by Bali Rai
‘Yeah.’
‘Straight choice?’
‘Totally. And if I do end up doing what I want to, I’m just going to feel like the most selfish person on the planet.’
‘Trying to achieve your goals doesn’t make you selfish. Ask yourself this, Manny. In five years from now, where do you see yourself? Tied down to a wife and house that you don’t want or doing all those things that you told me about when I first met you? You know, getting an education, travelling. Becoming a writer or whatever.’
He was right. I couldn’t see myself doing that whole family thing. I mean I didn’t know what I was actually going to be doing in five years’ time, but it was going to have to be something that I decided on and not my parents. I was too young to just lie down and let my whole life be mapped out by someone else. And Jag was like the perfect role model. He had escaped all that traditional shit and he wasn’t doing too badly. He wasn’t the junkie dropout that my old man had told me I’d become if I didn’t do the ‘honourable’ thing and marry some girl who I didn’t even know. He wasn’t living on the streets or in prison. He just had a life that he wanted. Not one that had been created for him by someone else. No, Jag was right. Making your own decisions about life didn’t mean that you were selfish. Not at all.
Back at the hotel that night I packed all my things together, finding space in my backpack for presents that I had bought for Ady and Lisa. For Ady, I’d found a Cypress Hill CD that I knew he didn’t have (at least he hadn’t had it the last time I saw him) which had only cost me the same as about three English pounds. Lisa was different and I didn’t know what to get her. In the end I settled for a set of three fat Buddha candles and a cat carved out of sandalwood, because I knew that she loved cats. I hadn’t found a present for Jag though I felt that I should, after all the help he’d given me. In the end I told him this.
‘Manny, you don’t have to buy me anything. I’m not a kid.’
‘Yeah, but after all you’ve done for me . . .’
‘Just your company is enough. In a way I’m glad that you are going through all this arranged marriage thing. I was beginning to think that I was a one-off in this family.’
‘I don’t get you.’
‘Sometimes, even now, after all this time, I feel guilty and selfish and all those things myself. When you told me about how the rest of the family have treated you, that reminded me of the reasons why I did what I did. And talking to you, well, that made me realize why I left the whole family set-up. That my reasons for not following their traditions weren’t selfish at all. They were just the right decisions for me and my life.’
‘But you still feel guilty sometimes?’
‘Yes, for about a minute – then I start to think about all the good things that I have in my life and I stop feeling so bad.’
‘So are you like married or whatever? Aunt Harpal told me a load of rumours about you when we first met, about having a wife and kids somewhere.’ As I finished speaking, Jag looked at me with a raised eyebrow and then smiled.
‘Not a wife, a girlfriend, Nancy. She’s a lawyer in Sydney. And Mia.’
‘Who’s Mia?’ I asked as Jag pulled out his wallet to show me a picture of a pretty blond woman and a kid who must have been about four or five.
‘My daughter. Your cousin.’
I was well shocked. ‘How come you didn’t tell me before, you know, when I was asking you all those stupid questions and that?’
‘You never asked.’ He was right too. I hadn’t asked him although I had been wondering about it. Every time he talked about his life he got this half-sad, half-happy look in his eyes. I guessed it was because he missed his family when he was away from them. His real family.
‘You must miss them when you’re away?’
‘Yes I do. But you see, Manny, that’s what I’m talking about. I could have done all of that traditional stuff but it just wasn’t for me. And if I had, I never would have met Nancy and we wouldn’t have had such a beautiful daughter.’
I stared at the photo in my hand.
‘Keep it, Kiddo,’ Jag said. ‘I’ve got another one. Besides, I want you to know about my family, so that you’ll know them when you come to visit.’
‘I will, Jag. I promise. I just can’t believe that you have a kid and that.’
‘Most of the time, Manny, neither can I.’
