(Un)arranged Marriage

by Bali Rai

  ‘And you? I suppose you were feeling ill too? So ill that you forgot your uniform this morning?’

  ‘I’m not allowed to wear the uniform, miss.’ Ady took the Chicago Bulls cap that he was wearing off his head. ‘S’gainst me religion.’

  At that everyone in the whole class burst into laughter. The teacher started to go all red in the face as she shouted at us all to calm down. And then this slimy kid called Jatinder Sangha gave the game away, just as I thought me and Ady were gonna go through on the away goals rule.

  ‘He doesn’t even go to this school, miss,’ he squealed, the little git.

  The teacher looked at Ady and then at me. ‘Right, wait here. I’m going to get Mr Sandhu.’

  As she left the room Ady winked at me and got up to leave. I got up too and stumbled over to Jatinder, standing on someone’s foot on the way. I was gonna punch him for being such a grass, but the feeling of sickness came over me just as I reached his desk and I puked all over his folder and into his lap. I could hear Ady laughing as the other kids got out of their chairs and went for the door. I tried to follow them but, as I got to the door, Sandhu was walking in. All I remember is shouting ‘Run, Ady, run,’ before I puked on my Year Head and passed out.

  I came round at home in my own bed. It was dark outside and when I looked at my watch it lit up and told me that it was past ten o’clock. I couldn’t remember where I had been at all – just that I had been at school with Ady and that we had been having a laugh. My head felt really heavy, like someone had hit me with a baseball bat, and my throat was dry and sore. I blinked in the dark, trying to focus my eyes on something, when the lights suddenly came on and made me feel dizzy. I squinted up at my brother, Ranjit, who was holding a brown envelope in his hand. He was smiling at me, only it wasn’t a nice smile. It was a nasty, sarcastic smile. I kept on squinting at him. My head was throbbing and my throat was dry. I needed some water.

  ‘Nice one, innit. Well done. Trying to lose our honour all by yourself, innit. Mines and Daddy-ji’s. Well, you done it now. Hope you’re proud at yourself.’

  With that he threw the envelope at me and left. I wanted to laugh at his English but I just felt too ill. On the desk by my bed someone had left a glass of water and it took me enough strength just to reach that. I drank the whole glass and then got up slowly. I walked over to the door and bolted it on the inside. Next I got my emergency packet of fags out from behind my bed, lit one up and opened the window so that I could get rid of the ash and the smoke. I opened the letter between drags and read it.

  The letter was from school, telling me that my education was done. Finished. Over. I felt sick; my stomach was turning and my head started spinning all over again. Up until that point I had been so sure of what I was doing, with the cheat and everything, to a point where I didn’t care. Now I actually felt scared. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had done and whether it was right and fell asleep still thinking about it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  April–May

  ‘YOU WILL GO to India with us. I’m not asking you, Manjit, I’m telling you.’

  Harry was standing in the doorway to my room holding a cup of tea. I hadn’t been out of the house unsupervized since the week that I had been expelled from school. It was coming up towards May and I had been kicked out at the end of March. In all that time I hadn’t seen Lisa or Ady. Ady had called me, A few weeks back, with a message from Lisa asking me to meet her in town. There had been fat chance of that though. A couple of times she had tried calling the house, but each time Harry answered and told her that I was out and then gave me loads of grief about who she was.

  It was as if I was being held prisoner. Harry had been made redundant from work just before my drinking binge with Ady and now he was acting like my jailer, watching my every move, every minute of every day. On Ranjit’s days off, he would take over Harry’s role and at the weekends I had to deal with the pair of them and my old man. I was really missing Lisa and, with every day that I remained a prisoner, I became more and more depressed. I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t want to do anything. All my CDs began to sound the same. My game station got boring and I couldn’t face reading my books over and over again. I got so bored that I didn’t bother to get out of bed until late afternoon and then I’d be back in bed by eleven each night. All I did was eat and sleep and watch the portable TV that Ranjit’s wife, Jas, had lent to me out of sympathy. She was the only one who had bothered to find out how I was. The rest of them either shouted at me and threatened me or they totally ignored me. And my mum, well, all she did was burst into tears at the mention of my name, threatening to kill herself because I had caused the family so much shame and because I wouldn’t straighten out and become a good boy like my brothers.

