by Bali Rai
It took me about fifteen minutes to stop thinking that way and by then I was crying again. I couldn’t understand why anyone would hurt another human being in such a way. What happened to their humanity, their conscience, when they hit someone with a baseball bat, knowing that it could kill them? What did it make them feel – pride, honour, satisfaction? It was just so warped.
Dean was at the hospital when I arrived, and after I had seen Tyrone, he took me to one side and told me what had happened. Tyrone had woken briefly, enough to speak to the police. Only he hadn’t seen who hurt him. It happened so quickly that he didn’t even have time to react. Dean told me that the police were on to it but I had the feeling that he was holding something back from me. I knew in my heart that it was the Desi Posse who had beaten up Tyrone. It had to be. It would have been too much of a coincidence otherwise. And I don’t believe in coincidences. Everything happens for a reason, no matter how strange it is.
When I asked Dean if it had been the DP, he shrugged and looked away. Then he looked back and told me not to worry about it.
‘If it was them – then they’re dealt with, believe …’ he said.
‘But if you go after them, things will just get worse,’ I argued.
Dean shrugged again. ‘Worse than this?’ he asked. ‘That’s my blood lying there – I ain’t leavin’ it.’
‘It’ll just keep going on and on,’ I said, begging him to leave it alone, but Dean just shook his head.
‘This is different,’ he told me. ‘It ain’t like they just smacked him about a bit – they could have killed him. Someone has got to stop them fools before they do kill a man.’
‘But that’s the police – that’s their job,’ I pleaded.
‘Fat chance of that,’ replied Dean, before telling me to go back to the ward.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked.
‘To talk to your brother,’ he told me. ‘And have a fag …’
Back in the side room where they were keeping Tyrone I saw my dad talking to Uncle Mikey and Tyrone’s dad.
‘They’re gonna go after the people that did this,’ I told them. ‘David and Dean …’
‘No they aren’t,’ said Uncle Mikey sternly. ‘This ends right now.’
Tyrone’s dad stood up and added his agreement too. ‘I don’t care what’s happened,’ he said. ‘From now on – this is over.’
My dad eyed me suspiciously. ‘Do you know something, Sim?’ he asked.
‘Tyrone’s been getting grief from an Asian gang at school,’ I admitted.
‘For going out with you?’ asked Uncle Mikey.
‘Yeah, but they had a beef before that too.’
‘The fight outside the school …’ said my dad.
‘That big gang thing?’ asked Tyrone’s dad.
I nodded. ‘Tyrone was involved,’ I told them all. ‘He didn’t start it – it was the Desi Posse—’
‘The who?’ asked his dad, looking confused.
‘It’s a long story,’ I said, before telling them everything that had been going on.
It wasn’t that I wanted to stitch up Tyrone, Dean and David. I just didn’t want them to try and get revenge for Tyrone. That would make things worse.
SIMRAN
One week later
THE HOSPITAL HAD let Tyrone go after two days but he was quite groggy and his face was still badly swollen. I’d been to see him every day and he’d even managed to start joking again, talking about how much he liked his new face. Sitting on the sofa, I smiled to myself at the thought of his stupid jokes just as David walked into the living room.
‘What you grinning at, you weirdo?’ he asked.
‘Your face, your hair and mostly the way you think that those jeans go with that top,’ I teased.
‘Shut up, you cow,’ he replied, sitting down opposite me.
‘Where are Mum and Dad?’
‘Out somewhere …’
‘So it’s you, me and the demon child from hell.’
‘Yep,’ replied David, turning on the telly.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me about Tyrone?’ I said.
‘No point,’ he told me. ‘You’ll tell me anyway.’
‘Knob …’
‘I didn’t know they’d hit him there,’ joked my brother.
‘Oh, don’t be a twa—’
The doorbell rang just as I swore at him.
‘Who’s that?’ he asked, looking pissed off.
‘If you answer it, you’ll find out,’ I told him.
