Rani and Sukh

by Bali Rai

  ‘Everything she does is practice,’ I told him, grinning to myself.

  We stood and chatted for another ten minutes and then Nat and me had to go off to English. Sukh leaned in and gave me a kiss on the cheek as we made to go and I went bright red. Nat was about to wind me up when two Punjabi girls I knew walked by.

  ‘Eh! Check her out. Ain’t you got no shame, sister?’ one of them shouted.

  The other one smiled slyly. ‘Bet your dad don’t know, innit?’ she said to me.

  I was about to reply but Nat butted in – just like she always does. ‘Maybe, if you ever get rid of that acne, Jaspreet, some boy will like you too.’

  ‘Piss off, you goreeh slag!’ answered Jaspreet.

  ‘Then again, who’d want to touch a vicious little cow like you?’ continued Nat, totally unfazed.

  The two girls turned to me. ‘You best start stickin’ wid your own, you know. These white girls gonna get you into shit, man.’

  ‘Get lost.’

  ‘Won’t be saying that next time I see your mum, Rani. Checking boys an’ that. Your dad’s gonna kill you.’

  I wanted to come back with some clever reply but what she’d just said scared me. I mean, what if she did tell my mum, the little bitch? I was dead.

  Sukh, who’d just listened up to that point, stepped in. ‘You wanna know why neither of you has got a man?’ he told them. ‘It’s ’cos you’re both so nasty. Always stirring up shit for everyone else.’

  ‘You must like them fat, innit, Sukh,’ replied Jaspreet, sneering.

  ‘Nah – I don’t think I’ve ever touched your mum,’ said Sukh. Jaspreet’s eyes hit the floor. But he didn’t stop there. ‘You two will live your whole lives and never be as beautiful as Rani. And the saddest thing is, you know it. That’s why you chat the shit that you do. You talk about “sister” this an’ “sister” that, but then you slag the other Asian girls off. No wonder nobody likes either of you.’

  Nat took hold of my hand and smiled at me, motioning towards Sukh with her eyes. She knew that I was funny about my body. There were times when I felt like a whale and times when I saw what was really there. I knew I wasn’t really fat, but then again . . .

  The two mouthy girls walked off swearing but not replying to Sukh. As I watched them leave, upset at being called fat, I wanted to cry. I mean, I know that I had curves, but fat . . . ?

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Sukh said to me. ‘You’re beautiful.’

  ‘He’s right, babe,’ agreed Nat. ‘I mean, those two look like they’re walking on twigs for legs. At least you’ve got tits and a bum. They look like little boys.’

  I looked at Sukh and then at Nat but I still started to cry. Sukh looked at Nat and then at me. He put his arms around me and whispered in my ear.

  ‘Hey, don’t cry. You are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. They’re just jealous of you.’

  And then just for good measure and knowing that it would cheer me up, Natalie hugged us both and started to call the two girls really nasty names in the broken Punjabi and Hindi that I had taught her over the years. ‘Ben Chod, kootie, khungeriah . . .’

  I looked at Sukh and then at Nat and started laughing through my tears.

  RANI

  ‘CAN YOU MAKE me the cup of tea, Rani?’

  It was a rainy Saturday afternoon and my dad was sitting watching television. Watching but not really seeing. There was some dodgy seventies crime show on and I was bored. I headed into the kitchen and put a pan of water on to boil. The tea my dad wanted was traditional Punjabi tea, made by boiling water and then adding tea bags and letting it simmer and stew for about half an hour with a handful of cloves and some cinnamon bark. Once the liquid had simmered I added about a cupful of milk and loads of sugar and brought it back to the boil. Outside, the rain was coming down in sheets and pounding against the kitchen window so hard I thought the window would break. The sky was the colour of slate and there were huge ominous-looking clouds gathering, all varying shades of grey.

