by Francis King
‘Well, I’m thinking, Polly, maybe we ask him round one evening.’
Polly was astounded. ‘Ask him here?’ She turned from the drawer, two spoons gripped in her right hand, to face him. ‘Are you crazy?’
He had expected some such response and had dreaded it. But he persisted. ‘He kind, kind to me, very kind. He my – my – only mate. You like him, Polly. Truly. Good man. Nice. Yes, you like him. Promise.’ He continued to cajole her and she continued to protest that it was all too much trouble, they were both too busy, Jacek hardly knew Mehmet and she did not know him at all. Jacek eventually put his arms around her sturdy body and hugged her to him. She tried to push him away – ‘Oh, do give over!’ – but he hugged her even harder and, as they struggled, she began to giggle. ‘Just some beer,’ he said. ‘ I buy beer. And maybe sausage rolls, sandwich. Maybe cake? Yes?’
‘Oh, very well? But I don’t want too much drinking. And I don’t want him to stay too late.’
‘All as you wish. As you wish, Polly darling.’ He kissed her on the forehead and, then holding her chin in his hand, on her mouth, first gently and then attempting to insert his tongue. Polly abruptly turned her head aside. ‘Oh, do let me get on with what I’m doing.’ Polly had confided to Renée that she had never really known what sex could be like until Jacek had come into her life. But there was a time and place for sex, and seven o’clock in the evening in the kitchen was not it.
When they both knocked off on the evening planned for the visit, Jacek imagined that he and Mehmet would travel together to Polly’s Barnsbury flat. But Mehmet said that he had something to see to first, it wouldn’t take him long, he would be with them in, oh, half an hour, maybe three-quarters. He did not specify what it was that he had to see to first, and Jacek, by now used to his reticence, did not press him.
‘Where is he?’ Polly demanded as soon as she saw that Jacek had entered the flat unaccompanied.
‘Something to do.’ Jacek shrugged and pulled face. ‘ Say nothing. But he come soon, half-hour, little more.’
‘Oh, really!’ Polly had made the excuse of a fictitious dental appointment to get away early from work. ‘I hope he’s not planning to let us down. I’ve baked a cake.’
‘Did you buy sausage rolls?’ Jacek had given her some money to do so.
‘No, I certainly did not. I made some sandwiches. Look!’ He followed her into the kitchen and inspected the sandwiches laid out on two plates. The bread thinly cut and its crusts removed, these sandwiches were totally different from the thick, clumsy ones that he made for himself. They were even garnished with parsley and tomato rosettes. Admiringly Jacek picked up one of the rosettes in fingers stained ineradicably with engine oil. ‘Don’t touch!’ Polly screamed. But by then Jacek had bitten into it. When Jacek attempted to place the half-eaten rosette back on the plate, Polly screamed again: ‘No! No!’
Jacek began to set out the beer cans and the glasses on the table. One of the glasses was smeared. He held it up to the light, then breathed on it and wiped it with a dishcloth hanging beside the sink. ‘ Fine,’ he said. ‘Very fine.’ He picked up an edge of another dishcloth covering the chocolate cake, squinted under it and then let it fall back. ‘ Good.’
‘I didn’t want the flies to get at the icing.’
‘Very good.’
When Mehmet arrived, Jacek at once realized why he had said that he had something to see to first. No longer in his work clothes, he was wearing a charcoal-grey suit, all three buttons fastened, a grey and white striped shirt, and a brilliant tie, red arabesques on dark blue. Jacek felt embarrassed that he himself possessed nothing of that kind into which to change. But at least Polly had made up her usually sallow face, and put on her best dress and an elaborate filigree silver necklace that a previous boyfriend had brought her back after a holiday in Goa.
Mehmet was totally at his ease, and totally charming. So much prejudiced against him before his arrival, Polly was captivated. As he talked to her about incidents, some dramatic but mostly comic, at the car wash, she squealed with laughter. When Jacek had recounted many of the same incidents to her, she had merely put up a perfunctory show of interest.
