by Bali Rai
Sukh looked at Ranjit, who stood with his shoulders squared, ready to fight. ‘Ranjit – what the fuck’s going on?’ he asked, beginning to get worried.
‘Somethin’ happened down the pub last night – between Tej and them wankers.’ He nodded towards Rani’s brother.
‘What?’ repeated Sukh.
‘Tej’s old man is opening up near them Sandhus – in The Shires – and they ain’t having it. That Divy’s been threatening us all over town, man.’
Sukh realized that he already knew about it. Rani had told him. Only it was Sukh’s uncle and not his father who had offended the Sandhus. He shook his head and decided that he would stay out of it. He took a few steps away, only for Ranjit to grab him by the arm.
‘Where you goin’, Sukh?’
‘I ain’t part of this, Ranj. Ain’t my business . . .’
Ranjit spat out the gum he had been chewing. ‘This is our business, Sukh. Bains business.’ The look in his eyes challenged Sukh to show where his loyalties lay.
Sukh shrugged and shook his head. ‘I don’t wanna fight them. What they ever done to me?’ he said.
Before Ranjit could reply a bottle hurtled through the air and caught him on the side of his head, knocking him to the ground. Sukh span round, just in time to catch a bottle in the face. He hit the ground holding his cheek, which felt hot and wet. He looked at his hand and saw the blood. Gazing up he saw a full-scale riot taking place, with thirty or so men involved. He stood up gingerly and felt a shove in the back. He stumbled but stayed upright, turned and saw Manj and Divy going at it, with Divy gaining the upper hand. Manj dropped to his knees after getting a kick in the balls, coughing and retching at the same time. Divy pulled a bottle from his coat and pulled back his arm—
Sukh caught him on the temple, from the side, with a strong right, following it with a short left jab to the back of his head. Divy staggered, dropped the bottle and went down from a stomach punch that flew in from Steve, one of the footballers.
Divy looked up at Sukh, grinning, as police sirens wailed and people ran for cover. ‘You’re dead,’ he told Sukh.
‘I ain’t got nothing against you . . .’ replied Sukh, his hand pressed against the gash in his face.
‘You fucking dog! You throw sly punches and then tell me you don’t mean no harm . . .’ Divy sucked in air.
‘I was trying to stop you. You could have killed Manj . . .’
Divy stood up as policemen ran to the scene.
‘I ain’t got nothing against you, Divy,’ repeated Sukh, as a policeman grabbed him from behind.
‘You’re a fucking Bains,’ spat Divy. ‘That’s enough . . .’
Sukh pictured Rani’s face, heard her words and shook his head. ‘We’re closer than you think,’ he told Divy, who lunged for him, only to be dragged back by two policemen.
‘You an’ me ain’t nothing but enemies, Bains – remember that,’ added Divy as he was dragged away.
Sukh was taken to the Royal Infirmary and stitched up. The gash could have been worse, but he was still going to have to explain what happened to his parents. And, more importantly, to Rani. The police questioned him but didn’t arrest him. They realized that he had been a victim and urged him to tell them who had bottled him. Sukh told them that he hadn’t seen who it was. Asked about Divy, he shook his head. He hadn’t seen Divy until they had started arguing. The argument had been over nothing, just a testosterone-fuelled slanging match. The policeman interviewing Sukh at the hospital had been suspicious, but in the end, five hours after the fight, the doctors allowed him to go home, where he found his parents waiting for him. He deflected their questions too, letting his dad blame Sukh’s cousins, and told them that he had to go to bed: doctor’s orders.
In his room he sat and looked at his mobile, the lights flashing that he had three missed calls and four text messages, all but one from Rani. He wondered what he was going to tell her before deciding that he’d tell the truth. He didn’t want to lie to her, or hide stuff from her. He couldn’t. He picked up a glass of water and swallowed two painkillers, lay back in his bed and closed his eyes, his cheek tingling and itchy underneath the dressing and his mind showing the same three-second clip over and over. Divy, spitting words of hatred, and then a flash of Rani’s smile . . .
