by Annie Murray
The evenings stirred up their memories and feelings, which made it all the easier to talk about the past. As the session ended, Margaret was alight with excitement. Surely he’d ask her again this week? They’d be able to go to the pub round the corner and have the bliss of sitting in the warm, talking and talking! They scarcely ever thought about smoking – they were far too involved.
As everyone was gathering their coats and bags Alan turned to her.
‘Have you got time for a drink this week?’
Margaret was touched by the fact that she could see he was trying to seem casual, to insure himself against disappointment.
‘Ooh, yes – I wouldn’t miss it,’ she said. ‘I’ve been looking forward to it all week!’
A delighted grin spread across his face. Margaret blushed. Had she sounded too forward? Still, it was the truth – she had been!
Once they were settled in their favourite corner of the pub again, they talked more about the war and the things they’d heard.
‘That poor woman,’ Margaret said.
Alan immediately knew who she meant. One woman, from Balsall Heath, had been a young teenager. Her house received a direct hit and everyone in her family was killed, except her. From then on, her life was spent in children’s homes. Her voice had been full of unspent grief, even after all these years.
‘Everyone carries a bit of it all around in them, one way or another,’ Alan said sadly. ‘Whatever it says in the history books about battles and tanks and all that. For most people it’s about a mom or a dad or a brother – or a house.’
Margaret nodded, feeling the truth of his words.
Alan hesitated. ‘Your husband . . .’ he said, then stalled. She knew he needed to know about Fred. ‘You never talk about him – not unless I ask.’
She looked at him. Fred doesn’t matter, she wanted to say. It’s you – you’re the one who matters. But of course she couldn’t say that. She told Alan about Fred, about how they’d met and about Fred’s mom.
‘Fred and I were like two lost souls, clinging onto each other. It’s been years since we’ve ever really said anything to each other. We’re like ships that pass in the night – only in the daytime as well. He’s not a bad man, but I s’pose he just didn’t have a very good start. Neither of us did.’
She thought for a moment, then went on, ‘I don’t know if he ever loved me. I don’t know if I loved him. I don’t think I knew what it meant. Not until—’ She stopped in confusion. She couldn’t look at him, not for a moment. But when she did pull her gaze up to meet his, he was still looking at her intently, hungrily.
There was a long silence and then Alan cleared his throat. He seemed in some way unsteady.
‘I . . . I’m in trouble here, Margaret, I have to tell you. I just . . .’
Everything inside her seemed to swell until she could hardly breathe. She didn’t need to ask herself what he was saying. It was clear in his face. For the first time in her life she knew what she was seeing: someone looking at her with the force of love in their eyes. She knew that the way she was looking back was the same.
As she gazed helplessly at him, Alan reached out and laid his hand over hers. She could not resist, had not the slightest will to do so. It felt as if everything – all she needed – was here.
‘Oh,’ she said tremulously. ‘Oh dear.’
‘Yes,’ Alan said. ‘Oh dear. I’m – I don’t know. This has all happened a bit fast – for me, anyway. I haven’t thought about anything but you for weeks.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, throbbing with happiness. ‘Me too.’
Again they sat staring at each other. They smiled with utter joy. They fell serious again.
‘I’m . . .’ Margaret began. She had to stop and think. ‘I’m a married woman. Not happily married, no. Just married.’
She frowned, looking at him to help her work this out.
‘Why don’t I feel that’s enough? That’s the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? You get married, you stay married. Then when I’m with you, Fred and all my other life – it doesn’t seem to mean anything. It’s as if I’m living in two different worlds.’ She put her hand to her head. ‘When I’m at home it’s the same as it’s always been. I mean, we’ve had our problems. My youngest daughter’s been having difficulties in her marriage. She walked out with the baby because she said he was . . . Well, he’d started knocking her about. I didn’t believe it at first – Dave’s been a good lad, and we’ve known him since he was quite a young’un. But evidently it’s true. But when she just upped and left – I thought: You don’t do that. I mean, you just don’t. In our day you put up and shut up, didn’t you?’
