‘I think I might have read something about grief being like a shipwreck once, or maybe it was a dream? Anyway, it’s true for me but the thing is, Brenda, I don’t think it is the same for Mukesh. He has no wreckage to hold onto, he has let it all float away and he is allowing the big waves to throw him about, pulling him deeper into the ocean – to drown him.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Brenda says again. ‘Maybe you should take him to the doctor. Get some Valium or something.’
‘He had some of that already. I did too. I still do, but these medicines are not to be taken with alcohol so I had to hide the tablets away from Mukesh. He will never go to the doctor. I can hardly get him to get out of bed these days.’
‘You’ll have to send him to the looney bin at All Saints, Usha. I know it is difficult to imagine, but when someone gets that bad some of that electric shock stuff they do there is the only thing that will work. My Aunty Patty had it once, after she went through the change. She started hearing people in her head telling her to bash her husband with the frying pan. She actually did it once, bash him I mean, and then they came for her. Anyhow, it worked – all calm and that afterwards. Not the fiery old cow she used to be.’ Brenda takes a breath and continues, ‘I’m not saying he is mental or anything but it’s not normal sitting around the house all day in your pyjamas and climbing out of the window in your Y-fronts for everyone to see, is it?’
‘Don’t you think I know that?’ Usha sighs and rubs her face with her knuckles. After a moment she changes the subject and says more cheerily, ‘Look I found this picture,’ and she rummages around in the drawer next to the cooker until she finds what she is looking for. ‘It’s of a climbing frame in London. It is made out of wood and pallets from local factories. We could make something like this, or at least we could get the teenage boys to build it.’
Ten minutes later the phone rings and Usha heads into the hallway to answer it. Brenda follows her.
‘Yes, this is she. Who is calling please?’ Usha says in her most formal voice. She cups her hand over the receiver and whispers to Brenda, ‘It is the Handsworth Times – they want to know about the Bomb Peck.’ She returns to the caller and says, ‘How did you get my phone number?’ She repeats the response, ‘Oh, you had it on your records from before, I see.’
‘What’s he saying?’
Usha lifts her finger to her lips, gesturing to Brenda to be quiet.
‘Yes,’ she says into the phone, ‘I think we would like you to come and see what we are doing… yes you can interview myself and my friend, Brenda… yes okay, two o’clock at the Bomb Peck tomorrow. We will see you there.’
‘They want to do a story about us?’
‘Yes!’ Usha says excitedly. ‘Somebody called them. A young man they said but they didn’t get his name. Anyway, they said that we were examples of good community citizens and they want to feature us in the newspaper this week. They want to meet us tomorrow.’
‘Ooo, we’ll be famous like. Perhaps we’ll get stopped and asked for our autographs. What you going to wear, Usha? I expect they’ll want to take our picture. I wonder if Carol Mckenna has time to do my hair this afternoon.’
‘I don’t care about that Brenda, but maybe if the people at Birmingham Council see it they might give us money to help finish the Bomb Peck.’
‘Yes, of course, but we want to look good too, don’t we? C’mon, bab, admit it.’
A few days later, Brenda arrives carrying half a dozen copies of the Handsworth Times.
‘Frank Lavery told me we were in there,’ she says. ‘He gave me two copies for free, one for each of us, and I bought the rest.’
‘I should have worn English clothes,’ Usha says to Brenda as the stare at the newspaper. Anila and Kamela have joined them as they gather in the kitchen looking at the open copy on the table. ‘I look like I have only recently arrived from India,’ she continues, pointing at the grainy monochrome image.
‘You look like you, Mom. You look great – you both do,’ says Kamela. ‘Anyhow, well done for getting something positive in the Handsworth Times about our family for once – it’s been a long time coming,’ she adds light-heartedly. They all laugh.
‘What’s all this then?’ Kavi asks, bursting into the kitchen and grabbing a copy of the paper. ‘Oh bostin, they actually listened then. They didn’t sound too convinced when I phoned them last week.’
Usha puts her arm around Kavi and squeezes him.
