by Meera Syal
All at once, several cottage doors flew open like airholes on a concertina and blew various women out of their houses adjusting headscarves, closing handbags, shouting at husbands, voices hoarse with cigarette smoke or muffled by herbal cough sweets but all dipping and rising in that broad Midland sing-song where every sentence ends in a rhetorical swoop. ‘What you done to your hair, eh? Dog’s dinner or what, aaar! Am you gooing up bingo tonight or what, eh? Mouthy wench, that Sharon, aaar? Ooh, yowm looking fit today, Roberto duck, getting it regular then, aaar?’
These women were commonly known as The Ballbearings Committee as they all worked at a metal casings factory in New Town, an industrial estate and shopping centre and our nearest contact with civilisation. The factory had opened, by way of compensation, soon after the mine closure, and everyone had assumed that the jobs would be given to the ex-colliers. But it was not the men they wanted; they wanted women, women who would do piecework and feel grateful, women whose nimble fingers would negotiate their machines, women who, unlike their husbands, would not make demands or complain. So it was that in the space of a few months, the hormonal balance of Tollington was turned upside down. There must have been a time when women waved their men off on doorsteps with lunch boxes and a resigned smile, but I could not remember it. It seemed to me that they had always run the village and they had always been as glamorous and shocking as they were now.
There was not much room for dialogue with these women, whose communal tone of voice said, I know the answer but I’ll ask you anyway but make it quick, chick. They appeared ensemble as coiffured maenads in belted macs and bright lipsticks who all worked together, lived together and played together, and bounced off the village boundaries like a ballbearing against the sides of a pinball machine. Too much energy and nowhere to put it, and though I knew some of their names, Mrs Dalmeny, Mrs Spriggs, Mrs Povey, they seemed to exist and function as a group.
Indeed, their husbands were incidental; all I knew of them was what I would glimpse through half-open doorways on these regular morning panic runs from porch door to approaching bus, men in vests and braces, with rumpled hair who clutched half-read papers and fiddled absent-mindedly with their testicles whilst their wives flung them hurried goodbyes. I noticed there was never any show of affection, no hugs or kisses, not like my parents for whom every leavetaking was accompanied by squeezes, contact numbers on the journey in case of breakdown or terrorist kidnap and always a folded white hanky. Maybe, I told my mother once, they did not love their husbands, that was why we never saw them out together. ‘Oh no,’ my mother replied. ‘They do. They work so their husbands can eat. Their husbands must feel like ghosts. Poor men. Poor women.’
I did not think they were impoverished, watching them teeter across the road, shouting and laughing until they met and merged together like mercury. The bus coughed to a halt and Roberto made a great show of holding the automatic doors open for the women. They all flew past me in a tornado of perfume and smoke and shiny snappy handbags, pinching my cheek, ruffling my hair, ‘Alright chick?…Ooh, she’s a little doll, in’t she?…Them eyes, eh? Ey Roberto, gooing to come and sit by me, aaar?’ They drew energy from me like a succubus and I deflated as the bus doors closed with a sigh and pulled away. I could see Roberto chatting and flirting with the women but only I knew how bravely he concealed his terrible tortured past. I envied him. I wished I was a tortured soul.
My eyes travelled from the sailor’s grimace to the rows of sweetjars above his head. I knew my father was waiting for me to say something. I took in the plump, cloudy bonbons, snug in their glass jar, the cherry lips smiling back at me, the flying saucers whose paper surfaces dissolved into acid on your tongue, the humbugs and rainbow drops and Blackjack chews, adorned with the face of a grinning piccaninny. Wouldn’t anyone be tempted? I wanted to say, but I didn’t. ‘Well,’ said papa. ‘Are you going to tell me the truth? Or shall we go inside and ask Mr Ormerod what happened?’