‘Well, no, not everyone . . .’
‘No, all right, but in the main, people just stayed. After all, the law was all on the man’s side . . . But the thing was, it was her getting up and going. Choosing to go. I mean, she was protecting Amy – and herself. But it was her feeling that she could choose. I was so angry at first. I thought: How dare she?’
Alan was listening attentively. ‘The law makes a hell of a difference.’
‘Well, yes. It’s all changed. Now you can make your own decisions more. All my life I’ve never felt I could choose anything – not even new clothes,’ Margaret said. As she spoke, she was learning about herself. She hardly knew that she had felt such things. She had never known she had so many words in her. ‘Let alone anything else. But now . . .’
She looked at him, searching his face, not yet daring to say it.
‘Is this my fault?’ Alan looked stricken. ‘I don’t want to cause harm.’
She looked levelly at him. ‘There’s always going to be harm – one way or another. If you turned round and left now, and we never saw each other again . . .’
He closed his eyes. ‘No, don’t say that.’
‘Exactly. That’s what I mean.’
‘You’re the best thing – the only thing – that’s happened to me in ages.’
She nodded. ‘And you are to me.’ She wanted to say something better than that, but it was too big to say.
‘Look,’ Alan said. ‘I’ll walk you home.’ He always did, or most of the way, even though he’d left his car in a nearby street. They liked the time together.
Outside, without a word, they linked arms and she felt him pull her close. Before long, at the corner of the road, he stopped, in the shadows.
‘Oh, Margaret.’ He turned to face her. There was a second’s hesitation and then, also feeling natural, they stood cuddled in each other’s arms. ‘I just want to hold you close,’ he said. ‘Every waking moment that’s all I think about, I swear to you. I feel like a flaming teenager. I don’t know what’s happened to me.’
She giggled into the collar of his coat, feeling his rough chin against her left temple.
‘I think about you too. All the time.’
She turned her head up. In the darkness, she could just see the moist gleam of his eyes; smell the warm beer on his breath, the smokiness of their clothing from the pub.
‘I think I must love you,’ she said.
‘Oh – I love you all right, girl.’
Laughing with amazement and joy, they moved closer, lips touching, pecking and playing, until they had to stop laughing to kiss properly.
When she got home, what felt like a century or so later, Margaret was alight with desire and happiness. She felt as if it must show all over her, as if Alan had planted vivid red kisses all over her face and neck for anyone to read there.
‘Can we meet sooner – than next Thursday, I mean?’ Alan asked.
She longed to, could hardly bear not to see him every day, every hour.
‘The evenings might be a bit tricky,’ she said, thinking of Karen’s eagle eye on anything she did.
‘What about the daytime?’
‘But you’re at work!’
‘Yes, but I do get a dinner break – well, sometimes anyway. I could make sure I do. And your husb—?’
‘Yes, F
red’s at work every day.’
‘What about Monday? I’ll need to see you after the weekend, I can tell you – it tends to drag a bit, to tell you the truth.’
They arranged to meet at a pub a little way away from Alan’s firm in Rea Street.
‘We don’t want to be too close to the works,’ he said, ‘or all the lads’ll be in there ogling us. Sorry you’ve got so far to come, though.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ she said. ‘I’ve only got to hop on the bus.’
They parted with a long, lingering kiss. Afterwards she felt she had been ripped away from where she truly belonged.
She slid quietly into the house. Fred was where she had left him, in his chair, his head back, mouth open and fast asleep. Margaret went through to the kitchen and put the kettle on. Her sounds woke him.
‘Oh!’ she heard him say. She went into the front room. He was rubbing his face. There were empty cans of bitter on the table next to him and he looked a bit muzzy. ‘Must’ve fell asleep,’ he said. It took him a moment to remember that she’d been out. ‘So – you’re back.’
‘Yes,’ she was saying, trying to quell her fizzing, beaming exaltation when a key turned in the latch and Karen came in, back from her counselling course.
‘All right?’ she called from the hall, taking her coat off. ‘I thought you might be in bed. We went for a drink after.’