Mehmet ate only two of the many sandwiches – could it be that he had already eaten when changing his clothes, Jacek wondered? – and he declined any beer, saying that all that he really wanted was a glass of water. ‘I’m afraid we haven’t any mineral water,’ Polly told him. ‘We ran out yesterday and somehow I forgot to buy any more.’ In fact, they never bought mineral water – ‘a total waste of money,’ Polly would say. ‘OK, OK, don’t worry,’ Mehmet told her. ‘Tap water fine.’ ‘With ice?’ He nodded. ‘Please.’ Then he added: ‘You spoil me. I hope you also spoil Jacek.’
‘Of course.’ Again she giggled. ‘Provided he behaves himself.’
‘He sometimes not behave himself?’
‘Sometimes. He can be quite a naughty boy, you know.’
Mehmet was full of praise for the cake. ‘You make this cake? I cannot believe! In my country we have Albanian sweets, wonderful sweets, my sister and mother make. But nothing similar this.’ He raised his slice of cake in his fingers, although Polly had given him a fork, and again bit into it. ‘Beautiful.’
‘I’ll make you some coffee,’ Polly volunteered, suddenly having thought of it.
‘Is trouble?’
‘No, of course not.’ Polly leapt up from her chair and began to fill the kettle at the sink. ‘ It’s only Nes,’ she said. ‘Does that matter?’
‘Nescafé fine.’
‘Well, actually it’s not Nescafé,’ Polly admitted, holding up the jar. ‘But it’s just the same. Safeway.’
Jacek would have liked to have had a cup of coffee too. But Polly did not offer him one and he did not like to ask, in case it caused trouble. Nor did she offer him a second slice of cake, although she cut one for Mehmet and another for herself. As the two of them chatted, he felt increasingly excluded. It might have been Polly and Mehmet who were the partners, and he merely the guest. He felt both a joy that two people so close to him should be getting on so well, and also a reluctant annoyance that, in getting on so well, they paid him so little attention. If only he could understand more of what they were saving! If only he could say more himself!
Jacek caught Mehmet looking surreptitiously at his watch. His method of doing so was to place his wrist on his knee, under the table, out of sight as he thought, and then with two fingers of his other hand to ease back his shirt cuff and glance down. A few minutes later he again looked at the watch in the same manner. ‘Sorry. I must go.’ He pushed back his upright bentwood chair, rose, smiled first at Polly and then at Jacek. ‘Sorry.’
‘But it’s still so early!’ Polly protested. ‘Little after nine.’ Desperately, she went on: ‘Why don’t you have another sandwich – or another slice of cake – and I’ll make you some more coffee.’
‘Sorry. Long way to Dalston. And so much work today – many cars, many trucks, many taxis. I little tired. I sure Jacek also tired.’
‘No, no!’ Jacek shook his head vigorously.
Mehmet put a hand on Jacek’s shoulder, patted it, then squeezed, in that way that had now become a habit. ‘Yes, Jacek. You tired. You must go sleep early. Yes.’ It was like a father talking to a young son who had protested about being sent up to bed.
As Polly began to wash and Jacek to dry the things, Polly broke the silence: ‘ Well, he’s certainly a charmer!’
Jacek said nothing. He had been wondering whether the visit had been a success. On the one hand Mehmet had got on so well with Polly; on the other hand he had stayed for less than an hour.
‘He’s dishy,’ Polly remarked in a low, soft voice, unlike her usual piercing one. To Jacek she seemed to be talking more to herself than to him. ‘I don’t usually like that kind of beaky nose but on his face …’
‘What I do with sandwiches?’ Jacek picked up one of the two plates, its sandwiches almost untouched.
Polly stared down at
them, her previously cheerful face suddenly growing sombre, even sad. After a while she said: ‘Well, you could take them with you to work. Tomorrow. Why not?’
Now Jacek also stared down at the uneaten sandwiches. ‘OK,’ he said resignedly, without any pleasure.
‘You could also take a can or two of beer and some of the cake.’
‘OK!’
Then a thought suddenly struck Polly. She slapped a hand to her forehead. ‘Oh, what a fool. I should have given him the rest of the cake to take away with him. He said how much he liked it.’
That night Jacek knew that Polly, snuggling up against him, wanted him to make love to her. But for once, he had no desire to do so and, despite all her efforts, his penis would not harden.
‘Oh, shit!’ She turned away from him and jerked one of the pillows under her cheek. Soon she was snoring.