  And that was where the whole thing about India came in. A few years earlier one of my cousins, Parmjit, had started taking lots of drugs and burgling houses and stuff. He had been sent to a youth detention centre for eight months and, the moment he was released, my uncle had forced him to go to India. He had made him stay in my family’s village for nearly a whole year, to try and ‘straighten him out’ as my dad had put it. Make a real Punjabi man of him. And it had worked. He had married some girl from a neighbouring village and come back to England a changed person. Now he had a family and a mortgage and a dead-end job in a factory – and he was only twenty-one. That was what my old man was dreaming would happen to me.

  I knew that I was too strong for that. That wasn’t how I wanted my life to be. I didn’t want a wife and a mortgage. Didn’t want to be an average bod. That wasn’t the future for me. No way. And I’d been telling them that since the day after I had been expelled – not that they listened.

  Harry kept on telling me that he was going to force me to go. My dad just laughed when I said no, mocking me like I was some four-year-old child having a sulk. And my mum just kept on crying, begging them to make me see the light and calling out to God. It was emotional blackmail at its worst, all of her moaning and wailing and that, but it was the only one of my family’s tactics that made me think about it. See, no matter how sure I was that my mother wouldn’t really kill herself because of me, I still had all of these doubts that said she just might.

  ‘I ain’t going nowhere. Why should I?’

  Harry looked at me angrily. He shifted from foot to foot. I thought that I could almost hear his teeth grinding together. ‘You ain’t going to be the cause of shame to this family, you little bastard. The whole decision’s been taken, innit. You going to go even if I have to beat you to make you go.’

  I looked at him and shook my head. I wanted to make a run for it. Just bolt out of the door and down the stairs. But where was I going to go? What was I going to do? Where was the money for food and all of those things going to come from? I wasn’t just physically trapped by then, I was trapped because I was so young. I mean, I couldn’t get benefits and I didn’t have the qualifications to get a job, even if my family would let me. I really was stuck with the situation that I was in. Well and truly.

  ‘You understand what I’m saying, Manjit?’

  I looked up at him again and smiled. It must have been an annoying smile because Harry just stood there and glared. I looked away and lay back on my bed.

  ‘You better understand, innit, or I’ll kick you in. It’s simple, innit. You’re coming to India and that’s all I’m gonna say.’

  With that he turned and walked out of my room, leaving the door open behind him. I got off my bed in a fit of rage and kicked the door shut so hard that I thought the door-frame was going to fall apart. It didn’t, But small flakes of white paint came away from the edges of the door, leaving the undercoat showing through. Normally I would have bricked myself for causing such damage but I wasn’t in the mood to be scared. I was far too angry with all of them.

  In my head something was thumping, stabbing. It was as if my brain was being taken apart. I just stood where I was, looking at the damaged paint work and I couldn’t th
ink straight. I couldn’t work out what to do or what I wanted to say. All I knew was that I felt totally alone. I had always believed that I was different from the rest of my family. Not better than them or anything like that. Just different. But it was in my room, staring at that door, trying to think straight, that it really hit me. I was different. Completely. And I had to find a way out. Work out how I was going to get out of this marriage, get away from them for good. I sat back on my bed and, not for the first time, thought hard. Really hard.

  After all that, I suppose you’re wondering why I relented and decided to make the trip to India with my family. After all, it was a big climb-down on my part – a bit like Liverpool conceding the Premiership to Moneybags United by March. In the end it was the combination of all the emotional blackmail that I had to put up with and a change in tactics by my family. My dad started being really nice to me, telling me that it was my decision at the end of the day but that it wouldn’t kill my mother if I didn’t go with them to India. It was only a holiday, a chance for the family to spend some time together. And it wasn’t as if I had a job or would be going back to school again. And my wedding wasn’t until the late summer – or maybe even a month or so later. So why not take a holiday now? He began to make me feel that it would be down to me to decide, and to tell you the truth, that felt good. It felt like my family, for the first time ever, were taking my views seriously. Treating me like the adult that I was becoming.