‘You get it,’ he said. ‘I can’t be arsed.’
‘Yes you can,’ I said, getting up. ‘You are an arse …’
I walked into the hallway, opened the door and nearly fell over with shock. Uncle Malkit was standing in the doorway, and behind him was my grandad. My uncle looked me up and down in disgust and then spoke to his father.
‘I’ll be back at nine o’clock. Be ready,’ he told him.
With that and another disgusted glance in my direction, Uncle Malkit walked back down the drive to his shiny new Mercedes penis extension. I looked at my grandad, waiting for the lecture to begin – maybe the odd swear word or two – but he just smiled at me and walked into the house.
‘Making me the cup tea, daughter,’ he said, in his funny English.
‘Hi, Baba-ji,’ I said, raising an eyebrow. ‘How are you?’
‘Can’t complaining. ‘He grinned.’ Ju been the naughty girl though, innit?’
Here we go, I thought to myself, only for the old man to surprise me so much I nearly went into shock. Instead of telling me off he grinned again and then winked at me!
I showed him into the kitchen, where he sat down at the table and asked me where the boys were.
‘Here’s one of them,’ I replied, as David came into the kitchen.
‘Gramps – what you doin’ here?’ David asked.
‘I come to kick your backside, boy,’ replied Gramps.
‘Very funny,’ said David, giving me a look that said, What the hell is going on here then?
‘Where is your dad?’ he asked, this time in Punjabi.
‘He’s gone out with Mum,’ I told him, also in Punjabi.
My grandad nodded and then motioned for me to come sit down. ‘Good,’ he said, continuing in his mother tongue. ‘I wanted to talk to you two anyway.’
‘Do you want me to drag Jay away from his computer?’ asked David.
As he shook his head, I wondered who’d spiked up his short grey hair for him. It looked like he’d been using hair wax, the trendy old git. His clothes were good too –simple beige trousers and a nice cut to his white shirt. I was glad to see he wasn’t wearing a shell suit like my uncle, although I wasn’t too sure about his bright white trainers.
‘Maybe later,’ he told David. ‘For now I want you to tell me what has been going on.’
‘Well, for starters,’ I began, in my best Punjabi, ‘you’re supposed to be on hunger strike—’
‘Heh?’
I shook my head and smiled as he crossed and uncrossed his skinny legs.
‘I knew it couldn’t be true,’ I told him, leaning across and kissing him on the cheek. ‘You’re too lovely to be like them …’
He shrugged. ‘Let’s see, shall we?’ he said.
* * *
I told him everything, exactly as it had happened, including all the trouble with the Desi Posse and with my uncles. He sat and nodded his head every now and then but he didn’t reply until I had finished. When I’d explained everything, he asked me if I was OK.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Tyrone’s much better now and I’m ignoring all the things they say to me at school.’
‘Don’t listen to them,’ he told me. ‘They’re all stupid.’
I looked over at David to register my shock. I’d been expecting my grandad to have the same reaction as my uncles – not because I thought he was like them; because of what they had said. It had obviously all been a lie.
‘Why didn’t you come to see us,�
�� I asked, ‘after you found out? They told us that you were angry and that you wouldn’t eat …’
He swore in Punjabi.
‘Baba-ji!’ I said, embarrassed.
‘Sorry,’ he replied. ‘Now where’s this cup of tea?’
Later on, as we sat in the living room, he told us a story about working on his market stall, way back in 1979, when my dad was nine. David and I sat and listened in wonder, like little kids do when you read to them, as Gramps told his tale.
CENTRAL POLICE STATION, LEICESTER – NOVEMBER 1979
GULBIR SINGH GAVE the policeman a dirty look as he took in what he’d just been told.
‘This ain’t India,’ continued the policeman, sneering in the same way the skinheads had done.