  I poured out the tea and went back into the living room. My brothers were attending to the family business, a hosiery factory and a couple of retail outlets in town. My dad had all but retired and had let my brothers take over the business he had built from scratch since coming to Leicester from the Punjab, back in the sixties. He had come over nearly ten years before my mum, which was why they had had children so late. I was the last in the line, born seven years after Gurdip, the youngest of my brothers. Being so much younger than my brothers and being a girl pretty much guaranteed that I got left out of family stuff, unless it was going to boring weddings. They never talked business around me, assuming, correctly, that I couldn’t care less. Most of my friends’ parents were much younger than mine and sometimes I wished that my parents were younger too. Maybe they’d be less traditional. But then again, there was probably nothing that would make my parents the liberal dream that I wanted them to be. It just wasn’t in their nature.

  I was waiting for my mum to come back. She had nipped to a neighbour’s to pick up some material for a wedding outfit she was making. I had a plan that involved telling her that I had to go and get something from town and I needed her to say I could. I know it sounds sad but I had to have permission and a good reason to go into town. My parents weren’t happy about me going on my own, not even with Natalie. Especially not with Natalie. I had it all worked out. My success at school depended on a trip to the stationer’s in town and my mobile phone company were ripping me off so I needed to talk to them too. I kind of forgot to mention that Sukh had sent me a text message telling me that he was in town and asking could I meet up with him?

  My dad yawned as I passed him his tea and then he looked me up and down before speaking in Punjabi. ‘Haven’t you got any work to do?’ he said.

  ‘No, ji,’ I told him, being respectful as always.

  ‘No homework from school? No housework? It’s not good for a girl to just sit around doing nothing. It doesn’t look good, Rani.’

  I sighed and said that I’d try to find something to do. I was just walking out of the living room when my mum came in through the front door.

  ‘Mum, I need to go into town,’ I said in English.

  My mum, dressed in a traditional Punjabi suit, looked worn out. The flecks of grey in her pulled-back hair were growing more prominent each week. Her face looked drawn too.

  ‘Are you feeling OK?’ I asked as she walked into the kitchen.

  ‘You’re not a goreeh yet,’ she told me in Punjabi. ‘Speak the language you were born to speak.’

  I forgot about enquiring after her welfare and told her about the phone company and the stationery I needed.

  ‘Every week you have something else to do in town. Go on, go if you have to, but if I hear that you’re messing about like those other girls . . .’

  ‘I’m not, Mum – I promise.’

  The ‘other girls’ my mum was talking about didn’t exist as individuals that she actually knew. The phrase was a collective shorthand for all the ills of western society – bad girls who tried to be English and went out with boys and got pregnant. Smoked like men and drank like them too. The kind of girls who were the subjects of gossip between the older women at the gurudwara and all the family gatherings that occurred – weddings, parties and even funerals. The girls who ran off with Muslim boys or left home and ended up in council flats, leaving their family izzat in the gutter. There were countless stories about such girls and my mum was always warning me about the consequences of ‘messing about’, as she put it. To call my home life restrictive was not even half way to the truth. I felt like I was living in a open prison: I was allowed out but always had to return at the end of the day. It’s a bit like caging a hungry animal and placing a bowl of food just out of reach. Not that I was hungry or an animal, but you know what I mean. Once the animal gets out it wants all the food it can get – just to make up for being deprived previously.

  I went up to my bedroom and sent Sukh a text
back, arranging to meet him in town. Somewhere away from the main shopping centres where my brothers would be working in the shops we owned. I really didn’t want them to see me with Sukh, especially not Divy, my eldest brother, who I didn’t get on with too well. I chose an area called The Lanes – a mish-mash of narrow streets and alleyways that housed trendy little boutiques and coffee shops and bars. There was a café bar that had opened earlier in the year, and Natalie’s sister Jasmine worked there. I wanted to be able to just sit down and talk to Sukh without worrying about who might see us. The bar had a nice dimly lit section at the back where you could watch the world go by without anyone noticing you. Natalie and me spent countless afternoons in there hassling Jasmine for free coffees and, if we were feeling naughty, a sneaky tequila or vodka. Not that we drank much. Just every now and then.

  I got to the bar before Sukh and ordered a coffee. Jasmine was due back from a break so I went and sat near the door, so that Sukh would see me when he came in. I didn’t have to wait long. He was right on time, which is an attribute that I like. He smiled when he saw me and I stood up as he approached, ready to give him a hug and a kiss. On the lips. I felt a bit self-conscious as I did it, even though the place was empty apart from another couple and an Asian guy who was reading the Guardian and drinking a beer. But Sukh kissed me back and then touched my cheek lightly, smiling and looking into my eyes. I shivered and then my heart skipped another beat. There was something about the way he looked at me that made me feel warm inside. Soppy, I know. But true.

