The White Family

by Maggie Gee

  ‘How much?’ she asked the salesman, rather curtly.

  ‘Just seventy-five pounds,’ he grinned, bold as brass. ‘It’s a very fine piece. The Americans like them. It reminds them of the war, and Winston Churchill.’

  Shirley hated to admit something cost too much. It mattered to her that people knew she could afford things.

  ‘It’s made in Britain, of course?’

  ‘Without a doubt.’ But he sounded shifty.

  ‘I’ll take it,’ she said, hardly missing a beat, flicking out her quiver of credit cards, signing.

  Turned, and someone was beaming at her. A keenly smiling face, narrow, shining, with wide red lips, pulled right back over large white teeth.

  ‘Sorry, I don’t know –’

  ‘Susie Flinders.’

  She couldn’t link the name to the beaming face.

  ‘We met yesterday! Darren’s wife!’

  ‘Of course. Forgive me.’ Shirley thought, do I kiss her? She’s my brother’s wife, but I hardly know her.

  ‘So wonderful to meet you!’ Susie was all animation, yet her cheeks were gaunt, and her eyes did not look happy. ‘I’m just hunting down a few things for Darren. The food department next door is so great. They’ve got gluten-free, vegan, macrobiotic, and all the special English things … Darren, poor darling, is exhausted today.’

  ‘Travelling –?’

  ‘Oh no, he lives his life on planes. The emotional shock, you know. Your father.’

  ‘We knew Dad was bad a week ago.’

  ‘The shock of seeing him like that.’

  Well Darren didn’t break a leg getting here. Shirley found it hard to look her in the eyes. Her fizz, her loudness, her overload of scent; Giorgio, was it? The American choice.

  ‘So what are you shopping for, Shirley?’

  Shirley made an effort. ‘A present for Dad.’

  ‘You’ve been a great daughter, Darren says. It all falls on the ones who stay behind, doesn’t it?’

  Shirley thought, I’m a doormat, to her. ‘I’ve hardly been a model daughter. I married a black man, which outraged my father.’

  ‘Darren says he tried to give you support.’

  Shirley felt her smile go even stiffer. ‘Did he? Well … at a distance.’ (So Darren thought he was noble, did he, coming to the wedding and then Kojo’s funeral?)

  But Susie beamed on, not noticing the chill. ‘So. I’ve got my Earl Grey tea-bags and my Thick Cut marmalade and my Gentleman’s Relish and my Bath Olivers … Darren has a passion for things from home. The only thing I miss is the NHS.’

  ‘There’s not a lot of it to miss, any more.’

  ‘You’ve got to fight for it. It’s unique, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re preaching to the converted.’

  ‘Have you seen any of the pieces Darren’s done about what’s happening to the NHS?’

  ‘I don’t need to read Darren’s pieces. I know about it first-hand, thanks. I live here. And my boyfriend’s a Patient Care Officer.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way –’ There was an awkward pause, then Susie grinned again. ‘I do hope we can all get together some time.’

  Shirley managed to meet her eyes, and smile back. ‘His name is Elroy. He can’t come to the hospital. Dad would have a fit. He’s black.’

  ‘Your dad really has a problem with that?’

  ‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’

  ‘Shirley, I’m so sorry.’ Susie touched Shirley’s arm.

  (Everything she did was frenetic, overdone, as if she was an actress from a faster film. Shirley sensed she was already bored, already halfway out of the door – And yet there was something sympathetic about her. At least she tried. You could feel the effort.)

  ‘I’d love to talk further with you, Shirley, but I left my umbrella in Quarantino’s –’

  ‘Quarantino’s … that’s posh, isn’t it? At least, I’ve read about it in the papers.’

  ‘Probably because it’s a journalists’ watering-hole. We tend to eat there when we come to London.’

  When we come to London. As if they often do. Perhaps they did, and never got in touch. It felt like a small sharp kick in the stomach. ‘Do you always travel with Darren, then?’

  ‘Oh no. You know, I have my own assignments.’

  ‘Assignments? Aren’t you a therapist?’

  ‘I trained as a therapist. But I’m a journalist also. It pays better!’

  That curious mixture of English and American … All those -ists. She could pick and choose. If you had an education, you could pick and choose. But Shirley refused to be jealous of her. ‘Maybe you and Darren could come for a meal. I guess you’re going to be around for a bit.’

