The Handsworth Times

by Sharon Duggal

  ‘Listen Usha, Mukesh isn’t the only fella with a UB40 around here – there are hundreds in case you haven’t noticed, thousands probably. You only have to walk past the dole office on a morning to realise how bad it’s getting. And as for the young ones, didn’t we agree that by helping all the young people we will be helping our own? Isn’t that what a community does? I bet if we organise another meeting, those ladies and more will turn up and there will be no mention of Mukesh’s underpants.’

  ‘Stop saying that, Brenda. I don’t know – I can’t bear another shameful episode like that. Maybe, if we do it we can have the meeting somewhere else?’

  ‘That’s the spirit, bab. I’ll ask at St Silas’ – that would be better. You can’t just give up because of one setback. Remember this is for your Billy, in his memory and that.’

  Usha winces at the mention of Billy.

  ‘Okay, maybe,’ she says.

  The next morning, Brenda is at the front door again with some crudely made notices.

  ‘I spoke to the vicar at St Silas’ after I left here yesterday and I have just done a few of these,’ she says handing half of the notices to Usha.

  HELP MAKE LOZELLS BETTER FOR OUR KIDS

  MEETING TO DISCUSS IMPROVING THE BOMB PECK

  SATURDAY 3PM, ST SILAS CHURCH HALL.

  ALL WELCOME – ESPECIALLY MOTHERS.

  ‘Saturday? So soon?’ Usha says reading the leaflet.

  ‘Yes – strike while the iron is hot and that. C’mon, let’s write a list.’

  Usha wipes her damp hands on her apron, removes it, hangs it on the back of the kitchen door and takes a deep breath.

  ‘Okay, where do we start?’ she says as she grabs her list-book and pencil from the worktop. She takes a seat next to Brenda, veering around the mop bucket she was about to fill at the sink.

  Chapter 30

  As Usha clears the breakfast dishes from the kitchen table, Nina arrives at the back gate. She stands on tiptoes to reach over and unbolt the lock at the top of the wooden door and enters the kitchen with a holdall slung over her shoulder.

  ‘Hi Mom!’

  Usha jumps – the saucer she is rinsing under the tap drops in the sink and smashes into pieces.

  ‘Nina, what has happened? Why are you back so soon? You only left last week, are you okay? We weren’t expecting you until your term has finished.’ Usha picks up the broken bits of crockery from the sink as she speaks.

  ‘Nothing happened,’ Nina replies casually. She drops her holdall in the middle of the room and flicks on the kettle switch. ‘Just nothing has started properly yet so I decided to get the first coach this morning. It left just after seven so here I am. Not bad, eh? Leeds isn’t as far as it seems and I was missing you, Mom.’ She kisses the back of Usha’s head, sits down at the table and babbles on about the journey while the kettle begins to boil in the background. Usha makes the tea, puts a mug in front of her daughter and sits down beside her. ‘Could you make me some toast, Mom? I’m starving,’ Nina asks.

  ‘Yes, beta,’ says Usha, getting back up.

  Upstairs in the bedroom, Anila is lying on her bed staring at the ceiling and listening to the latest album she borrowed from the music library. It was due back over a week ago.

  ‘Turn it down a bit, Anila,’ Kamela says from the other bed, ‘I mean, I like The Jam and that but it’s a bit early isn’t it?’

  Anila turns it down and returns to her bed.

  ‘Are you going to Mom’s meeting later today?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m sick of meetings to be honest. I just want some quiet time.’

  ‘Quiet time? Bloody hell, Anila, I mean, I know it’s horrible getting your head kicked in but you can’t let something like that rule your life. You need to straighten your fizzog, bab – I have to move on and so will you. I know it’s different – I mean the reasons for it but at the end of the day it’s about people trying to tell you what you can or can’t be, even though you can’t actually help what you are.’ Kamela pencils over her eyebrows as she speaks.

  ‘It isn’t just what happened last week, Kam. There is something else before that. Something I should have told you.’

  Kamela stops applying her make-up and looks towards her sister.

