by Meera Syal
The next morning began with the unexpected arrival of two letters. I recognised the writing of the one addressed to me, the same careful capitals, except this time, she had chosen to seal the note in an envelope. ‘Meena, come and talk to me about last night. DON’T talk to Sam! VERY IMPORTANT!!! Anita.’ I had foolishly supposed that she and Sam were locked somewhere in adjoining cells, trying to coordinate their stories through iron bars under the watchful gaze of a violent warder. But she was at home, a few familiar doors away. I tore up the letter into tiny pieces and flushed them down the toilet.
Papa’s letter was much more interesting; the envelope was silky and expensive looking, the postmark local, the handwriting in ink was large, ragged, intriguing, the address said only ‘Mr Kumar (Meena’s Papa), Corner House, Old Cottages, Tollington.’ It was not our official address, it was as if someone had written down the way he or she would describe how to get to our house to a lost traveller, and made perfect sense. Papa ripped it open and stared at it incredulously. ‘Daljit!’ he called. Mama came out of the kitchen holding Sunil at arm’s length; he was covered in cereal and looked proud of it. ‘Look at this,’ he said, showing her the letter. It seemed to be written in astrological symbols, all half moons and flying dots like comets. ‘Hindi?’ mama asked. Papa nodded and began to read. I could tell he was dragging up some old half-buried skills by the way his finger carefully followed the lines.
‘I’m rusty,’ he said mournfully to no one in particular, and then finally, ‘He has asked me to come for tea.’
‘Who? Who has?’ mama said, craning her neck to see the letter.
Papa looked over to the Big House. ‘Harinder P. Singh. All this time we have had a brother around the corner…all this time.’ Papa had to repeat himself several times and eventually take mama through the letter word by word until she finally absorbed the enormity of this information. Then she and papa both sat on the settee together, a curious wash of pride and betrayal sweeping over them. Finally mama asked me, ‘An Indian gentleman lives in the Big House, Meena. Isn’t that amazing?’ I could have told her then about meeting Ganesha in the forest, but that led onto the loss of her necklace and anyway, I realised it was better that my parents think they had been the first to know. ‘Arry had somehow let them down by remaining a secret for so long. ‘Amazing,’ I replied.
All morning we had loud men in macs banging on our door and telephoning incessantly for an interview with me, some of them offering money, all of them paranoid that maybe I had spilled the beans to someone else and that their scoop was already yesterday’s news. I heard them calling through the porch door to papa. ‘Mr Kumar? Has she told you what happened? Is it true she was the only witness? Did she mention that it was not an accident? Did she say she saw anyone push Tracey into the water? Mr Kumar?’
It was only when papa eventually let someone in and I saw the police car parked outside that I began to feel nervous. And when papa crept into my room, the set of his jaw confirmed my fears.
‘Meena, beti, the police want to talk to you. Did…did you see what happened?’
I nodded my head, regretting the moment when I had opened the door to that silly moo, Tracey.
‘Um, there is a bit of a complication you see,’ papa said carefully. ‘Tracey is saying that someone pushed her in.’
‘It wasn’t me!’ I cried.
Papa grabbed my hand and squeezed it. ‘No, no, I know, she’s not saying that. She is saying it was Sam Lowbridge or her sister.’ I wondered why he did not call Anita by name. ‘And they are accusing each other. So…well, so what you saw is quite important.’ I nodded again, a curious elation swelling inside me. ‘You just have to tell the truth, Meena,’ papa said gently.
How many times had mama and papa begged me to do just that? And how many times had I laughed at their pleas and abused their renewed trust after every occasion when I had been caught and vowed never to do it again? Even now I could see a tiny seed of doubt planting itself in papa’s brain, he so much wanted to believe that I would not be foolish enough to lie, romantic enough to embroider the occasion to suit my own dramatic desires. But the truth was, every little fabrication that went before, every extra twist in the tale and gilt on the lily, had merely been the rehearsal for the show which was about to begin. I had lost my best friend to someone who could have been a friend and lost himself, and between them, they had caused me what I thought was agonizing pain, until I met two other people, Nanima and Robert, who had thrown all previous self-pity into stark relief. But I hated Sam and Anita even more then, for making me believe that the power they had exercised over me was important, everlasting. I had been planning a spectacular revenge for so long and now, finally, I was ready.