RANI
THE FIRST THING I did the next morning was check my mobile, hoping that Sukh had sent me a message. The last one had been sent the previous afternoon, letting me know that he was playing football. I hadn’t heard anything from him since, and I was feeling a bit pissed off. I’d tried to contact him several times but he’d ignored me. Or at least that was how it had felt the previous evening, when I had called Nat and moaned about it. I had these silly thoughts going round in my head – like maybe I had upset him or he’d gone off me for being fat. Nat had told me off for being so insecure, and asked me to consider the possibility that Sukh might have gone out with his friends, got pissed and gone home to sleep it off. It was an explanation that was probably closer to the truth than the one that had kept me awake, worrying about why he hadn’t called me.
Now, I lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling, willing the mobile to ring or at least flash a message at me. Twenty minutes after I had opened my eyes it had done neither. I got out of bed, wondering where Sukh had got to, feeling a little queasy. My stomach was tight and hard, the back of my throat dry. I went to the bathroom and cleaned my teeth, realizing that I needed a towel. I put on a dressing gown and went out into the hallway. Voices, loud and male, greeted me. I could make out my dad and Divy and Gurdip, but there were others too. At least two more voices, raised and argumentative. I grabbed a towel from the airing cupboard and went back into my room, looking at my clock. It was ten on a Sunday morning and my family were arguing downstairs. I picked up my phone. No message. Then I had an awful thought . . . Sukh hadn’t called and my family were downstairs, early on a Sunday . . .
Five minutes later, with my hair hastily tied up and wearing jeans and a T-shirt, I was standing in the hallway, listening to the argument. I edged towards the door to the front living room and pushed it open a little more. The argument seemed to be about a fight of some sort, the voices raging in Punjabi. I pushed the door open fully and walked in. Alongside Divy, Gurdip and my dad were two of my uncles, Sohan and Kewal, and a cousin, all sitting around, not touching the tea and samosas in front of them.
‘GET OUT!’
I jumped, glaring at Divy.
My dad looked at me. ‘Don’t shout at my daughter,’ he said to Divy quietly, before turning to me.
‘Beteh, please leave us alone. Go and help your mother . . .’
I was about to say something, but quickly realized that it would have been a bad move. Instead I stood for a moment and gawped at the bruises on Divy’s face, praying that he hadn’t got them fighting Sukh’s family, but knowing that my prayer was in vain. Why else would my uncles be round so early on a Sunday morning instead of being down at the gurudwara, bragging about how much money they had given to the building fund.
‘Are you deaf?’ spat Divy, getting up and walking towards me, his clothes crumpled and creased, as though he had slept in them.
‘What happened to your—?’ I began, as he pushed me out of the room and shut the door.
I stood in the hallway, fuming, until my mother called me into the kitchen. I called Divy a few names, only for my mum to defend the macho idiot.
‘He is your brother, Rani,’ she told me in Punjabi, as she fried more samosas that weren’t going to be touched.
‘What you frying them for?’ I replied in English. ‘They haven’t touched the last lot.’
My mum ignored me and went about her business. I opened the fridge and poured myself some water.
‘Eat something,’ said my mum, as I emptied my glass.
‘I’m not hungry,’ I said. ‘At least not for samosas. They don’t exactly make a healthy breakfast . . .’
‘Up to you,’ replied my mum, dismiss
ing me with her tone of voice.
‘What’s going on in there?’ I asked her in Punjabi, gesturing to the hallway and beyond.
‘Nothing . . .’
‘And I’m supposed to believe that?’ I said.
‘Family business,’ replied my mum, draining the samosas before pouring more tea into a steel kettle.
‘What business are we in nowadays – one that leaves Divy with bruises all over his face?’
‘Leave it, Rani. It’s for the men to sort out . . .’
I sighed. ‘This is about that feud, isn’t it? With the Bainses?’
My mum looked at me, then looked away before she replied. ‘There was a fight yesterday – at a football match . . .’
