The Things We Thought We Knew

by Mahsuda Snaith

  ‘The man wasn’t even wearing a tie!’ he says. ‘When I confronted her about it, she told me I was overreacting, that she could do as she pleased. What about the smiles she’s given me? The food? She’s been treating me like a fool and all for a man who doesn’t even polish his shoes!’

  He flings his hands in the air again before falling back in his seat. He looks at me from the corners of his eyes.

  ‘They have plans for you too, you know?’ he says. ‘She told me so. “We are grateful for your services, Mr Chavda, but we have other plans for Ravine now.” The nerve of it!’

  ‘Plans?’ I say. ‘What kind of plans?’

  ‘In the park so everyone could see. I never thought your mother would be so brazen.’

  Swans have been known to break people’s arms when protecting their nest. In the same fashion, I find my humility vanishing, my spine uncurling as I prepare to flap.

  ‘Well, I suppose that’s her business, isn’t it?’

  Mr Chavda’s eyes widen, wiry hairs poking out from the centre of his brows. It isn’t what I’ve said that’s shocked him but the way I’ve said it. Firm, self-assured. For ten years the man has treated me like a child but now he’s looking at an adult.

  ‘Of course,’ he says, resuming his upright position. ‘Now back to your test.’

  He taps the booklet on my knees as if to reinstate his authority. I look down at the questions and tick-boxes before pushing the paper away.

  ‘No more tests, Mr Chavda.’

  Again his eyes widen and again he is defeated. A look of hurt ripples across his face. He quickly stands to his feet and collects his papers, telling me he’s too busy for this foolishness and has other things to do anyway. I envision his journey back to his car, his feet scuttling along the pavement as he keeps his head down, his body crashing into single mothers and pushchairs. Loneliness can make a person build defences. I know this better than most people.

  ‘Come round for tea sometime,’ I say before he leaves. ‘You know, for a chat or something.’

  He looks over at me as he straightens his tie, eyes blinking as he computes my words. He seems to be considering whether he should be insulted by this offer. His chest grows round as he draws in a deep breath.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he says, before storming out.

  I don’t hear him say goodbye to Amma. Instead he shuts the front door in a way that is loud enough to be noticed.

  ‘Idiot,’ Jonathan says through the wall.

  I stare at the 2010 calendar still attached to the back of my bedroom door. It’s slipped to a crooked position.

  ‘Stop eavesdropping,’ I tell him. ‘And don’t call him an idiot. You don’t even know the man.’

  The reprimand silences your brother for approximately four seconds. When he speaks again it is loud and clear.

  ‘I know an idiot when I hear an idiot.’

  I shake my head and raise my voice. ‘Is that because you are an idiot?’

  There’s a pause and I think I’ve gone too far. Mr Chavda always said I was too smart-mouthed, that I would never find a husband (as if I was looking), with a sharp tongue like mine.

  I hear Jonathan shuffling on the other side of the wall.

  ‘Very funny, Ravine,’ he says.

  I slide beneath the covers of my bed and, even though I know your brother can’t see me, cover my mouth to hide my grin.

  The Constellation of Surprise

  That winter, in the spirit of seasonal unity, we decided to have a joint Roy–Dickerson Christmas. Amma explained that, in England, you didn’t have to believe in festivals to celebrate them. On Halloween people dressed as ghosts they didn’t think existed; on Bonfire Night burnt effigies of a man they held no malice for; and on Shrove Tuesday stuffed their bellies full of pancakes and golden syrup without the slightest intention of fasting for Lent.

  ‘This is the English culture,’ she explained. ‘It’s how they rejoice.’

  So that year we decided to rejoice in style. We decked your flat with enough tinsel and fairy lights to decorate a department store. The tree, a tall plastic number bought from Laser’s car boot, stood at a wonky angle against the back wall, threatening to tip over and cover us all in a shower of glitter and baubles (even when we opened our presents, Amma kept her hands hovering above us in anticipation). We wore our party dresses while Jonathan remained in the thunderstorm pyjamas he’d slept in, our busy hands ripping at the parcels as if afraid they’d run away. Colouring books, crazy markers, flimsy dolls and teddy bears – our presents were of the highest pound-shop quality. The more boxes we opened the louder we squealed. Even Jonathan seemed impressed with his building blocks, electronic thermometer and bargain-basement computer games.