The rest of the night flew by in a kind of haze. Jag and I had quite a few drinks in the hotel bar before leaving for the airport. We had swapped addresses – I gave him Ady’s brother’s, Knowing that Ady wouldn’t mind. After all, By the time that I had finished my cheat, who knew where I would be living. The nearer it got to departure time, the more I began worrying about what kind of reception I was going to get from my old man and my brothers. I mean, I wasn’t expecting them to be happy about my return. They’d be fuming about my escape from the village, assuming my uncles had told them – in fact, they’d probably sent a telegram to my old man, followed up with several phone calls, all reverse charged, to make sure he knew.
At the airport everything ran smoothly and I entered the departure lounge about half past two, after saying goodbye to Jag and thanking him for all his help. Doing that made me sad too, and I had to fight back tears at one point. Not that I was going to cry in front of him, no way, man. But you know when you get that feeling – that lump in your throat? That was what was going on. I just wasn’t used to being treated like I was important, like I mattered, and that’s what Jag did. Treated me like a human being. Like an adult.
I was so tired that I fell asleep on the plane and got woken up about six hours into the flight by a really pretty stewardess. I had about three cups of coffee and a bar of chocolate and then sat and watched all the other passengers as the plane took me home. A few hours later, I was standing in Heathrow, And after that everything just flew by – the tube, the station, the train to Leicester, and then the familiar number 22 bus. It came up outside Leicester station like a best mate, just as I got to the bus stop, my legs aching and my head pounding. Now I was only fifteen minutes away from another confrontation with my family.
As I sat on the top deck of the bus, smoking my duty-free cigarettes, looking down at all the familiar shops and restaurants, my stomach was turning over, even though I was happy to be home. I thought about doing a runner as the bus passed the junction of Evington and St Stephen’s Road, comforted because Ady was living just a few minutes from there with his brother. Only running was too easy. I had to go home and face the music. And the time had come to move my cheat up to the final level and blow up the mothership.
The bus took a left on to Evington Drive, and then it was too late. I was one bus stop from my house. From my family. I rang the bell, picked up my bag and stumbled down the aisle, and then down the stairs as the bus pulled up outside my house. My dad’s car was on the drive and I walked around it, up to the door and rang the doorbell. The bell played some dodgy tune for about thirty seconds and then the door opened and I stood face to face with Ranjit. I looked up at him and smiled, wondering what he was going to say, how he was going to react. But he just glared at me and then turned back into the hall. I waited a moment, thinking about heading back up to Ady’s house, before following him in. As I reached the doorway to the living room, my old man came out.
‘So, you have arrived then, Manjit?’ he asked me in Punjabi. Then he slapped me across the back of the head with his huge hand, sending me crashing into the side of the stairway. My head stung and, as I turned to complain, to shout, to cry, he punched me full in the face.
part four
the wedding
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
October
‘BWOI, YOU LOOK darker than me y’know.’ Ady sat in his brother’s house in Highfields, drinking from a can of Red Stripe. I just grinned at him before moving my neck from side to side, trying to relax. It was the middle of October, I’d been back over a month now and I was on a night off from work.
I was working nigh
t shifts with Ady in a supermarket warehouse up in Oadby. The job was basically shit – one of those training scheme things for school leavers. All I did was load and unload boxes of tinned beans and stuff, but the money was all right and I got to see Ady all the time in his new role as father to his son, Zachariah. It also meant that I didn’t have to spend any time with my family and I could save up the money to move out and get my own place, even though, as far as my family were concerned, I was still getting married at the end of November. That was fine with me. I was going to let them carry on thinking just that, and then do a runner about a week before the actual day of the wedding. Revenge. Pure and simple.
The beating that I got on my return had only made me stronger, more determined to go my own way. I hadn’t really thought that my old man would welcome me back with open arms, but I certainly hadn’t expected to get beaten like that and then locked up in my room for two whole days. Harry, the wanker, had even gone and fitted a new lock on my bedroom door just so that they could keep me prisoner. Man, I felt like a character from one of those documentaries about arranged marriages, the ones where the parents have hired taxi-drivers to find their kids and bring them back. The victims in those things always seem to be women, though – young girls – yet here I was, nearly seventeen and a bloke, and I was getting the same shit done to me.