  I noticed his hair. ‘What have you done to your hair?’

  ‘Had it cut – why, don’t you like it?’ he replied, running his hand through what was left of it.

  It was shaved short to his head and on most guys it would have looked thuggish but with his big brown eyes and friendly smile it just looked really neat and sharp, despite the rain.

  ‘No, no. It’s lovely,’ I assured him.

  ‘Only I can go back and get the girl who cut it to stick the bits back on if you like.’

  I smiled and called him an arse and then I asked him what he wanted to drink. He looked around and then straight at me. I shivered again and then told myself to get it together. I mean, really.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ he said.

  ‘No – don’t be macho about it. What do you want?’

  ‘A coffee then. Black.’

  ‘I’ll just order it.’

  I walked over to the bar and saw Jasmine behind it, emptying bags of change into one of the tills. Jasmine was shorter than Nat but even more beautiful if that was possible. She had shoulder-length brown hair that she was growing out and olive skin with sparkling green and hazel eyes the same colour as mine. She always looked wonderful too, immaculately turned out and always well dressed. She saw me and smiled.

  ‘Hey, babe – how are you?’ she asked, coming over.

  ‘I’m fine. In here with my man,’ I replied, a feeling of warmth coming over me as I said the words ‘my man’. I’d never been able to say that before.

  ‘The one Nat keeps going on about?’

  ‘Yeah – he’s over there.’ I nodded in Sukh’s direction.

  Jasmine looked over to Sukh and then back at me. ‘Very nice. Has he got a brother?’

  I laughed and ordered Sukh’s drink. Jasmine told me to go and sit down.

  ‘I’ll bring it over when it’s ready.’

  When she eventually walked over Sukh smiled at her and said hello. I watched her walk away in her blue jeans and red T-shirt with an Elvis Presley motif and wished that I could wear my clothes as well as she did. Sukh watched her too.

  ‘Do you think she’s pretty?’ I asked him, waiting to see how he would react. Was he going to lie and say no because he thought I’d get upset or was he going to be honest?

  He smiled and raised a single eyebrow at me. ‘She’s beautiful, but I’m not here to talk about her. I’m here to be with you.’

  Passed with honours.

  We spent about two hours talking about everything and anything. I told him about my parents and how I’d had to lie to them about coming into town. I told him about my three brothers, Divy, Raj and Gurdip, who were all really traditional when it came to me.

  ‘They gonna beat me up if they see us together,’ he said, smiling to himself.

  ‘That’s exactly what they would do too – so don’t be messing me about, boy.’

  ‘Like I would,’ he said, before telling me about his own family and his sister Parvy, who owned a flat in Leicester but was working in New York – talk about cool.

  ‘She gave me the keys to her flat before she went. I go over and water the plants and that,’ he told me.

  ‘She gave you the keys?’ I said, imagining wild parties.

  ‘Yeah – why not?’ replied Sukh, looking a little hurt. ‘I’m very responsible. Ain’t like I take my mates round. I just chill out there when I need to get away from the house.’

  ‘That’s really nice of her,’ I said quickly. I hadn’t meant to imply that he was untrustworthy. It was just a bit different, that’s all. Different and very promising, I thought to myself.

  ‘You wanna go see it?’ asked Sukh, smiling.

  ‘Erm, yes, I’d love to,’ I replied.

  ‘Cool. It’s only down King Street. Drink up and we’ll walk over. I need to water her plants anyway.’

  I looked at my watch and panicked. ‘What? Now?’ I stuttered, instantly embarrassed at my reaction.

  ‘Yeah – why not? Don’t worry, Rani – I don’t mean to . . . You know – not that. Just want you to see it.’

  ‘I didn’t think that, Sukh,’ I told him. ‘I just can’t. Not today. I told my mum I’d only be a couple of hours. I’ll have to go and see Raj in the shop – get him to give me a lift home.’

  Sukh looked like he was going to try and persuade me to go with him. Or so I thought. But in the end he smiled and walked some of the way with me.