Up until this moment I had been supremely prepared, going over every fine detail of what I would say, how Sam and Anita caught Tracey spying on their lovemaking (that was not the right word, far too kind a term for what they had been doing), that they flew into a rage, chased and caught her, egged each other on to push her into the water (I did not see who dealt the final shove, the important bit was that they both knew what they were doing), that I watched helplessly from my hiding place in the bushes, (‘No, officer, I was too scared to stop them. They both picked on me all the time, ask anyone…What was I doing there? Tracey asked me to help her. Tracey was always more my friend anyway.’), and then ran for help as soon as I saw my dear friend hit the water, (‘And the worst bit was the way they laughed at the splash…I felt sick.’)
‘Now don’t be nervous Meena, wejust want to ask you a few questions.’ I had expected two burly thugs in dirty macs with dog-ends hanging out of their mouths, like the two detectives in The Sweeney on television. I had even prepared myself for the Nice Cop, Nasty Cop routine, deciding I would burst into tears if things got too hairy. But these two were soft-cheeked rookies, their hats looked too big and they ate all of mama’s snacks within a minute of sitting down, suggesting that their own mums had got up too late to feed them their usual fry-up. They opened their notebooks (pick up your pencils please), they turned to a page of notes (no turning over the exam paper until I say begin), and as they began their enquiries, I gradually drifted far away until I was outside my body, watching a fat brown girl chew her lip and talk in faltering sentences.
Yes, I went because Tracey called for me, said the girl. Yes, she knew the way, she had been watching them all night. Yes, they were…they were having sex. I saw the girl’s parents hang their heads and grip the side of their chairs, but the girl herself, well, she was completely unperturbed, a natural. Yes, there was a fight, kind of, Tracey ran at them…yes, she did start it. And then. And then? And then I flew right through the roof of my house and I saw everything: I saw the Ballbearings women haring down the street and grabbing life in their hands with every short barking laugh, I saw Mrs Worrall eating her daily treat of a lemon puff and feeding the best bit to Mr Worrall with devotion, I saw Tracey fuming in her hospital bed, reunited with her anger, I saw Sam polishing his bike, avoiding his own reflection in the chrome, I saw Anita at her kitchen table eating toast which she had burned just like her mother and she liked it that way, I saw Mireille laying out a tea table with her best china and ‘Arry watching her quick delicate movements with quiet joy, I saw that Tollington had lost all its edges and boundaries, that the motorway bled into another road and another and the Bartlett estate had swallowed up the last cornfield and that my village was indistinguishable from the suburban mass that had once surrounded it and had finally swallowed it whole. It was time to let go and I floated back down into my body which, for the first time ever, fitted me to perfection and was all mine.
‘Tracey went for Sam and missed him and fell into the water.’ ‘Come again?’ The police-boy was staring right at me, disappointment already flushing his face. I knew he wanted to get Sam, with a previous record as long as his arm and that Rutter girl, well maybe it would stop another kid having yet another kid who would live off the State. He was telling me I could put them
away if I wanted, but I’d had my revenge, I was leaving them to themselves and I believed utterly now in the possibilities of change. ‘It was an accident. I saw it. Tracey’s lying if she says anything else.’
I sat the eleven-plus in my headmaster’s office the next day. It felt like a mere formality as I had replayed it so often in my head. I had peaked far too early, what could I do? So I was surprised to see papa hammering in a FOR SALE sign in our front garden when I got home.
‘Meena, beti! How did it go?’
‘Okay. Not as good as you think it went,’ I said, smiling at the sign.
‘Oh this! Well, I had a tip-off.’ Papa patted his nose and tipped his head towards the Big House. So that’s what they had talked about, property and money. I was disappointed. Mama came out onto the step, Sunil charged in and around our legs with a banana for a gun and one of mum’s hairbands on as a helmet.
‘This whole field,’ she said, gesturing to the view opposite. ‘It’s going to be houses soon. Mr Singh told papa.’
‘How does he know?’ I asked.
‘He owns it,’ mama said. ‘That new building next to his house, that is the show-home office or something.’
‘Is he moving too?’ I wondered aloud. I could not imagine Mireille and ‘Arry living next to a pretend home which would be full of dreaming strangers every day, oohing over the carefully chosen fittings and making plans around as yet empty plots of land.
‘I don’t know,’ papa said. ‘I didn’t ask him that.’
‘What a shame you did not get to know Mr Singh before,’ sighed mama. ‘All that time we were here …’ She did not finish the sentence, we each filled in our own stories in the pause.