‘So did we,’ Margaret said. ‘I’ve only just got in. D’you want a cuppa tea?’
‘Ooh, yes, ta. It’s cold out.’ Karen came in, looking pleased. ‘That group of yours seems very friendly,’ she said, taking in her mother’s pink cheeks and eyes, which suddenly seemed full of life.
‘Yes,’ Margaret said, turning away. ‘It is. I’ll brew up the tea.’
Sixty-Two
They were days of horror, of helpless watching and waiting for news.
Indira Gandhi had been dead for less than twenty-four hours when the news began about revenge killings, angry mobs on the streets of Delhi, attacking and burning Sikh homes and businesses.
Meena felt as if her eyes wanted to burn through the images on television, for her to be transported into the picture so that she could go to Nirmal and Bhoji, help them and their family and get them to safety. And she cursed her lack of English.
‘What are they saying?’ she kept crying, desperate for words that would contradict the reports of flames and screams and death.
Everyone went to the gurdwara, needing to wait together, to exchange news and share their fears. Meena and Khushwant barely even discussed going – they just headed there automatically, and Sooky, Pav and Harpreet went with them, taking the children.
Meena moved among the other women, who were talking and praying. She met Banita, who instead of her usual jolly, ebullient self was drawn and pale, her chunni pulled tightly round her head as if to warm her. She saw Meena and they embraced.
‘My sister,’ Banita wept. ‘She is in Delhi with all her family – in Trilokpuri. And my mother in Amritsar . . . May God protect them! What can we do? That is what I am asking, every moment, what can we do to help them?’
‘I know,’ Meena said, her tears flowing. ‘My uncle also and all his family. And Khushwant’s brothers.’
Nearly everyone had someone in India. None had telephones in their homes. How were they to know what was happening?
Still weeping, Meena told Banita about Roopinder, that she had had to give birth to a dead baby boy.
‘A double misfortune!’ Banita cried. She asked after Roopinder. Meena shook her head.
‘She is very sick, with a fever. Raj is staying with her at the hospital and we are all going back and forth to visit.’
‘Poor Raj,’ Banita said. ‘To lose a son – and in the middle of all this as well.’
The two women sat together, comforting each other. Later they all went home and kept the television on, hour after hour. Meena thought constantly of Nirmal and Bhoji. Harpreet kept making cups of tea, offering snacks and biscuits, but Meena could not eat. Her heart was heavier than she could ever remember.
The stairs in the hospital felt so steep and endless as she and Sooky climbed them. Meena clutched onto Sooky’s arm, feeling as if, overnight, she had become an old woman.
‘Are you okay, Ma-ji?’ Sooky asked, eyes full of concern as Meena stopped at the top, leaning against the wall to catch her breath.
‘Yes – just give me one minute. I’m tired, that’s all.’ She was glad her eldest daughter was with her. Pav had said he could mind the little children that morning.
She saw that Sukhdeep was looking pale as well, darker rings than usual under her eyes. With a grunt of effort she pushed away from the wall and took her daughter’s hand. Together they walked along to the ward, passing a blaring TV set.
Raj was sitting beside the bed with his head in his hands. He wasn’t facing the TV, and even if he had been, it was only showing adverts, then someone having their hair styled. Roopinder lay on her back with her eyes closed. Meena saw that she looked younger, rain-washed somehow, without make-up – prettier in fact, not frowning, and with her hair a dark frame against the pillow.
‘Rajdev?’ she said softly.
Raj stirred and lifted his head. He looked dazed and rubbed his eyes. ‘Oh, it’s you, Mata-ji. I think I was asleep.’
‘How is she?’ Sooky whispered.
‘They said she had a bad night,’ Raj said. ‘Very high fever. I think the antibiotics are kicking in now. But every time she wakes she just keeps crying. She just seems so broken . . .’
His voice cracked and he put his face in his hands again. Meena felt her own distress rise. She laid her hand on Raj’s heaving shoulder.
‘Look, son – I’ve brought her some fruit.’ She laid the little bag of grapes and bananas on the bedside cabinet. ‘Sukhdeep and I will sit here for a while. She will be better when the fever passes. You go home and sleep.’