  ‘You don’t mind?’ I asked him, worried that he might be disappointed.

  ‘Not at all. There’ll be other times.’

  ‘Call me later then?’

  He smiled and planted a big kiss on my lips. ‘It’s weird but I can’t not call you. It’s like I can’t stop thinking about you when I’m not with you.’

  Now, some girls I know would have run a mile if he had said that to them – called him clingy or something similar. But the idea that he thought about me as much as I thought about him made me feel good inside. I smiled like the Cheshire Cat and kissed him back.

  ‘You’re doing well, young man,’ I told him jokingly. ‘Keep it up and you never know . . .’

  I floated off towards my dad’s shop without a care in the world.

  RANI

  ‘WHERE YOU GOIN’ now?’ asked my brother Gurdip as I checked my hair in the hall mirror.

  ‘What’s it got to do with you?’ I said, picking up my bag and heading into the lounge, where Divy was watching telly and drinking beer.

  I looked at him and felt like shaking my head. Gangster wannabe. Gurdip, who had followed me, had three days’ worth of stubble on his face and his belly was hanging over his shiny tracksuit bottoms, which he wore with a sweatshirt that was two sizes too small. And to cap it off the shirt said LOOK BUT DON’T TOUCH. Yeah – as if.

  ‘Everything, innit,’ Gurdip told me. ‘I’m responsible for you while Mum and Dad are in Birmingham.’ He eyed my bag with suspicion.

  ‘Ain’t you got nothing better to do?’ I asked him.

  My two eldest brothers were married but Gurdip was still single and lived at home with us. Not that Divy and Raj lived far away – they’d both bought houses on the same street.

  My parents were away and I was on my way to see Sukh. We’d been together for nearly six months now and saw each other regularly at school and as often as I could manage it outside. It was hard because my brothers watched me like hawks, on the orders of my dad. To me it was just another example of my macho brothers’ idea of responsib
ility and of my father’s hypocrisy: my stupid brothers could do what they wanted, even when they were younger, but I had to be home by set times and couldn’t go to parties and stuff. Being a Punjabi girl with parents like mine isn’t easy, believe me.

  ‘Watch your mouth, Rani. You need to get some respect—’ warned Gurdip, stifling a belch.

  ‘Yeah – for me,’ I replied instantly.

  But Gurdip either didn’t hear what I said or chose to ignore it. Instead he tapped his watch and looked across at Divy. ‘You best be back by five – wherever you goin’. Don’t make me have to call you or they’ll be trouble, innit.’

  ‘I think you mean “there will”, not “they will”,’ I replied.

  ‘Don’t push it, Rani. You ain’t no goreeh,’ said Divy, getting involved just to wind me up.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ I said, dismissing him with a wave of my hand.

  ‘An’ you best not be getting up to no good with that dutty white gal,’ added Divy.

  ‘She ain’t dirty and last I checked you weren’t a Jamaican, so what’s with the accent?’ I glared at him.

  ‘Seen her with some Indian guy, innit, kissing like she ain’t got no shame, man. Anyhow, I hear about you doin’ that shit – you’re dead.’

  Sukh’s face flashed through my mind and my stomach knotted a little. I walked out of the house, calling my brothers all the names I could think of, muttering under my breath like some mad woman. The bus took ages to get into town from Oadby. The main road was clogged with traffic because there was a race meeting and, further into town, a demonstration against the city council.

  At the train station I spotted an uncle of mine standing by his cab talking to other men in turbans. Seeing a member of my family made me think about what Divy had said and what would happen if I got caught with Sukh. I had such a large family that the chances of being seen by some aunt or cousin were quite high. But in a way the threat of being caught out made it all seem so much more intense. Even though Sukh was from the same background as me and everything, I would still get murdered by my dad if someone caught us together. It didn’t matter that he was a Punjabi, he was still a boy! And the only time I was supposed to even begin to think about boys or men was on the day that I acted like a good Punjabi girl and married some fat, hairy bloater, chosen for me by a panel of haggard matchmakers who always smelled of onions and garlic and turned up at every Punjabi social occasion. I doubt my dad could even imagine us kissing or anything else. It was the stuff of his nightmares.