Sunday, 20 February 1994
His directions, it turned out, were not very helpful at all. To say he would be sitting under a crimson-leafed maple might have been instructive in spring, but in late February, all the trees seemed to look the same, their bare branches surrendering to the morbid sky. In the month that she had got to know him, she had grown used to his cryptic and opaque answers to every question, but this puzzle was on another level. To say the tree would be just after the zebra crossing might have been pertinent had he mentioned which side. The detail about the no entry sign was slightly more useful, except that there were two of them.
Perhaps it would have been better for him to wait near to the heavy oak door beneath that domineering red-brick steeple, its tall stone spire visible a mile away; not hidden away in the courtyard of the unassuming community centre next door. Why call her to a landmark, with all its unique facets—the circular window set high up in the gable end, the modernist nave, the triangular porch, the neat front garden—then wait out of view on an old bench around the corner? If only she had not insisted on seeing him on Sunday morning, she now thought, lamenting her persistence on the phone yesterday afternoon. If only she had let it go.
‘There you are,’ she breathed wearily after her forth relay along the pavement and back again, relieved to have discovered him at last. ‘I thought I’d never find you,’ she said, perturbed that when she had last checked that corner, he had not seemed to be there. Had she really mistaken him for a pile of old sacks, she wondered, or for the lyrics of her favourite song, his back hunched to the cold?
Seeing her, her companion beamed back at her eagerly, his face peering out from two hoods, one a grey hoodie, the other the cowl of his warn blue padded jacket, the stuffing poking out of its shredded arms. ‘Er, yeah, sorry,’ he muttered, beckoning her to sit beside him, ‘I know my, erm, instructions were a bit… wonky.’
Sliding onto the other end of the bench, perching close to the edge, Satya smiled at him shyly, taking in his benevolent gaze. ‘I’m sorry for insisting,’ she murmured, her own reticent eyes repeatedly darting away whenever they nearly met.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ came his reply.
‘And sorry I’m late,’ she added.
‘No problem.’
‘Did it annoy you?’
‘Only coz it’s bloody freezing.’
‘Yeah, sorry.’
‘But my fault,’ he smiled, ‘Should’ve told you to come over after lunch.’
‘But then it’d be too late,’ she said.
‘Too late for what?’
‘That’s my big surprise,’ she laughed, but her eyes were buried too deeply in a slab of concrete for her to take in his reaction. ‘So, why here?’ she asked him, setting her bundle of bags down beside her.
There was a shrug of his shoulders, then a whisper. ‘I come here every week,’ he said. ‘Next door, I mean.’
‘Really?’
‘Yep. These days. Yeah.’
‘I never imagined you as a practising Christian,’ she said.
‘I don’t go inside.’
‘Why not?’
Another shrug. ‘I don’t believe the creator of the universe was one of us,’ he replied abruptly.
‘Wow, that’s direct,’ said Satya, taken aback.
‘Yeah, sorry. Stock answer.’
Although she had not felt it while rushing about all morning, the bitter chill now sent shivers pulsating up her back and down into the tips of her fingers. The cold nearly sent her back to her feet, but she was too inquisitive now to jolt him from his resting place. ‘So why do you come here then?’ she asked instead, trying to still her ceaseless shivers.
‘Hoping to see someone,’ he replied nonchalantly.
‘Your mum?’
‘Ha! No.’ Ben had to laugh aloud at that. ‘Even before she put all her faith in a bottle of vodka, my mum was always totally anti-religion. Coming here: to her, this is an insult to the children of the Enlightenment who, let’s quote her, “gave their lives opposing such stupid superstition and backwardness.” Yep, she always was the intellectual, pursuing all those dreams she had before dad came out.’
‘Your dad then?’
‘Definitely not my dad. Me coming here. That’s just yet further confirmation that his son’s an effeminate, left-wing cretin: all love your neighbour as yourself, not cave his head in with a steel-capped boot.’ Ben held that thought for a moment. ‘But family? Sort of.’ He nodded his head. ‘A family, sure.’ He nodded it again and looked at her. ‘I sit here every week, hoping I’ll see them. So I can…’
‘Yes?’
‘I want to say sorry.’
‘For what?’