  ‘What’s the weather forecast?’ you asked him.

  He froze mid-tear, a ball of holly-print wrapping paper clutched in his hand. When he spoke it was in a deep, serious voice.

  ‘Sunny intervals followed by lightning storms throughout the region.’

  We looked at each other.

  ‘Coool.’

  It was while we were playing a new game on Jonathan’s Commodore 64 that Sandy Burke arrived. The Commodore 64 had been given to Jonathan as a birthday present by one of Mrs Dickerson’s former boyfriends. He’d bought the out-of-date item to win him over but Jonathan wouldn’t even open the box, demanding a Sega Mega Drive instead. It wasn’t until they broke up that Jonathan’s standards dropped. For hours we’d sit on his bed, watching acid-rainbow stripes flicker across the screen as the tape loaded. They have computer consoles now that are motion-sensitive; I’ve seen the adverts. You stand in front of them and pretend to play tennis without a tennis racket and go bowling without a bowling bowl. They take seconds to load and store more information than entire computer suites did when we were kids. The days of smacking arrow keys on the keyboard, watching the white oval of Dizzy the Egg spin round and round as the game crashed, are well and truly over.

  Jonathan had detangled the mass of wires from his own television monitor to bring the Commodore into the living room. As Uncle Walter folded napkins and Amma came back and forth from our flat with tray upon tray of chilli-laced roast vegetables, we sat and yelled at the screen. We only realized Sandy Burke was in the room when she positioned her body in front of Dizzy as he was about to jump over a crocodile-infested river. Even then, she was so thin we could crane our necks sideways and still see the screen. She huffed loudly and clicked the power off.

  ‘Oi!’ Jonathan yelled. ‘We were playing that!’

  Sandy smiled, picking up the baby carriers she’d left on the floor.

  ‘I’ve come to give you all your present,’ she said, bobbing up and down.

  Sandy hadn’t been to the flat since the cat murder, and the sight of her candyfloss hair in front of us with the promise of presents was enough to make us forget the game. Amma and Uncle Walter looked up from Christmas crackers as though frozen in time.

  Sandy became nervous. Her eyes darted from adults to children as she bobbed up and down like a boat lost at sea. This was unlike Sandy, who your mother once described as having ‘more balls than a children’s playpen’. Sandy eventually released a shaky chuckle.

  ‘You’ll be real happy when you see it,’ she said, though the twitching in her left eye said otherwise. ‘It’s going to be such a surprise!’

  You clambered on top of the sofa, peering over the edge.

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ you said, turning back with a crumpled expression on your face.

  Sandy gulped. Her throat was so thin back then that when she swallowed you could see the muscles move along it in a wave. Her eyes glanced sideways.

  ‘It’s at the door.’

  We all turned our heads as though Santa Claus himself was about to step out from the shadows. Instead of a round-bellied man with a white beard, we saw a figure, tall and slim, moving towards us with exaggerated steps. The figure wobbled as it came closer, unsteady in six-inch stilettos and a tight denim mini-skirt.<
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  ‘Surprise!’ Mrs Dickerson screeched, fanning her hands out as though finishing a magic trick.

  No one spoke. No one moved. I don’t think anyone even breathed. Mrs Dickerson continued to hold her hands out until her grin began to falter.

  ‘Muuum!’ you screamed, jumping off the sofa and running into her arms.

  The cry broke us out of our stupor. Mrs Dickerson’s grin snapped back into place as she grabbed hold of your body, swinging you around at such a height we could see the pink soles of your trainers.

  ‘That’s right, darling,’ she said as she slowed to a stop. ‘I’m home.’

