Dani’s Diary

by Narinder Dhami

  ‘You can’t see breath!’ Hardeep scoffed.

  ‘You can if the air’s really cold,’ I retorted, remembering what Dad had told me in his letters. ‘You do it.’

  We both breathed out as hard as we could, then looked at each other in delight.

  ‘It’s like we’re on fire!’ chuckled Hardeep.

  There was a loud cough behind us from one of the stewardesses.

  ‘Come along, children,’ she said briskly. ‘There’s a queue of people here waiting to get off the plane.’

  Dad wasn’t at the bottom of the steps. I was disappointed until I remembered he’d told us that we had to have our passports checked first.

  As we queued along with everyone else, I couldn’t stop looking around. Mum was complaining about the cold, but I wasn’t listening: there was too much to see. The people mostly had pale skin. Some had light-coloured, almost yellow hair, some had different shades of brown, some were almost as dark-haired as me. I’d seen a few pale people before, when Dad took me into the city, but here they were everywhere.

  I thought I’d be able to understand what they were saying, and I could – well, some of it. But I had to listen hard. Their voices were all different. Some were thick and loud, others were soft and rounded. I had to guess at some of the words because they pronounced them differently to how Dad had taught me. As we shuffled our way along the corridor with everyone else, I tried to work out the words on some of the signs.

  ‘This way. Passports. Immigration,’ I spelled out quietly under my breath. ‘Exit. Toilet.’

  ‘Get a move on,’ Hardeep grumbled, tapping me with his cricket bat.

  At last we were through. We came out, blinking and yawning, into a large, brightly lit hall. People were crowded round the doors, waving and calling to other passengers. Soon we’d see Dad, and my heart soared with happiness.

  ‘Where’s your father?’ Mum sounded utterly panic-stricken as she looked around desperately. ‘I can’t see him!’

  ‘He promised he’d be here,’ I reminded her. ‘He said he’d be early.’

  Mum bit her lip. ‘Where is he then?’

  We scanned the hall. No sign of Dad.

  ‘What are we going to do if he doesn’t come?’ Mum wailed, wrapping her scarf round her face so that no one could see she was starting to cry. ‘Where will we go? I don’t know the way to the flat!’

  Feeling scared myself, I looked around for someone who might help. As I did so, my eyes met those of a man who was pushing his way through the crowds towards us. Tears were pouring down his face.

  My whole world seemed to tip and turn over. This wasn’t my dad. My dad had a turban and a beard. This man didn’t have a turban; his hair was cut short. And he didn’t have a beard. But his eyes and his mouth and his nose, the way he walked, were exactly the same as my dad.

  ‘It’s Dad!’ Hardeep yelled, waving his cricket bat. ‘Dad’s cut his hair off!’

  Throughout the greetings – the crying and the hugs and the kisses – I felt really stupid and shy. It was my dad, and I was overjoyed to see him. But I hadn’t recognized him with short hair. His hair had always been long, as far back as I could remember, right down to his waist. Every week until he came to England I’d help him wash and comb it. Now it was gone.

  ‘Did you have a good journey?’ asked Dad, wiping his eyes.

  ‘Haanji, yes, thank you.’ My mum was looking dazed, staring at Dad’s head. ‘But your hair …?’

  Dad shrugged. ‘I had to get rid of my turban,’ he said, looking uncomfortable, ‘or I wouldn’t have got a job. Come on.’ He took charge of all the luggage. ‘We’re getting the bus home.’

  As we followed Dad outside into the freezing cold, I wondered about what he’d said. I didn’t really see how wearing a turban meant you couldn’t drive a bus. Why should it make any difference? There was a lot to learn about England – I could already see that …

  The bus was big and red and had two floors. Hardeep wanted to sit at the top but we couldn’t because of all the luggage. Dad piled it up in the luggage rack and on some of the seats, and we wedged it around our feet. Then Hardeep and I pressed our noses against the cold, grimy window as the bus set off.