‘But I never do,’ he said obliviously, as if he had not heard her or was deliberately ignoring her. ‘It’s funny: how people can just disappear. Like this town is the Bermuda Triangle or something. Do you ever think about that? How you can know people so intimately and be so close to them, and then you just lose them. They’re gone, and you have no way of reaching them ever again. I always think that’s weird. But then I don’t even know my next-door neighbours on my own street. What hope of ever knowing more than a handful of people in the whole wide world? Unless you’re famous of course. Then everyone knows you intimately, but you’re still a lonely sod.’
Satya studied the side of his face. It seemed less anaemic than it used to, though the wild acne still raged rampant, pitting his skin all over. ‘A bit heavy for a Sunday morning,’ she said, her eyes deciding not to flit away this time.
‘This is every Sunday for me. Always dwelling on this. All morning and most of the afternoon too.’
‘So who is it?’ she asked.
‘Just good people I once knew,’ he replied, disturbed by her penetrating gaze. ‘Yeah, but never mind, at least I found you.’
‘Eventually,’ she added.
Beside her, Satya could see his eyes peering into the collection of polythene bags by her feet. He was hopeless at masking his curiosity, she thought, every surveillance operation unveiled in seconds. She would have to reveal all, she decided, watching as his eyes delved deeper. ‘It’s a surprise, Ben,’ she told him.
‘Suspense is killing me,’ he replied, teasing her.
‘No, nope, I’m not going to spoil it now.’
‘You know I’m going to insist on carrying them bags for you, don’t you?’ he chuckled, ‘So you’ll have to spill the beans.’
‘You’re getting warm.’
‘No I’m not, I’m bloody freezing.’
‘I mean, you’ve nearly got it.’
‘Got what?’
‘I was going to wait until we got to your house,’ she muttered, lifting the largest bag onto the bench between them, ‘But this is for you. A present.’
‘And I said no more presents,’ he sighed, shaking his head, the palm of his hand outstretched towards her, ‘Please, don’t waste your savings on me. I told you.’
‘This one’s essential,’ she replied. ‘And anyway, I didn’t pay for this one. It’s a donation. Told my dad I was collecting stuff for someone in need. Not a lie. Completely true. So he donated this from his shop.’
‘No questions asked?’
‘Oh, plenty of questions. But I said the first thing that came to my mind.’
‘Which was?’
Mr. Wendal, that’s his name
No one ever knew his name coz he’s a no-one
Never thought twice about spending on a ol’ bum
Until I had the chance to really get to know one [1]
When she had finished rhyming these words back to him, she spat out a great guffaw. ‘Only joking, Ben,’ she tittered. ‘I just said a friend in need.’
‘I’m relieved.’
‘But my dad’s generous like that. He said it’s the best charity you can give someone. Better than cash. Teach a man to fish and all that.’
‘Well, what is it?’
Stretching the top of the bag open, Satya tilted it towards him, revealing its chrome and black plastic lid. ‘It’s a pressure cooker,’ she told him casually, as if to convince him that this was a normal present between friends.
‘Erm,’ said Ben, scratching his forehead, ‘What do you think I’m going to do with that?’
‘This’ll change your life,’ she smiled, fiddling with it. ‘You’ll be amazed.’
‘No doubt.’
‘Yeah, and I did a little shopping for you,’ she added, fingering the other five carrier bags by her feet, nearly bursting at the seams.
‘A little? Looks like you cleared out the shop.’
‘Just essentials. Fresh fruit. Veg. Lentils, chickpeas, beans. This and that. Hence, “Spill the beans.” Get it?’
Ben was laughing again. ‘You know I can’t cook, don’t you?’ he said.
‘You’re going to learn,’ she replied, beaming back at him. ‘I’ll teach you everything I know.’
‘I’m a bad student,’ he protested.
‘But I’m a great teacher,’ came her reply, her teeth chattering as a biting breeze blew past them, shaking the leafless limbs above them, a pile of dust in a corner blasted into a swirling ring that threatened to fill their eyes with grit. ‘At least I think I am,’ she grinned, ‘You might just think I’m a great bossyboots.’
‘Never,’ he said, ‘You’re welcome to try, but I think I might be a lost cause. Did I ever tell you about the time I tried to make porridge? Turns out I invented the earthquake-resistant concrete that made me millions.’