I glanced at the brass crucifix in the centre of the window display and then shot my father a look. We both knew this was an empty threat. No one instigated conversation with Mr Ormerod if they wanted to get home before their next birthday. A sentence as innocuous as ‘How much is the thicksliced Sunblest?’ would result in a chirpy monologue which took in Harold Wilson, global disaster and the price of peas, somehow always ending in a hallelujah chorus about the glory of God. Mr Ormerod was hyperactive in the local Wesleyan Methodist church, the only church in the village, the centre of over-organised events we laughingly termed a social life, and the best way he knew how to make us feel at home was to continually try and convert us to the ways of Jesus Christ, his Saviour.
‘Have you seen this leaflet, Mr Kumar?’ he would enquire innocently, thrusting a flyer into papa’s hands with his change. ‘Lovely speaker we’ve got for the Harvest celebrations, Mr Delaney has just come back from Rhodesia. In Africa. We’re having a collection. They asked for a plough but we thought a few tins and preserves would tide them over for a bit.’ You could see it in his face, he’d made the connection, Africa was abroad, we were from abroad, how could we refuse to come along and embrace Jesus for the sake of our cousins? Papa always did refuse but with such grace that Mr Ormerod never lost hope; he just filed us away under ‘Waverers’, rearranged the pens in the breast pocket of his brown overall, and waited for next time.
‘Now,’ said papa. ‘For the last time, did Mr Ormerod give you those sweets for nothing? Or did you take that shilling from mummy’s bag and spend it on yourself?’ I was mute with shame and anger. I hated him for forcing me to stoop to such a grubby act; if he had listened to me in the first place and just given me the sodding money, I would not have had to steal anything. I lifted up my head slightly, saw the ice in his expression and felt doomed. If papa was so angry now, what would he be like when he found out what had happened to me at school only last week?
I had been publicly beaten in front of all my class mates whom I now hated without exception. It had been during a Modern History lesson, when our bullfrog-faced teacher, Mrs Blakey, asked us if we knew why the area we lived in was called the Black Country. Peter Bradley, who had a stammer and a predictable habit of deliberately dropping pencils so he could peer up the girls’ dresses, raised a sleeve covered in snail trails of snot and said, ‘B…b…because so m…many darkies…live here, miss?’ I laughed along with everyone else but the next time I heard Peter snuffling around under the desk, pencil in hand, peering optimistically past reinforced gussets and woolly tights, I aimed a quick kick and was surprised to see him emerge with a fist clamped over a bloody nose. As Mrs Blakey karate-chopped the back of my legs with a splintered wooden ruler, I tried to explain that we were the only Indians that had ever lived in Tollington and that the country looked green if anything to me.
My humiliation had been compounded by the fact that mama was an infants’ teacher in the adjoining school; we were separated by a mere strip of playground, and I knew it would only be a matter of time before she got to hear of my behaviour. I knew I should tell papa everything now, Confess said the Lord and Ye Shall Be Saved. Papa’s expression made me wonder if this only ever worked with English people, but I had to say something because if we entered Mr Ormerod’s shop, my crime would become public shame as opposed to personal failure and that, I knew, was something papa hated more than anything.
Somewhere a front door slammed shut. It seemed to reverberate along the terrace, houses nudging each other to wake up and listen in on us, net curtains and scalloped lace drapes all a-flutter now. Everyone must have been watching, they always did, what else was there to do?
‘Right then. We’ll ask Mr Ormerod what happened.’
Papa pushed open the door of the shop, the brass bell perched on its top rang jauntily. Its clapper looked like a quivering tonsil in a golden throat and it vibrated to the beat of my heart.
‘I was lying,’ I said in a whisper.
Papa’s face sagged, he looked down and then up at me, disappoin
tment dimming his eyes. He let go of my hand and walked back towards our house without looking back.
2
I sat on the front step and finished the rest of my sweets, feeling the bile rise as I chewed with the pace and rumination of a sulky cow. I knew I would end up feeling ill but I had already paid for my haul in shame and saw no point in wasting good food. It would serve them right if I did choke on a raspberry poppet and had foaming convulsions right here on the step. As I tried to unstick my jaw, I remembered the mad dog that had wandered into our communal yard some years ago, whose drunken walk and white-flecked muzzle had sent the mothers screaming for cover, clutching their protesting children to them. I managed to find an airhole in the folds of mama’s trousers and had gazed on the object of all this terror, a mottled, scrappy mutt of a dog who seemed proud of his madness, freed by it, whose expression was one of unconcerned, off-the-planet bliss. I really envied him, or rather the effect he was having on the local harpies who, in normal circumstances, would arm wrestle each other for a parking space. If what that dog had was madness, I wanted some of it. Even then, I felt I spent most of life saying sorry.
