1.3
It took an hour and a half for the rain to cease, stopping almost as suddenly as it had started. She ached now, but she had to move on or else she would remain there all night. Her feet scratched, stung, and now drenched as well as freezing cold, carried her onwards, although she had forgotten the direction from which she had come. As she groped blindly through the darkness, the vegetation soaked her salwar trousers, chilling her skin beneath. Gone were her whispers of self-reproach: now she was silent, determined to find a way out, the anger that had led her here all but forgotten.
‘Satnam, forgive me,’ mouthed her lips suddenly, some sort of calm settling within.
A second later she bounced backwards, an unseen barrier repelling her. For a split second, she held her nose, the incision left by the wire mesh causing her to cry out in pain, but in the next instant, she rejoiced. Pushing her fingers through the wiry diamonds, she realised that she would soon be free. Further off she could just make out the orange haze of a streetlight, semi-obscured by a row of houses.
Two hundred painful steps later, the brambles pulling at her trousers, she had enough light to let go of the fence, to wander on no longer blind. In another fifty, she came upon a broken gate, which she clambered over wearily, and a short path leading on to a cul-de-sac overlooked by six shabby prefabricated bungalows. It was not the street she knew, but Satya no longer cared. The illumination alone was enough for her, as it properly restored her sight.
The mouth of the cul-de-sac led on to a curved road populated with more sheet iron and concrete houses, standing like graves, witnesses to the desolation wrought by war half a century earlier. Her decision to turn right at the junction was purely random, for she did not think she had ever been here before. At the next intersection with a straighter road eight minutes later, the houses became a much more familiar mixture of brown brick terraces and semi-detached dwellings, poorly rendered in ugly pebbledash. She recognised the street now; if she were to take the second road on her right and follow it round it would carry her back to Garden Rise.
Although she felt fragile from her hunger and aches, Satya still managed to smile at that name. In the mind of an outsider it was sure to evoke a picture of great beauty, she thought; of fine flowerbeds, perhaps, or pretty meadows and ornamental roses. She could not help but laugh at the picture it evoked in everyone else’s mind: gang warfare, burnt-out cars, and a special taste for super-strength cider. For locals, it was a pocket of deprivation spanning approximately a square mile to the south of it, the seven dank tower blocks at its heart forever declaring it a forbidding district ravaged by indifference and discrimination. Nobody in their right mind would venture down those streets at night, but Satya was not in her right mind: she could only think now of the quickest route home.
From the other end of Garden Rise, she knew the way and it was not far, so an exception, she told herself, would have to be made. Though the soles of her feet and the skin beneath the straps had blistered, she walked as fast as she could. That is to say, not very quickly at all, her legs almost too weak to carry her. As she approached that famous street, she found faith to mutter a little prayer and ventured on, holding on to the optimistic vision in her heart that the rain had driven the restless youths indoors and on to bed. For every house with light seeping through closed curtains there were four more veiled in darkness.
She covered a quarter of the length of the street unseen, and then a third of it. As she reached halfway unobserved, she even began to feel bold, wondering what all the fuss was about. The pavement was certainly decorated with empty cans of cider and special brew, discarded cigarette packets and dog dirt, but there were no high-speed Mini Metro races ripping the night in two, nor running battles between rival gangs. The street seemed much the same as all the others she had wandered along this evening. It was not such a scary place after all, she thought, her heartbeat almost steadying.
Of course, it was too soon to applaud herself for choosing the shortest route. As she reached the end of the road and turned into the next, her heart was pounding once more, disturbed by the sight of a dozen young men crowded in the bus shelter just across the road, squaring up to one another with slurred speech, juggling bottles of drink and cigarettes in turn. She prayed they would not see her, but her supplication came too late.
‘Wahey,’ shouted one of them, agitating a half-empty amber bottle above his head, ‘Pah-kee!’
‘Ah, shut up you tosser,’ cried his friend, taking a swipe at him with his can of beer.
Satya did not wait to hear what followed, lunging forward to dash away yet again instead. A second later, she found herself hurtling towards the pavement, tripping on a clump of asphalt dislodged by a mutant thistle. She landed with a thud, the rough surface shaving a layer of skin from her palms, wrists and forearms, the tiny stones pitting them with painful scratches.
‘Woah, are you alright?’ asked one of the inebriated youths, arriving at her side long before she had realised what had happened.
‘Ouch,’ said another, grabbing his own abdomen, wincing at the sight of her. ‘That went right through me,’ he scowled, nursing his psychic wounds.
Glancing down at her grazed skin, Satya’s eyes overflowed with tears. ‘Leave me alone,’ she sobbed as the group of young men gathered around her, ‘Just leave me alone.’
From the rear of the pack, a tall, gaunt man with very pale skin emerged, his scalp shaved bare. He had to be the ringleader, thought Satya, watching as the others parted deferentially to let him through.