Papa broke it by fumbling in his jacket pocket and handing mama a small velvet pouch. ‘Oh Shyam, a present? What for? Why did you spend so much …’
‘I didn’t buy it,’ interrupted papa. ‘And it’s yours anyway.’
Mama gasped as she pulled out my Nanima’s diamond necklace from the velvet folds. ‘How …’
Papa shrugged. ‘Harinder-saab said he found it.’
‘Do you think …’ mama began.
‘Daljit, leave it,’ papa said finally. ‘It’s come back. That is enough.’
Only Mrs Worrall was invited from the village to our leaving party. We felt we had already said goodbye to everyone else. Auntie Shaila had brought us all presents to mark this next reincarnation in our English life cycle. She gave mama a metal OM to hang above the door of our new bungalow. ‘Don’t worry about someone taking it. Now you’re in a nice area and half your neighbours are Hindu so they’ll have one of their own.’ Papa received a car cleaning set, a shampoo, chamois leather and plastic scraper for an icy windscreen. ‘Now you have a garage, Shyam-saab, please keep your car a little nicer. And anyway, you will be using it much more now we will be living so close to you …’ For Sunil, she brought a tricycle so he could work off some of his increasingly manic energy in our new, large, landscaped garden. And for me, a beautiful ink pen with my name engraved on the side. ‘For all those topclass medical essays you will be writing at your grammar school!’
I already knew I wanted nothing to do with bodies and breakdowns, but I thanked her wordlessly with a hug. No false protestations or promises to get fitted for a stethoscope straight away, I opted for a gracious silence and kept my options open. I used the pen that night, wrote a short note and pushed it through the appropriate letter box. ‘Dear Anita, We’re moving on Saturday. I’m going to the grammar school, so at least you won’t be around to tease me about my tam-o’shanter! See you around. Meena.’ She never replied, of course.
About the Author
Meera Syal
is an actress, writer and novelist with a number of TV, theatre and film credits. She wrote the screenplays for the films Bhaji on the Beach and the multi-award-winning My Sister Wife, in which she starred. Her most recent work includes writing for and appearing in two BBC hit comedy series, The Real McCoy and Goodness Gracious Me, and the lead in the BAFTA award-winning short film It’s Not Unusual. Anita and Me, her first novel, won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize.
Praise
From the reviews of Anita and Me.
‘The crucial ingredient is Meena’s relationship with Anita Rutter, local lewd flower – skinny of hip, vicious of nature and owner of a dog called Nigger. Best-friend-best-enemy stories have been done before, but this is a beautifully specific portrait.’
CHARLES O’SULLIVAN, Observer
‘A perceptive, assured and very funny novel.’
PETER GROSVENOR, Daily Express
‘A delightful read, Anita and Me bounces along, giving an amusing and refreshingly straightforward picture of British Indians.’
MARK TULLY
‘On one level, Anita and Me is a simple story of the path from innocence to experience. On another, it contains the elements of tragedy – death, love, jealousy, rivalry, betrayal – and it can be read as a modern-day fable. Meera Syal is a fine comic writer and she mines a rich vein of Indian-English life.’
ANITA ROY, TLS
‘Avery entertaining and engaging novel.’
PHILIP HENSHER, Mail on Sunday
‘A delicate, beautifully observed picture of Britain as we rarely see it in our fiction – diverse, mixed and mixed up with all our histories irretrievably braided together. An impressive first novel by the multi-talented Meera Syal.’
YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN, author of No Place Like Home
‘This is the kind of book you want to rush home to finish reading…As a portrait of small town England, Anita and Me is superb, as a story, it is skilfully told, gracefully written, with a lightness of style, and a sense of being truly free and at ease. If you haven’t read it yet, do so just as soon as you can. And remember to carry it to work, so that you don’t get impatient to get back to it’
URVASHI BUTALIA, India Mail
‘Meera Syal has called this book “the embarrassing teenage novel that was always lurking in my knickers drawer,” but that’s the only remark of hers we should be ready to ignore. Her semi-autobiographical debut novel is pure class.’
BEN DOWELL, Comedy Review
‘A marvellous first novel from the feisty scriptwriter of Bhaji on the Beach.’
TINA JACKSON, The Big Issue
By the same author
LIFE ISN’T ALL HA HA HEE HEE
Copyright
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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Previously published in paperback bypublished by Harper Perennial 2004, and Flamingo 1997
Reprinted seventeen times
First published in Great Britain by Flamingo 1996
Copyright © Meera Syal 1996
Meera Syal asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007378524
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