*
Peter searched for another opening. Wouldn’t she want to explore life, study something, discover a talent she never knew she had, make friends and meet a nice man … like him? Perhaps it was time for Stage One of his plan.
‘Well, I’m glad I bumped into you,’ he said.
Beauty touched her scarf.
Why?
‘If I bought the ingredients one day,’ he continued, ‘would you show me how to make a real Bangladeshi home-cooked dish and … have dinner with me?’
He avoided saying ‘curry’ in case it was a stereotype.
Beauty’s stomach cramped with hunger. It was impossible to cook at Mark’s. He’d cleaned up, but she didn’t trust the pots. Chips, kebabs and packets of biscuits from the shop was all she had eaten since she’d left home. She wanted rice, and to suck the bitorhadi from inside the sheep bone. Or better still, hutki sheera! Stinkyfish!
She looked to see if he was making fun of her, but his face seemed honest. Would he like her curry? White people only ate Indian food from restaurants.
‘You aynt gonna like it,’ she said.
Peter was relieved to see her smile for the first time. The frown passed from her brow, and her lips parted to reveal perfect white teeth.
‘Why not?’ he asked.
‘There’s lots of chillies.’
‘That’s OK. I like hot food.’
Beauty covered her smile behind the teacup. Boy, would she show him! She’d make him a proper one, hot like the old man always wanted it. Just in case this good-looking bloke did get the wrong idea. But was it right to come here? What did ‘have dinner with me’ mean?
You can’t cook for an unmarried man in his own house.
Why not? What was wrong with it? And hadn’t she come to find out things so as not to look dumb everywhere she went?
‘Can I arx you something?’ she said, surprised by her boldness.
Peter poured more tea for them. ‘Of course.’ Stay as long as you like, he wanted to say.
‘What you said last night? If there’s … no God?’
Toba, toba …
Peter noticed that she touched her cheeks with the tip of a finger while pretending to wipe her lips. Was it some medieval gesture to ward off the evil eye? Christ! This was backward stuff.
‘Uh-huh,’ he encouraged.
‘… then what do … white people think happens when you die?’
She raised the cup to her mouth and avoided the man’s eye.
Peter marvelled at being party to someone’s first atheist conversation, although he was wary of scaring her off again. Could she handle humour with her religion?
‘Well, no one’s ever come back to tell us what it’s like, so it must be good,’ he said.
She didn’t laugh.
‘Look, I don’t know what happens when you die,’ he added. ‘Nothing, probably.’
The fine lines of her eyebrows arched in surprise. ‘Is that what people think?’ Beauty asked.
There was more she wanted to know, like if there was no God and no hell, how did bad people get punished? But she knew her questions might sound simple, until she’d had time to think about them.
She stood up and thanked him for the tea.
So, would she come to dinner, Peter asked her at the front door. He’d cook if she showed him how.
Beauty looked into his eyes to see if there was some bad thought behind them. He fancied himself too much but he wasn’t the dangerous type, she decided. Yes, she would, she said.
She stepped past him into the street and cast a quick glance at the parked cars to make sure they were empty.
Peter watched her go and closed the door, glad she hadn’t fled this time.
Beauty felt his eyes on her as she walked the few steps to the other house. She was pleased with herself for having discovered something without looking stupid, and with the thought of having some proper food.
What’s he gonna think if I eat with my fingers?
30
Beauty looked down from the bedroom window. The backyard was tidy and the dogs quiet. How long would she be here? A week? A month? Where would she be in a year from now? Since she’d left home she had only been able to think about the next day. Two at the most. With no kishmut, no destiny, nothing written beforehand, like the white bloke said, the future seemed even darker. Would she still be living in this town, near her family? Would she ever see them again?
Yes. I will. I will.
She’d make her own future. She’d work, and have enough money to rent a house. Sharifa would be able to bunk off school, and come and play with the cat. She’d cook her little sister’s favourite food: kurma and aloo, halazam, rasmallai, ladhu and zilafi sweets, and plant onions and coriander in the small back garden which no one could look into. She’d go to work every day and look after the buddhi in the care home. Maybe, one day, her brothers would find out she wasn’t doing anything bad.