‘Please,’ she cried, as he crouched down beside her, his eyes nearly penetrating her soul, terrifying her, ‘just let me go. Let me go.’
Minutes ago, her whole life had seemed to flash before her eyes, panicking as that combative man led her against her will past the foreboding brown-brick façade of that imposing forty-year-old electricity substation, its heavy shadows tormenting her. Sitting now on a wooden chair in the cavernous, whitewashed hall, inhaling the odour of TCP and Savlon, fond memories of playschool in 1981 invoked from deep within, she felt daft mistaking the church for the lair of a malevolent tribe.
‘I’m sorry for screaming at you,’ she sputtered, eyeing the young man inquisitively, ‘but I thought you were a skinhead.’
Kneeling before her, he soaked another ball of cotton wool in antiseptic, and dabbed it into a lesion on her left thenar, causing her to flinch. ‘That has been said,’ he nodded back at her, pushing the last of the grit from her skin, his voice infused with a thick Belfast accent.
He was not very talkative, she thought, watching as he began shrouding her scraped skin in bandages and sticking plasters. ‘I didn’t know there were priests that looked like you,’ she offered, hoping to engage him, ‘I thought you were all chubby old men.’
‘That has been said too,’ he replied, packing away his first aid kit at last. ‘But a wee cuddly old vicar wouldn’t be much use around here. Not if we’re to make a difference. We must meet the people where they’re at. Even if that’s in a bus shelter, amidst clouds of weed and shop-lifted scotch.’ Fleetingly, he managed a smile to reassure her. ‘I’m sorry if I scared you,’ he said, kneeling back onto his calves, relaxing. ‘I didn’t mean to,’ he added quickly.
‘It’s okay,’ she whispered. ‘I’m grateful.’
‘No need,’ he replied, ‘This is faith in the city. This is what we do. Friday nights spent persuading kids not to steal a car or a bike. Saturday nights spent in casualty, praying for banjaxed kids having their stomachs pumped. This was a nice one. I’m glad you came our way. Perhaps you were sent to diffuse tensions between the broken-hearted.’ There was his hesitant smile again. ‘If you want to talk, I’m here to listen.’
Glancing far above his bald scalp, Satya shook her head left and right. ‘No one wants to hear anything I have to say,’ she grumbled mournfully.
‘Try me,’ he replied, pulling a chair towards him.
‘It’s late,’ said Satya, shrugging her shoulders.
‘That’s why we need to talk.’ He seemed to mull over a question briefly but blurted it out anyway. ‘How old are you?’ he asked. ‘Thirteen? Fourteen?’
‘Sixteen.’
‘You look younger.’
‘I’m sixteen.’
‘Even so, like you say: it’s late. Looks like you’re out on a cold and wet night without a wee coat. You’re wandering around on the town’s most notorious road like you’re looking for trouble. Lucky the only skinhead you met tonight was the parish priest. Pakistanis hardly come down these parts by day, let alone at this time of night.’
‘I’m not even Pakistani,’ she protested rashly, watching as he sat down opposite her. ‘My grandparents came here from India years ago. I guess that makes me Indian too, though I’ve never been there. We’re not allowed to call ourselves English, are we? I suppose we’ll always be outsiders.’
‘I sense you’re trying to understand your place in the world.’
‘Not really,’ she shrugged, ‘Not like you mean, anyway.’
‘What do I mean?’ he asked.
‘I’m not a rebel. I’m not running away. Not on purpose anyway. It’s just…’ She glanced back at him anxiously. ‘A month ago, I had my whole life planned out ahead of me. I knew exactly where I was going. But now? Now I feel like the rug has been pulled out from under my feet. Everything’s messed up. All my dreams are in the bin.’
‘An arranged marriage?’
‘No,’ she said in dismay, squinting at him. ‘No! No.’ She shook her head at him. ‘It’s nothing like that,’ she said, disheartened. She was hesitant whether to continue now, lest he propose yet another cliché to diminish her. ‘It’s just…’
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘I suppose you’ll think me stupid for saying this, given the things you see. No, I’m not being forced to marry my cousin from back home. No, I’m not caught in the generation wars. Maybe it’s true what my siblings say about me.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘That I’m out of touch. Self-centred. Boastful.’ She sighed impatiently. ‘Last year, I was top of my year at the best school in town. Up until two weeks ago, I was expecting to be head girl. I was going to apply for Oxbridge. Only, dad forgot to tell me that everything had changed. My brother let it slip instead. No, it’s worse than that: he gloated about it. He thinks it’s hilarious.
‘So now I’m stuck at the worst school in town instead, and everyone hates me. I’m a snob now, apparently. And nobody understands what I’m going through. Nobody listens to a word I say. It’s like everyone’s turned against me suddenly. And I don’t know what it is I’ve done so wrong. I thought I was doing everything right. It’s like as soon as I got my GCSE results, everyone turned against me. I don’t know why. If I’d failed, I’d understand. But all As and a B. It doesn’t make any sense.