  ‘I knew there was something, you’ve been miserable for weeks. You were going to tell me before, remember? But Nina came in. I know you have been seeing that Jamaican lad, Marcus is it? I won’t tell – you probably think it will be the end of the world if Dad and Mom found out but it’s not the worst thing that can happen, believe me – and if you like him, well does it really matter that he is black?’

  ‘It’s not a simple as that.’

  ‘Nothing is bloody simple. I know that – life would be very different if it was!’

  Anila doesn’t know how to tell Kamela about what happened. She doesn’t have the words or the stomach for it so instead she says, ‘Kam… I know we said we wouldn’t talk about what happened that day in the underpass… but… well…’

  Kamela ignores her and returns to her eyebrows. Anila had intended to say that she’d read something about that sort of thing in the ‘Dear Jenny’ section of the magazine, that there was a phone number you could call to talk about it, but before she can say anything else the door flings open and Nina walks in.

  ‘Alright?’ she says, looking from Kamela to Anila.

  ‘Friggin’ hell, not again, you only went five minutes ago,’ Kamela says.

  ‘Blimey,’ says Nina, ‘that’s no way to greet your sister. You should be pleased to see me.’

  ‘What you doing here?’ Anila asks meekly.

  ‘I got your letter, stupidface. Did you think I wouldn’t come after that?’

  Anila feels exposed.

  ‘What letter?’ Kamela says from across the room. ‘What bloody letter?’ she repeats when there is no response.

  By now Nina is sitting on Anila’s bed with her arms around her younger sister’s shoulders. Anila begins to cry.

  ‘What is going on?’ Kamela asks again. ‘Is this about your spat with that Marcus?’

  ‘Marcus?’ says Nina, still holding the trembling Anila to her shoulder, ‘Who is he?’ And then turning to look at Kamela she says quite solemnly, ‘This is about something else, Kamela.’

  Anila’s crying begins to subside and Nina gently pushes her away. She grabs a tee-shirt from the floor and wipes away the secretions from her shoulder.

  ‘Listen you two,’ she says, ‘maybe the three of us should get out of here. Let’s go into town, do a bit of shopping – I just got my grant cheque – I could treat you both. We can have a look around the Oasis market, I need some new jeans anyhow, and then go to Drucker’s for a sarnie or something. What’d you reckon? My treat.’

  ‘I’m up for it’, says Kamela jumping up. ‘Drucker’s, blimey, it’s not even our birthdays or anything. Better not tell Mom, she’ll go mad with you for spending your grant money on stuff like that.’

  ‘Mom’ll be okay, I’ve already put five quid in her money jam-jar. That’ll help a bit at least. Anyway, I think I might have got a part-time job at Chelsea Girl in the Merrion Centre from next week. I went to an interview and I can probably do a couple of shifts with my timetable this year, plus Saturdays.’

  Kamela begins to choose some clothes from her drawer. ‘Will you get a discount?’ she asks.

  ‘Come on, our kid, how about you?’ Nina says to Anila.

  ‘Okay,’ Anila says in a small voice. She rubs her face with her hands before easing her legs from lotus position to a full stretch.

  The downstairs hallway is filled with the delicate tones of Lata Mangeshkar playing out from the cassette player in the kitchen. Usha sings quietly along to the Kora Kagaz soundtrack. The tape was a present from Mukesh several years earlier when the children were still at primary school. He had asked the shop a
ssistant at Mr Ali’s Music Emporium on Soho Road to put it aside until pay-day and when he finally handed it to Usha he did so like an excited child, knowing she loved that film almost as much as Pakeezah. As the girls descend the stairs they turn to look at each other, lifting their palms upwards and shrugging their shoulders in gestures of surprise. It has been a long time since Usha has played any of her beloved cassette tapes.

  Nina pops her head around the kitchen door,

  ‘Me and the girls are going into town. We’ll be back later, alright?’

  Usha quickly presses pause on the cassette player.

  ‘Okay,’ she nods guiltily.