‘Get off, Mom, you’re so embarrassing,’ he says, freeing himself, and the group all laugh again.
Chapter 34
The following Monday, Kavi is sitting on his bed flicking through his school library copy of Of Mice and Men when Mukesh comes into the room.
‘Shit,’ says Kavi, ‘you never come in here.’
Mukesh doesn’t answer and instead goes over to Billy’s bed and, with a sweep of his arm, he clears Kavi’s guitar and discarded clothes off the bed and onto the floor.
‘What the bloody hell are you doing, Dad? That’s my stuff!’ says Kavi.
Mukesh still doesn’t answer and instead he sits on the edge of the bed and begins to cradle the uncovered pillow that once belonged to Billy. He rocks the pillow to and fro, as if it is a small baby in his arms, and begins to sing a lullaby in Hindi.
‘Come one, come all and have a look,
The baby is swinging in his crib.
Maasi Aunt has come from Meerut with a suit and a bonnet.
Let us dress our baby in these.
Come one, come all and have a look,
The baby is swinging in his crib.’
The sound of his father singing this vaguely familiar song makes Kavi want to cry. Instead, he stares, transfixed, at Mukesh.
‘Dad, are you alright?’
Mukesh falls forward off the bed and lands on his knees. He begins to weep. At first it is a gentle sobbing but soon it becomes a full blown howl that bounces off the walls and fills the room with the terrible sound of anguish. Kavi gets on the floor beside his father and puts his arms around him but Mukesh pushes him away. Between the bawling, he mumbles Billy’s name over and over again and continues to squeeze the pillow, rocking back and forth uncontrollably.
‘I killed them,’ he says.
‘No you didn’t!’ Kavi responds. ‘You are getting all mixed up, you just tried to help someone. You kept someone alive – we all know about the boy on fire in the riot. We had to find out from someone else, from a stranger – why didn’t you tell us?’
‘I let Naresh walk off the roof. I let him break into a thousand pieces. I killed him.’
‘No you didn’t,’ Kavi says again, shaking his father by the shoulder. ‘Stop this Dad, please stop it. Shall I get you some whisky?’
‘Whisky can’t help me, I am going to hell. I am going to hell.’ Mukesh begins to knock the side of his head against the wall next to Billy’s bed. The sound becomes a monotonous drum beat which gets louder and louder. Kavi looks on helplessly.
‘Stop it, Dad. Stop doing that, you are scaring me.’
Mukesh stops for a moment and looks blankly ahead.
‘Where is my baby boy? Where has Billy gone?’ he says and then the wailing begins again.
Kavi runs to the top of the stairs and shouts for help. Straight away Usha is charging up the stairs from the kitchen and Anila and Kamela are heading across the landing. They all cram into the little bedroom at the back of the house and watch Mukesh rocking to and fro, cradling the pillow and humming the old Hindi lullaby.
‘What we going to do?’ Anila says.
‘What can we do?’ Kamela says.
Usha goes over to Mukesh and gently prises him up to a standing position. As she does so he buries his face into her shoulder and whispers, ‘Usha, where is our Billy?’
Usha takes Mukesh by the hand and leads him along the landing to the bedroom at the
front of the house. The curtains are still drawn and Usha helps Mukesh into the bed. She lifts up his legs and pulls the covers over him, tucking him in like a young child.
‘Where is he?’ Mukesh asks again and this time Usha answers.
‘He is safe,’ she says.
Anila links arms with Kamela and they both begin to quietly weep. Kavi turns and walks towards the bedroom he once shared with Billy. He closes the door behind him.
‘Do you think he might be having a nervous breakdown?’ Brenda asks Usha.
‘I think it might have already happened,’ says Usha. ‘I have spoken to the doctor and he is going to come himself later today. I told him that since this has happened Mukesh has hardly got out of bed. I have to take food up to him and he only comes down to use the bathroom.’ She pauses and then says sternly, ‘Brenda, please don’t speak to anyone about these things that are happening to us, not even Eugene. The children have started to live their lives again after many, many months and Mukesh, well he seems to be going backwards rather than forwards. Maybe he will recover from this one day but I can’t cope if everyone is pointing at us and talking about us all the time.’