‘You did, as it happens, but we’re going to move on from your self-deprecating humour today. Please stop putting yourself down all the time.’
‘Not putting myself down. It’s the truth. Did I tell you about the time I melted a boil in the bag curry and discovered a whole new atomic element?’
‘Yes, you did. But no more excuses. You need to fix your diet. No more gravy and chips.’
‘What about chips and gravy?’
‘No, it’s time to eat like a king.’
‘A Mars bar sandwich?’
‘Not funny, Ben. Today you’ll learn how to cook a great Punjabi thali. It’ll change your life forever.’
‘Now that actually sounds like my cup of tea,’ nodded Ben merrily, jumping to his feet. ‘If there’s anything I miss about not hanging around with Siddique anymore,’ he enthused, glancing down at her, ‘it’s his mum’s cooking.’
‘That’s a different part of the world,’ she replied, copying him.
‘Not really, he only lives around the corner.’
‘I mean, they’re from Bangladesh.’
‘They’re from Leeds, originally.’
‘Oh my God, Ben, you’re so unfunny,’ she giggled, burying her face in her hands and feigning laughter.
‘I know, sorry,’ he chortled, hastening towards her bags, ‘But I guess you’re right. That is a completely different part of the world.’ He smiled at her kindly as he seized hold of them. ‘Well, we’ll see, won’t we,’ he said. ‘The proof will be in the pudding.’
‘No puddings for you, Ben.’
‘Not even Yorkshire Pudding?’
‘I can only teach you how to make roti. Will that do?’
‘I should think if I make it, it will come out like an Eccles cake.’
‘Oh, do stop putting yourself down,’ Satya groaned, following after him. ‘You can’t go wrong with a roti. I learnt how to make it when I was ten. It’s so easy.’
‘Yes, but you’re a genius. Brain of Britain.’
Still shielded from the street by a tall hedge, Satya shook her head earnestly. ‘I’m just not a lazy bum,’ she insisted.
‘Ouch,’ he sighed faltering backwards.
‘So don’t be a lazy bum,’ she said, ‘Learn something new.’
Emerging from their secluded courtyard cautiously, the pair turned right onto the avenue across the one-way street and past the grand marble façade appended to end of the Victorian terrace that edged the wide pavement for half a mile. It had once been a marvellous grocery store, famed for fine jams, desserts and exotic coffee; now just a discount supermarket offering dirty windows and low prices for own-brand cornflakes.
‘You’ve hurt my feelings, you know?’ sniggered Ben, passing the furniture shop next door, its windows dirtier still. ‘But you’re right,’ he mumbled a second later, ‘I am lazy.’
‘Yes, but you don’t have to be,’ said Satya, passing the newsagents, spilling onto the pavement before them. ‘You need to overcome that self-pity of yours,’ she said, sidestepping a space rocket promising trips to the moon for 50p. ‘Change it,’ she said, dodging Postman Pat’s van. ‘Decide to sort yourself out.’
‘You don’t have to go all serious on me,’ grumbled Ben at her side.
‘And you don’t have to go all self-deprecating on me,’ she replied.
‘Just joking.’
Satya drew to a halt and stared at him sternly. ‘No, Ben,’ she said, ‘you’re serious. You’re always like this, putting yourself down. I don’t know why. There’s no reason for it. You’re not thick. You’re not an idiot.’ When he glanced back at her, she seemed to glare at him even more intensely. ‘As far as I can see,’ she said, ‘you just need to change two things. One, stop putting yourself down all the time. And two, be brave. Be confident in yourself and be brave, and everything else will follow.’
The next street on their right could easily have carried them on towards Ben’s house, but they continued along the avenue instead. Past the kebab shop. Past the chip shop specialising in greasy sausages wrapped in a piece of white bread. On past the takeaway specialising in rubber beef burgers, and the betting shop with dark tinted windows.
‘I wish I was as mature as you,’ sighed Ben, glimpsing at his companion.
‘There you go again,’ she grumbled.
‘I feel like a child compared to you.’
‘Okay, so three: stop the self-pity,’ she said resolutely. ‘You’ve got this, Ben. Change is in your hands. And it all starts today with a vegetable thali.’
Grasping for a cynical comeback, Ben found his tongue tied. ‘You’re clearly having naan of this,’ he joked instead.