I also knew what it was like to almost choke to death. It had happened two years ago, we had celebrated my seventh birthday with a trip to Wolverhampton, where we saw Bedknobs and Broomsticks and then went for a rum baba in the nearby Stanton’s cake shop. I had been promised a party but at the last minute, my mother had been taken ill. Papa found her lying on her bed, crying. He’d said it was a migraine and then talked softly to her in Punjabi, which I knew was a sign that something was a secret and therefore, probably bad news. I still recognised a few words in between mummy’s sobs – mother, money, and then a furious invective in Punjabi with ‘bloody fed up’ stuck in the middle of it. (Swearing in English was considered more genteel than any of the Punjabi expletives which always mentioned the bodily parts of one’s mothers or sisters, too taboo to sit on a woman’s lips.)
But I was relieved; I did not want a party as I would not have had anyone to invite, anyone interesting anyway. In the village I was stuck in between the various gangs, too young for Anita’s consideration, too old to hang around the cloud of toddlers that would settle on me like a rash every time I set foot outside my front door. Going out with the grown-ups was much more exciting, although lately, mama’s moods had begun to intrude upon every family outing like a fourth silent guest, whom I saw as an overweight sweaty auntie with lipstick-stained teeth and an unforgiving expression.
In Stanton’s, after the film, I could tell that whatever had been upsetting my mother was still going on. She sat silent and moist-eyed, looking down into her cup of weak tea, running her finger round and round the edge of its rim. She was dressed in a dusty pink sari with small silver lotus blossoms on its borders, whilst my father wore his blue serge suit and a tie striped like a humbug. Whenever we went ‘out’, out meaning wherever English people were, as opposed to Indian friends’ houses which in any case was always ‘in’ as all we would do was sit in each others’ lounges, eat each others’ food and watch each others’ televisions, my parents always wore their smartest clothes.
My mother knew from experience that she would get fewer stares and whispers if she had donned any of the sensible teacher’s trouser suits she would wear for school, but for her, looking glamorous in saris and formal Indian suits was part of the English people’s education. It was her duty to show them that we could wear discreet gold jewellery, dress in tasteful silks and speak English without an accent. During our very special shopping outings to Birmingham, she would often pass other Indian women in the street and they would stare at each other in that innocent, direct way of two rare species who have just found out they are vaguely related. These other Indian women would inevitably be dressed in embroidered salwar kametz suits screaming with green and pinks and yellows (incongruous with thick woolly socks squeezed into open-toed sandals and men’s cardies over their vibrating thin silks, evil necessities in this damn cold country), with bright make-up and showy gold-plated jewellery which made them look like ambulating Christmas trees. Mama would acknowledge them with a respectful nod and then turn away and shake her head. ‘In the village, they would look beautiful. But not here. There is no sun to light them up. Under clouds, they look like they are dressed for a discotheque.’
But she was quiet now, no light in her face. Papa said, ‘Have something to eat. A cake. Have one of those…what you like…those meringue things.’ ‘She won’t,’ I chipped in, scraping my fork into the spongy belly of my rum baba. ‘You know what she will say, I can make this cheaper at home.’ My mother never ate out, never, always affronted by paying for some over-boiled, under-seasoned dish of slop when she knew she could rustle up a hot, heartwarming meal from a few leftover vegetables and a handful of spices. ‘I bet you couldn’t make this at home,’ I continued. ‘How would you make a cake? How would you get it round and get the cream to stand up and the cherry to balance like this? You have to buy some things, you can’t do everything you know …’
‘That’s enough!’ barked papa. ‘Mind your manners now or we’re going home!’
My mother shook her head at him and put her hand over mine. I snatched it away and finished my cake in silence.