Gulbir had arrived at the police station with Mr Abbas to try and help the three black men who had come to their aid earlier in the evening. Over and over again he had told the police that the men they’d arrested had probably saved his life and that of Mr Abbas. But again and again he’d met a wall of indifference and outright racism. Even the head policeman, the one with all the stripes, had smirked and asked him when he was thinking of going back ‘home’. Exasperated, Gulbir walked back to Mr Abbas and took a seat in the waiting area.
‘What can you do,’ asked Mr Abbas through a swollen jaw.
‘Who knows?’ replied Gulbir.
‘They are the same as the NF,’ added Mr Abbas. ‘In uniforms …’
‘They say that the kaleh started it and that they are going to press charges,’ Gulbir told his friend.
‘With which witness?’ asked Mr Abbas. ‘Anyone who saw can tell them what really happened.’
‘We are no more than animals to them,’ replied Gulbir bitterly. ‘Whether we come from India, Pakistan or Jamaica.’
‘Inshallah – if I had the words,’ said Mr Abbas, ‘I would tell them where they could go.’
Gulbir fought back an urge to smash the police station to pieces, the rage in his chest squeezing his heart like a powerful claw. ‘What can we do?’ he asked through clenched teeth.
It was forty minutes later that several fellow stallholders arrived, most of them white men. Gulbir saw them walk in and raised an eyebrow. What was going on?
‘Where are they, Mr Singh?’ asked Mr Davis, whose second-hand stall stood three pitches down from Gulbir’s.
‘Who?’ asked Gulbir.
‘The black lads.’
In his broken English, Gulbir explained to the stallholders what had happened since he’d arrived at the police station.
‘Sod that,’ exclaimed Mr Davis, marching over to the reception desk.
Gulbir watched as Mr Davis demanded to see the person in charge and stood up, amazed, when his shouting and cursing made the man who had told Gulbir to go back ‘home’ hang his head and nod his consent. As the rest of the white stallholders added their testimony to what Mr Davis was saying, the head officer turned the colour of a beetroot and then, within ten minutes, the three black men were in the waiting area with them, free to go.
‘That’s one up his arse,’ grinned Mr Davis, as Gulbir thanked him. ‘Fascist stormtrooper …’
Outside, as snow began to fall in thick flakes, Gulbir opened the door to his van and ushered Mr Abbas and two of the black men in.
‘Hurry,’ he said. ‘This weather will be the death of us.’
The taller of the two black men, who had said his name was Norris, grinned. ‘Seen, Missa Singh. It too raas col’ in dis yah country,’ he said.
Gulbir smiled back, remembering the phrase he’d heard so many black men use – a thank-you maybe – not that he knew for sure that it was.
‘Rass class …’ he told Norris, unable to work out why Norris burst into laughter and clapped an arm around his shoulder.
‘Easy, Missa Singh!’
Gulbir fired up his van and turned on the radio, as his son Mandip’s favourite song, ‘OK Fred’, came on for maybe the fourth time that day. Gulbir smiled.
SIMRAN
‘I LEARNED A good lesson that day,’ he told us as he finished his story. ‘People are good or they are bad. Their colour isn’t the important thing. It’s what is in their hearts. Tell me, Simran, does this kalah of yours – does he have a good heart?’
I smiled and said that he did. The best.
‘Then I am not angry. I am an old man and if I wanted my family to only mix with Indians I would have stayed in India. You are English children – that is the way things are. When I left India I did things my parents and my family did not wish of me – but I was young and the world was mine and I did what I wanted to do. You are the same and I won’t take that from you. You’re only here for a short time, beteh. Enjoy it …’
I stood up, went over to my grandad and gave him the biggest hug I had ever given anybody.
‘Enough!’ he said. ‘You’re crying on my new shirt.’
I smiled. ‘I don’t care.’
‘Now, where is this son of mine and his lovely wife?’ he said, picking up his mug. ‘Any chance of next cup tea?’ he added in English.
‘Anything for you, Baba-ji,’ I told him, taking the mug from his hand.