‘No, because we’ve bean here before, hehe,’ she giggled, just before her face lost its smile. ‘But I’m serious,’ she added hurriedly, ‘Don’t be a lazy bum, Ben. Look after yourself. Look where living on Mars bars got you.’
‘That was before.’
‘Yes, but now you’re living with the consequences.’
‘Don’t I know it.’
‘So what are you going to do about it?’
‘Learn how to cook, I suppose.’
‘Exactly.’
Walking side by side, they sought a one-way street which merged into the avenue opposite the petrol station. That street was home to no one Ben knew, or who might know his dad, who might feel compelled to stand in his way to call him a geek, a fat bastard or a knob head, or to demand what was he looking at, or land a globule of phlegm on his cheek as he passed their door. He had learned long ago that only this street would do, providing safe passage back home from his weekly pilgrimage east.
‘So tell me about this church,’ began Satya, as they turned into that quiet side street.
‘What’s there to say?’ he asked.
‘I’m curious.’
‘I told you already. I don’t go in. I just sit there, hoping, watching, wishing.’
‘Don’t people speak to you?’
‘Some do. The friendly ones. I get a cuppa sometimes. I think they think I’m some homeless bum. Or a Bosnian refugee or something.’ He smiled, briefly. ‘To be honest I love that place,’ he said, ‘Those people. Methodist folk. They’re so warm.’
‘So join them then,’ she said brightly, her eyes wide open.
‘I would if I believed like them,’ he muttered, ‘But I don’t, so I can’t. It’s me, not them. It would be insincere.’
‘Not even for good company?’
For a moment, he said nothing, only for a grin to creep across his face, nearly glowing, radiating its delight. ‘I’ve got you for that now, haven’t I?’ he laughed, beaming back at her.
‘Snap,’ she said keenly, nearly saluting him, his gracious words enrapturing her, her heart skipping with joy. Those words alone could make the icy chill disappear, suddenly forgotten as the optimistic exuberance warmed her soul.
Traipsing past the red-brick terraces with their diminutive front gardens behind low brick walls, all taken up by a bay window and dustbin, Satya felt at ease. ‘So are you alright?’ she asked him, no longer hesitant.
‘Yeah, not too bad,’ he replied.
‘Any news?’
‘No, not really.’
‘Has your mum been home?’
‘Just once,’ shrugged Ben, offering a hybrid nod-and-shake cocktail. ‘In and out,’ he added, ‘A lot of banging, shouting. Complaints.’
‘She spoke to you?’
‘Only to ask what I was still doing there. I’m supposed to be with dad.’
‘Did you speak to her?’
‘Only to ask why she never comes home. She says she comes when I’m at school. Which is a lie. Says she fills up the fridge. Also a lie. Pays the bills. Don’t know if that’s a lie.’ He glanced at his companion shyly. ‘Says she’s got a job now. Works nights. Don’t know if that’s true. Yeah, I just don’t know. Wish I could explain everything, but we just grunt at each other. We don’t talk. Yeah, so I don’t know.’
Satya smiled back at him. ‘Maybe she has got a job,’ she suggested, ‘Why not think the best of her? She’s your mum.’
‘Maybe she has,’ he replied, nodding a little, ‘But maybe she’s just got a new man who keeps her numb with drink and drugs. Don’t know. We don’t talk.’
Beside her, Ben regretted the impatient temper that caused him to blurt out whatever agitated him so thoughtlessly. His outbursts always seemed to kill their conversation, he lamented, cursing himself for his bitter anger. If only he had just said to her, yes, you’re right. And now, he thought, she was probably wondering what she was doing with such a selfish, self-centred git. He hated himself so completely.
‘What about your friends?’ piped up Satya, as Ben turned down a concealed lane between the terraces, ‘Anything new?’
‘No. Nothing,’ he said, leading her on towards the cemetery. ‘I’m glad to be free of them, to be honest,’ he added, pushing through the heavy old gate and on between two tall ancient memorials, all grey and mottled green.
‘Do you really mean that?’ she asked him.
‘Right now, yep.’
‘Maybe it’s for the best,’ she offered, thinking of them. ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying,’ she chuckled, ‘but they were kind of weird.’
‘I don’t mind you saying,’ he shrugged, ‘but then who isn’t?’