  As she spoke, she looked over at Uncle Walter. He was standing with arms dropped by his sides and his mouth hanging open. Sweat was circling his armpits and his skin was as pale as the uncooked turkey in the fridge. When she caught his gaze, your uncle grinned an automatic grin. It was so forced it looked square on his round chubby face. In response, Mrs Dickerson lifted her chin and smiled back. Uncle Walter’s expression crumbled. He hung his head and began fiddling with the napkins as your mother smacked a huge kiss upon your chin. You giggled manically and clung to her neck.

  At the time I didn’t understand why Uncle Walter looked away, but I’ve now watched enough wildlife programmes to have figured it out. When your mother grinned at her brother it was with the same menace as a tiger growling at its opponent. It wasn’t a gesture of sibling affection or a symbol of joy at their reunion; that smile was a display of dominance. With a simple lifting of her chin, Mrs Dickerson had reclaimed her territory.

  ‘It has taken you long enough!’ Amma said.

  She was standing with her hands folded over her midriff as her festively red and green sari hung down in pleats.

  ‘We were thinking you would never come back.’

  Your mother dropped your body to the floor.

  ‘It was a holiday, Rekha. I was always coming back.’

  ‘It might have been nice of you to tell your brother,’ Amma muttered.

  Mrs Dickerson’s mouth twitched, but only for a second. She walked over to an armchair, falling down into it with an elaborate exhalation.

  ‘Walt doesn’t mind,’ she said, as she produced a packet of cigarettes from her sleeve. ‘He owes me one, don’t you?’

  She stared at Uncle Walter as she lit her cigarette. He dropped his gaze again and resumed folding napkins.

  Jonathan had been watching the whole scene with eyes as wide as Dizzy the Egg’s. His expression was the same as when he watched hurricanes on the television: mouth open, eyes afraid to blink. When your mother looked over at him he slammed his mouth shut.

  ‘Come over here, little man.’

  She leant forward in her seat, smoke trailing from her cigarette in spirals.

  ‘Come and give your mum a hug.’

  Jonathan spun his body away as though she hadn’t said a word.

  ‘Can we put the telly back on now or what?’ he said.

  Theirs was a battle that hadn’t even begun.

  When Amma leaves for her routine visit to the doctor’s, I don’t mention what Mr Chavda has said. When I see the kohl etched upon the rims of her lids, a new bindi placed artfully on the centre of her forehead, when she bends down to kiss me and her usual rose scent is smothered by a sour new perfume that makes my eyes sting, I simply grin.

  ‘Have a nice time,’ I tell her.

  ‘It is only the doctor’s,’ she says, before dashing out.

  When she’s gone I swing my feet over the side of the bed and begin my daily tests. I wiggle my toes, turn my ankles in circles and raise my legs at various angles. With every movement I feel my muscles growing taut then relaxed, the stretch and the strain as I flex and turn, but still no pain. After years of sitting in the shallow end of the pool I’m finally swimming in open water.

  ‘Do you still carry that (mumble) everywhere?’ your brother asks.

  I glance over at the wall before dropping my legs. I ask him to repeat himself.

  ‘DICTIONARY,’ he says. ‘Do you still carry that DICTIONARY everywhere?’

  I sigh. ‘I don’t go anywhere, Jonathan.’

  I push myself to my feet, turning Amma’s chair to face the window as I sit by the wall with a glass pressed up against it.

  ‘You don’t go anywhere?’ he asks.

  I place my elbow on the flaking paint of the window sill. ‘Just to the hospital. And I haven’t been there for a while.’

  There’s a silence as I look out at the blocks of flats, the winding ribbon of paths and roads. It’s so vast, so wide; just looking at it makes me dizzy. I focus my gaze on the tree in front of me and ask Jonathan if he knows its name.

  ‘Horse chestnut,’ he says as I stare at the leaves.

  I remember prickly green balls appearing on the branches each year. The brown orbs that emerge when they fall to the ground.

  ‘Not conker?’

  When we were younger Jonathan would have scoffed at me for saying that, rolling his eyes as far back in their sockets as humanly possible. I imagine him doing this on the opposite side of the wall, but when his reply comes back it’s diplomatic, verging on sincere.

  ‘They grow conkers,’ he explains. ‘But they’re still called horse chestnut.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I read a book on botany in the … library.’