  I didn’t know where to look first as we rolled along the streets. There was just so much to see! I’d seen tall buildings and cars and crowds of people back home when we visited the city. But here there was more of everything. Taller buildings, more cars, more people. Their clothes fascinated me. Everyone wore big thick coats and scarves and gloves and woolly hats on their heads because it was so cold. But some of the women wore short skirts and dresses so that you could see their legs poking out from under their coats! We always kept our legs covered back home, so I couldn’t help staring.

  ‘Tickets, please.’

  Now I switched my attention to the man who had stopped in front of Dad to take our money. He wore a uniform and he had a little silver machine on a strap round his neck, which was churning out our tickets one by one. His skin was much darker than mine, and his hair looked lovely and soft and springy, like dark grass.

  ‘Stop staring at the bus conductor, Asha,’ Dad instructed me in a low voice.

  ‘But where’s he from?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘The Caribbean,’ Dad whispered. ‘Now stop staring!’

  I turned back to the window as the bus came to a stop at a row of shops.

  ‘Hing Hung Chinese Restaurant,’ I spelled out carefully, charmed by the red and gold lanterns that were strung across the window. I hadn’t realized that there were so many different people from all over the world in England. It all seemed as glamorous and exotic as a storybook.

  ‘Look, Asha!’ Hardeep was digging me hard in the ribs with his elbow. ‘Television sets!’

  Next to the Chinese restaurant was a shop whose windows were full of televisions. Hardeep and I had heard about them but we’d never seen one before. Now we sat and stared open-mouthed at twelve different screens showing the same picture: a woman standing in a kitchen stirring something in a bowl. We saw her begin to chop an onion, and then the bus moved on.

  ‘Dad, can we get a TV set?’ asked Hardeep longingly.

  Dad shook his head. ‘They’re too expensive, and besides, you’ll have no time to watch TV. You’ll be too busy studying.’

  Hardeep pulled a face at me. ‘I hate studying,’ he said under his breath, but really low so that Dad couldn’t hear.

  I giggled. As the bus rolled to a halt at the next bus stop, I turned to look curiously at the people getting on. That was when I noticed the two old ladies sitting in the seat across the aisle from me and Dad. They were bundled up in thick, woolly coats, and one wore a hat which looked like she’d put flowers all over her head.

  Dad had told me not to stare, but these two ladies were staring right in our direction. It was as if they couldn’t take their eyes off us. So I smiled at them shyly.

  The two ladies didn’t smile back. Their faces cold and closed, they turned to each other and began muttering in low voices. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I knew they were talking about us because, every so often, one or both of them would glance over. I was puzzled. Maybe you weren’t supposed to smile at people on buses in England …

  ‘Dad, did I do something wrong?’ I asked in Punjabi. ‘I smiled at those two ladies, but I think it made them cross.’

  Dad looked sideways at them. Then he sighed and took my hand in his. ‘Asha, beti, you have to realize–’ He stopped, cleared his throat and started again. ‘Not everyone is friendly to us.’

  ‘Why?’ I was bewildered. ‘What have we done?’

  ‘I didn’t mean us in particular.’ Dad was looking uncomfortable again, but I didn’t know why. ‘I meant, people like us.’

  All I wanted was a simple answer to a simple question and I seemed to be getting more confused, not less.

  ‘We are allowed to come here, aren’t we?’ I asked.

  Dad nodded.

  ‘So we’re g
uests in their country then,’ I said. ‘They should be nice to us, shouldn’t they?’

  I was thinking about the times when we had visitors back home in the village. Tea was made and food was laid out and everyone was made welcome, even if it was just a friend of a friend of a distant relative. It didn’t seem to be like that here.

  ‘Our stop’s coming up.’ Dad hadn’t answered me and it didn’t look like he was going to either. ‘Let’s start getting the luggage together.’

  Dad wasn’t living in a palace. The house was tall and thin and old and shabby. Cars and lorries thundered past as we dragged our luggage through the tiny garden and up the steps to the front door. I didn’t mind though. The red door and the steps and all the glassy windows reminded me of a house I’d seen in a picture book of Cinderella, back home in the village school.

  ‘Maybe my Fairy Godmother will be inside,’ I said to myself as Dad unlocked the door.