I was so angry and hurt that I couldn’t even look at Harry or my old man without wanting to hit them. And my mum had just carried on as before, ignoring me until it was time to lay on the emotional blackmail, thick like butter. Slapping her thighs and asking the Lord to help me. It was coming at me from all directions – the threats, the punches, the softly-softly approach that Ranjit and Jas began to use, telling me that it wouldn’t be so bad. That I’d get used to it, settle down, grow with all my new responsibilities. It was mental torture. And that’s why my job was such a godsend.
The other good thing about the job was that my family thought I was finally beginning to sort myself out by doing it. Even though I was angry with them and hardly spoke to them, I think that they thought I was accepting my fate because I hadn’t done a runner and I hadn’t said that I wasn’t going to get married. I hadn’t said that I was going to either, but my old man and Harry were so arrogant that they thought everything was hunky-dory, just because I had stopped complaining. Ranjit and Jas were the only ones who tried to talk to me, and both of them apologized for my being left in India, even though they had had nothing to do with it. As far as my old man was concerned I was working hard and saving money – just what he had always wanted for me and without needing an education. I was – only on the nights when I had loads of ‘overtime’ to do, I’d go and chill out with Ady, Sarah and Zac, or go to a bar or club. When they thought I was busy stacking shelves, I was actually out drinking and smoking weed and hatching a plan to get back at them. Or sitting in Ady’s living room playing on his brother’s Playstation and making faces at Zac who had the most amazing grin I’d ever seen. He was the spitting image of his dad.
‘So you got Saturday night off then?’ said Ady as I lit myself a spliff.
‘Yeah, but I’m gonna have to work Monday night to make up for it.’
‘What, they can’t just give you the night off?’
‘Yeah, they can, but I need the money if I’m gonna make my plan work.’
‘So you definitely doing it, yeah?’ Ady shouldn’t have had to wait for my reply. He should have known what I was going to say.
‘Definitely, one hundred an’ fifty per cent, sure as goddamit I am, bwoi.’
‘Man, that’s the worst mix of accents I’ve ever heard, mofo. What was that? US rap star meets hick-town sheriff meets yardie?’ He shook his head and smiled.
‘I’ve got to do it, Ady. For me. Man, I can’t live the way they want me to. Can you see me with a wife at seventeen? That’s just lame.’
‘Well, look at me, with a kid at my age. And Sarah may as well be my wife for all the nagging she does. Anyway, I spoke to Steve an’ he’s cool about you staying here for a while, but you’re gonna have to sleep on the sofa, man, and, believe me, that thing is about as comfy as a bag of spuds, dread.’ Steve, Ady’s brother had told me himself that it would be OK to stay, but it was nice to hear Ady reassure me.
‘Well, like Lisa always used to say, beggars can’t be . . .’
‘You seen her since you got back?’
I looked at him and shook my head. I had written to her at her parents’ house but she hadn’t replied. That had been two weeks ago and I was giving up hope that she’d get in touch. Then again, maybe she’d written back and Harry had stolen the letter.
Ady must have caught the flow of my thoughts because he just shook his head. ‘Listen, Manny, why don’t you go and find out whether she’s tried to get in touch or not? Go and see her mum.’
‘I keep meaning to but something stops me, like I’m too embarrassed or scared. I know I shouldn’t be but I am.’
Ady thought about it for a second and then broke into a smile. ‘Cool. If you ain’t going to go see her, she’s going to come see you man. Jus’ like Mohammed an’ him mountain.’
I looked at him like he was mad. I mean, what was she going to do – turn up at my old man’s door? Ady was cool and that but sometimes he didn’t half talk some . . .
‘Chill out, bredren, innit,’ he said in a high-pitched voice. ‘We going out Saturday night, Guy, An’ she’s gonna come too, my dan.’
‘And how you going to fix that?’ I replied smiling at his piss-take of the Asian ‘Jamaicans’ that we saw all over Leicester.
‘Easy. I’m gonna make her cousin, my girl, a nice tea when she gets in from work tomorrow . . .’
‘Yeah all right – do it.’ I was beginning to get excited and he hadn’t even got Sarah to call Lisa yet.