Raj struggled to his feet. His wiped his eyes, his cheeks and beard. He was like someone punch-drunk from too many emotions all at once. Meena wanted to hold him close and protect him, like she had when he was a tiny boy.
‘India,’ he said. ‘What is happening? What is the news? This TV shows nothing but garbage. Have you heard from Mama-ji Nirmal?’
Meena shook her head. ‘I have not heard. The news is bad, very bad. But there is nothing we can do, only wait and trust in God. Go home now – sleep. Your wife will need you.’
When she turned to the bed, Sooky was sitting holding Roopinder’s hand.
There was no call from Nirmal.
As the days passed, Roopinder’s health improved and she and Raj had to face their grief.
The news from India was horrifying. By the time Mrs Gandhi was on her funeral pyre on 3rd November, more and more news was getting out. The number of Sikhs massacred in Delhi alone was reckoned to be in the thousands. Many had been butchered in the street, their homes set alight; trains arriving in Delhi and Amritsar contained the corpses of Sikhs, beaten and burned. In one suburb alone, to the east of Delhi, there was an area where the streets ran with blood and could hardly be passed, so choked were they with bodies. The area was called Trilokpuri.
Where were the police? everyone was asking. The bitter, enraging answer came: They had turned a blind eye, joining in the slaughter. As the facts sunk in, it started to be called a massacre, a genocide of the Sikh people.
Banita never heard from any of her relatives in Trilokpuri again. And as soon as Meena heard the name of the suburb mentioned, she knew Nirmal was dead. They knew Khushwant’s brothers were alive; they had telephoned. Nirmal would have called by now to reassure her. Somehow he would have been in touch.
The call came very early one morning. Meena heard it ringing from the hall below and she knew instantly it was from India; their timing was five hours ahead. No one in Britain rang you at this hour. She was out of bed and down the stairs almost before she was aware of it.
‘Meena?’
It was her aunt Bhoj
i’s voice, sounding close, so close.
‘Mami-ji? Oh, my God, yes – it’s me. Oh, at last! Tell me everything – Nirmal?’
But she knew. She knew. Why would Bhoji be calling; Bhoji who until now had never touched a telephone?
Bhoji was almost incoherent, she was weeping so much.
‘I am all alone – they killed him! My husband, my Nirmal! And they killed Manjit . . . They dragged Nirmal out of his car, and they put a tyre round his neck and petrol and they set it alight . . .’
A howl of anguish came down the line, which made Meena double over herself, feeling as if she had been kicked.
‘You are sure?’ she managed to find the breath to say. Could it have been someone else, some other taxi driver – could it?
‘Yes, yes,’ Bhoji sobbed. ‘And Manjit, they murdered my Manjit – just killed him in the street. Everything is gone: fires, everything destroyed, only me left and the girls. What are we to do? How can we live?’
‘Your house is gone, your apartment?’
‘No, the house is not gone. Many are burned, not ours – but we have no father, no brother . . .’
‘We will help you,’ Meena gasped. She became dimly aware of people around her, others coming down the stairs. Suddenly Khushwant was beside her, making signs to her: What is it? Sukhdeep and Harpreet were there in their nightclothes, their arms round each other.
‘We will . . .’ Meena was shaking now, couldn’t think what to say. ‘We will help you, Mami-ji – don’t despair . . .’
She put the phone down and turned, and her legs gave way.
Sixty-Three
‘But surely you don’t want us round – not with all that on your plate?’ Joanne said. ‘You must all be really upset.’
‘Yeah, it’s been horrible,’ Sooky said. ‘But it’s okay, honestly. Mom said she doesn’t mind. We have to look after the kids whatever happens, don’t we?’
‘Well, if you’re sure.’ Joanne sounded doubtful. ‘I’m sorry, I’d invite you round to ours, only it’s just not a very good time here, either.’
‘No, come,’ Sooky assured her. ‘It’ll be really nice to see you – and it’ll take our minds off it.’
