by Meera Syal
But I never left mama’s side the whole time and although she may have intended to talk me through every aspect of the worship, explaining the rituals, translating the elaborate Punjabi, teaching me one of the hymns, she seemed to be preoccupied. I knew she was already thinking about how she would handle the long journey back home, and my mind was too full of the old lady to think about God.
Later that evening, papa pulled me onto his lap and asked me what I had learned that day. I wanted to tell him about the old lady, but then I looked at his face and saw something I had never seen before, a million of these encounters written in the lines around his warm, hopeful eyes, lurking in the furrows of his brow, shadowing the soft curves of his mouth. I suddenly realised that what had happened to me must have happened to papa countless times, but not once had he ever shared his upset with me. He must have known it would have made me feel as I felt right now, hurt, angry, confused, and horribly powerless because this kind of hatred could not be explained. I decided to return the compliment. ‘I learned,’ I replied, ‘that mama is a really good driver.’
But today was our Christmas. My parents were celebrating it as they celebrated nearly everything else, with another mehfil. This was perfect for them but a major disappointment for me and all my other ‘cousins’ who wanted presents thrown in as part of the package, at least a nod towards what Christmas meant for the English. But I wanted to give myself a present, as no one else would, I wanted to see the fair. I knew mama did not want me to go, especially with Anita Rutter, but she assented with a slight nod of her head, and added as I rushed out of the door, ‘Be back by five o’clock. I want you to help me cut the salad …’
Anita was peeking over my shoulder as she stood in the doorway, checking out the simmering pans and mountains of chopped vegetables crowding the kitchen. As we walked out of my gate, she said, ‘Is it someone’s birthday today?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘It’s like our Christmas today. Dead boring.’
‘Yow have two Christmases, do ya? Lucky cow.’
I had not thought of it this way before and suddenly felt elevated.
‘I’m getting a pony for Christmas,’ Anita said airily. She was wearing one of her old summer dresses and a cardigan I guessed must have been her mum’s as it hung off her in woolly folds. I felt babyish and cosseted, wrapped up in my hooded anorak and thick socks and realised Anita must have been a lot older than I had previously thought.
‘I’m gonna keep it at Sherrie’s farm. In summat called a paddock. And then me and Sherrie am gooing to share a flat together. In London.’
I felt biindingly jealous. Sherrie was still her best friend then, and they had mapped out their life together already. I imagined them living in a penthouse flat in a place called the Angel (my favourite stop on the Monopoly board as it sounded so beautiful). They both wore mini-skirts and loads of black eyeliner and were eating toast whilst they looked out of their window. Before them stretched Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, the Houses of Parliament and several theatres, all lit up, throwing coloured flashes onto their laughing faces, and tethered to a post attached to the breakfast bar was a sleek chestnut bay that looked just like Misty.
We passed the Big House which, as usual, showed no signs of life, save a thin twisting line of smoke curling up from its huge red chimney. Anita crossed herself quickly as we passed, muttering to herself.
‘What yow dooing?’ I asked.
‘Quick! Do this! Do the cross over your heart!’
I hurriedly copied her, and broke into a trot behind her. We did not stop until we’d passed the grounds.
‘Yow got to do that every time yow pass. Didn’t yow know a witch lives there?’
I shook my head dumbly. I should have guessed, it explained everything. The sense of menace surrounding the place, the fact no one ever saw visitors or inhabitants arriving or leaving, or any lights blazing at night.
‘It’s a woman. She killed her kids and husband, but they could never prove it, see. She wants kids, needs the blood to keep alive. Remember Jodie from up the hill?’
Jodie Bagshot was a four-year-old girl from the top end of the village who had gone missing for three frantic days a few summers ago, and whose body was found caught in the bulrushes round Hollow Ponds, the deep water-filled old mine shafts at the back of the Big House. While she was missing, the village seemed to hold its breath. Mothers stopped their children playing anywhere except the yard and the adjoining park, where everyone could see them from their kitchen windows. Police cars and officers scoured every field and hedgerow with long sticks and alsatians, even going on into the night where we could see their torches flashing through the cornfields, like cyclopic aliens calling to each other under the high-domed summer sky. The radio was on constantly in every home, waiting for the latest newsflash, aware as they listened that the news itself was being made on their own doorsteps, with a dumb sense of shame that Tollington had finally been put on the map in this tainted way.
