‘They were gonna send me back home again.’
Peter was entranced, his eyes drawn to her headscarf, her sensuous mouth and slender neck, the slight swell of her chest, her long shirt and the outline of her thighs in the embroidered trousers. Her eyes avoided his but her discomfort at his gaze and the silence excited him.
‘It’s called a salwar-kameez,’ Beauty said. She didn’t feel threatened. The man lounged on the armchair, the top buttons of his shirt undone. This one fancied himself too much, but she felt he was a wimp, not a dangerous pervert. And she didn’t want to go back to Mark’s empty house.
Peter didn’t mind letting her know he was giving her appreciative looks. As long as he was careful not to go too far. For the moment she was too scared to leave.
‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked, feeling that the silence was no longer to his advantage.
Beauty crushed out the cigarette. What could she do? Had she really thought about it?
‘Find somewhere to live and sort my life out, I guess.’ Wasn’t that what normal people said?
Peter saw a chance. Of course she’d have to find somewhere else to live. You could smell Mark’s house from halfway down the street. Should he offer her his spare room now?
‘Is everything OK at Mark’s?’
Beauty nodded.
‘Isn’t it a bit … ?’
‘What?’
Peter wrinkled his nose.
‘No,’ Beauty said. Mark had saved her life that night. She wasn’t going to cuss him to no stranger.
Silence fell in the room again. Peter watched her sip tea. Perhaps he should try and lift her spirits. She’d been in a dark hole of despair, a prison. She’d run away from a forced marriage and a life of slavery. Surely she would want to embrace all that life had to offer.
‘At least you’re free now.’
Beauty let herself look at him. He’d stopped perving.
‘To do what?’
She thought of her mother. Ama would be shuffling around the flat, moaning and crying, unable to sleep.
‘I don’t know … meet whoever you want. Anything … everything,’ Peter said.
But what was he doing? He could hardly recommend smoking drugs and masturbation as a useful way of spending one’s life. That was just for the time being though; hadn’t he been in a kind of prison too?
The house was quiet. Beauty glanced at the man opposite her. How old was he? Didn’t he have any family?
‘Haven’t you got a wife?’ she asked, and blushed. That wasn’t a white question.
Peter thought of Kate. ‘No.’
She looked around the room, at the books, the computer and television. Not married. If she lived on her own, nobody would be able to tell her what to do, what to cook and clean. She wouldn’t have to spend her life with a man more than twice her age. Someone who pinched and prodded her when he wanted.
Peter’s voice pulled her back. ‘Do you think your family will stop looking for you?’
‘Insh’allah,’ she muttered to herself. Would they? One day?
Not unless I was married, or had a kid.
Peter caught the word and sat up. If God willed it? Predestination? Christ, did people really believe this stuff? Could he dissuade her of it as a first stage in seducing her? It might be an interesting intellectual exercise. And there was nothing else to do.
‘So do you believe things are destined to happen?’ he asked.
Beauty held his eye for a moment to see if he was mocking her. ‘Whatever’s wroten in your book, thass gonna happen.’ She looked down again. ‘Thass wroten in the Qur’an.’
What do I know? Let him explain it.
‘What do you believe?’ she asked.
Peter composed his answer before exhaling it, slowly.
‘I believe,’ he said, ‘that as long as no one is stopping you, then you have the free will to make choices and decide your own future. If it’s all been written down beforehand, then how can you be responsible for the decisions you make and for what you do?’
He watched her face for a reaction. Had he made it clear enough? Leaving aside his designs on her for a moment, would she understand the implications for herself, that she was in control of her destiny, that she could break free of the shackles of a religious mindset that would only enslave her to a paralysing fatalism?
Beauty listened. That word again. Free. Was she really free? She’d chosen to leave home, to say no to a marriage she didn’t want; she could have said yes like so many girls did. Was that what he meant?
She watched the man gently rubbing the patch of chest hair at the top of his shirt with his fingertips. What was he smiling for?
*
Peter was enchanted by her discomfort, innocence and naiveté. He felt alive. This was for real, not like one of the fatuous conversations he’d endured at Kate’s dinner parties, among the Italian designer kitchenware. A person’s physical and spiritual survival might depend on what he said.
It crossed his mind that he wouldn’t have been so concerned had she been overweight and unattractive.
‘Look, I don’t want to knock anyone’s religion,’ he said. ‘Everyone’s free to believe in whatever gods they want.’
Beauty flinched. There was only one God! Al-lh. The One. What did this bloke believe in?
He can’t be worser than a Hindu.
‘What religion are you?’ she asked him.
‘None,’ he said. ‘There is no God.’
Beauty choked on the tea and put the mug down.
‘You don’t believe … ?’ She couldn’t say the last words. Their meaning was darkness. If there was no … toba, toba …
‘I don’t know anyone who does,’ Peter added.
Beauty stared at him.
He doesn’t believe in anything?
What madness is this?
Dulal used to call her a fucking Christian and Ehudi, but they’d never accused her of this.
‘That doesn’t make no sense.’
‘Why not?’ Peter asked. It made no less sense than the idea of a Divine Creator. He watched the thoughts passing across her brow. Surely she had thought about this before! What else had she never considered?
