by Meera Syal
‘Ar, but not for long, poor little sod,’ he replied, and then turned sharply as he heard Sandy letting herself out of the passenger door. ‘Stay inside, chick!’ he called to her, in the tone of a fire chief faced with a towering inferno. ‘Yow’ll only get upset!’
Sandy smiled at him gratefully, thrilled that someone cared enough to think for her, and sat down again with a pleased, resigned sigh. There was a brief pause when we all stood over the furry victim wondering who was going to end this misery and take control, and then Anita strode over to a rockery at the edge of one of the posh houses’ gardens, picked up a footballsized rock and held it out with both hands towards Hairy Neddy. ‘Kill him,’ she said. Tracey stood up shouting, ‘No! What you doing! You…you cow!’
Hairy Neddy backed off, shaking his head, glancing behind him to check if Sandy was a witness to this sudden change of heart. ‘I cor, love,’ he said. ‘I know it ain’t fair on the poor bugger, but not me.’ Anita snorted, such a belittling noise that Hairy Neddy seemed to shrink a couple of inches, and then calmly strolled over to her family pet and raised the rock over his head, taking aim. Hairy Neddy and Sherrie moved together, he got there first, gripping her arms by the elbows and gently lowering them to her sides. The rock fell to the road with a heavy thud, splintering slightly before rolling into the gutter. Anita went as limp as a rag doll and fell heavily against Hairy Neddy, who led her to the back of his three-wheeler, opened the hatchback and settled her in amongst the old newspapers and rolls of electrical flex, coiled thickly like shiny black snakes. He then dragged out an old tartan blanket and carefully wrapped up the now barely breathing dog inside it until nothing showed but the tip of his dull pink snout. He jerked his head at us to follow him, muttering, ‘I’m gonna miss me warm-up now. I hate playing be-bop without me finger exercises…Must be getting soft.’
As I entered my house, the sound of deep-frying greeted me. I felt each bubble and pop of fat like a mini explosion in my head, under my breastbone, the ends of my fingers and toes. I did not remember walking back from Anita’s house, I even felt surprised to see Nanima standing in the doorway of the kitchen with Sunil kicking in her arms. ‘You’re early!’ called mama. ‘But sit! You eat first, huh? Did you have a nice ride?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ I replied automatically as I made my way to the kitchen table. Each step triggered an image, frozen poses caught in the pop of a flashbulb, the piddly poodle skittering round my heels, his stupid grateful bark, Tracey kissing his soggy snout, the convulsions of his twisted back legs, and how often I had wished him dead. I had blamed him for what he was called, not what he was, had made him the focus of my resentment and hatred, knowing he was in no position but to accept it. Sam Lowbridge and I had that in common at least. I had always felt stupidly connected to him and despite our recent confrontation, I knew that it was not finished yet. Mama placed a plate in front of me; lying across its middle like two exclamation marks were a pair of freshly-fried lamb kebabs. It was not your fault, I told myself, and then decided to add another word to my expanding vocabulary. ‘Can I have something…vegetarian for lunch?’
10
Deirdre walked out a few days before the start of the big holidays. The six week summer break aged us all like an extra birthday as we matured from third to fourth year, or metamorphosed completely from junior school grubs to the glittering butterflies soon to flit around the nation’s hothouses—the senior schools.
Anita, of course, had been a ‘comp wench’ for a couple of years now. All the comprehensive school girls shared the same indolent walk and bored stare that distinguished them as effectively as a uniform. In fact, I could not imagine Anita as a bouncy junior school pupil; she always seemed older than her peers. But when I spied her sitting alone on the park swings, from a distance, her crumpled face and hunched shoulders turned her momentarily into a little old lady. She was in the standard comprehensive school uniform of shiny green sweater, grey pleated skirt, white blouse, grey and green striped tie and knee-length pristine white socks, but the socks were the only things that vaguely fitted her. The cardigan sleeves had been turned up several times and the skirt rested below her knees, even though she was sitting down, swinging gently to and fro. ‘Wow, yow look bosting!’ I called out, tumbling down the grassy slope towards her. Anita barely looked at me. At first I thought she was in one of her moods and automatically began racking my brains for what I could have done wrong the last time we met. I had said sorry about her dog dying, hadn’t I? But as I got closer, I saw that her eyes were red and crusty, and there were tiny snail trails of moisture and dirt running to her mouth.