  The pause makes me wonder which word has been omitted. School library? University? Prison? I don’t know which option is worst: that Jonathan has surpassed me in the world of education or that he’s become a convicted criminal without my knowledge.

  ‘Do you still have it?’ Jonathan asks. ‘The dictionary, I mean.’

  I squeeze my eyes shut. ‘Does it matter?’

  There’s a pause.

  ‘I guess not.’

  I look out at the horse chestnut that has loomed by my window my entire life. It’s the same as me, that tree. Rooted here, stuck in this estate.

  I press my cheek into the glass and look at the wall beside me. It’s strange to think of your brother on the other side. Maybe it’s because I can’t see him. Maybe if I knew what he looked like things would be different.

  I press my free hand against the wall, listening carefully through the glass.

  ‘Why did you come back, Jonathan?’

  The question pops from my mouth even though I’ve planned not to ask it. I don’t want to ask because I don’t want Jonathan to think I care. But maybe I do. Maybe I care more than I want to admit.

  ‘Reginald’s dying,’ he says.

  My hand drops off the wall.

  ‘Who?’

  I can hear his bed creaking as he sits up straight, the sound of his body shifting up against the wall.

  ‘Mr Eccentric. He sent me a letter saying he wanted to see me before … Well, before it’s too late.’

  I scrunch the material of my robe in my hand. ‘That’s why you came back?’

  ‘He’s my grandfather. I thought I had to. But now—’

  I sit up straight. ‘I’m going to sleep now!’

  It’s still early morning but your brother doesn’t question me as I climb back into bed. I coil my body and bury my head in my pillow. I’d scream if I knew no one would hear me. If he thinks he’s upset me, he’ll think he’s won, and I won’t let him win, not again.

  ‘You all right, Ravine?’ he says.

  I can tell he has his face close to the wall because his voice is suddenly loud. Just the sound of it makes my stomach contort like small fists are punching me.

  ‘Ravine?’

  I lift my head up. ‘Don’t call me that!’

  When he speaks again, he sounds confused. ‘But it’s your name.’

  ‘Don’t call me that!’

  He’s quiet after this and doesn’t speak again.

  I’m a fool, Marianne, a complete and ridiculous fool. For some ludicrous reason I thought your brother had come back to see me.

  The Constellation of Yellow Eyes

&n
bsp; Today is the general election and, although the polling stations will stay open until 10 p.m., Amma decides being ridiculously early will somehow help with the voting process.

  ‘Women have died for this right,’ she tells me, shaking me awake at 7.30 a.m.

  I yawn. ‘I thought the Suffragettes were trying to stop female suffering.’

  Amma is too busy bustling around my room to appreciate the quip. She’s excited, not just at the idea of voting but at me leaving the flat.

  It’s my own fault. When the poll card came I should have said the idea was ridiculous instead of letting Amma give me exercises and continually update me on political developments. On the day of the first TV debate we sat in my room with popcorn on our laps. Red, blue and yellow stripes adorned the television studio as party leaders made pleas towards the camera and rolled out names of ‘ordinary people’ they had spoken to, as though they were family members. They talked in long rambling monologues, gesturing with flat hands slicing through the air and forcing such insincere grins across their faces that Amma was afraid they would pull a muscle.

  ‘So much grinning cannot be good for a person,’ she told me.

  ‘That explains why I’m so healthy,’ I said.

  Amma cleared up the popcorn without so much as a chuckle. She’s so used to my sarcasm now that she doesn’t even realize when it’s in good humour. Perhaps I should try some straightforward jokes.

  Man walks into a bar … Ouch!

  That was one of your favourites.

  When the debates had finished and Amma went downstairs, Jonathan began speaking to me through the wall.

  ‘All sounds like bollocks to me,’ he said.

  I didn’t gasp but chuckled at what he said.

  Never again.

  Since our conversation about Mr Eccentric I haven’t spoken to your brother. I’ve decided to remain mute even when he knocks and calls for me through the wall. Yet still, for reasons I don’t understand, I’ve carried on supplying him with midnight meals via his welcome mat. I’m not completely heartless after all. This surprises me more than anyone.