, just audible enough for her sister to hear.
Kamela gets up from the bed to return to her task of applying concealer to the scar which is still visible under the strands of long hair framing her face. As she stands up, a fresh red blood stain is revealed on the crumpled white sheet.
‘I think you need a jam-rag,’ Kamela says casually before moving back across the room.
Anila sits up and rubs her puffy eyes. She looks at the blood stain on the bed beside her.
‘’Thank god for that,’ she says without thinking.
Kamela stares at her sister.
The Handsworth Times Page 15