Anita and Me. Meera Syal

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СКАЧАТЬ depicted as an old wild-eyed woman dressed in rags who began every entrance with the litany, ‘Woe! Woe! And thrice Woe!’ This never ceased to crease me up because Wo Wo was our family Punjabi euphemism for shit, ‘Do you want to do a Wo Wo?’ and ‘Wipe properly, get all the Wo Wo off …’ The first time I’d heard the soothsayer’s lament I’d said, ‘I think she must have constipation!’ which made my papa laugh proudly and my mother hide her smile under an expression of distaste. When I repeated the joke in the playground the next day, I realised it lost a lot in translation and vowed I would swot up on a few English jokes before I undertook challenging Vernon Cartwright again for the title of school wit.

      Glenys wrung her hands a bit more and began chewing the ends of her bottle blonde hair, a sad dishrag of a haircut, but I guessed she’d long given up trying. I’d always assumed she was about fifty, in her shapeless sweaters and crimplene trousers with the sewn-in crease on each leg. But mama informed me, rather proudly I thought, that Mrs Lowbridge was not even forty, and that smoking and bad luck had chiselled all those weary dragging lines around her eyes and mouth. ‘That’s why you must always count your blessings, bed, and never think negative thoughts. If your mind is depressed, your body will soon follow. Me, I don’t even dye my hair.’ I went around for days after that, smiling so much that my cheeks ached and Mrs Worrall next door asked if I’d got wind. I was terrified that my body would betray my mind and all the anger and yearning and violent mood swings that plagued me would declare themselves in a rash of facial hives or a limb dropping off in a public place.

      ‘Meena chick, have yow seen our Sam today?’

      ‘No, Mrs Lowbridge,’ I answered. ‘Maybe he’s gone up the shops,’ I added helpfully.

      ‘He shouldn’t be up the bloody shops, he should be here. He knows I’m gooing up bingo tonight …’ She sighed and chewed a bit more hair. ‘Ey, yow’m on the corner, int ya? If yow see him gooing past, give us a knock will ya, chick?’ She trudged back inside her yard and propelled by the growling waves of hunger cascading around my stomach, I ran home.

      Mama was rummaging about in what we called the Bike Shed, one of two small outhouses at the end of our backyard, the other outhouse being our toilet. We’d never had a bike between us, unless you counted my three-wheeler tricycle which was one of a number of play items discarded amongst the old newspapers, gardening tools, and bulk-bought tins of tomatoes and Cresta fizzy drinks. Of course, this shed should have really been called the bathroom, because it was where we filled an old yellow plastic tub with pans of hot water from the kitchen and had a hurried scrub before frostbite set in, but my mother would have cut out her tongue rather than give it its real, shameful name.

      ‘Found it, Mrs Worrall!’ she shouted from inside the shed. Mrs Worrall, with whom we shared adjoining, undivided backyards, stood in her uniform of flowery dress and pinny on her step. She had a face like a friendly potato with a sparse tuft of grey hair on top, and round John Lennon glasses, way before they became fashionable, obviously. She moved like she was underwater, slow, deliberate yet curiously graceful steps, and frightened most of the neighbours off with her rasping voice and deadpan, unimpressed face. She did not smile often, and when she did you wished she hadn’t bothered as she revealed tombstone teeth stained bright yellow with nicotine. But she loved me, I knew it; she’d only have to hear my voice and she’d lumber out into the yard to catch me, often not speaking, but would just nod, satisfied I was alive and functioning, her eyes impassive behind her thick lenses.

      She would listen, apparently enthralled, to my mother’s occasional reports on my progress at school, take my homework books carefully in her huge slabs of hands and turn the pages slowly, nodding wisely at the cack-handed drawings and uneven writing. Every evening, when she came to pick up our copy of the Express and Star once my papa had finished reading it (an arrangement devised by my mother, ‘Why should the poor lady have to spend her pension when she can read ours?’), she’d always check up on me, what I was doing, whether I was in my pyjamas yet, whether I was mentally and physically prepared to retire for the night. At least, that’s what I read in her eyes, for she never spoke. Just that quick glance up and down, a slight incline of the head, a satisfied exhalation.

      I wondered if she was like Mrs Christmas, childless, and maybe that was why she was so protective of me. But mama told me, with a snort of disgust, that she had three grown-up sons and a few grandchildren also. ‘But I’ve never seen them! Do they live far away?’ I persisted.

      ‘Oh yes, very far. Wolverhampton!’ she quipped back.

      It had seemed quite a long way to me when we had driven there for my birthday treat, but I guessed by my mother’s flaring nostrils and exaggerated eyebrow movements that she was being ironic, the way Indians are ironic, signposting the joke with a map and compass to the punchline.

      ‘But why don’t they come and see her then?’

      My mother sighed and ruffled my hair. ‘I will never understand this about the English, all this puffing up about being civilised with their cucumber sandwiches and cradle of democracy big talk, and then they turn round and kick their elders in the backside, all this It’s My Life, I Want My Space stupidness, You Can’t Tell Me What To Do cheekiness, I Have To Go To Bingo selfishness and You Kids Eat Crisps Instead Of Hot Food nonsense. What is this My Life business, anyway? We all have obligations, no one is born on their own, are they?’

      She was into one of her Capital Letter speeches, the subtext of which was listen, learn and don’t you dare do any of this when you grow up, missy. I quite enjoyed them. They made me feel special, as if our destiny, our legacy, was a much more interesting journey than the apparent dead ends facing our neighbours. I just wished whatever my destiny was would hurry up and introduce itself to me so I could take it by its jewelled hand and fly.

      She paused for oxygen. ‘I mean, Mrs Worrall is their mother, the woman who gave them life. And she on her own with Mr Worrall, too. I tell you, if my mother was so close, I would walk in my bare feet to see her every day. Every day.’

      She turned away then, not trusting herself to say anything more. There was still something else I wanted to ask but I knew it would have to wait. I had grown up with Mrs Worrall, I had seen her every day of my life, but I had never seen or heard Mr Worrall. Ever.

      My mother emerged from the shed holding aloft an old dusty glass vase which she blew on, and then scuffed with the sleeve of her shirt before handing it to Mrs Worrall who took it with a pleased grunt. ‘Please, Mrs Worrall, have it. We never use it.’

      Mrs Worrall nodded again and cleared her throat. ‘He knocked mine over. I was in the way, in front of the telly. Crossroads. He likes that Amy Turtle. So he got a bit upset, see.’

      Mama nodded sympathetically. ‘How is he nowadays?’

      Mrs Worrall shrugged, she did not need to say, same as always, and went back inside her kitchen.

      ‘Mum, I’m starved, I am,’ I wheedled. ‘Give me something now.’

      She busied herself with shutting the shed door, not looking at me, her face drawn tight like a cat’s arse. ‘There’s rice and daal inside. Go and wash your hands.’

      ‘I don’t want that…that stuff! I want fishfingers! Fried! And chips! Why can’t I eat what I want to eat?’

      Mama turned to me, she had her teacher’s face on, long suffering, beseeching, but still immovable. She said gently, ‘Why did you take money for sweets? Why did you lie to papa?’

      ‘I didn’t,’ I said automatically, blind to logic, to the inevitable fact that my crime had already been fretfully discussed while I’d been having СКАЧАТЬ