‘It’s a cat I think,’ she says as her brother pulls a ‘so what?’ face at her.
In the kitchen, Mukesh is drinking a glass of water by the sink. There is an upturned saucepan on the floor beside him and thick orange liquid seeps from it, spreading out into a wide, coagulated puddle.
‘What is that, Dad?’ Anila asks as Mukesh turns to look at her. His shirt front is wet and his flies are open – a damp stain snakes around his thigh and down towards his knee. ‘Bloody hell, Dad. You need to clean yourself up before all those women in the front room see you.’
‘What women?’ Mukesh mumbles.
Anila heads to the bathroom to look for a cloth to clean up the spillage. As she opens the bathroom door the strong waft of newly sprayed urine escapes into the air around her and she covers her nose and mouth with a cupped hand. It takes a moment for her to notice the wet splashes across the bathroom floor, on the toilet seat and in a small pool at the base of the toilet. She quickly closes the door.
‘You’re disgusting,’ she says to Mukesh as he leans into the side of the sink to steady himself.
Anila runs down the hallway, grabs Kavi’s arm and drags him towards the kitchen. ‘You’ll have to help me clean up, Dad has pissed all over the bathroom and there is dhal all over the floor,’ she says. She pushes Kavi towards Mukesh and he attempts to usher his father out of the kitchen towards the bathroom at the back of the house.
‘Those ladies will be coming in here soon,’ Kavi says, ‘and you don’t want them to see you like this do you?’
‘Who are these bloody ladies and women you are all talking about? This is my kitchen, why are you and your sister trying to remove me from it?’
‘Just get out of here won’t you, Dad? You’re a bloody state. It’s embarrassing,’ Anila pleads.
‘C’mon Dad,’ Kavi adds, ‘Mom is having a meeting and there are lots of strangers in the house. You really don’t want them to see you like this,’
Mukesh seems oblivious to what his children are saying, instead he stares intently at Anila’s face. Anila touches her cheek and recoils.
‘Have you been fighting?’ Mukesh asks.
Anila knows the purple bruising and the black eye look as terrible as they feel but she ignores the question.
‘C’mon Dad, at least go upstairs and lie down,’ she says.
Mukesh swipes his arm across the worktop and knocks two unopened packets of biscuits to the floor; one splits open and the biscuit crumbs scatter across the floor, adding to the mess.
‘Fucking hell,’ says Kavi.
‘Don’t you tell me what to do, Anila, or you Kavi. You children are the shameful ones here, fighting and swearing and hanging around with low-caste Chamar hooligans and Jamaicans with daggers.’
Kavi grabs his father’s arm and pushes him towards the door. He is taller and stronger than Mukesh.
‘You are pissed, Dad. You don’t know what you are talking about. You’re not making any sense. You had better go and sleep it off before you cause a scene.’
Mukesh struggles to release himself but cannot and the two of them stumble into the sink, knocking Anila out of the way as they fall.
‘Let me go you bloody stupid boy,’ Mukesh shouts as Kavi pulls him up from the floor.
‘Sssh,’ Kavi says abruptly, ‘they’ll hear you!’ He claps one hand over his father’s mouth and restrains him in a clinch from behind with the other. ‘Go and close the living room door,’ he says to Anila and she does as she is told. Kavi shoves Mukesh along the hallway and up the stairs towards the front bedroom, keeping one hand still firmly clasped over his mouth. Anila follows.
‘Perhaps we should lock him in,’ Anila suggests, taking the room key from the inside lock.
‘Yep, good idea, sis. Soz, Dad but you need to sober up before we let you out. Why don’t you get some sleep?’
Mukesh sits on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. He mumbles something in Punjabi but the only word decipherable to Kavi and Anila is ‘respect’, muttered in English.
‘I’ll bring you a glass of water,’ Anila says kindly as she leaves the room. Before she closes the door she glances back at her father and he looks up towards her with eyes that are glassy and distant. Anila locks the door behind herself and slips the key into the front pocket of her jeans.