My father showed he was sorry by buying me a hot dog on the way home. I sat in the back of the Mini and concentrated on licking the tomato sauce off my fingertips whilst singing ‘Bobbing Along on the Bottom of the Beautiful Briney Sea’ in between slurps. Mummy and papa were talking again, soft whispers, sss sss sss, my mother’s bracelets jingled as she seemed to wipe something from her face. This was my birthday and they were leaving me out again. I squeezed my hot dog and suddenly the sausage shot into my mouth and lodged firmly in my windpipe. I was too shocked to move, my fingers curled uselessly into my fists. They were still talking, engrossed, I could see papa’s eyes in the mirror, darting from my mother’s face to the unfolding road. I thought of writing SAUSAGE STUCK on the windscreen and then realised I could not spell sausage. I was going to die in the back of the car and somewhere inside me, I felt thrilled. It was so dramatic. This was by far the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me.
The car went over a bump in the road and the offending chipolata slipped out of my mouth and into my lap, leaving a red stripe across my yellow satin dress. When my mother looked round, my face was wet with tears and I was panting and pointing the sausage at her like a gun. ‘Just look what you’ve done to your dress! Can’t you be careful?’ I did not tell her what had happened. This was my near death experience and I would make damn sure I’d use it on her one day.
Mama rarely raised her voice but when she did get angry, she looked like one of the ornamental statues I had seen on my Auntie Shaila’s shrine. The goddess she resembled most when in a strop, the one that both terrified and fascinated me, was Kali, a black-faced snarling woman with alarming canines and six waving arms. Every hand contained a bloody weapon and she wore a bracelet of skulls around her powerful naked thighs. And her eyes, sooty O’s of disbelief and also amusement that someone insignificant had dared to step on her shadow.
Mama could look like that at me sometimes, when she had caught me tearing carefully sewn ribbons off my dresses, cutting up earthworms in our back yard with her favourite vegetable knife, and most usually, when I was lying. The size of lie never made a difference to her reaction; it could have been one of my harmless fabrications (telling a group of visiting kids in the park that I was a Punjabi princess and owned an elephant called Jason King), or one of my major whoppers – telling my teacher I hadn’t completed my homework because of an obscure religious festival involving fire eating…She was always furious at the pointlessness of it all; stealing was understandable if distressing, violence antisocial yet sometimes unavoidable, but lying? ‘Why do you do this, Meena?’ she would wail, wringing her hands unconvincingly, a parody of a Hindi movie mama. ‘You are only four/seven/nine…Isn’t your life exciting enough without all these stories?’
Well naturally the answer was no, but I did not want to make mama feel that this was her fault. Besides, I enjoyed her anger, the snapping eyes, the shrieking voice, the glimpse of monster beneath the mother; it was one of the times I felt we understood each other perfectly.
Of course, no one else outside our small family ever saw this dark side of mama; to everyone else, she was the epitome of grace, dignity and unthreatening charm. She attracted admirers effortlessly, maybe because her soft round face, large limpid eyes and fragile, feminine frame brought out their protective instincts. Tragedy, amusement and bewilderment would wash across her face like sea changes, flowing to suit the story of whoever she was listening to, giving them the illusion that they could control the tides. She was as constant as the moon and just as remote, so the admiration of the villagers was always tempered with a deferential respect, as if in the company of minor royalty.
‘Oh Mrs K,’ Sandy, the divorcee two doors down, would sigh, running her fingers through her hennaed hair, cocking her head to one side whilst widening her bright blue eyes, giving her the air of a startled parrot, ‘you are a duck.’
This was after my mother had lent her butter or given her a lift down to the shops or taken her son, Mikey, in for some pop and crisps when Sandy missed her bus back from work.
‘You’re so lovely. You know, I never think of you as, you know, foreign. You’re just like one of us.’
My mother would smile and graciously accept this as a compliment. And yet afterwards, in front of the Aunties, she would reduce them to tears of laughter by gently poking fun at the habits of her English friends. It was only much later on that I realised in the thirteen years we lived there, during which every weekend was taken up with visiting Indian families or being invaded by them, only once had any of our neighbours been invited in further than the step of our back door.