‘Listen, Usha, I don’t talk about private stuff to anyone,’ replies Brenda sounding slightly offended. ‘Anyhow, you Indians get so worried about what other people think all the time – shouldn’t you just focus on getting your hubby sorted? Does it really matter what other people think? Perhaps once he has some new tablets from the doctor he can go back to work. Do you want Eugene to speak to Sam Bedford?’
‘Let’s talk about the Bomb Peck,’ Usha says.
‘If you like, bablin,’ says Brenda more gently. ‘Why don’t we go for a walk around there? We can see how the young lads are getting on with the climbing frame. Didn’t they make a start at the weekend?’
Ten minutes later, just after 9am, Usha and Brenda leave the house.
‘Blimey, it’s a bit parky isn’t it?’ Brenda says when they get outside.
‘Yes, it is cold,’ replies Usha as she rolls the ends of her scarf around her hands like an old-fashioned muff. ‘I think it will be another long winter.’
The two women walk through the alleyway which leads to the back garden of the derelict house behind the O’Connells’. The navigate their way through the overgrown garden and onto Wills Street via a broken back gate.
‘Look Brenda,’ Usha exclaims excitedly as they turn into Brougham Street.
‘Bloody hell,’ says Brenda and the two women walk faster to get a closer view of the huge wood and rope structure being erected ahead of them.
‘Alright, Mom?’ A voice says from behind a small, half-built wooden tower. ‘What you doing here so early?’
‘Kavi, I thought you were still in bed,’ says Usha.
‘Nah, couldn’t sleep so got up to come here. Some of the other lads, Clive and Joey and that, are over there making the rope-ladder. Good, isn’t it?’
‘Oh yes!’ Usha and Brenda say in unison.
Chapter 35
By the beginning of December there is snow in Birmingham. For over a week the people of Handsworth awake to streets that appear clean and brightened by the fresh flurries. Beneath the surface, however, sludged ice is compacted and perilous and the few people with regular work in the area trudge through it without proper footwear or adequate clothing. The older Asian women are the least prepared – they layer thin saris with hand-knitted cardigans and tank tops and continue to struggle through the bitter cold wearing low-heeled court shoes and mules that suffice for the other seasons but are useless for snow and ice.
‘Handsworth looks better in the snow.’ Anila remarks to Kamela as she stares out of the grimy bus window on the way to the city centre. ‘It’s like it’s all clean and fresh, pretending to have got rid of the filth but we all know it’s still there underneath. By lunchtime it’ll all be a nasty, dirty slush. It’s literally a whitewash.’
‘What you on about, Anila?’ Kamela says.
Anila doesn’t answer but continues to stare out the window. As they pull into the bus-stop outside Taj and Co. butchers, Anila spots Kash crossing the junction of Hamstead Road and Villa Road. A few paces behind him is the woman she recognises from the police station in the summer. The woman pushes a pram with one hand and holds on to a small child with the other. She walks tentatively on the ice, attempting to catch up with Kash as he strides ahead. Anila turns away from the window.
‘What‘s wrong Anila? You don’t look right,’ Kamela says.
‘It’s him,’ Anila replies, pointing towards Kash as he nears the bus.
‘What? That bastard from your meetings?’
‘Oh shit, Kamela, he won’t get on the bus will he?‘
‘Not if I have anything to bloody do with it,’ replies Kamela.
When Kash is almost at the bus-stop he glances up and catches Anila’s eye. She quickly turns her face away again just as Kamela jumps up on to the seat behind.
‘Kamela, what are you doing?’
Kamela slides open the narrow window above her and hollers out onto the street below.
‘Oi, you, wanker,’ she yells.
The other passengers on the top deck all turn to observe the commotion; some tut in obvious scorn, others look on amusedly, glad of the disruption to an otherwise slow and dreary bus journey. Kamela continues to shout out of the window,.