In the living room, the women have agreed that something must be done to occupy the local young people to stop them ‘going astray’ as the armchair woman puts it. Suggestions as to what this may be have still not been discussed, superseded by tittle-tattle and local gossip. A couple of the women are already getting ready to leave, in time to get ‘the tea on’ they say.
‘Shit,’ says Anila to Kavi, ‘we’d better go and clean up that mess in the kitchen before they all want another brew – it’s been a while. You can wipe the bathroom down, Kavi.’
‘Fuck off,’ says Kavi, ‘I’m not wiping up his piss.’
‘Someone has to,’ Anila insists and Kavi reluctantly follows her towards the kitchen. They close the kitchen door just as the living room door opens and Usha leads three of the women out of the front of the house.
‘So,’ says Shilly to the remaining women in the room, ‘what exactly will be our plan to help the young people?’
‘Well,’ responds Brenda as Usha reenters the room, ‘Usha has an idea about the Bomb Peck at the back of Wills Street, don’t you, bab?’
‘Um, yes,’ says Usha quietly as she sits down in a vacated seat next to Bibi. ‘I thought that the only thing they have to do around here is play at the Bomb Peck but it is just a collection of abandoned rubbish really. It isn’t safe, I don’t think, just remains of houses and bricks and metal and things. Perhaps we can get some of the businesses to give wood and other things and the young people can try and build a proper adventure playground, like the one in Newtown that the Council built. There was a picture in the Handsworth Times, did you see it? It can’t be too difficult and maybe the Council people will help if they see we have a strong support from ordinary people in our communities.’
Kamela looks at her mother proudly, she has never heard her speak so eloquently to strangers before this day. Marie O’Connell speaks next.
‘Well I think that could work. Some of the men could help too. My Derek would be up for it I reckon, and it will get him out from under me feet.’
‘Yes, it is a good idea,’ says Violet, ‘but how will we convince the young people to do it? Many of them don’t even go to that place or if they do it is only to smoke bad things away from their parents. They are too old for playgrounds.’
‘Yes, but we could put up a basketball net, they all watch them Harlem Globetrotters don’t they? And all ages play football. Plus we could have some benches so the girls would have a place to meet up and chat and that, a place to get together,’ Brenda says.
‘Maybe,’ says Violet. ‘We need a committee or something to make plans. I will be on it. We can’t do it all in one meeting.’
‘Yes you are right, bab,’ Brenda says to Violet. ‘This is just the start to see if people are interested. That’s what me and Usha thought, didn’t we Ush?’
Usha nods but she is distracted by a banging on the ceiling above their heads.
‘What’s that noise? Your hubby doing some DIY?’ Marie asks.
Usha doesn’t respond directly but instead says to Kamela,
‘Go and see what this noise is, beta. Please tell whoever it is to stop until our meeting is finished. It won’t be long.’
Anila and Kavi are already outside their parents’ bedroom when Kamela arrives to join them just as the banging stops as unexpectedly as it started.
‘Mom is really good down there – she has this great idea about the Bomb Peck and that. I’ve never heard her speak like that,’ Kamela says before adding, ‘Anyhow, what is going on up here?’
‘Dad
pissed himself so me and Anila locked him in the bedroom.’
‘What?’
‘He’s drunk,’ explains Anila. ‘We didn’t want him to spoil Mom’s meeting so we locked him in. Do you think we should open it?’
‘Nah,’ says Kamela and before any of them can speak again they hear the sound of glass smashing in the room.
‘Shit, he’s broken the window,’ Kavi says as Anila fumbles with the lock. When they open the door they see the window is wide open but seemingly intact. Instead, a whisky bottle lies smashed in glass shards across the floor under the open window and Mukesh is nowhere to be seen.
In the living-room, the women have agreed to meet the following week and Brenda has offered to phone the women that left early to let them know the plan and to encourage them to bring along others.
‘Bloody hell!’ Marie says suddenly and the others all turn to look at her. She is staring at the window towards the street. ‘There’s legs in your window, Mrs Agarwal, brown legs, look!’