‘You’re not,’ she replied, tenderly.
‘I’m not sure that’s what you said the first time we met.’
‘Whatever I thought then paled into insignificance once I met your friends.’
Ben’s face seemed to blush bright red. ‘Do I take that as a compliment?’ he asked her.
‘You know what I mean. They’re like the village idiots.’
Their informal trail merging into the main pathway, they took another right and wandered on, their pace slowing. Momentarily, Ben drew them to a halt to swap the bags from hand to hand, briefly relieving the heavy strain on his arms caused by a peculiar gift and copious groceries, massaging the grooves gouged into his fingers, segmenting them.
‘To be honest,’ he said, peering at her, ‘only Siddique was ever my friend. The rest of them? Lee? Kevin? Amanda? I hardly even know them.’
His discomfort relieved a little, the bags were back in his hands, and they were on their way again, meandering on towards the mock-gothic entrance gates on the cemetery’s southern boundary. Satya knew this pathway well; it had once been a shortcut to her grandfather’s house, facing that alleyway across the four lanes of heavy traffic. Better not to dwell on their proximity to his house, she thought, hastening their pace.
‘You know how Siddique behaves,’ muttered Ben all of a sudden, ‘That’s not really him. He acts like he’s the leader of the gang, but the truth is, he’s just easily led. In real life, he’s really smart. He’s amazing at maths. Always has been. I reckon he’ll go far, if only he’d stop playing to the crowd. It’s the others that make him behave like that. On his own, he’s really sharp.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘It’s true. If you asked him what fifty-seven times seventy-three is, he could tell you just like that. He’s like a human calculator.’
‘Are you serious?’ asked Satya in disbelief.
‘Utterly,’ he said. ‘He’s not the fool he pretends to be. He comes from a good family. His dad’s an amazing man. Very humble, but a true genius. I love his dad, to be honest.’ Drawing them to a standstill to cross the road, Ben thought about it for a moment. ‘What I’d do for a dad like him,’ he mumbled, recalling his generous hospitality.
‘I just can’t picture Sid being like you say,’ said Satya. ‘He’s a prize buffoon.’
It would have to be a sprint across the road, the traffic lights flummoxing them. ‘Well, you used to say worse about me,’ he snapped, as they reached the other curb, narrowly missing a Ford Sierra estate jumping the lights. ‘Perhaps you’re just not such a great judge of character.’
‘Touché,’ sighed Satya, quivering as if wounded, ‘I walked into that one, didn’t I?’
‘Or maybe you are,’ he reconsidered, smiling at her, ‘maybe you were right. Who knows?’
‘Oh, here we go again,’ she laughed, ‘I admit it: I got you totally wrong. No, I wasn’t right. No, you don’t need to beat yourself up all over again. Won’t you stop that for once, Ben?’
At her side, the boy just shrugged his shoulders, wandering on in silence beside a red brick wall topped with a slanting fence overrun with ivy, a new housing estate poking up behind them. They ambled past the bus stop and on towards the level crossing, hastening their pace against the icy chill, only for a piercing alarm to stall their journey, a set of four white gates swinging closed in front of them. The story of his life, thought Ben.
‘So why did you say that thing about your dad?’ asked Satya, out of the blue. ‘You said you wished your dad was like Sid’s. What did you mean?’
‘Well you know, don’t you?’
‘Not really.’
‘Oh, you know,’ he sighed. ‘My dad’s an idiot,’ he said, his eyes gazing up into the cold grey sky. ‘A famous idiot too. All anger, no brains. The only thing he ever learned in his life was how to fight. Am I surprised? I’m now the age he was when he got my mum pregnant with me. Imagine that: he could be a grandad by thirty-five. Well, not through me. I’m not walking in his footsteps. The idiot.’
‘How come you’re not like him?’ asked Satya.
‘Maybe I am.’
‘You’re not. You’re smart. Intelligent.’
Ben did not agree with her assessment of his character, but he thought about her question nevertheless. ‘Foster care,’ he offered eventually. ‘Placement number three,’ he added. ‘The first two times were a disaster, but the third family… I just say third time lucky. A blessing. Good people. Practiced what they preached.’
‘Why didn’t you stay with them?’
‘Circumstance,’ he shrugged.
‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he muttered at first, but her bold curiosity vexed him. ‘My mum seemed to be getting her life in order,’ he suggested, ‘She wasn’t a teenager anymore. She went back to college, got qualifications. Made up for lost time. Everyone reckoned she’d be a good mum then. And she was. She was really. To start with, she was brilliant. But, you know: circumstance. You don’t get to choose what life throws at you.’ Ben looked at Satya earnestly. ‘I personally think the only reason she got back with my dad when he came out of prison was because he forced her to. His jealousy. I think he threatened her. Because we didn’t need him. We were happy without him, and then he just messed everything up. He terrorised my mum. He was brutal. Hate isn’t a strong enough word to describe how I feel about him. He decimated her. And she never escaped from him. Yes, she ran away, but she never escaped. Her prison is drink and drugs. That’s where she goes to escape. Some dream world. That’s where she exists.’
‘Why don’t you ask for help again?’ she asked him, watching as a train rattled past.
‘Because there’s only one nice foster family in this town,’ he grumbled, when the gates finally lifted.
‘Why not go back to the ones you liked?’
‘You don’t get to choose where they place you,’ he said, moving off again. ‘And anyway: circumstance.’ For a second, he gazed at her thoughtfully. ‘And I’m too old for that now,’ he added, ‘I don’t mind where I am. I know my mum will be back. She’s just wandering. In her dream world again.’
‘And if not? Will you go back to your dad?’
‘My dad’s busy getting ready for his revolution. As I say, five-star idiot.’ Laughter was Ben’s antidote to reality. ‘You think Siddique was bad, you should listen to my dad,’ he grinned, ‘He makes him look like Albert Einstein. The utter shite he comes out with.’
Side by side, they crossed the railway line, past the old signal box, and drifted on past the used car salesroom, the burnt-out pub, the hand carwash and the funeral directors.
‘I still dream that my dad might begin to see reason as he grows older and replace that intense hatred of his with plain old English grumpiness, but it’s impossible. No, he’s still itching for his race war.’
‘He sounds…’
‘Yeah, like a real knob. He is.’
They would walk on without talking now, impatient for their next turning by the foam cushion shop. Ben would not admit that his arms now ached from hauling those heavy bags for twenty minutes, but he wished he was home already. If only he had not insisted on relieving her of all of them back there, he thought, his flabby biceps convulsing sorely. That was not what occupied him though; he was pondering his talent for begetting an awkward silence with each angry outburst.
‘Sorry,’ he said, arriving at his front door, ‘I still haven’t got used to intelligent conversation.’ Setting the bags down on the ground, he searched his pockets for his keys. ‘Fact is,’ he said, finding the one he needed, driving it roughly into the lock, ‘You’re the only person I have to talk to these days. Maybe I overcompensate.’
‘I know how you feel,’ she replied, following him inside, ‘I’m the same.’
Sauntering into his living room, he threw himself down on the mouldering sofa, exhausted. ‘At least you have your family,’ he suggested.
‘They’re just mean to me all the time,’ she replied, dropping into the sagging threadbare chair by the door, ‘Always telling me to shut up.’
‘You have Anjana and Co too.’
‘I suppose so. Anjana’s a good friend.’
‘What about princess Nora?’
‘I don’t think Siti Noor likes me. Always contradicting me.’
‘Can’t be true. Princess Nora’s lovely. Now there’s a proper Muslim. Tengku Nora, I call her, though I can’t remember why. I’m sure it was funny once.’ Ben nodded his head confidently. ‘No, Siti Noor is just the best.’
‘She always told me off for making fun of you, you know?’
‘Well there you are,’ he laughed, ‘She has exquisite taste.’
‘Yeah. And she was right. I wish I’d been nicer to you.’
‘You’re being nice to me now. So I’m happy. No complaints.’
Satya smiled at him, leaning forwards in her seat. ‘And what about Anjana?’ she asked, watching as he lifted himself upright.
‘What about Anjana what?’
‘What do you think of her?’ she asked, staring at him suddenly. ‘I was confused, you know? Anjana told me you were an idiot, told me to stay away from you. Then all of a sudden, every time I mentioned you, she’d bite my head off.‘
‘Yeah, well, you know, don’t you?’
‘Not really.’
‘Of course you do,’ he barked, launching himself from the sofa and propelling himself through the door.