Jacek stared up the ceiling, a grey space bisected by an arrow of yellow light through the chink in the curtains from the street lamp outside.
It was a few days later that Selim got the sack.
From time to time he and Jacek had worked together. From time to time, too, when Jacek had wished only to be away from everyone to eat his sandwich lunch, Selim had unaccountably sought him out, and in his near-falsetto voice had then ranted about some grievance or other: that Mr Klingsman was picking on him in assigning to him too many, not enough or the least attractive jobs; that someone or other, on a bus, in a shop or in the street, had treated him like shit; that his tips were smaller than those of the other workers because the clients did not respect him, considering all Indians to be no-good people.
Jacek understood little of all this and, stolidly chewing away at his sandwiches, would wish only that this dishevelled figure with a ponytail of lank hair, black streaked with grey, dangling almost to his waist, pan-stained teeth and prominent eyes in a face in which muscles seemed to be constantly writhing under the taut, tawny skin, would go away. Why did he have to pick on him? There were two other Indians, a Bangladeshi and a Pakistani all working in the place; but, so far from seeking them out, Selim avoided them.
To everyone else Selim was a joke. When he was at his most agitated or angry, they would even bait him, as one might a fierce dog safely tethered to a chain, until he bared his teeth, his eyes blazing, and shouted at them not in English but in Hindi. This would cause even more derision. But to Jacek he was a figure at once weird and frightening, never an object of fun. He always dreaded his approach and felt an intense relief when he either wandered off of his own account or was summoned back to work by Mr Klingsman.
Selim alternated between working frantically or at so lethargic a pace, dragging his feet in their worn plimsoles and muttering inaudibly to himself as he circled some car or van as though undecided how to set about it, that a job took him twice as long as it did anyone else. Sometimes, like Jacek, if there were a lot of work on hand, he would volunteer to follow one shift with another, working on and on with no sign of the intensifying exhaustion felt by the Pole. But on many days or nights he would drift in late, with some excuse (the bus on which he had been travelling had been involved in an accident, there had been no Central line trains, he had had to help an old woman who had suffered a fall just on the other side of the street from the car wash) so bogus that Mr Klingsman would shout in fury that he didn’t fucking want to hear that sort of crap, would Selim just shut up and get on with it.
For all of that last week Selim drifted in late, sometimes, head down, tonelessly whistling to himself, and sometimes greeting the other workers with what struck Jacek as an ironically jolly ‘Good morning, good morning!’ Surprisingly, once so fertile in excuses, however absurd, he now offered none, even when Mr Klingsman challenged him ‘Where the hell have you been?’ or ‘D’you realize that you’re more than an hour late?’ Nor did he ever utter an apology.
On Selim’s last day, Mr Klingsman rushed out of his office as soon as he wandered in. ‘Right! That’s it! I warned you! Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ He raised his left hand and jabbed with the forefinger of his right at the watch on his wrist. ‘Look at that! Ten past ten! D’you realize that you’re fucking meant to be here at nine?’
Selim, often so vehement and even violent in his responses, remained totally calm. He walked over to Mr Klingsman, bent over and, head tilted to one side, hitched up the sleeve of Mr Kingsman’s shirt and inspected the watch for himself. Then he straightened up again, gave a little bow like the one that he would often give to his fellow workers, and said in his high, sing-song, nasal voice, almost a chant: ‘Good morning, Mr Boss. How is Mr Boss today?’
Paradoxically the Indian’s calmness maddened Mr Klingsman far more than any indignation or rudeness would have done. He stood over him, his whole body shaking. ‘Right! Right! Now I’ll tell you what! I give you ten minutes to pack up all your gear and get yourself out of here. D’you get me? Out of here. In ten minutes sharp. And I don’t want to see your black face round here again or to smell your fucking curry smell. Got it?’
‘You wish me to go, Mr Boss?’
‘That’s it. Well done! You’ve got it. You’ve got it exactly. Out! Now! Now!’
Selim shook his head, as though in disbelief. The eyes that were often so dull in the narrow, emaciated face now glinted. ‘ OK, Mr Boss. But I want notice. You give me two weeks notice or you pay me two weeks.’