They’ll say you’re going to pubs.
And taking drugs.
And sleeping with different men.
So what if they do? I won’t see them.
I could go and see Ama on Fridays when the old man’s at the Masjid. Bhai-sahb sleeps and the kids’ll be at school.
Dulal would know you was there. He’d wake up.
What if Mum doesn’t want to see me?
The phone rang.
‘Bew-tee?’
‘Ama!’
‘Bew-tee! Ai yo!’
‘Farr tam nai.’
I can’t go back.
‘Bew-tee, ami bé marr!’
‘Did you go to the Doctor?’
‘Na, na. Bew-tee!’
‘Ama!’
‘Torr abhai mair horra torr Bhaien tologhé!’
The old man’s fighting with the boys!
‘Ama!’
‘Ami echhla!’
There’s nobody to help her.
‘Ama!’
‘BYAR MAHT AISSÉ – HOMLA FUAA.’
‘Hheé? Ama! Ama?’
Her mother had put down the phone. Beauty sat on the bed.
Wedding talk.
‘Who?’
Homla, her mum’s cousin-sister’s brother’s wife, wanted to come and see her.
She wants me for her son.
Hadn’t the old man told Homla she was married to the mullah? Or did everyone know she hadn’t let him touch her? Maybe people thought she could get a divorce easily. Talaq, talaq, talaq over the phone.
Why don’t they give up?
Cuz they know I aynt married here. Just Muslim way. And everyone knows we never …
She lay down, closed her eyes and heard her mother’s voice and her choked sobs.
She’s ill.
There’s no one to cook.
Bhai-sahb and the little one are fighting with the old man.
Wedding talk’s come up!
Would the old man let it happen? Would he give up on bringing mullah Choudhury here?
Maybe that’s why they’re fighting.
Dulal doesn’t care who it is. He wants me married so he can start looking for a wife.
Beauty stood up and went to the window. It was almost dark. Lights had come on in the windows of the houses beyond the trees.
What they gonna say if Homla phones again? I’m nearly twenty. The old man can’t say no for ever. Everyone knows I never married the mullah properly.
Habib Choudhury had waited a long time to make their Muslim wedding in Bangladesh right. She’d walked into the room five years ago under her red wedding scarf and sat down next to him. Shorbot habani. And held the cup to his lips. Her cheek was swollen and her right eye closed from the slaps of the night before.
I was fourteen.
She’d stared at each one of their faces in turn and sworn never to forget what they’d done: the mullah, her old man, the mullah’s witch-mother. She’d cried when she said hobbul … I do. Afterwards, she got beaten badly.
The mullah had brought her a few piec
es of his mother’s jewellery. In the night, he’d tried to lie on top of her but she’d screamed until he returned to his side of the bed. People told him to give it time, and he went back to live with his mother without her. For one night, she had slept in the same bed as him.
Beauty sat back down on the bed and took her make-up bag from the bedside cabinet. She squeezed some moisturising cream on to a cotton pad and began wiping off her eyeliner.
Let them think of something to say to this new wanker. They can tell him I’m still mad.
People will find out you aynt at home.
So what?
Thass scandal. The big one will never get married.
Yes, he will.
Not in this country.
Let him go to Bangladesh and find a wife.
Al-lh! Why now? Ama! She’s suffering. This aynt her fault.
No one’s gonna think bad of her.
They will. The old man will blame her. And the big one aynt gonna find a wife.
Beauty took the hand mirror from the pink bag and checked that the make-up had all gone. Her eyes looked tired.
Maybe it was all a trick. Beauty’s mum’s cousin-sister’s brother and his wife would come from London. And the mullah’s brother. That pervert. He’d want to stick his nose in. Then they’d tell her to go back to London with them. Just for a few days.
They know I aynt gonna fall for it again.
I can’t go back. What if Homla’s son is really there and he wants to marry me?
Is the old man gonna say yes?
That’s why the big one’s fighting, aynit? He wants me to get married.
What am I supposed to do?
If it’s not him, it’ll be someone else.
They aynt never gonna give up.
Unless I was …
You can’t do that!
Al-lh amarray shai jo horro!
Help me!
Mark ran up the stairs and knocked on the door.