I don’t know what my face looked like as I leaned against a worktop, but my mum picked up on it straight away. My stomach was doing its daily ritual of twisting and turning and forcing bile up into my throat.
‘What’s the matter, beteh?’ she asked, a concerned look on her face.
‘Nothing,’ I lied.
‘Rani?’
‘I just feel a bit sick – that’s all. It’s the smell from the frying—’
‘If you will eat English food all the time, what do you expect?’
This time it was my turn to look anywhere but at my mum. I walked over to the kitchen table and sat down, forcing back bile. My head was swimming with thoughts. Sukh hadn’t contacted me – which meant he must be in trouble or something. My brother was walking around in the same clothes he’d been wearing the day before, with a plum-sized knot next to his eye, and my family were at what looked like a war council, with me and my mum banished to the kitchen. Sukh, whose last text had said he was playing football. Sukh, who had reacted in a funny way when he found out that Divy was my brother . . .
Right on cue, Divy walked into the kitchen with my dad, his face set in a frown. Immediately my mum began to fuss over him, in a way she never did with me.
‘Beteh, let me look at your face . . .’ she said, as my dad told her to stop fussing.
‘If he will get into fights then he will get hurt,’ my dad told her in Punjabi.
‘Who did you fight with?’ asked my mum.
Divy pushed her hands away, found a mug and poured himself some spiced tea. ‘No one, Mum – it’s nothing,’ he lied.
My dad looked at me, tried to smile and then turned to my mum. ‘With Resham’s boy,’ he told her, his voice soft and calm.
I swallowed some more bile and tried not to let it show in my face. Not easy to do, believe me.
‘Resham,’ replied my mum, more as a statement than a question.
My dad’s face clouded over, his eyes telling me that his thoughts were far away somewhere. My mum walked over to Divy, who had joined me at the table, his mouth open as he chewed his samosa. I tried not to look at him.
‘Which one?’ my mum asked Divy, who didn’t say anything.
My dad replied for him. ‘The youngest one . . . Sukhjit . . .’ he said.
I nearly threw up on the spot, fighting to hold it back. I stood up, ready to make a run for the bathroom, but with my stomach under control again. I swallowed hard, realizing for myself that even though my father hadn’t spoken to Sukh’s dad for years, the Punjabi grapevine meant that both our families knew everything about each other.
‘Hai Rabbah – will these Bains never leave us alone?’ my mum whispered to God.
‘When they learn their lesson,’ spat Divy. ‘That boy learned his yesterday—’
‘And what if the police had arrested you?’ replied my dad.
Arrested for what? I looked at my brother.
‘He ain’t dead – it was just a scratch . . .’ he said, getting up from his chair.
I stood up at the same time, mumbled something about feeling sick and went up to my bathroom as quickly as I could, reaching the bowl just in time, as the voices began to rise again downstairs and my brother and father rejoined the other men.
After I had cleaned myself up I sent Sukh another message. No greeting. No declarations of love. Just a simple text.
SUKH
SUKH FELT HIS left cheek tingling and itching beneath the dressing. He wanted to touch it. To scratch it. Instead he opened and closed his jaw and instantly wished that he hadn’t as tears flooded to his eyes. His left eye twitched slightly and then the pain calmed down a little. He was going to have to take another painkiller. He hadn’t had a chance to call Rani either, but that would have to wait. He had some explaining to do.
He looked over at his dad, who was busy reading the paper, ignoring him. Making a point. Sukh tried to explain again. That it wasn’t his fault. That he had been acting as a peacemaker. His dad looked at him over the top of his paper.
‘You are an idiot,’ he said, repeating the same words he had used all morning.
‘Dad – I was trying to break it up . . .’ protested Sukh, as loudly as he could manage.
His dad folded and rolled up the paper and gave Sukh his full attention. ‘You are scarred for life, beteh,’ he said, using the paper to gesture towards his son.
‘Nah – it ain’t that bad . . . it’ll fade,’ reassured Sukh.
‘Why did you going in first place?’