  ‘It’s alright, Mom,’ Nina says. ‘Put it back on, it’s good to have a bit of music around. It makes everything seem okay.’ And then she adds, ‘Listening to your tape isn’t betraying anyone, Mom – it’s like fresh air to hear that on in this house.’

  Usha depresses the pause button but turns the volume right down so Lata’s voice is just a thin background whistle against the white noise of the kitchen appliances – the fridge and the twin-tub dominate the domestic soundscape once again.

  On the bus, Nina and Kamela sit next to each other on the only empty double seat upstairs. Anila sits further forwards next to a well-dressed white man in his twenties. He wears a Walkman and has the volume up loud so the Phil Collins album he is listening to is clearly audible. Anila turns around and looks for another empty seat nearby but there aren’t any. All three girls light up cigarettes simultaneously and, together with almost all the occupants of the upper deck, blow out streams of smoke to add to the thick haze of tobacco which hangs in the rooftop space above their heads.

  ‘What was in this letter, then?’ Kamela asks discreetly, once the bus begins to pull off. Nina tells her and by the time she has finished they have passed Great Hampton Street and are almost in town.

  ‘Shit,’ says Kamela after digesting Nina’s words.

  ‘She says she feels dirty all the time, poor thing.’

  ‘Why didn’t she tell me?’

  ‘No offence, Kam, but you’re a bit close to home, literally and that. Sometimes it’s easier if there is a bit of distance.’

  ‘The daft bugger. I knew that group was trouble. She should have known better, the silly fool.’

  ‘She is just a kid, how was she to know that bastard would do that. If I get hold of him, I’ll bloody kill him.’

  ‘Yeah, but if people find out they’ll say it was her fault. She hasn’t stopped talking about that bloody group for months – everyone knows she went to all those meetings by herself. Shit, if people in the community found out we’d be the talk of the town again. And if Dad found out…’

  ‘For god’s sake Kamela, this is Anila we are talking about. I think there are more important things to worry about than what other people might think, including Dad. She is a woman who has been attacked, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘Calm down. What are we going to do? We can’t go to the police.’

  ‘I don’t know, part of me thinks she should. What happened to Anila is about men like that Kash thinking they can do what they like ’cos they have a bit of power. It doesn’t just happen around here you know?’

  ‘I know, but we can’t go to the police – everyone will find out and I don’t think Mom, or Dad, can take anymore. Anila won’t want that either – everyone blaming her and talking about her behind her back – you can’t do anything except what is acceptable around here, even if it isn’t your fault – and we can’t just escape somewhere else like you – I wish we could.’

  A few hours later the girls make their way back from Birmingham city centre towards Handsworth and home. They are worn out by the talking, crying, advice-giving and window shopping. As they alight at Villa Cross, they automatically link arms and walk towards Church Street in a chain of three – Nina in the middle holding on to her sisters firmly by their arms. They walk past the Acapulco cafe where Marcus is sitting at a window table reading a paperback. He looks up as the girls pass. Anila feels the hairs on her arm rising at the sight of him. She shyly lifts her free hand in a greeting, Marcus raises his hand too and quickly turns back to his book. Nina and Kamela exchange a brief smile and the girls continue on.

  At the top of Church Street on the junction with Lozells Road a huddle of five or six women becomes noticeable. They walk a few metres ahead of the girls and disappear around the corner into Church Street. As the girls also turn into Church Street they stop and watch the women as they enter the grounds of St Silas’ to join a queue which snakes its way around the main church building, down the side and towards the church hall at the back.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ says Kamela,’ look at that.’

  ‘What?’ Anila and Nina say in unison.

  ‘They’re here for Mom’s meeting. I forgot it was today. Shit, I told her I’d help out.’

  ‘No way,’ says Anila.

  ‘What meeting?’ Nina says.

  Kamela pulls her arm free and sprints on ahead towards the church while Anila explains to Nina that the meeting is the follow up to the event the week before, where Mukesh had appeared in the window in his underwear.

  ‘Blimey,’ says Nina, ‘even Mom is becoming some kind of political activist now.’

  ‘Not political but a community activist I think you’ll find,’ Anila says proudly.

  ‘Well good for her!’