Kavi, Anila and Kamela rush into the room just as the women turn towards the window where a pair of bare skinny legs dangle down from the frame, flanked at the top by white Y-fronts. As more of the body begins to appear and a torso is seen slowly edging downwards, the women gasp and Usha covers her face with her hands, peeping through slightly parted fingers.
‘Kavi,’ says Brenda taking control, ‘go and help your dad so he doesn’t hurt himself.’ She then turns to the other women and says, ‘Ladies, perhaps we should go into the kitchen to finish the meeting?’
‘No way,’ says Marie, ‘this is bostin. I’m staying put.’
Mukesh is hanging down precariously with both hands gripping the narrow tiled shelf above the window frame. His white vest is tucked into his underpants and his stunned face stares directly in at the occupants of the room.
‘Lord have mercy, it is him,’ declares Violet Murray who stands at the back of the group. The women all turn away from the window and look at her quizzically.
‘It is who?’ Shilly asks.
‘The man from the riot,’ Violet says, not making much sense to the others in the room until she continues to explain. ‘The man who saved the life of that poor boy who was burning to death when the riots happened last year on Lozells Road. This Indian man put out the flames with the shirt off his back when the rest of us were too shocked to move. He is a hero – the boy would surely have perished if he hadn’t stepped forward.’
‘Oh yes,’ says Shilly, ‘my husband, Surjeet is his friend. They were together that night. He told me all about the bravery of this man, your husband, Mrs Agarwal?’
‘Darren, that’s the boy – he’s my neighbour’s kid.’ The woman who says this is the large woman occupying the armchair. She continues, ‘He would have died for certain if your hubby hadn’t of stepped in. That’s what the doctors at the hospital told her anyhow.’ Usha gawps at her and then at Mukesh in the window as he hangs down like a rag-doll in underwear.
Kavi is outside now and standing beneath his father with his hands clasped together to create a landing step of his palms. Mukesh steps safely into his son’s hands and Kavi carries him like a child in his arms through the open house towards the kitchen. He closes the door behind them, away from the women in the living room who all stand in stunned silence staring at the now empty window-frame and beyond it to the small crowd of curious onlookers who have gathered on the street to watch the goings-on.
Chapter 27
Kavi runs the cold tap into the sink for a few seconds before putting a pint glass beneath it. He lets the water run until the glass brims over the sides and soaks his hand. Soon the cloudiness of the tap water disperses. Behind him Mukesh sits at the table, his expression is blank and Kavi wonders if he even realises how stupid he looks sitting there staring into space in his baggy vest and Y-fronts.
‘Get me my cigarettes,’ Mukesh says in monotone. Kavi does as requested, sprinting up the stairs to fetch the half-empty box of B&H from its usual resting place on the bedside cabinet in his parents’ bedroom. The broken shards of the whisky bottle lay scattered across the floor and Kavi edges them towards the wall with the side of his foot. He grabs Usha’s dressing gown from the back of the door before he leaves the room.
The kitchen is empty when he returns but he glimpses Mukesh in the side return through the window and he watches for a second as his father flicks a ladybird off his arm. Kavi then drags a chair out of the back door, hands over the cigarettes to Mukesh, places the dressing gown on the back of the chair and returns to the kitchen to search for some matches and pull out another chair.
‘I killed Billy,’ Mukesh says when Kavi hands him the matches.
Kavi catches his breath and places the dressing gown across his father’s shoulders.
‘I killed Billy by helping the boy on fire,’ Mukesh continues. ‘The way of the ambulance was blocked by me helping that boy, if it was a minute earlier or a minute later, Billy would be alive.’
Kavi, who had left the front room before Violet Murray’s revelation, has no idea what his father is talking about.
‘You’re not making any sense, Dad. I think you need help, like mental stuff – to help you cope and that. Maybe you should visit All Saints for a bit.’
‘You think I am mental, Kavi?’
‘Well, let’s face it, you have been a bit of a mess these last few months with the drink and that.’
‘You think I am a drunk too?’
‘I just mean I know it has been hard since Billy died, for all of us. The drinking has been worse, you’ve got to admit it.’