When Jodie’s drowned body was discovered and the swift conclusion reached that she had tragically wandered off, a horrendous accident, no one else involved, Tollington breathed again. Pity for the girl’s family was mingled with relief that it had not been some sick stranger roaming the village, an outsider bent on destroying the easy trust and unhampered wanderings of the village children. Those things happened to other people, people in cities, people who did not know their neighbours, not the good, reliable, nosey inhabitants of Tollington.
But soon afterwards, a rumour began, started by Sam Lowbridge who had made sure he was in the front row with the press when the body was hauled out of the water. ‘Her was blue,’ he said. ‘Like every bit of blood wore gone from her little body …’
I remembered his testimony now, and shivered, seeing the triumph growing in Anita’s face.
‘Ar, the witch is after more kids now. Shame she can see right into yowr bedroom window, in’t it?’
I swung my gaze across the fields and saw that our house was indeed directly, diagonally across from the Big House’s gates.
‘I don’t care!’ I blurted out. ‘My mom knows loads of prayers anyway. She says them every night in my bedroom, before I sleep.’
Anita laughed. ‘Them’s no good! The witch is English, in’t she? Yow need proper English prayers. Like Uncle Alan knows.’
The only one I could remember offhand from my Sunday sessions was the chant we uttered in unison which heralded the appearance of two plates of custard creams and paper cups of weak orange squash – ‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.’ Me and Anita said it together, all the way to the Old Pit Head.
The fairground trailers were parked in what must have been the former car park attached to the old mine. A small brick office building near the base of the pit head had long crumbled away, and frost-withered hollyhocks and dandelions had broken through the concrete floor. This usually desolate rectangle was now a hive of activity as various stubble-brushed, burly men yelled to each other in smokey voices as they heaved around large lumps of machinery which would eventually become the Waltzer, the Octopus, the Helter Skelter and several sideshow stalls offering such delights as a free goldfish with every fallen coconut.
A row of caravans was parked alongside the back fence where a fire burned in a metal brazier and children’s clothes hung stiffly on a makeshift washing line strung between two door handles. A group of pin-thin children were playing with some scrawny kittens near the brazier, whilst a tired, washed-out woman in a hairnet, stood leaning against her caravan door inhaling deeply on a cigarette. I was fascinated by these travelling people, envied them their ability to contain their whole home in a moving vehicle, and imagined how romantic it must be to just climb in and move off once boredom or routine set in. How many countries had they visited, I wondered, how many deserts and jungles had they driven through, setting up their rides and booths on shifting sands or crushed palm leaf floors. Maybe they had even been to India.
>
I suddenly had a vivid picture of all my grandparents, dressed as they were in their photographs, being sedately whirled round in their waltzer cars. Dadima holding a goldfish in a plastic bag, Dadaji sucking on a candy floss, whilst Nanima sang along to the thumping soundtrack of ‘All You Need is Love’ and Nanaji kept time with a tapping sandalled foot, holding onto his turban with long brown fingers …
‘Don’t goo up there,’ Anita warned me, indicating the caravans. ‘Them’s gippos, them is. Tinkers. Yow’ll catch summat. Mum told me.’ Then she waved and whooped at Fat Sally and Sherrie who were standing watching three young blokes putting the dodgem car floor down. They waved back and indicated we should come over.
As I got closer, I realised why I had not recognised them straight away. Sherrie was shivering in a short denim skirt and high heels, and had applied mauve eyeshadow all the way up to her eyebrows. Fat Sally was squeezed into a psychedelic mini-dress with a shiny scarf tied round the waist, and her lips looked wet and shimmery, like a goldfish.
‘That’s nice!’ said Anita, pointing her finger at Fat Sally’s mouth. ‘Giz sum. Mom locked her door today, couldn’t get nothing off her dressing table. Mean cow.’
Sherrie and Fat Sally giggled, Fat Sally rummaged in a pocket and brought out a small tub of Miners Lip Gloss which Anita grabbed and began smearing over her lips with a practised finger. They did not seem to have noticed me.