  An awkward silence. ‘In fact – Darren’s planning on flying back tomorrow night. Your father seems to be doing OK –’

  ‘So this is the classic flying visit.’ It sounded more bitter than Shirley meant.

  ‘Darren has a lot of problems with your father. It isn’t easy for him, coming home.’

  ‘None of us finds my dad very easy.’

  ‘Darren’s holding on to a lot of anger. He has to work through it. Work with it. I’ve told him frankly I think we should stay.’

  There were two furrows of tension in Susie’s wide brow, as if she felt guilty, as if she worried – But what was all this about Darren’s anger? Poor old Dad, thought Shirley, suddenly. He loved Darren so; Darren was his favourite. ‘It’s just that Dad really likes to see him,’ said Shirley, but she didn’t want to rub it in. She continued, ‘In any case, he’s seen him, hasn’t he? So that’s OK.’ (Why must she always be nice?)

  ‘Shirley, it’s been great meeting with you. I hope we can talk again properly. Really.’ Susie was already tapping her feet, waisted heels as sharp as knives, shiny black shoes, almost blue-black, curving sheerly into her instep. Shoes for a quick neat getaway – She bent like a dancer, kissed Shirley’s cheek, giving her no time to return the gesture.

  She was gone, with a shake and a stroke of her hair, her shiny, healthy, American hair, narrow hips whipping through the flashing displays, turning for a last swift wave of her hand, white light on her teeth as she mouthed ‘Bye’.

  Leaving Shirley standing there wondering. How could Susie be so different from her? Faster, slicker, brighter, sharper. Therapist, journalist, talker, world traveller …

  But maybe I would have been like her. If I had finished my education. Is that what makes women lean and quick? Instead I stand here. Solid. Slow.

  She’s a fly-by-night. I suppose I’m a stayer.

  Upstairs, Shirley found the sun had come out, sweeping across through the glass swing-doors and catching the jewellery in its nets, flashing and glinting from gilded counters, the middle-aged customers warmly lit, floating along through deep golden valleys where sun-warmed scents of rose and vanilla, oranges, musk, peaches, lemons, wafted on balmy winds from Perfumes.

  All of us here are in paradise, she told herself as the sun embraced her. Everyone’s walking, everyone’s well. This is heaven, compared to the hospital.

  All shall be well … Let all be well … Make all our family well, she prayed.

  25 • Dirk

  Dirk was sitting thinking of the final reckoning. The glorious day when it would all come right, when the goats and black sheep would really get sorted.

  Then George said ‘You’d better go and get a bit of lunch.’ Just like that. As if it was normal.

  ‘What?’ – Dirk never, ever got a lunch break, because George couldn’t manage on his own ‘I’ll nip out and get some sandwiches, then.’

  ‘I’ll hold the fort. Go on, take your time. They say the new Burger Bar’s quite good. There’s a Sushi Bar opened, if you’re feeling ambitious.’ George laughed, nervously. ‘Not really your scene.’

  Dirk stared at him blankly. ‘What, eat out? Not come back to the shop with it? – I can’t afford it, in any case.’ Perhaps the asthma was affecting his brain.

  George’s eyes had
a funny kind of glint. ‘Feeling a bit guilty about this morning. Making you wait outside in the rain. You’re a good lad. I couldn’t have managed without you.’

  And then Dirk got it.

  He thinks he’s going to die. That’s why he’s talking about himself in the past. He really is thinking of giving up the shop. He probably is going to leave it to me.

  What followed was even more amazing. ‘Here’s a fiver. Towards your lunch.’

  ‘Thanks George.’ Dirk felt himself going red. He was really pleased. George was giving him a present. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad old bugger. He had never done that before, not once, not in nine years of working for him. ‘Are you sure you can manage?’ Dirk knew he couldn’t.

  ‘If I can’t manage, I’ll shut up shop.’

  Dirk wished he had asked him for a tenner, since a fiver didn’t go far these days, but it was good to hear the shop door ring behind him and step out into the rain with a fiver in his pocket. In the middle of the day. A free man.

  I’ve never really felt that. Free, or a man.

  So maybe soon I’ll have the keys to the shop. MediaNet. And I’ll expand next door. Buy up Windsor Drainage before it goes bust.