Beauty couldn’t think. The questions swirled around her. ‘Where did … how … ?’
‘Did everything get here?’ Peter offered.
She nodded.
‘A massive explosion of gas … out of nothing.’ There. That should rock her foundations. And for the killer blow … ‘How did people get here?’ he asked. ‘We evolved, descended, we grew … out of monkeys over millions of years.’
He sat back, satisfied with her open-mouthed reaction. She was hearing this for the first time!
Beauty looked at the man on the sofa. Was he taking the piss?
Fa ranná.
It wasn’t good talking like this.
What if he’s right?
What if there is no …
She stood up.
‘I have to go,’ she said.
It was too soon for Peter. He’d never known a conversation hold such promise.
He followed Beauty along the dark path until they stopped at Mark’s gate.
‘Come back any time you like,’ Peter said. ‘It was just getting interesting.’
The dogs growled at the sound of his voice.
Beauty couldn’t see his face in the darkness. What was he … a man or a devil?
‘Will you?’ he urged.
‘Yeah, maybe,’ she said. ‘And thanks for, you know, before.’
The gate clicked shut behind her.
The dogs barked and Peter hurried back along the path.
23
Mark sat in the passenger seat of Bob’s Transit as it crept around the avenues and side streets of Bushbury, his eyes scanning the front gardens and passageways for the scrap that people left out to be taken away. First thing in the morning was the best time, before anyone else did the rounds. They’d already found two baths on Showell Road,
and a couple of television sets. They were good for the copper in the back. You had to smash them open to get at it, but the yard paid top dollar for it. They should have a good day.
Mark needed it. Seventy quid would sort him out for a while. The house was due a damn good clean, now that someone else was there. The place was a fucking tip, he knew. He’d seen the horror on Beauty’s face, and heard her retch when she came out of his spare room.
Anyway, who was she to complain? At least he had a roof over his head.
Still, the money would come in handy, if she stayed on for a few weeks. He could get some more breeze blocks from Bob to sort them kennels out. Clean the house out proper. And she’d be no bother as a lodger. She was all right, for a Paki.
She ay a Paki.
Asian, then.
Bengali.
‘Keep yer fookin’ eyes open, will y’? There’s two radiators over there,’ Bob said, stopping the van. ‘Fooksake, where’s yer fookin’ head?’
‘Sorry mate. Giss a hand then.’
‘Caar you diw ’em on yer own?’
Mark tipped his cap to the back of his head, relit the roll-up and jogged up the drive of the house. He pulled both radiators to his chest, staggered to the van and pushed them on to the back.
‘D’you ’ave to make so much fookin’ noise?’ Bob said, as Mark got into the cabin. ‘There’s people asleep.’
‘They was fookin’ heavy. Still, not bad so far, eh? D’you reckon we’ll pull a hundred and fifty quid?’
‘We might, if you keep yer eyes open. Heavy night was it? Who d’you end up with?’
‘No one. I went to Flanagan’s for one or two. I was home at twelve.’
‘Had enough of that tart then?’
Mark thought of Kelly. He knew he shouldn’t have gone to Flanagan’s. She’d sidled up to him at the bar and rubbed her tits against his arm, and his cock with her hand. He’d pictured her arsehole, and told her to stop.
Didn’t he want her to come back to his house later?
No. He had a mate staying.
That dey matter, Kelly said. If his mate were fit he could join in.
It was a bird.
‘Am y’ shaggin’ her?’ she asked.
The van bumped and clanged its way down Fourth Avenue, past pale yellow houses and arched cement porches. Mark stared out of the window. It wasn’t so bad round here. At least there weren’t any Kosovans.
He thought of the Asian bird in his spare room. Shagging her? It didn’t seem right. He couldn’t picture her … bent over …
‘What’s the fookin’ matter with you? Dey you see that cooker?’
Bob stopped the van, and together they lifted it on to the back.
‘Come on then, spit it out,’ Bob said. ‘Y’ve bin quiet since we left.’
‘Nothing. I’m sowund.’
‘No you ay. Y’m sitting there jumping and twitching. And you look like a fookin’ tramp.’
‘We’m diwin’ a tramp’s job, Bob.’
‘The money’s all right, ay it?’
‘Yeah, I know. But I do’ wanna do this forever.’
‘That’s it? Listen, it’s like I keep saying. You need a good woman. Look at me and Karen. She put me straight.’
Mark looked at the round-bellied, cheery-faced older man. It was true. She had sorted him out, smartened him up and got him working more.
‘What about an Asian bird?’ he asked.
‘You wha’?’
‘I got one staying in me spare room at the minute.’
Beauty woke to the noise of dogs barking and Mark shouting at them from the bathroom. She listened as he went downstairs and slammed the front door. Silence fell on the house again.
She’d lain awake when she got back from Peter’s house the night before, struggling not to think about what he had told her. He was quite a nice bloke, softer than she expected a white person to be, but he’d said some terrible things.
There is no God …
No tochdir, no destiny, nothing wroten in her book?
Was he right?
Did Allah know that she would commit a zinna by disobeying her parents and living with a strange man? And if so, how could it be a sin if everything was already decided?