‘Are you crazy? For days and days you’ve been farting in here late and then drifting around, just drifting around, no fucking use at all. You’re going to get your money for the past week and that’s it. That’s it!’ he shouted. There was saliva glistening in either corner of his mouth, his chin was jutting out pugnaciously.
‘I want notice. Or three weeks pay – one week gone, two weeks coming.’
‘Well, you’re not going to get it.’
By now all the men had stopped working. They were gathered in a narrowing circle around the couple, most of them grinning. Jacek stood a little apart from them. Mehmet was on the next shift and was therefore not there.
Mr Klingsman went into his office, unlocked a cash box and began to count out some notes. Still totally unperturbed, Selim squatted on his hunkers outside the office, from time to time grinning at several of his workmates. Catching Jacek’s eye at one moment, he put his hands together and gave him an ironic salaam.
Mr Klingsman emerged with some notes in a fist. He thrust them out. ‘That’s more than you’re due and far more than you deserve.’
Calmly Selim got to his feet, took them and began to count them out. Then he said: ‘Not enough, Mr Boss. I say –’
‘I don’t care a fuck what you say!’
Selim tucked the notes into a pocket of his worn jeans. ‘You foolish, Mr Boss.’ His voice had suddenly deepened, it had totally lost its frail, metallic quality. ‘I make trouble, big trouble.’
‘Out! Out!’ Mr Klingsman bellowed. ‘I never want to see your face here again! Go on! Beat it!’
Selim gathered the saliva in his mouth and spat, so accurately that the gob landed on one of Mr Klingsman’s shoes. Pan had streaked the saliva with a vivid red. Jacek, seeing it, recoiled in momentary panic, having imagined the streaks to be blood. His dying father had coughed up phlegm streaked like that, when Jacek was only a small child. Then, swinging the plastic bag which he had brought with him in his right hand, while he kept rhythmically clicking the fingers of his left, Selim walked jauntily through the circle of workers and out towards the exit. Just before the exit, he swung round.
‘Take care. Something bad! Something bad!’
He raised a long, admonitory finger.
Then he hunched his bony shoulders and loped off.
Near the end of the following week, business was so slack one morning that, soon after eleven, Mr Klingsman told Mehmet and Jacek to take their lunch break then instead of waiting for another hour. ‘D’you mind?’ he asked, and both of them, though they thought it far too early, said that they didn’t. Mr Klingsman then said: ‘You d
on’t have to race back. Take your time.’
‘Coming?’ Mehmet asked Jacek.
‘Where?’
‘To pub. Or caff. Where you like.’
‘I have lunch. Sandwich.’
‘Oh, forget about them! Come on!’ He made a beckoning gesture with his head. Then, seeing that Jacek was still reluctant, he said: ‘My treat. I pay.’
‘No, no! You pay too much, pay always.’
‘Come!’
‘OK, I come, I come!’ Jacek had balanced the cost against the pleasure of talking alone to Mehmet. He would have a cup of coffee and a doughnut or a bag of crisps and then, later, he would eat the sandwiches.
It was a fateful decision.
Jacek had wanted to go to the café, since a cup of coffee there cost less than half a pint at the pub and he was in any case nervous of alcohol, remembering how his mortally ill father would fly into terrifying rages after draining glass after glass of vodka kept in a bottle under his sickbed. But Mehmet had insisted, repeating ‘My treat, my treat!’ Jacek had then attempted, as he had so often done in the past, to pay at least for himself; but again, as so often in the past, he had not been successful. There was, to Jacek, something aristocratic about the way in which Mehmet thought nothing of spending money. Jacek found that both attractive and alarming, having been brought up by his mother always to be thrifty. To leave change on the counter of a bar, as Mehmet always did, was to him not merely a waste but a moral lapse.
As they munched their way through the ploughman’s lunches for which Mehmet had also insisted on paying, they talked of Selim. Mehmet, imitating the nasal, near-falsetto voice with remarkable accuracy, repeated that final ‘Something bad! Something bad!’ What could the idiot do? He laughed. Put a spell on them? Jacek wondered aloud what had happened to Selim. No one knew anything about him, he had never made any friends. ‘ He not find it easy get other job,’ Mehmet said. He shook his head and pursed his lips. ‘And he illegal – so – no social security.’ He drew a forefinger across his neck. Then he laughed again.