‘Of course, they say I’m boastful, but it isn’t true. I never boasted once. My dad did. He praised me, alright. I wish he didn’t, but it’s not like that isn’t normal. What’s wrong with celebrating? I worked hard. Really hard. Is that something bad now? Is it really?’ Satya stared at the bald stranger. ‘No, but it’s the exact opposite of what they say. They’re always boasting about their ineptitude. They always have. I’m always the square. Always boring. Always the nerd. But I didn’t say anything about all that. I just ignored it and studied hard anyway.
‘And now? It’s all just come crashing down around me. All of a sudden, it’s like I’m the enemy. Every day I have to be put in my place, to be reminded that I’m no one and will never achieve anything, and the only reason I achieved anything so far was because my dad paid for it. Nothing to do with my own hard work, for studying hard, for trying my very best.’
‘Change is always daunting,’ offered the man.
‘I’m fine with change. I’ve overcome many challenges over the past five years. But having my head shoved down the toilet? Having people spitting at me, pushing, shoving, calling me names? You know, the day I collected my GCSE results, my old form teacher said she looked forward to welcoming me back as head girl. That’s what I thought awaited me. Instead, I’m just treated like dirt. Worse than dirt. I’m not exaggerating. It’s literally that bad.’ She felt deflated. ‘Yes, so that’s why I’m out at night without my coat,’ she muttered, ‘Nothing serious, I suppose. This is just my test, I guess. I suppose I just have to get used to it.’
‘That’s a mature way of looking at it,’ he told her, reassuringly.
‘It’s not really how I feel, though,’ she added quickly. ‘I just feel I have to say that because I know there are people in worse situations than me.’
‘There are indeed. The poverty in this town is stifling.’ Shifting in his seat, the man leaned forward for a moment, then pushed himself upright again. ‘I’ll be frank with you,’ he said, scratching his forehead, ‘I’m ideologically opposed to private schools. Personally, I’d abolish them all. All the evidence shows they limit the life chances of everyone else. They just perpetuate class inequality. They’re bad for society, full stop.’
‘Oh lovely,’ muttered Satya, ‘so no sympathy for me?’
‘It’s not that I don’t sympathise with your wee predicament,’ he said, ‘It’s just unfortunate that you bumped into a Marxist vicar tonight. If only you’d stumbled six miles west, you could’ve had a chat with a lovely chap who ministers to the men who drive Mercedes. Though I’d imagine he was tucked up in bed four hours ago.’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘Perhaps you need to make the best of your situation.’
‘At a failing school, staffed by supply teachers who can barely make it through a lesson? We were already making the best of our situation. My grandparents came here with nothing. They worked low-paid jobs nobody else would do. My dad built his business from scratch. Nobody handed it to him. He built it up all by himself, starting with a little shop selling housewares to where he is now with a large showroom selling every kind of kitchen appliance you can think of. My dad worked his socks off to support us. Yes, and he wanted the best for us all. He sent me to private school. So what? He left school at sixteen and sent me to the best school in town. Yes, and I got eleven GCSEs, ten As and one B. The B was in art, which I’m rubbish at.’
‘And so you were privileged,’ said the man.
‘Don’t I know it?’ she replied, shaking her head. ‘Yes, because my brother flunked all of his GCSEs except one on his first attempt. Had to stay back a year to redo them. Got five on his next attempt, though he still got a rubbish mark. Oh, but a pass at least: enough to start his BTEC. I imagine it would’ve been the same for me if I’d stayed there. So I’m glad I had that opportunity. I’m proud of my dad. He didn’t buy a BMW or a big house in the suburbs. He invested in me.’
‘And what about your siblings?’
‘They could’ve had the same opportunities. They just had to try, that’s all.’
‘To pass an entrance exam?’
‘Yes.’
‘So perhaps it was all your effort all along. Perhaps you were always destined to work hard and do well. And so perhaps that’s what you must do now. If your parents have fallen on hard times, and they’re certainly not alone in that, make the most of what you have. Learn independently. Be grateful for the foundation you have.’
‘That’s exactly what I did. And that’s exactly why we argued this evening. Yes, and that’s why I’m here now. My family made me so angry this evening. They made me angry and I lost it. So all this was an accident. I should’ve stormed upstairs. Instead, I stormed out of the house.’
Satya glanced back at the man, apparently considering his words. ‘So no need to call social services,’ she added deftly. ‘I love my dad. He always believed in me, but now things are all messed up. And I’ve messed up too. I know I’ve disappointed him. Maybe he disappointed me. But that’s where we are. I know I have to return home now and face his wrath. For just storming out and running, running. He’s going to go ballistic, I just know. But there we are. This is my life.’ Her eyes were seeking a window now. ‘Nothing serious, really,’ she muttered gloomily. Then: ‘Would you call him for me?’