  One evening, I think it was in late May, Ranjit’s wife, Jas, knocked on my bedroom door. I did what I always did and kind of grunted at her, my way of saying ‘Come in’.

  She walked in and sat down on my bed, Smiling. ‘How are you, Manny?’

  ‘All right, I suppose.’ I was busy staring at a blank screen on my TV, the one that she had given to me. I didn’t mind her too much because she never shouted at me or anything. She had always been a little bit embarrassed by the rest of my family’s attitude towards me, or that’s how it seemed. As I watched the blank screen she began talking to me, asking me how I felt and telling me that she realized that being stuck at home all the time was hard for me.

  ‘You must miss your friends from school.’

  I nodded, thinking of Lisa. I hadn’t seen her for so long. I was missing her badly and I’m sure that if Jas hadn’t been sitting there, I would have cried. Every time I thought about Lisa, my stomach just turned over and I got depressed which, in turn, made me feel angry towards my family.

  I was missing Ady too, although in a different way. Even at school I had been used to not seeing him for weeks on end and it didn’t seem so bad now – didn’t feel as bad as it felt not seeing Lisa. I had to take a big swallow of air before I could look at Jas.

  ‘This trip to India,’ she began, ‘this holiday, Manny. That’s all it is, honestly.’

  I heard her but I wasn’t really listening to what she said. I was listening to the way that she spoke English. It was normal, good even. I wondered whether she had GCSEs. It was weird. Jas had been part of the family for so long and I really didn’t know anything about her at all.

  ‘I think that it would do you good to come along. Just think of all the fun you’d have. You’d be able to go where you wanted, do what you liked.’

  ‘What about all the crap?’ I was looking straight at her now. ‘All that stuff about leaving me there and making me turn into a good little boy.’ My voice was thick with sarcasm.

  ‘Come on, Manny, you’re an intelligent young man. How can anyone keep you there against your will?’

  ‘That’s what they’ve been saying, Dad and Ranjit. Telling me that I need straightening out.’

  ‘Well, I’m promising you, that isn’t going to happen.’

  I looked straight into her eyes, hoping to see some kind of lie there. She was being totally genuine though. She didn’t even blink.

  ‘You’re promising?’

  ‘Yes. I promise that you won’t have to stay there. We’re going for eight weeks. That’s all.’

  I thought about it for a minute before replying. I mean, I wasn’t going to come out and say ‘yes’ just because Jas was being nice to me. I wasn’t that stupid. But deep inside I really felt that she was being truthful and, of course, she was right. How could they make me stay in India against my will? I wasn’t a kid any more. And the way that Jas was taking an interest in me, asking me how I felt, made me feel wanted. Warm on the inside. Almost like I was a member of the family. Almost.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I finally replied, smiling for the first time in months.

  ‘Good. In that case you can come shopping with me. We need to buy clothes and things for the trip.’

  Lisa’s letter arrived about two or three days after my conversation with Jas. I had just been to the corner shop and bought myself some cigarettes. In all the time that I had been stuck at home, going to the shop for fags was about the only freedom that I got – not that my family knew I was going to buy fags, as far as I knew anyway. It was early in the afternoon and I was approaching the front gate of our driveway when I saw the postman.

  ‘These are for you, mate,’ he said handing me three envelopes.

  The first was a brown envelope that looked like something official. A bill or something, for Ranjit. The second was a blue airmail envelope, addressed to my dad in scrawling handwriting. I looked at the sender’s name, realizing that it was from one of my uncles in India. The third one was mine. It was a bright-red envelope with my name on it, and the handwriting was definitely Lisa’s. My heart jumped and I tucked it into the back pocket of my jeans.