‘What’s up?’
She cracked a hard smile. ‘Nothing. Got me third year uniform today.’
I nodded stupidly, thinking it was a good job she had not passed the eleven-plus as I could not imagine her in the girls’ grammar school uniform, an all-in-one shapeless blue smock accompanied by a droopy tam-o’-shanter. ‘Me mom’s gone,’ Anita said flatly.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Where?’
‘Dunno. She left a note, only dad read it. She’s gone off with a butcher from Cannock. Dad says she’ll feel at home with the other scrag ends and good riddance …’ I did not know what to say. I knew if mama had run away leaving a note, I would now be rolling around in hysterics tearing my hair, the way they did in the Indian films, and then I would have followed the butcher in a car with darkened windows and stabbed him with his own cleaver while his back was turned, I would have emptied mama’s wardrobes and set fire to all her clothes and danced round the flaming saris vowing vengeance. I would not have sat calmly swinging and picking lint off my new school skirt.
‘These came this morning,’ Anita continued in that same matter-of-fact tone, indicating her outfit. ‘She must have ordered them ages ago. She must have known she was going.’ Anita plucked at her sleeve hanging from her like a bat’s wing. ‘And look, silly cow still don’t know my size …’ I thought back to that chance meeting in the entry, when Deirdre was so subdued and secretive, kindly almost, and had given her stamp of approval to my relationship with her daughter. It was her way, I decided, of asking me to look after Anita after she had gone. I then did something I had never done before, swept away by a surge of protective tenderness. I put my arm around Anita and kissed her, whispering, ‘Sorry, Nita, I really am.’ She pushed me away so violently that I almost fell off the swing.
‘Whassup with you?’ Anita shouted, wiping her cheek furiously. ‘Am yow a lezzie or summat?’
‘What’s a lezzie?’ I asked.
Anita rolled her eyes and sighed, ‘Yow don’t know nothing, do ya?’ I know you won’t be getting a bloody pony now, I thought. ‘Bet yow don’t know what a virgin is neither!’ she continued, rattling the swing absent-mindedly.
‘Yes, I do!’ I said, at least I knew that Jesus’ mother was one.
‘So am you then?’
‘What?’ I said suspiciously.
‘Am yow a virgin then?’ Anita’s eyes glittered dangerously; I swallowed a marble of anger, I was supposed to be looking after her, I didn’t understand how she managed to turn the tables so quickly.
I racked my brains furiously to think of what I and Mary, mother of the King of Kings, might have in common. She was not from England anyhow, that might be a clue, but then she was much older than me. She rode a donkey, she was married – no obvious connections there. I tried to recall how Anita had said ‘virgin’ – did it sound like something you wanted to become, or a dreadful disease you would be ashamed to have? I took a gamble; Mary did give birth to someone pretty important, therefore virgins could not be all that bad. ‘Yeah, I am one actually,’ I said confidently.
Anita shrugged. ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘But not for long, eh?’ She winked at me and giggled slyly. I laughed back wittily, resolving to ask papa about it when I got home.
Papa dropped the spoon he was holding which fell into his plate of homemade yoghurt with a soft plop. ‘What did you say, Meena?’ he asked qu
ietly. Something was terribly wrong. Mama held a plate of fresh chapatti in mid-air, her eyebrows had taken refuge somewhere around her hairline, the terrible silence was broken by Sunil’s insistent angry shouts, ‘Ma-ma-ma-pa!’ and Nanima firing off a question to mama who shook her head and looked away mournfully. I told myself to keep calm and play the innocent, it was too late to pretend they had misheard so I repeated the question, ‘I said, am I a virgin? I mean, what is one? Of them?’ Papa’s mouth opened and then shut again slowly, he looked at mama for help. She slammed the plate down onto the table, stuck her hands on her hips and said, ‘I suppose you have been talking to that Anita Rutter again! Such filthy things from such a young mouth, hai ram! Thoba thoba!’ Mama did a quick translation for Nanima who immediately held the lobes of her ears to ward off the evil eye and muttered a silent prayer.