  We were in a long, narrow hall with a black and white, diamond-patterned floor. On the left side was a locked door. It had a number 1 on it. On the right was a door which stood ajar. Hardeep and I peeped inside as Dad brought the luggage in. The room was tiny. There was a fireplace and some saggy old chairs. But in one corner was a table and on it stood–

  ‘A television set!’ Hardeep crowed, his eyes lighting up.

  This television set wasn’t big and square like the ones we’d seen in the shop. It was small and rounded and looked very old. But still, it was a TV!

  ‘Whose flat is this, Dad?’ I asked excitedly. ‘Will they let us watch their television?’

  ‘It isn’t anyone’s flat,’ Dad replied reluctantly. ‘This room is for any of us in the house to use.’

  ‘Really?’ I gasped, and Hardeep beamed at me.

  ‘But we shan’t be using it,’ Dad went on. ‘We have space to sit in our flat upstairs.’

  Hardeep and I knew better than to argue with Dad when he used that voice. Glumly we trailed down the hall after him.

  On the second floor, next to our flat, there was a kitchen and a bathroom which were shared by everyone in the house. It was all so different to home. Hardeep and I spent ages running from the kitchen to the bathroom and back again, while Mum and Dad took the luggage inside. There was a big white bath which looked as if it was made of china, and taps to let the water in. Back home we’d been one of the first families in the village to get a water pump, and everyone had thought we were really lucky. Now we had water everywhere, in the kitchen and the bathroom. Hardeep and I would have stood there for ages, turning the taps on and off and watching the water gush out, but Mum wouldn’t let us.

  The flat was very small. I stood in the doorway and felt my heart sink a little as I looked around. There was Mum and Dad’s bed crammed into a corner of the room, and a fire with two old armchairs and a sofa in front of it. A table and four wooden chairs stood in another corner, next to a door which led into mine and Hardeep’s bedroom. We had to share a tiny room, divided by a curtain.

  It was so much smaller than our house back home that for a minute I felt quite homesick. Dad saw the look on my face and put his hand on my shoulder.

  ‘We’re lucky to have a flat,’ he said gently. ‘Most people who come here have to share one room with lots of others. That’s what I did when I first arrived.’

  ‘It’s freezing!’ Mum gasped, still wrapped in her coat. ‘Can we put the fire on?’

  ‘Just for a little while.’ Dad went over to the fire and turned it on. ‘We must be careful because it costs a lot, and I have to put money in the meter.’

  Hardeep was standing at the window, peering down at the street below. ‘Can I go out and play?’ he asked. ‘I want to look around.’

  Dad was shaking his head before Hardeep had even finished. ‘You’re not allowed out on the street,’ he said sternly. ‘It’s much too busy with traffic. You can play in the garden tomorrow.’

  Hardeep nudged me. ‘I bet the garden’s really small too,’ he mumbled under his breath so that Dad couldn’t hear. ‘I wish we were back home in the fields. There was loads of room to play there!’

  I didn’t answer. I was beginning to see that not everything about England was going to be wonderful.

  ‘So who are the other people in the house?’ asked my mum. Still wearing her coat, she was already busy unpacking a suitcase.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Lawrence live on the ground floor,’ Dad replied. ‘They’re from Jamaica, a very nice, quiet couple. And upstairs’ – there was a change in his voice which I noticed straight away, and it made my ears prick up – ‘a Sikh family. Their name is Chaudhary.’

  ‘Oh?’ Mum looked interested and I was too. ‘Are they a good family?’

  Dad shook his head in a very definite manner. ‘They have a daughter called Milly who’s the same age as Asha’ – my face lit up – ‘but she’s very wild, badly behaved and cheeky. They’re not the kind of family we want to associate with.’

  My face fell again.

  ‘So’ – Dad looked steadily at Hardeep and me – ‘you are to keep away from the girl upstairs and neither of you are allowed in the television room downstairs. Understood?’

  Dad’s word was law. Hardeep and I both nodded, even though my head was full of questions. But at this very moment there was something else even more important on my mind.

  ‘Mum,’ I whispered, tugging at her sleeve and feeling a bit embarrassed, ‘I need to go to the toilet …’

  Dad overheard me. ‘We have to go down to the garden for that.’ He led me over to the door. ‘Come on, I’ll take you.’