  I’d like that, buying up the lav shop. And I’ll drive those other buggers out of business, the poncing Patels with their gifts and their greeting cards and more computer magazines than us. (They opened their shop, on purpose, less than a hundred yards down the road from us. Our shop’s been there since the beginning of time, then the Pakis try and blow us away.)

  Not actually, of course. They don’t use force. I wish they would. We could fight to the finish. They can’t fight, Pakis, they’re soft and weak. I remember them at school; swots, pansies. We could crush them like flies. We’d break their legs …

  The other blacks are different, of course. Very very violent people, blacks.

  We could still smash them, even if the blacks joined the Pakis (which isn’t likely, they hate each other’s guts) – we could still win through. Because we’re – motivated. I read that in Spearhead and I agreed. We could still break them, because our cause is just. To free our streets of crime and fear. That’s the way they put it in Spearhead.

  And they are our streets. They always were. When George and my dad were little boys, these streets were safe for kids to play in. My dad always talks about it down the pub. How all the kids were normal then. Normal white. And there wasn’t any crime. Not everyone beating the shit out of each other. Not everyone hating everyone else. There was brotherhood then. We were all English.

  Hillesden was a village, in those days. I sometimes think I was born out of my time. It’s just my luck to be born now, with no opportunities for native English. And prejudice against us just because we’re white.

  ‘Ozzie! Ozzie!’ My mate Ozzie. ‘Oi, Ozzie, are you going in here?’

  ‘Going down the pub.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be working –’

  ‘Buy us a beer.’

  ‘All right, just one.’

  I really meant it to be just one. But three’s not many. Not for me. I can hold my liquor. So Dad always says. I got some peanuts and half a ham sandwich. I’d have got something hot, but it was frigging curry. Even down the pub. My local pub. I wanted something English like spag bol or a burger, but all that was on offer was frigging beef curry.

  I was back on time, give or take a few minutes.

  There was a sort of atmosphere when I got back. I’m sensitive. I can feel an atmosphere. As if I had come back too soon. As if George didn’t want me here. And there was – this man, messing around.

  He’s still in here, by the magazines. I say a man, I mean a Paki man. I’m not that good at telling them apart – can anyone really tell them apart? – but he looks familiar, he looks like one of the oily geezers who tried to buy the shop. The geezers George was amusing himself with. I try winking at George and pointing to the man but George looks funny, as if he’d gone blind. Normally he hates people messing about. He hates people standing there fingering the goods … I suppose this moron can’t read English, because there are signs all over the shop, handwritten signs George did himself, a bit faded now but in nice big letters, Please Do Not Touch The Goods, and by the papers, two different versions of No Reading Allowed, one in ink, one in red biro. Now the Paki’s picking up a dirty magazine, he’s got a wank mag off the top shelf, grinning all over his ugly mug, he’s got down a Big Ones International (which is very popular round here, at three pounds fifty, thank you very much), and he’s laughing at it, trying to look all superior, but enjoying it too, getting his rocks off, he thinks he can get his rocks off for free, you’d think he bloody owned the place –

  ‘George,’ I hiss, to attract his attention, he’d sort of sunk down into himself, he’s normally so quick on things like that. ‘George, that man.’

  ‘What?’ he says, lifeless, quiet, not George at all, not the George I knew, not the George of old, not George and the dragon, George who got lively at times like this. The only time, really, that George got lively.

  ‘That man’s got Big Ones International.’

  ‘Well he’s not doing any harm.’

  It must be softening of the brain. And he’s whispering, too, as if he’s afraid, as if he doesn’t want the Paki to hear him.

  It’s over to me, then. All down to me. My dad is in hospital, and George is dying. The older generation is on its way out. Up to us lot now to keep the torch burning. Up to us lot now to – what was the phrase? The very good phrase they used in Spearhead, the phrase that made me think of my dad – up to us now to hold the pass. Up to us to dam the flood.

  ‘Excuse me, Sunshine,’ I say to him. ‘Can’t you read English? Can’t you see this sign?’

  ‘Yes. I recommend removing it.’

  ‘You what?’ I say, not believing my ears. ‘You bloody what? Did you hear that, George?’

  ‘It’s giving a bad impression,’ the man says, smiling as he says it, cool as anything.