‘Do you know what you are saying? I hope not!’ papa barked at me. He pushed his plate away, spilling some of the yoghurt onto the newspaper upon which he always ate in front of the television. He was showing me the depth of his disgust. I had made him lose his appetite and then mama would drag me into the kitchen and tell me off again for sending my father to bed hungry. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I mumbled, backing away, but I was stopped by papa grabbing onto my arm. He pulled me towards him and made me stand inches away from his face. He wore a filmy moustache of white which made me want to laugh out loud, and somehow he caught the beginning of the smirk and yanked my arm again to pull me to attention. Even mama sensed that his famous temper was about to erupt and came and stood watchfully at his side, the moral committee could now convene in full.
‘I do not like what you have become, Meena,’ said papa slowly. ‘I have watched you change, from a sweet happy girl into some rude, sulky monster.’
Mama laid her hand on his shoulder but he brushed it off, irritated. ‘No, Daljit! You moan about the same things to me and then you let her get away with it the next day!’
‘It is not her fault, darling,’ mama said placidly. ‘We cannot control what she hears on the streets.’
‘No,’ papa said finally, softening a little. He let go of my arm. I hoped he had left some bruises so I could make him feel guilty after he had cooled down. It was always the same pattern, this fierce outburst and snapping confrontation, followed by repentant cuddles which I made sure I milked to the full. Papa sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes. ‘Maybe you’ll listen to me now, Daljit. She’s not picking up the right influences here. So many good children to play with and she always finds the bad ones. I said we should move …’
I did not hear the rest of the sentence, the blood was crashing in my ears and I inhaled sharply, my own breath sounded as loud and furious as a gale. Leaving Tollington was something I had planned on my own terms, in my own fantasies so many times. But not like this, slinking off in semidisgrace, leaving behind people whom I had yet to outgrow, missing out on all the summers I was still young and free enough to enjoy. How would I ever make new friends? Where would I hang out? How could I possibly recreate this tiny, teeming and intimate world somewhere else? I, who had longed for change and chaos, buckled under this revelation, that if we left, things would never be as good, never be the same. Mama was talking now. I tuned into her monologue gradually.’…after the eleven-plus, if all goes well, then we’ll just move closer to the girls’ school. That would make sense …’ So they had already decided that I would pass the exam with flying colours, were building their future plans on this dodgy premise.
‘Anita’s mom has run away,’ I said, eager to change the subject. Mama and papa stared at me sharply.
‘Meena, if you are lying again …’
‘She left a note and went off’ with a butcher. Anita was dead upset, crying and everything. She did not know what she was saying, I reckon …’ Well, I would have believed it.
Mama sat down heavily on one of the high backed chairs at the table. ‘That poor poor girl,’ she said softly. ‘She did not deserve this …’
Papa pulled me, gently now, to his side and enquired, ‘Who is looking after her?’
‘Them,’ interjected mama. ‘She has a little sister – Tina?’
‘Tracey,’ I said, in the tone of a funeral director discussing casket size.
Mama continued, ‘I mean, they need to eat, the house needs keeping, the father works, what will happen?’ Mama was worrying weeks ahead on their behalf, she was already on her feet. ‘I’m going to chat with Mrs Worrall, maybe we can set up some kind of rota …’
Papa raised his hand, ‘Daljit, no. Sit a minute.’
Mama hesitated. Nanima meanwhile was squirming with curiosity, Punjabi machine-gunned round our heads whilst mama and papa tried to continue the conversation. ‘Ik minute, mataji,’ papa reassured her. ‘Daljit, we can’t interfere …’
‘Oh my god, that is such an English thing to say! You have been living here too long! There are little children involved.’
‘I know that,’ papa continued. ‘But we are not their family. They would see it as…well, rude. Patronising even. If they ask for help, that is a different matter, but we can’t just take over the way we do with our friends. Think about it please. They have their pride.’
Mama stood in the doorway, chewing her lip. She suddenly scooped up Sunil and smothered him with passionate kisses whilst he protested loudly. ‘You are still my baby, you naughty munda! Keep still!’
Nanima was getting annoyed now, and rattled off another loud enquiry to mama who replied back in a suitably scandalised tone. Nanima understood, shook her head and carefully screwed a forefinger into her temple, apeing what I had taught her months back. ‘Meena,’ papa said, stroking my neck. ‘Ask Anita if she wants to come and eat with us. Any time. And her sister. Don’t force her though. She might want to spend some time with her daddy right now …’
‘Can I come tonight?’ said Anita when I knocked at her back gate half an hour later. And so it was that the Day of the New School Uniform also became the Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner day.