  ‘Dad,’ I began as we went back downstairs together, ‘why haven’t you got a job as a teacher, like you had back home?’ There were so many questions in my head that I wanted answers to, but this seemed like a good place to start.

  Dad cleared his throat. ‘Asha, it’s – well, life here isn’t always that easy.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘Some people are friendly and are willing to give us a chance.’ Dad, who was usually so firm and decisive, sounded worried. That made me feel worried. ‘But others don’t want us here–’

  ‘Like the women on the bus, you mean,’ I interrupted him.

  ‘Yes. Even though we’re allowed to come, they think we’re taking their jobs and their homes.’

  ‘But that’s so unfair,’ I said crossly as we reached the ground floor.

  Dad smiled just a little then. ‘It’s up to us to make the best of it and show them that we’re good, hardworking people.’ He led me to the back of the house and stopped at a door with a glass panel in the top. Beyond it was a big, overgrown garden with tall trees and mossy paths.

  ‘Do you see that green shed at the bottom of the garden?’ asked Dad.

  I nodded.

  ‘That’s the toilet,’ he explained. ‘When you’ve finished you must pull the silver chain.’

  ‘Really?’ I stared at him with round eyes, remembering the specially dug hole in the fields back home. This really was like something out of a fairy story!

  Dad unlocked the door for me. ‘Can you find your way back upstairs?’ he asked. And, when I nodded again, he smiled at me and went off.

  I made my way along a path slippery with rain to the green shed. Inside I was delighted to see a big white bowl which looked as if it was made of china, just like the bath upstairs. There was a wooden seat to sit on, and, just as Dad had said, there was a long silver chain dangling from the top.

  I was longing to see what happened when I pulled that chain!

  Quickly I began fumbling with the cord of my trousers. But then, right in front of me, I heard a scuffling sound, a rustling noise. I looked down and almost jumped out of my skin. Because there, inching its way through the gap underneath the door, was a big spider with eight hairy legs!

  I screamed. I backed away until I had nowhere else to go, until my legs were touching the toilet bowl. I hadn’t realized there were such big spiders in England. What should I do? W
as it poisonous?

  ‘Hello,’ said the spider.

  My eyes almost fell right out of my head. A talking spider! This was exactly like a fairy tale.

  Then I heard a giggle. That didn’t sound like a spider.

  I jumped forward and pulled the door open. At the same moment the spider sprang back, and I realized it was just a toy on a piece of elastic. Outside, on her hands and knees, was a girl. She was as skinny as a stick, her long hair was tied up with a pink ribbon, and she wore a pink shalwar kameez. Climbing to her feet, she grinned at me, very dark eyes in a thin, laughing face.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Milly. I live upstairs and I bet your dad told you to stay away from me, didn’t he?’

  I was too shocked to reply.

  Milly chuckled, twisting a strand of hair round and round her finger.

  ‘But we are going to be friends, aren’t we?’ she asked.

  Chapter Three

  April 2006

  WHENEVER TABITHA SEES her cat basket, she runs for her life. That’s because she knows she’s going to the V-E-T. But this morning Tabitha knew there was something going on that was even worse than the V-E-T. Today we’re moving to live with Ravi and Lalita, and I guess that if Tabitha could speak, she’d say she felt as miserable as I did.

  The house was empty from top to bottom; the removal van had gone. There wasn’t much for them to take. Mum had sold or given away most of our furniture. Now all that was left was to get Tabitha safely into her basket and then we’d be gone too.

  ‘Come on, Tabby.’ Mum was down on her hands and knees, peering under the window seat. Tabitha was right at the back, her thick amber-coloured fur all fluffed out in protest. ‘Pretty kitty. Good girl.’

  I’ll never sit on this window seat again, I thought. I’ll never sleep in my bedroom again or sunbathe in the garden or slide down the banisters from top to bottom.

  ‘Dani, can you get the basket ready?’ Mum stretched out a cautious hand towards Tabitha, who immediately pounced. ‘Ouch!’

  ‘She doesn’t want to go,’ I said, adding under my breath, but not that softly, ‘And neither do I.’

  Mum sighed. ‘This isn’t helping, Dani.’