All three girls then scrutinised each other’s faces, toning down a streak of blusher here, wiping a wet finger over a lipline there, whilst the three by now sweaty blokes stopped work and straightened up, looking over at us curiously. Anita, Fat Sally and Sherrie immediately pouted to attention, flicking their hair and digging each other in the ribs. Not to be outdone, I took my anorak hood down and wiped my nose. I could see the three musketeers clearly now, in a uniform of dirty denims and skinny rib sweaters, streaked with engine oil. The tallest of the three, a lanky, mousey youth with a poetic mouth, scratched his crotch absentmindedly, and muttered something to his companions, a short Italian-looking guy and a stockier blonde bloke with a smear of acne lying across his chin like scarlet porridge. They must have been about Sam Lowbridge’s age, eighteen or so, just growing into their clumsy long limbs and carefully groomed bum-fluff upper lips.
Anita hissed, ‘I’m having the tall one, roight?’ and sauntered over towards them, her thin hips swaying to some far off radio which was playing ‘This is the captain of your ship, your soul speaking …’ I wondered if a soul was the same thing as a conscience and if Anita Rutter was following or ignoring hers at this moment in time. She sat down on the half-erected stage, right in the midst of them, and began talking to the Poet, each question punctuated with her short barking laugh. Pretty soon, all three guys were smiling along with her; I stood open-mouthed in admiration, wondering what spell she had cast, to turn these boy-men, whom I would have crossed streets to avoid had I seen them hanging around any corner near my school, into grinning, pliant pets.
Sherrie and Fat Sally were similarly impressed. ‘Her always gets the best one,’ muttered Sherrie, pulling her skirt down so that it momentarily covered her goosepimpled thighs.
‘Look! He’s only putting his arm round her! Cow!’ breathed Fat Sally, who pulled her scarf tighter around her belly, as if constant optimistic pressure would finally reveal a waist as tiny and perfect as Anita’s.
Anita suddenly seemed to remember we were waiting, and after a brief exchange with her new admirers, beckoned us over. I hesitated at first, wondering if it was five o’clock yet and if I should be getting back. But I sniffed something unfamiliar in the crisp late afternoon air, something forbidden and new, and I did not want to miss out.
‘These am me mates, Sherrie and Sally …’ Anita said, her hand resting proprietorially on the Poet’s knee. ‘This is Dave, that’s Tonio, he’s Italian like me dad, and Gary …’
Sherrie immediately plonked herself next to Tonio, once she realised she towered over him by about six inches. They seemed as relieved as each other to have not drawn the short straw and ended up with either spotty Gary or Fat Sally, who now faced each other sullenly over an empty dodgem car. There was an uncomfortable silence in which anger and pity overtook both their faces as they realised fate and their appearance had consigned them, inevitably, shamefully, to each other. If spotty Gary and Fat Sally had any illusions that they deserved better, they only had to look across and see their own miserable reflection in the other’s eyes.
For one brief, mad moment, Gary’s gaze flickered round wildly, seeking an alternative, hoping there might be someone else on whom he could hang his rapidly diminishing status. He came to rest on me, took in the winter coat, the scabbed knees, my stubborn nine-year-old face, and dismissed me with amusement and yes, relief. He had not got the short straw after all and I knew, I knew that it was not because I was too young or badly dressed, it was something else, something about me so offputting, so unimaginable, that I made Fat Sally look like the glittering star prize.
The Poet whispered something into Anita’s ear which made her scream as if she’d been pinched.
‘What? What!’ hissed Fat Sally and Sherrie in unison.
Anita pulled them unceremoniously to one side and they huddled in a group, inches from my shoulder. I might as well have been invisible. The three lads did not seem surprised at this sudden withdrawal. This was obviously part of whatever ritual they were all going through and from which I was excluded, this gathering in of the troops to discuss tactics. The lads fell into their expected stance; they raised knowing eyebrows at each other, puffed out their chests and sat with their legs as wide as possible so that their jeans strained at the seams. I had seen the dogs in the yard do something similar when one of the bitches padded past. They would cock their legs in her face as if to say, ‘Well, gerra load of this then, baby!’ I was beginning to realise that what was happening in front of me was somehow related to this.