‘BEAUTY! YOU IN?’
31
Beauty sat up on the bed.
Al-lh, this aynt good.
‘D’you fancy giwin’ out later? There’s a do on at the club.’
‘What club?’
‘Where I bumped into you that night when them Asian lads was looking for you.’
Beauty stood up and straightened her headscarf.
I can’t do that.
Mark scratched dried paint from his hands at the door. It might be hard to convince her, but he wanted her to come.
‘Tay a nightclub. It’s a family place, really. Bob’s a member. One of his nephews got engaged, or had a kid, I caar remember which. There’ll be food laid on, and a bit a music.’
Mark looked at Beauty. Would she come? He wanted to show her that he knew people. That he wasn’t a no-mates loser.
‘Giw on, it’ll be a laff.’
Beauty tidied her few things on the bedside table.
He wants me to say yes.
I can’t go. ‘Look what the bitch is doing.’ Thass what the big one’s gonna say.
They think I’m doing those things anyway.
‘Yeah, sure,’ she said, and saw his face light up with surprise.
‘Nice one!’ Mark said. ‘We can get a taxi back whenever you want. I’ll put aside a fiver for it.’
He ran downstairs to feed the dogs and get ready.
‘Going out?’
With a bloke?
Should she?
It aynt like that.
Aynit?
It wasn’t a nightclub. He said it was a family place. She’d be safe with him and one day she could tell Sharifa that she’d been to a white party.
Could she really go?
Why not?
The taxi left them at the corner of the Willenhall Road. Mark felt good in his black jeans and polished shoes. He pointed out the spot where they’d run into each other, but Beauty didn’t recognize it.
When was that?
They walked to the flat-roofed, red-brick Working Men’s Leisure and Social Club. Beauty felt her bum was uncovered without a kameez hanging low behind her. She wore high boots with her jeans rolled up, a black printed T-shirt, her denim jacket and a black headscarf. Nothing Asian. Apart from the way she did her eyeliner and her headscarf.
The elderly man in a dark suit at the door nodded to Mark, and smiled kindly at Beauty. Mark signed in for both of them.
‘I’ll get this,’ he said, and paid the forty pence entrance fee for non-members.
Beauty breathed deeply – do they have Asians in here? Al-lh! – and followed Mark into a large, strip-lit lounge with lino floors and a pool table. Black padded benches ran around the outside of the room, separated by flashing fruit machines. White people sat at tables, young and old together. Children, too. Muffled music came from a room beyond.
Beauty flinched at the light and kept her eyes on Mark’s back as he headed to the bar. She knew she was the only Asian there, and that eyes were on her.
What’s he doing with a Paki?
Her headscarf felt tight and her scalp itched under it.
Mark nodded to the people he knew: Bob’s sister and one of her neighbours. Beauty tried not to look at the faces around her, and stood next to him at the bar. A massive bloke, with thin dark hair swept over a balding head from ear to ear, came to serve them. She watched his belly tremble under the short-sleeved white shirt as he moved.
‘Oright, Tone. Bob in yet?’ Mark asked him.
‘He’s through there.’
The fat man nodded over his shoulder. The face of a pretty young girl appeared at the serving hatch behind him. She waved to Mark.
‘That’s Bob’s niece, Hayley,’ Mark explained to Beauty.
He ordered a pint of Carling. ‘D’you wanna J2O?’ he asked her.
‘Has it got … ?’
‘Do’ worry, it’s non-alcoholic.’
Beauty thanked him, and was glad he’d spoken quietly.
Mark stood in the doorway of the large function room, sipped his pint and looked around for Bob. He’d have pulled a few tables together for his family. Over there, near the bar. Away from the dance floor, for the time being.
Beauty carried her bottle of orange juice and felt awkward as he introduced her to ‘Bob’s Karen’, and his niece Hayley, a girl of thirteen or fourteen chewing gum and looking about her to see if there were any nice boys there yet.
‘Sit dowun, loov,’ the woman said.
Beauty squeezed past the chairs to sit with her back to the wall next to the lady. Was that the older man’s wife? She had short, spiky, dyed blond hair. Women’s sovereign rings, bangles and men’s chains and lucky charms covered her hands and wrists, and she had a tattoo on each forearm. Beauty couldn’t make out the pictures and didn’t want to stare.