‘Don’t you come anywhere near my sister again, you fucking bastard.’
Kash looks away in the other direction, pretending to be oblivious to the shouting above him. His wife and small son stare up at Kamela and they are joined by the small crowd of people shivering in the bus-stop queue.
‘You, I’m talking to you, Kash bloody Ram. Don’t turn away and pretend you can’t hear me. You touch my sister again, you bastard and I’ll make sure everyone knows exactly what you are like. It will be all over the front page of the bleeding Handsworth Times believe me. Now fuck off and crawl under your stone and don’t even think about getting on this bus, scum!’
‘Shssh now, Kam,’ pleads Anila and Kamela climbs down from the seat and calmly takes her place next to Anila. She leans across to look out the window and both sisters watch as Kash scurries away past the bus-stop with his wife and son in tow. Just as the bus engine fires up and begins to pull off, Kash slips on the ice and falls in an undignified heap on the grey mush of sullied snow at the side of the pavement.
‘Serves him bloody right,’ Kamela says, laughing.
‘Shut the friggin’ window,’ one of the other passengers shouts from the back of the bus. ‘It’s bloody freezing up here.’
That evening, Kavi and the girls sit in front of the television watching Game For A Laugh and eating anda bhurji with their dinner plates on their knees.
‘I don’t think I can eat any more of these scrambled eggs. We seem to have them every other bloody day.’
‘Cheap, that’s why,’ says Anila as she pushes the food from one side of the plate to the other.
‘There’s not even any butter on the chapattis. It’s like eating a bit of cardboard,’ Kavi complains.
‘Beggars cannot be choosers,’ Kamela sings the line to the tune of Handsworth Revolution. ‘Mom does her best,’ she continues, ‘and it can’t be easy feeding us lot without any wages coming into the house. At least we don’t have to eat all that nasty bland frozen rubbish skint white people eat.’
‘I quite like some of that actually,’ Kavi replies. ‘You can’t beat a beef burger with Smash. It’s better than all that dhal and shit that makes you fart.’
The phone rings. Anila looks around at the others but they don’t even seem to notice the noise from the hallway. Kavi is chuckling at the TV programme and Kamela is carefully heaping spoonfuls of anda bhurji on to her chapatti and rolling up the edges of the flatbread to make a filled cone. In the corner of the room, Mukesh is snoring in the ar
mchair under a copy of the Handsworth Times. Eventually, Anila gets up and heads for the telephone, avoiding her father’s outstretched legs as she leaves the room.
‘Is that you Anila?’ the voice on the other end says.
‘Yes, who is it?’ Anila replies. She doesn’t recognise the voice on the other end.
‘It’s me, Olive, from the Handsworth Youth Movement. How are you? I haven’t seen you for ages.’
‘Okay,’ Anila says flatly.
‘Okay – is that it?’
‘Well, yeah! Just trying to get on with my studies and that.’
‘You don’t come to the meetings anymore, why not?’
‘I just said. I have to study and that.’
‘You sure it isn’t something else too? A few people have had some disagreements since that march back in August and well, people are leaving. It’s all breaking up, like. Some are saying there are too many of your lot now, others that there are too many West Indians. We are saying we should stand together – whatever our colour – that’s what Handsworth is.’
Anila continues to listen without responding.
‘Anyway, some have gone off to make their own groups – just black kids or just Pakis like, and others have signed up to join bigger things like the Socialist Workers and Militant and other groups like that.’
‘What are they?’
‘White people’s groups I think – communists maybe. I don’t really know but someone said they are always at the factory when there is a strike on. They have a newspaper which they sell, looks like the Daily Mirror. Anyhow, it’s only a few that have done that, most of us want to stick together.’
‘So, what are you calling me for?’ asks Anila.
‘Well, Kash is going. I don’t know whether you heard or not?’
‘Going? What, to join one of those bigger movements?’
‘No, don’t think so. He is moving to Bradford or something. Marcus and some of the others fell out with him.‘
‘Marcus?’ asks Anila, surprising herself with her own sudden interest.
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