‘We’ll do it as a pure surprise ’ting. She won’t have a clue.’
I spent the rest of that week working nights at the supermarket and avoiding all contact with my family. I hardly saw my old man at all, and when I did he was pissed. I was just looking forward to Saturday night, hoping that Sarah had got in touch with Lisa. Hoping that she’d turn up.
On the Friday afternoon Ranjit was at home and as I walked into the kitchen to make some tea, he stood waiting, making it obvious that he wanted to talk to me.
‘We have to sort out some things about the wedding, Manjit,’ he said, not looking at me. I threw a tea bag into my mug and said nothing, waiting for him to continue. The wedding was just over a month away and this was the first time that anyone had mentioned it to me directly. ‘Daddy-ji has sorted out all the stuff. The hall and the food. Everything is set.’
‘Great.’ My answer was sarcastic but I decided that it would be best to just play along with him. See what he had to say.
He waved a piece of paper in my face and then threw it down on the worktop next to my mug. ‘The whole cost of the food and the hall and everything is nearly ten thousand pounds, innit.’
‘So? I never asked you to spend all that.’
‘Listen. I know you are still upset about India but you got to understand, man. Daddy-ji has spent all of that for you. Not for anyone else. It’s your wedding.’
‘I thought it was yours.’
‘Don’t try to be clever, man. I’m just telling you that we are doing it for your own good. How much more does Daddy-ji have to do to show you?’
I was tempted to launch into a speech about how money wasn’t important to me and all that but it would have been wasted on my oldest brother. I don’t think he would have understood what I was getting at.
At this moment, Harry walked in and stood right in my face. ‘You better not do anything to mess it all up, innit?’ he bellowed. ‘Everything is set. You better not damage our family name, Manjit, or I’m gonna damage you.’
I ignored Harry and looked past him to Ranjit. ‘But I’ve already told you that I’ll do it. Get married and that.’
‘No you ain’t. We’ve told you that.
You better just accept it or that’s it for you,’ Harry butted in without giving Ranjit a chance to speak.
I continued to ignore him. ‘So what you’re asking me, Ranjit, is whether I’m going to say yes?’
‘No, Manjit. I’m telling you that everything is ready. All you have to do is what we tell you to do. Me and Jas have taken on the responsibility, innit. I don’t care what you do when you get married but you are getting married. All of our reputation, our izzat, depends on it.’
‘So you’re responsible for it all? And the old man’s spent all that money?’ A bulb exploded into life inside my head. An idea.
‘Ain’t that what I just said to you?’
‘OK, I’ll do it. But afterwards I’m gonna do what I want.’
‘Afterwards, Manjit, you will be your own man with your own responsibility. Straight like the rest of us.’ He put his hand on my shoulder.
‘What?’ I asked, my brain sparkling – an idea for revenge that was so sweet it could have been marketed by Cadbury’s or someone. Sweet like chocolate.
‘Maybe, one day,’ Ranjit continued, ‘you will become a real Jat. One of us. Our life ain’t bad like you think it is. We are just different. Not like those goreh. We have to live in our own society, innit? How else our kids gonna be good Punjabis?’
I gave Ranjit half a smile when he’d finished, wondering how we could be related at all. He was like a weaker version of my old man with his simple view of the world. In a way I actually felt quite sorry for him. It was obvious that he couldn’t stand up to our dad. It was like he’d been brainwashed. And I realized that underneath all that was my brother, and I didn’t even really know who he was – not that I was going to let such thoughts deflect me now. My plan was forming and I had to see it through.
That Saturday night I left for work as usual, around half past six in the evening, but instead of heading for the warehouse in Oadby, I walked up Evington Road to Ady’s place. Once I got there I changed into my going-out clothes: a pair of straight black trousers, black Caterpillars and a deep blue, short-sleeved shirt, all stuff that I’d bought as soon as I got back from India and lost my guilt complex about rich and poor. It was a way of saying to my old man that I was in charge now, and I was gonna spend my money how I wanted, on what I wanted.