  Back in my bedroom I tore it open and unfolded the two sheets of red paper inside. As I began to read my mind was racing. The letter began with questions about how I was and what was going on. Why hadn’t I met her in town? Why wasn’t I going to another school? She wrote that she really missed me and was always asking Sarah and Ady about me. She also told me that her parents were worried about me too and wanted to know if they could help me in any way. Then she hit me. Hard.

  . . . I don’t know what to do about this whole situation, Manny. What do I do? I mean we haven’t seen each other for so long and I don’t think we will, will we? Not for a long while. So I’ve decided to go to Australia for the summer to meet up with Mel. I really don’t know what is happening between us. I know that I love you but I can’t just not see you. It just doesn’t work. What do you think? I’m sorry if you’re upset but you have to see it from my point of view. I don’t even know if I will see you again. Or whether you’ll be married by the time I get back in September. I don’t want to do this, Manny, but I have to otherwise I’ll go mad. Please sort things out – for you and for us. Oh, I feel so selfish in writing this. I’m so sorry.

  e-mail me if you can. I’ve put Mel’s address at the bottom of the page. And if you decide to leave, to get away, my mum and dad say that you can move in with them for a while. Please think about it. Please. I’ll really miss you . . .

  I didn’t bother to finish it because I was too upset. It felt as though she was dropping me, after everything that we had said to each other about wanting to be together. My brain was going in all sorts of different directions and I didn’t have a clue what to think or what to do. I got up, shut my bedroom door and put my stereo on. Then I sat down and cried.

  I didn’t leave my room until half-seven that night. I went down into the kitchen to get a drink because my mouth was feeling dry. Jas was in there making chapatis for the evening meal. She smiled as I walked in.

  ‘Do you want some roti?’

  I watched my nephew, Gurpal, as he toddled around the kitchen. ‘No,’ I replied, pouring myself a glass of Coke. ‘Ain’t hungry. I might make a sandwich later.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yeah. Jas, you know what you said about India . . .?’

  ‘What about it, Manny?’ She was staring at me now, wiping flour from her hands onto a tea towel.

  ‘I’ll go. But only if you can still promise what you
said the other day.’

  ‘I promise.’

  She came over and hugged me. I had to stop myself from crying again, but I didn’t cry. Not in front of her. Not in front of anyone. I just went back upstairs to my room, played some more music, chilled out and thought about what I was going to do with my life. Without Ady. Without Lisa.

  part three

  india

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  June

  THE FIRST THING that struck me when we got off the Air India plane at Delhi airport was the heat. It was five to two in the morning and the temperature must have been about thirty degrees. I was wearing a pair of jeans, trainers, a T-shirt and hooded top and almost straight away I wanted to take everything off. We hadn’t even reached the customs area before the sweat was streaming down my face and my legs started to ache. I looked at Harry and wondered how he was going to smell after our first hour in India.

  The queues were already quite long at the checkpoint booths and I watched as the people in front of us showed their passports and answered the guards’ questions. It was only when we got to within three people of the front that I realized that they were wearing gun holsters and had rifles standing next to their stools in the booths. I was wondering why they needed guns at an airport when my dad pulled me alongside him and motioned for me to show the guard my ticket and passport. The guard was really dark and had oily hair that was parted to the left. I smiled at him as he compared my face to the photo in my passport but he just glared back at me, expressionlessly. Then he motioned with his head for us to go through into the arrivals area. As I walked through the gate I couldn’t take my eyes off the gun that was leaning against his stool.

  The arrivals area was also patrolled by armed guards in green army outfits and as we made our way out towards the exit doors of the airport building, they kept on glaring and watching everything that we did. Harry and Ranjit had gone to get our suitcases and bags so I waited near the doors with Jas, Gurpal and Harry’s wife, Baljit. My mum and dad were standing further into the airport talking to a couple who they had met on the plane. They were from the village next to my father’s and were going to travel to the Punjab with us.