  As they near the church, Kavi walks past with some plastic cups tucked under his arm and two jugs of orange squash gripped in his hands.

  ‘Oh, you’re here as well, again,’ he says looking at Nina. ‘Well help out then – there are more jugs of juice at the house and some biscuits.’

  ‘Sure thing, kiddo,’ Nina says in a faux-American accent and both Anila and Kavi shake their heads.

  Nina and Anila stop for a second to look at the queue before moving on. It is made up mostly of women – middle-aged in the majority but also a few younger and older ones too – altogether they number around twenty-five or possibly thirty. There are black, white and brown women including Bibi, Violet Murray, Marie O’Connell and even old Elsie Meeson. The group of women is interspersed by a small scattering of men, no more than three or four that the girls can see.

  Chapter 31

  Kamela rises early, much earlier than she has for many months. She dresses for the warm weather immediately, checks through her bag and before leaving the room she pokes Anila in the back.

  ‘What? Can’t you see I’m asleep.’

  ‘I’m going to the library – d’ya want me to take those records back? You’ll get a fine again if you don’t watch it.’

  ‘Yes, please, I’ve taped them already. Ta very much,’ Anila replies dozily before rolling over and going back to sleep.

  Downstairs, Kamela butters two slices of bread and spreads one with Shippams sardine paste. She wraps up her sandwich in foil and searches the cupboards for more items to add to her packed lunch as Usha cleans up around her.

  ‘Hey, I haven’t finished yet,’ Kamela says, grabbing the bread from her mother’s hand. She spreads another slice thick with fish paste and eats it for her breakfast whilst pushing the sandwich and the remains of an opened packet of Custard Creams into her bag. ‘Has the Pop-man been, or have we not paid that bill yet, either?’ she asks dismissively.

  ‘Where are you going, Kamela?’

  ‘’Town, Central Library. I need to get some books – catch up on college before we go back – I missed a lot last term.’

  Usha puts the opened jar of fish paste in the fridge and gives Kamela a hug,

  ‘Good girl,’ she says.

  ‘Ta-ra, Mom. I’ll be back in a bit.’

  Kamela stops at the entrance of the alley and glances around before pulling Anila’s old magazine out of her bag. She leans against the wall at the threshold of the archway and flips through the pages of the maga
zine, past the fashion section and photo-loves to the ‘Dear Jenny’ section on the penultimate page. She re-reads the short letter from a reader which describes a situation that resonates deeply, it begins with the words, Please help me, I think I am a freak. Following the short letter there is a response from the agony aunt that is both practical and non-judgmental and Kamela sighs as she reads it over and over again. She searches for a biro in her handbag, copies out the printed advice-line number onto the palm of her hand and tosses the magazine on the bag of rubbish left out for the binmen by Usha that morning. She then steps out of the shadows and into the glaring sunshine of the morning.

  ‘Oi, Kamela,’ a voice shouts.

  Kamela looks up and down Church Street but it is deserted.

  ‘Up here,’ the voice says and Kamela look up across the street to see Debbie O’Connell leaning out of an upstairs window of the house opposite.

  ‘You going up town?’ Debbie shouts. ‘Hang on if you are, I’m going too. I’ll only be a tick, we can go together and have a natter on the bus, like.’

  When Debbie disappears from the window, Kamela walks on hurriedly towards Lozells Road, hoping to reach it and continue her journey alone but as she passes by St Silas’ Church, Debbie comes charging up beside her.

  ‘Wait up a bit,’ she says and Kamela shrugs her shoulders. ‘How are you, Kam?’ Debbie continues, trying to keep up the pace, ‘I haven’t seen you properly for ages. My Mom came over to your house and to the other meeting over there,’ she says pointing back towards St Silas’. ‘She said it was alright and that. That your mom and her mate are going to fix up the Bomb Peck. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘So, you coming back to college this term? You hardly came before the holidays. I know you got smashed in and that but it was ages ago now. Someone said you’d copped off with a Jamaican boy – that’s why they did it; one of them fancied him for herself or something. Is that what happened?’