Mark sat down next to her. Their legs were almost touching. ‘Tay really started yet,’ he explained. ‘It’ll get busy though, do’ worry.’
Beauty didn’t want it to get busy. What if he left her alone? What could she talk about with these people?
‘There’s food ’n’ all down there. We can get some in a minute.’ Mark would wait for the nod from Bob.
‘Here, Kaz?’ Mark leaned past Beauty and she saw into his ear. ‘Is Steve-o doing the music?’
‘Ar,’ she said, and nodded to the door where a thin, pale boy was carrying a case of records to a low platform at the end of the hall.
‘That’s Steve,’ Mark said to Beauty. ‘One of Bob’s nephews. Thass right, ay it, Kaz?’
‘Ar.’
Bob came with drinks, and winked at Beauty. He was cleaner than when she’d last seen him. Beauty liked his cheerful face, tanned from working outside, his short grey hair and clean white teeth. His eyes smiled. He went away again, stopping to pat one man on the back and talk to another.
Mark pointed to other members of Bob’s family as they came through the door. His sisters Elaine, Janet and Wendy. And his brother John. Beauty nodded her interest. There were brothers and in
-laws and neighbours. He told her who they were, and what work he’d done on their cars.
‘Kaz’s brother Alan gimme a loada work round December time. Said I did a damn good job ’n’ all.’
Mark sat back and felt good. He was at home here. He knew everyone and everyone knew him. They liked him, respected him. He kept his word and knew how to graft hard. He could do just about any job they gave him. Apart from welding or panel-beating.
And they came to the table to greet him.
‘This is me mate, Beauty,’ Mark told them.
Beauty gave each one a quick glance and looked down again. It wasn’t so bad after all. White people could be pretty friendly.
Mark and Karen talked about cars, vans, breeds of dogs and how much they cost. She was looking for a Dog de Bordoh. Or a Kayner Korser Italiano. About eight hundred quid, Mark reckoned.
He went to the bar for more drinks, happy to have the money to get some rounds in. He’d make sure Bob’s missus was all right for drinks. And Beauty.
Hayley returned to the table with a can of Coke and a packet of crisps and sat next to her. Beauty noticed the young girl’s denim miniskirt and blotchy pink thighs. Hayley opened the crisps and offered them to her.
‘Am you Mark’s new girlfriend?’ she asked.
Beauty felt her face flush. ‘No, no! I’m just staying at his house. We’re … friends.’
Al-lh!
The girl pulled crisps from the packet and put them into her red-lipsticked mouth. She had painted nails and two small gold coins on her fingers. Her arms were bare, and her young white chest was squeezed into a tight pink vest. She wore make-up on her pale face, and her highlighted hair was layered and straightened.
‘He’s buff though, ay ’e?’ Hayley said.
Beauty coughed into her hand and touched her cheeks. ‘Is he?’ she said. ‘I don’t know about them things.’
‘You wha’? Lookaddim!’
They both watched Mark returning to the table, a triangle of three pint glasses in his large hands.
Maybe he wasn’t bad-looking.
This aynt good.
Mark sat opposite the two girls. ‘Oright, Hayley, how’s it giwin?’
The function room had filled with white people. Mark talked, while Hayley laughed and tried to flirt with him.
Beauty sat back and watched everything. Young girls in calf-length tracksuit bottoms, pink and white Reebok Classic trainers and pop socks weaved their way through the adults to the bar, and returned to their families at the tables with crisps and cans of Coke. Young mothers with ringed fingers, their hair pulled tightly back into ponytails, settled empty prams around the tables. Little boys tottered about in baby-sized Nike Air Max, short-sleeved checked shirts and gelled blond hair, clutching packets of crisps in tiny fists. They were dressed like their fathers, who stood at the bar talking and laughing, holding pints of lager and cigarettes in the fingers of one hand. The men made way for overweight middle-aged women, with large bare arms and short black dresses, carrying glasses of brandy. Gold flashed on fat fingers, chubby wrists and seasoned necks.
Beauty Page 18