Anita turned up alone and empty-handed, wearing her new school jumper with a pair of flared jeans. ‘Tracey didn’t want to come,’ was the first thing she said to my parents who stood by the door, as they did for all our visitors, ready to take her coat. ‘Oh, that’s okay, darling,’ said mama, ushering her in and waving at papa to remove one of the place settings from the dining table. I had insisted that we sit at the table, something we never did with Indian guests since we usually ate in shifts. But tonight, I had set the table myself, even putting Sunil’s high chair next to mama’s place, and told her, ‘Don’t just run to and from the kitchen burning your fingers like you normally do. I want us to sit and talk, you know, like you’re supposed to do at dinners.’ I could have asked mama to tap-dance on top of the telly wearing false boobs and playing the spoons and she might have considered it, so anxious was she to mop the brow of our motherless guest.
I knew Anita well enough not to expect a great display of mourning, but even I was surprised by her complete lack of emotion, or indeed, social graces. She watched Top of the Pops through all papa’s attempts to engage her in friendly chitchat, during which he steered clear of anything that might possibly be connected with Mothers. ‘So Anita…um, how’s school?’ Anita grunted and turned up the volume control, shifting away from Sunil who was edging towards her holding the edge of the sofa, desperate to make friends with this new face. ‘Your par…your father, does he take you or do you go by bus?’ Anita stifled a yawn and reached for another crisp from our nick-nacks bowl, as mama called it, which was now almost empty.
Mama had gone to the trouble of preparing two menus, which was fortunate considering Anita’s reaction when the serving dishes of various curries were placed in front of her. ‘What’s that!’ she demanded, as if confronted with a festering sheep’s head on a platter. ‘Oh that’s mattar-paneer,’ mama said proudly, always happy to educate the sad English palate. ‘A sort of Indian cheese, and these are peas with it, of course …’
‘Cheese and peas?’ said Anita faintly. ‘Together?’
‘Well,’ mama went on hurriedly. ‘This is chicken curry…You have had chicken before, haven’t you?’
‘What’s that stuff round it?’
‘Um, just gravy, you know, tomatoes, onions, garlic …’ Mama was losing confidence now, she trailed off as she picked up Anita’s increasing panic.
‘Chicken with tomatoes? What’s garlic?’
‘Don’t you worry!’ papa interjected heartily, fearing a culinary cat fight was about to shatter his fragile peace. ‘We’ve also got fishfingers and chips. Is tomato sauce too dangerous for you?’
Anita’s relief made her oblivious to his attempt at a joke. She simply picked up her knife and fork and rested her elbows on the table, waiting to be served with something she could recognise. ‘I’ll have fishfingers, mum! Um, please!’ I called out after her. I could tell from the set of mama’s back that her charity was wearing a little thin. Although I had yet to cast Anita in the mould of one of the Rainbow orphan kids, I did wonder if food was a problem at her house after seeing her eat. Any romantic idea I had about witty stories over the dinner table disappeared when Anita made a fortress of her arms and chewed stolidly behind it, daring anyone to approach and disturb her concentration or risk losing an eye if they attempted to steal a chip. She looked up only twice, once when my parents began eating, as always, with their fingers, using their chapatti as scoops to ferry the banquet of curries into their mouths.
Anita stopped in mid-chew, looking from her knife and fork to mama and papa’s fingers with faint disgust, apparently unaware that all of us had a great view of a lump of half masticated fishfinger sitting on her tongue. It had never occurred to me that this would be a moment of controversy, it had never occurred to me because I had never eaten Indian food in the presence of a white person before. In fact, I only then realised that Anita Rutter was the first non-relative to sit and break bread with us, and the same thought had just hit my parents, who had gradually slowed down their eating and were eyeing a nearby box of paper hankies with longing. I snapped to attention, I would not have Anita play the same games with my parents that had made me dizzy and confused. The girl had not even said a simple thank you yet. ‘We always eat our food with our fingers,’ I said loudly to Anita. ‘Like in all the top restaurants. Bet you didn’t know that, did you?’ For the first time that I could remember, my parents caught a lie flying out of my mouth and threw it right back at me with a cheer. Mama and papa both looked at their plates, their mouths twitching, until Sunil broke the moment by emptying his plate of rice over his head. Nanima lumbered into action with the box of tissues, pushing past Anita clumsily and leaning over her to reach Sunil with no regard to English body language rules.