But Beauty knew Allah existed, so the white bloke must be wrong, mustn’t he?
It didn’t seem so bad thinking about these things in the daylight. She stared at the ceiling and tried to remember what else he had said.
‘We grew out of monkeys over millions of years.’
Everyone knew that monkeys were men who didn’t go to the Mox on Fridays. Or was that just a kids’ story?
And what else did white people believe? If there was no God that meant there was no heaven or hell. No punishment, no zinna. So what happened after you died? Where did you go?
Beauty shuddered at the blackness that arose in answer. She threw back the covers and got out of bed, scratched her head and looked about her for a scarf.
Anyway, how could someone who didn’t believe in anything be right? The Qur’an said that Allah made people, and that everything you did in your life was wroten down before.
How do you know? You can’t read it.
After you die you go to heaven and hell.
How d’you know?
What did white people think?
‘There is no God!’
What about Christians?
Was she stupid for not knowing these things, and how could she find out?
At the care home they might think she was thick if she gawped every time she heard something new.
They might not give her the job.
*
Beauty lifted the wicker blind to let in the sunlight, opened the window and listened to the birds singing. They were free, flying from tree to tree, looking after their babies and singing songs to themselves. They didn’t have to worry about anything.
She jumped when the phone rang.
01902 421352
Call waiting.
Beauty pressed the green button and listened.
‘Hello? Is that Beauty?’
A woman’s voice.
‘It’s Jackie from the Jobcentre.’
She’d found a placement for her in a care home for the elderly. Did she want to go and see it and talk to the manager?
Today?
Yes. It was easy to find. She’d have to get the 72 bus to Rough Hills. The manager’s name was Maria. Should Jackie phone and say Beauty was going?
Can I do it? What if they give me something to read?
Yes, she would go.
Why shouldn’t I work? That’s what normal people do, aynit?
White people.
No woman Beauty knew had ever worked.
And it would be a good thing looking after people who had never had children, or whose kids had died.
Toba, toba astaghfirullah.
24
The doors of the bus hissed open outside the Sunny-side Residential Care Home for the Elderly. Beauty walked up the driveway of the old house, rang the bell and waited. She caught her reflection in the glass of the porch. Would they want a Paki?
The door was opened by a plump young woman in blue trousers and a nurse’s top.
‘Y’m all right, loov?’
Beauty scrawled her name in the visitors’ book and followed the girl along floral-carpeted corridors. The air smelled of stale food.
‘If you’d just like to wait in here with the service users, I’ll go and find Maria.’
Beauty wondered what ‘service users’ were, and followed her into a large reception room. She stopped in the doorway, open-mouthed. How many people there were!
Ehcter, deuter, tinter …
Twenty? More?
Elderly ‘service users’ sat in armchairs along the walls, one thin seat touching the next. Some dozed, their heads tilted forward or to one side, others stared ahead unseeing. A television in the corner of the room showed a daytime chat show.
There were no brown fac
es. Had they seen a Muslim girl before? Working here? The women wore long skirts and cardigans; some of them had bandages under their rumpled tights. The few men looked smart in jackets and V-neck jumpers
‘Hello, chick,’ a voice said. ‘You coom for the job, have y’?’
An old woman from the row of chairs beside her leaned forward. She had a large purple bruise on one cheek and her eye was red with blood. She motioned Beauty towards her.
‘Coom and let me have a look at you, sweetheart. I do’ see so well any more.’
Beauty stood in front of the lady and allowed herself to be inspected. A cloudy eye stared at her while Beauty noted the lady’s neat blue skirt, white blouse and pearl necklace. The woman held out a trembling hand and Beauty took it. Was that right?
‘I reckon you’ll do very well ’ere,’ the lady said, smiling.
Beauty smiled back.
Sweet buddhi.
‘Don’t mind me bruises. It ’appens, when y’m old,’ the lady said.
She looked Beauty over again and winked.
‘You’ll get the job. They caar find anyone to look after us. Why do’ you go and sit down, loov? That Maria will take forever. We’ll talk again, eh chick?’
Beauty said that she would, and went to the table by the window. She felt awkward as she smiled at the faces that watched her, and avoided the eyes of those that didn’t.
They never had children to look after them when they got old, so they come to these places, aynit.
That’s good. Back home they’d die, if they was poor and had no one.
But it wasn’t a very nice place and she felt sorry for the old people. The smell was bad and the furniture tatty. Pictures on the walls of men on horses were faded and crooked; the Silver Jubilee teacups on the hooks of a narrow dresser were chipped.
Outside the window, cars flashed past on the busy road, the high-rise flats of Chapel Ash beyond. It was a clear day. Low hills were visible in the distance, beyond the city.
What’s out there?
‘Where are you from, dear?’
Beauty looked into the pale blue eyes of a woman sitting near the table.
‘Er … London.’
A man’s voice growled. ‘She means where’s your family from. India? Pakistan?’
The face of the man opposite was unsmiling, his hands resting on the top of a walking stick standing between his knees. He was smartly dressed, in polished brown shoes and a brown jacket. A shaving cut touched the collar of his white shirt.
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