‘Hard? You don’t know just how hard it is losing your child, Kavi. I hope you never find out.’
‘He was my brother – it has been hard for me too,’ Kavi says angrily. ‘The girls have got each other to talk to and Mom has Brenda but you haven’t really got anyone and nor have I, that’s why we are finding it harder.’
Mukesh looks at Kavi as though he has only just become aware of his presence. He holds the open cigarette packet out towards his son and Kavi takes one willingly, taken aback by the gesture.
‘Thanks,’ he mutters as Mukesh offers the matches.
Father and son smoke in silence, blowing sharp plumes in the direction of the dusty garden ahead. They continue to sit quietly until Mukesh’s cigarette has burnt down to the filter. He drops it to floor and begins to speak again.
‘I am responsible for the death of your brother and also the death of Naresh. I am the maker of my own tragedies.’
Kavi drags on the cigarette, trying hard to keep up with Mukesh’s stream of consciousness.
‘What are you talking about, Dad? You’re not making any sense again.’
‘Naresh and Billy were just eleven years old,’ Mukesh continues, ‘and if I wasn’t dreaming of ras malai and cricket maybe Naresh would be alive… maybe I would have stayed in India and not have come to this stupid country where I don’t really belong, where there is no respect for elders and the children do as they please. Maybe, Billy too would be playing cricket in the sunshine, eating mangos and coconuts straight from the tree.’
‘Who the hell is Naresh, Dad? What the hell are you on about?’
‘He was my brother, Kavi. My beloved brother who left me, just like Billy left you. They were both too young and I should have stopped it happening both times.’
‘What?’
Mukesh tells Billy about Naresh. It is a condensed version of the same story Usha shared with Brenda a few months after Billy died.
‘Shit,’ said Kavi, ‘that is bad.’
‘So you see Kavi, these things follow me. I bring bad luck.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ says Kavi, ‘how can either of those things be your fault? You were just a kid when your brother died and as for Billy, how could you have changed that? You aren’t making sense. Besides, if you hadn’t have come to
this country none of us would be here anyway. I mean, you and Mom would, but not together like.’
The buttons on Usha’s cerise pink dressing gown sparkle in the sunlight and Kavi stares at the strands of light that reflect from them and dance about on Mukesh’s face. He looks on his father with overwhelming pity as Mukesh lights up another cigarette.
‘I need whisky,’ Mukesh says. There is desperation in his voice.
‘You drink too much, Dad. Anyway, you broke the bottle, remember?’
‘My flask is by the bed, get it for me.’
‘You didn’t kill anyone, Dad. You are mixing up grief with feeling sorry for yourself and instead of helping us all cope you are making a fool of yourself by drinking too much.’
Mukesh doesn’t respond and instead covers his face with his hands. Kavi knows his father has started to cry.
‘I’ll get your whisky,’ Kavi says. When he returns with the hip-flask, his father is blowing his nose loudly on the arm of Usha’s dressing gown; streaks of snot cover the sleeve as it falls back into Mukesh’s lap.
‘Listen Kavi,’ he says, grabbing the hip-flask from his son, ‘I may be a drunk but I am not mental. I should have saved Naresh that night and maybe everything would have been different… better.’
‘Why don’t you tell me what happened?’ Kavi says with genuine curiosity, ‘I mean everything, before he fell off the roof?’
‘Alright,’ says Mukesh and he does, taking gulps of whisky as he speaks. Kavi listens patiently as his father describes the carefree childhood he shared with his peers before his life was shattered by tragedy. He tells stories of hot summers and the tree-climbing and the endless games of cricket. When he finishes speaking he closes his eyes and leans back in the chair, sighing out a long and audible breath. Kavi takes the hip-flask from his father’s lap and shakes the remains into his own mouth, he then slumps back into his chair and allows the burning liquor to seep down his throat in small trickles. He continues to watch as Mukesh slips into sleep and he fixes on the black hairs on his father’s undulating chest as they glisten in the fading sunlight. It has been a long day.
The Handsworth Times Page 18