‘What he say, goo on, tell us!’ panted Fat Sally, almost salivating with anticipation.
‘He said,’ drawled Anita, ‘he wanted to shag the arse off me!’
Fat Sally grabbed Sherrie in a bear hug and squealed madly. Sherrie began a squeak of delight and then stopped suddenly, pushing her off, realising that Anita was playing cool in the face of this compliment. I assumed it was a compliment by her smug expression. Now Anita was looking at me, inside my head it seemed. She knew exactly what I was thinking and even wrapped up in my duffle coat, I felt suddenly naked.
‘Hey Meena,’ Anita said almost tenderly. ‘Know what that means, that he wants to shag the arse off me?’
I shrugged in what I hoped was a non-committal, I-Might-Know-But-I’m-Not-Telling-You sort of way.
‘It means,’ she continued, coming right up to my face, ‘that he really really loves me.’
I nodded wisely. Of course, I had known this all along. Fat Sally and Sherrie turned their faces away, their shoulders shaking slightly. I didn’t care. They were only jealous that Anita had taken time to let me in on their secret and I felt blessed.
‘Ey! Nita!’ called the Poet. He was holding up a packet of cigarettes, and suddenly all three girls had left me, falling upon the boys like puppies, giggling uncontrollably. It was only when I started walking away that I realised Anita had not even introduced me, they did not even know my name. I glanced back; the Poet was holding out the now open cigarette packet. Anita slipped one expertly into her mouth. It seemed that her lip gloss reflected the dying sun. I ran all the way home, crossing the road when I got to the Big House, muttering my prayer and desperate to be inside and anonymous.
I reached my front door at exactly the same time as papa. His suit looked crumpled at the knees and elbows and his tie hung loosely around his neck. He put his briefcase on the front step and lifted me up, nuzzling my neck. ‘How’s my beti?’
‘Fine,’ I lied. I opened the door to see mama on her knees, trying to push the windy yellow settee back against a wall.
‘What the hell are you doing, Daljit?’ barked papa, striding inside and pulling her up. ‘Are you mad?’
‘I was not going to lift it,’ mama said weakly, surrendering herself to his embrace.
‘Couldn’t you wait?’ papa shouted angrily. ‘You will damage yourself like this.’
He sat mama down on an armchair and ordered me to fetch her a glass of water, which she sipped slowly, watching papa shove the settee into a corner and lay out a clean white sheet on the floor, ready for the evening’s mehfil.
He glanced into the kitchen. The pans were heavy and silent on the stove, a large bowl of chapatti dough stood untouched at the counter.
‘You haven’t even made the roti yet,’ he said. ‘We should cancel tonight. Too much work.’
‘Don’t be silly, darling,’ mama sighed. ‘Everyone is coming. How will it look?’
This was one of her favourite get-out clauses, the mantra for her self-imposed martyrdom – what will people think?
‘You could have waited till I got home,’ papa continued, plumping up cushions. ‘You don’t have to do everything yourself
‘Who else is there?’ mama muttered, and then I remembered I was supposed to cut the salad. I went into the kitchen and opened the fridge where a huge tupperware full of freshly-cut tomatoes and cucumber stared back accusingly at me.
The first guests began arriving around seven o’clock. I was admiring myself in mama’s dressing table mirror, deciding whether I liked this unfamiliar reflection staring back in a purple salwar kameez suit, stiff with yellow elephant embroidery around the cuffs and neckline. I liked the suit, but it did not quite go with the pudding basin haircut and chewed-down fingernails. I spotted mama’s modest cache of make-up, a couple of Revlon lipsticks with round blunt heads, a gold-plated compact case which when opened, played ‘Strangers in the Night’ in a tinkly offhand manner, and a tiny stub of black eyebrow pencil. I picked up one of the lipsticks, Pink Lady, and applied it carefully around my mouth, startled to see a glaring cerise grin appear on my face, seemingly hovering above it like the Cheshire Cat smile I had seen in one of the ink drawings in my Alice in Wonderland book. To finish off the stunning effect, I rifled through mama’s jewellery case, a blue leather box with delicate filigree clasps, and chose a gold chain upon which hung a single teardrop-shaped diamond. Even though I was sure mama would not mind, I hid it under my vest.