‘I didn’t go anywhere, Dad – I was already there. It was after our game ended. I went over to see the seniors play with Ranjit and everyone—’
‘Tej and bloody Manjit? Drunks? Some game you watching . . .’
Sukh touched the dressing lightly as his mum walked into the room with a cup of coffee for his dad. She shook her head at Sukh and sat down as his dad continued his lecture, switching to Punjabi.
‘Time and time again I tell you to stay away from those two and you do your best to make sure that you get into as much trouble as possible. Well, their fathers are going to be here soon and we are going to get this sorted out—’
‘Dad – it was—’
‘No!’ interrupted his dad, slapping the rolled-up paper against the coffee table, spilling the fresh cup that his wife had made him.
‘Fucking— I try to hide this bloody mess from you . . . protect you . . .!’ he shouted in broken English.
Sukh rarely heard his dad swear and knew that he was upset and angry. He looked at his mum, who seemed to be as angry as his dad.
‘What you young ’uns know ’bout it, eh? Bastard playing games – that’s what you all doing. This not a game, Sukhjit.’
‘Look at your face, beteh,’ added his mum, with a touch more warmth.
Sukh thought of Rani and agreed with his dad. Silently and for different reasons. But an agreement all the same.
‘You begin fight all over again – when it should be putting in past where it belonging . . .’
Sukh felt himself getting angry as his cheek did its tingling thing and his left eye twitched some more. He listened as his dad went on, trying to calm himself and failing.
‘It was Divy Sandhu!’ he shouted, cutting his dad off midstream, not expecting the reaction that he got.
Resham Bains sat and stared out at nothing, his mouth slightly open, his eyes filling up. He looked at his son, blinked back tears and looked away again. When he eventually spoke it was in a whisper. ‘Mohinder’s son,’ he said, not waiting for a reply.
Sukh thought about saying yes but caught himself. Did he really want his father to know that he had learned the real story of the feud from Parvy? He worked out that the answer was no. He had a strong feeling that his dad was going to tell him about it anyway. And he was right.
‘Mohinder Sandhu was my childhood friend,’ began Sukh’s dad. ‘My brother . . .’
He told Sukh most of the story, much the same one as Parvy had told, all the while stopping to apologize to Sukh for hiding the truth from him. ‘I wanted you to grow up without all of this,’ he reasoned.
When the story was told, Resham Bains looked at his youngest son and then let a tear fall. Sukh swallowed hard. He’d never seen his dad react to anything with tears. It was a stra
nge moment, like a new thread linking the two of them together, one that went beyond the normal father–son bonds. Sukh felt his wound and then opened his mouth and let words fall out, not thinking or caring about the consequences.
‘I know his daughter. Rani.’
He expected a reaction but didn’t get one. His dad shed a few more tears and continued talking, ignoring what Sukh had just said. Sukh looked to his mother, who frowned at him, rose from her seat and left the room. Sukh realized that she had taken in what he’d admitted – not that it was much. He turned to his dad.
‘Why can’t this feud stay buried in the past, where it belongs?’ he asked.
‘Beteh – I have asked myself the same question over and over. Both our families lost children. I lost two brothers that day, Billah and Mohinder. But your uncles and cousins continue to let the past cloud the future too.’
‘But why continue the feud? Can’t you just talk to Mohinder?’
His dad looked at him with resignation etched across his face. ‘And say what, Sukhjit? That I am sorry that his father killed my brother?’
‘But it means that the feud will just go on . . .’ argued Sukh.
‘It has been going for too long, beteh. Nothing can bring our families together now.’
Sukh thought about Rani again. What if there was something . . . ? ‘Dad – what if there was something that could do it – help to sort out the problems . . . ?’
His dad sighed. ‘There is nothing, Sukhjit. Nothing . . .’ he replied, shaking his head.
Sukh was about to reply when his mobile bleeped a message at him. He picked it up and read the words on the tiny screen.
RANI
‘DOES IT HURT?’
Sukh shook his head and tried to smile. The effort made him wince and I could tell that he wasn’t telling the truth. It had to hurt. It was horrible.