  ‘I’ll give you a bad impression,’ I say. ‘I’ll give you a very bad impression! I’ll thank you to vacate this shop.’ It’s not coming out quite right, I realize, perhaps the third pint was a bad idea, but I go right up to him and stare him in the face, his little brown face, his ugly face, in case he’s in any doubt of what I meant.

  ‘George,’ he goes, ‘will you introduce me? I’m very interested to meet this young man.’

  And that was the point when everything changed. That was the point when my heart began to thump. I thought, he’s mad. He has to be. But I swung round to George, and he had this funny look, sort of beaten, shamed, like a wheezy old dog that had pissed its bed, and I started to realize, I started to see, and I thought, if it’s that, I’ll kill you, George, but of course it can’t be, come on George –

  ‘Er, yes,’ he said. ‘This is Dirk White. He’s been giving me a hand. Just for a bit. Sort of work experience.’ The greasy little man held out his hand, he smiled and held out his hand to me, his pin-striped suit, white shirt, gold cuff-links, laughing at me, looking down on me … Laughing with George behind my back.

  What did George say? Giving me a hand … Just for a bit … Work experience …

  He said, ‘This is Dinesh. Mr Patel.’

  It was all so sudden, I wasn’t ready – and before I knew what, I had taken his hand, just because he was sticking it under my nose, and his other paw still clutching Big Ones International. I wanted to break his frigging fingers, but because I couldn’t decide what to do I stood there right next to him holding his hand, we were holding hands like a couple of pansies!!

  George was still talking, but it didn’t make sense. ‘He’s going to buy the shop, you see. Mr Patel is – going to be buying the shop. It’s my health, as you know. You’ve always known I couldn’t go on like this forever …’

  ‘Buying the shop? Are you winding me up?’ I finally managed to drop his hand, which had stuck to mine as if with glue, but I swear I never actually shook it. I supp
ose there was a moment when we joggled up and down because he was trying so hard to shake mine, but I never shook his. I’d rather die. Or kill him. Kill them. Kill them all.

  George was shitting himself. He was scared of me. I realized then he was scared of me. He looked like an old red wrinkled balloon, slowly going down, shrinking, disgusting. He was trying to get out another cigarette, but his hand was shaking so much he dropped it. ‘It’s the truth, Dirk,’ he said. ‘I meant to tell you. I was going to tell your dad tomorrow.’

  Everything was falling around my ears. My dreams of the future. My … expectations. My own legitimate expectations. That’s what Spearhead says; we are losing our birthright, and suddenly it was all happening to me, beneath my very ears, in broad daylight.

  The words that came out weren’t right at all. ‘But I like this shop. I love this shop.’ It felt like pepper at the back of my nose, it felt as if I had been punched in the stomach, it felt as if I was going to – break down, but I’d do the breaking, I’d do the punching –

  ‘Well if you have a strong commitment to this shop. We could probably come to some arrangement. At least in short-term, see how things work out. See if we can rub together, and so forth.’ The Paki was talking like a radio.

  ‘What?’ I said, looking at him, so he knew what I meant, just looking at him as hard as nails.

  ‘I might be needing a manager.’

  I didn’t bother to answer him. It was George that I was talking to. ‘You make me sick. You disgusting old man. You disgusting old pimp. You fucking old queer. You –’

  The Paki butted in. ‘I think you are saying things you regret, young man.’

  George was trying to say something. ‘Dirk,’ he managed, but wheezing so much it sounded like ‘Ergh’, it sounded as though he was having an attack, and then he was right in the middle of it, rising to his feet, one hand in the air, one hand straight up as if he wanted to wave or give me the salute, the old Heil Hitler, but really he was reaching for his inhaler, I knew where he kept it, on a shelf at the back, I had fetched it for him so many times over the years, I had wanted to vomit through so many attacks, and that I suppose was my giving a hand, just for a bit, my work experience … Everything seemed to slow down, for a second. He was very red, sort of roaring, roaring, and then the roars had long gaps in between, and then all the red has gone from his face and he goes all white, and not roaring, not wheezing, not breathing at all, just sort of frozen, clutching his throat with one great fat hand and sort of clawing away with the other one, and horribly quiet, the quiet was horrible, clawing at me or the inhaler or both, and then I see his lips going blue, all round his mouth this awful blue colour.