David grinned. ‘What was the name of that song?’ he asked Gramps.
‘Which one?’
‘Dad’s favourite one.’
Gramps smiled. ‘“OK Fred”,’ he replied, in his heavily accented English.
‘Do you know who it’s by?’ asked David.
‘Ki pattah?’ said Gramps, admitting that he didn’t know.
David grinned again. ‘No worries,’ he told us, before running off upstairs, the nutter.
My parents turned up about an hour later and my dad was almost as surprised to see his father as I had been.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked in Punjabi.
‘You haven’t been to see me,’ said my grandad. ‘So I thought I’d come to you—’
‘But Malkit said that you were angry with us and—’
‘I’ve already had this conversation with my granddaughter,’ he replied. ‘She can tell you what I said. But ask yourself this, son. If I was angry with you, would I be here – drinking your expensive whisky?’ Gramps winked at me.
‘But you’re not drinking whisky …’ said my dad, falling into his trap.
‘Only because you haven’t offered me any,’ he said.
My mum grinned and asked him if he was staying for dinner as Dad went to get his private stash of whisky.
‘Malkit said he’d come and get me at nine,’ replied Gramps. ‘Although I don’t really want him to …’
‘Why don’t you stay for a few days?’ asked my mum.
‘But what about my clothes?’ he asked.
‘I’ll go and get them for you,’ replied my mum. ‘It’ll be a pleasure …’
This time she winked at me. The chance to get one over on Aunt Pritam was too good to pass up.
‘Why don’t you call them now – tell them that you’re staying,’ added my mum. ‘I’m sure they won’t mind.’
Gramps eyed my mum with suspicion. ‘Are you trying to shame Pritam?’ he asked.
‘No, no,’ lied my mum.
‘You should,’ replied Gramps. ‘She’s an evil witch.’
We all burst into laughter as my dad returned with the whisky.
‘What’s so funny?’ he asked, looking confused, as David came into the kitchen with a CD in his hands.
‘Hey, Dad,’ he said, putting the CD into the little player on the worktop. ‘Remember this?’
As the song ‘OK Fred’ began to filter through the speakers, Gramps grinned.
‘Oh my God!’ said my dad. ‘Who told you about that?’ But he was already looking at my gramps.
‘Amazing what you can find on the Internet,’ David told us.
SIMRAN
IT TOOK JUST five days for everything to turn to shit. Tyrone had recovered enough to want to go out for a drink so I organized it. I rang Paula and told David and Dean that we
’d meet at a Nando’s restaurant and then go for a few drinks. They were up for it and by the Friday evening I was all happy. I rang Lisa too, and told her to come along. She jumped at the chance and came round to mine early so that we could do our hair and get dressed up. As we tried on different outfits, I had the giggles and I couldn’t work out why. I think I was just happy, especially now I knew my grandad was on my side. It meant a lot to have him on board, although my uncles were still angry.
The police turned up at just after half-six in the evening, asking to speak to David and Dean. They’d been round to Dean’s house first and Uncle Mikey had told them that he was at ours. When I heard all the commotion I went downstairs to find out what was going on. The police officers were in the living room, a man and a woman, and they were questioning the lads. I walked in as David denied that he’d done anything.
‘So where were you last night?’ asked the policeman.
‘Out … ‘replied Dean, as the doorbell went again.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
My mum told me to be quiet as the policewoman spoke up. I turned to see Dean’s dad come in, a worried look on his face.
‘What time were you out?’ asked the policewoman.
‘I dunno,’ said David. ‘Went out ’bout seven and got in round eleven – why?’
‘Were you anywhere near Evington Valley Road – the youth club?’ asked the man.
‘Nah – we was over by Queen’s Road an’ that,’ replied Dean.
I looked at them both, convinced they were making it up. They seemed to know what to say to every question. But I still didn’t know what had happened.
‘Will somebody tell me what’s going on?’ I insisted.
