Anita and Me (11 page)

As I got closer, I realised why I had not recognised them straight away. Sherrie was shivering in a short denim skirt and high heels, and had applied mauve eyeshadow all the way up to her eyebrows. Fat Sally was squeezed into a psychedelic mini-dress with a shiny scarf tied round the waist, and her lips looked wet and shimmery, like a goldfish.

‘That’s nice!’ said Anita, pointing her finger at Fat Sally’s mouth. ‘Giz sum. Mom locked her door today, couldn’t get nothing off her dressing table. Mean cow.’

Sherrie and Fat Sally giggled, Fat Sally rummaged in a pocket and brought out a small tub of Miners Lip Gloss which Anita grabbed and began smearing over her lips with a practised finger. They did not seem to have noticed me.

All three girls then scrutinised each other’s faces, toning down a streak of blusher here, wiping a wet finger over a lipline there, whilst the three by now sweaty blokes stopped work and straightened up, looking over at us curiously. Anita, Fat Sally and Sherrie immediately pouted to attention, flicking their hair and digging each other in the ribs. Not to be outdone, I took my anorak hood down and wiped my nose. I could see the three musketeers clearly now, in a uniform of dirty denims and skinny rib sweaters, streaked with engine oil. The tallest of the three, a lanky, mousey youth with a poetic mouth, scratched his crotch absentmindedly, and muttered something to his companions, a short Italian-looking guy and a stockier blonde bloke with a smear of acne lying across his chin like scarlet porridge. They must have been about Sam Lowbridge’s age, eighteen or so, just growing into their clumsy long limbs and carefully groomed bum-fluff upper lips.

Anita hissed, ‘I’m having the tall one, roight?’ and sauntered over towards them, her thin hips swaying to some far off radio which was playing ‘This is the captain of your ship, your soul speaking …’ I wondered if a soul was the same thing as a conscience and if Anita Rutter was following or ignoring hers at this moment in time. She sat down on the half-erected stage,
right in the midst of them, and began talking to the Poet, each question punctuated with her short barking laugh. Pretty soon, all three guys were smiling along with her; I stood open-mouthed in admiration, wondering what spell she had cast, to turn these boy-men, whom I would have crossed streets to avoid had I seen them hanging around any corner near my school, into grinning, pliant pets.

Sherrie and Fat Sally were similarly impressed. ‘Her always gets the best one,’ muttered Sherrie, pulling her skirt down so that it momentarily covered her goosepimpled thighs.

‘Look! He’s only putting his arm round her! Cow!’ breathed Fat Sally, who pulled her scarf tighter around her belly, as if constant optimistic pressure would finally reveal a waist as tiny and perfect as Anita’s.

Anita suddenly seemed to remember we were waiting, and after a brief exchange with her new admirers, beckoned us over. I hesitated at first, wondering if it was five o’clock yet and if I should be getting back. But I sniffed something unfamiliar in the crisp late afternoon air, something forbidden and new, and I did not want to miss out.

‘These am me mates, Sherrie and Sally …’ Anita said, her hand resting proprietorially on the Poet’s knee. ‘This is Dave, that’s Tonio, he’s Italian like me dad, and Gary …’

Sherrie immediately plonked herself next to Tonio, once she realised she towered over him by about six inches. They seemed as relieved as each other to have not drawn the short straw and ended up with either spotty Gary or Fat Sally, who now faced each other sullenly over an empty dodgem car. There was an uncomfortable silence in which anger and pity overtook both their faces as they realised fate and their appearance had consigned them, inevitably, shamefully, to each other. If spotty Gary and Fat Sally had any illusions that they deserved better, they only had to look across and see their own miserable reflection in the other’s eyes.

For one brief, mad moment, Gary’s gaze flickered round
wildly, seeking an alternative, hoping there might be someone else on whom he could hang his rapidly diminishing status. He came to rest on me, took in the winter coat, the scabbed knees, my stubborn nine-year-old face, and dismissed me with amusement and yes, relief. He had not got the short straw after all and I knew, I knew that it was not because I was too young or badly dressed, it was something else, something about me so offputting, so unimaginable, that I made Fat Sally look like the glittering star prize.

The Poet whispered something into Anita’s ear which made her scream as if she’d been pinched.

‘What? What!’ hissed Fat Sally and Sherrie in unison.

Anita pulled them unceremoniously to one side and they huddled in a group, inches from my shoulder. I might as well have been invisible. The three lads did not seem surprised at this sudden withdrawal. This was obviously part of whatever ritual they were all going through and from which I was excluded, this gathering in of the troops to discuss tactics. The lads fell into their expected stance; they raised knowing eyebrows at each other, puffed out their chests and sat with their legs as wide as possible so that their jeans strained at the seams. I had seen the dogs in the yard do something similar when one of the bitches padded past. They would cock their legs in her face as if to say, ‘Well, gerra load of this then, baby!’ I was beginning to realise that what was happening in front of me was somehow related to this.

‘What he say, goo on, tell us!’ panted Fat Sally, almost salivating with anticipation.

‘He said,’ drawled Anita, ‘he wanted to shag the arse off me!’

Fat Sally grabbed Sherrie in a bear hug and squealed madly. Sherrie began a squeak of delight and then stopped suddenly, pushing her off, realising that Anita was playing cool in the face of this compliment. I assumed it was a compliment by her smug expression. Now Anita was looking at me, inside my head it seemed. She knew exactly what I was
thinking and even wrapped up in my duffle coat, I felt suddenly naked.

‘Hey Meena,’ Anita said almost tenderly. ‘Know what that means, that he wants to shag the arse off me?’

I shrugged in what I hoped was a non-committal, I-Might-Know-But-I’m-Not-Telling-You sort of way.

‘It means,’ she continued, coming right up to my face, ‘that he really really loves me.’

I nodded wisely. Of course, I had known this all along. Fat Sally and Sherrie turned their faces away, their shoulders shaking slightly. I didn’t care. They were only jealous that Anita had taken time to let me in on their secret and I felt blessed.

‘Ey! Nita!’ called the Poet. He was holding up a packet of cigarettes, and suddenly all three girls had left me, falling upon the boys like puppies, giggling uncontrollably. It was only when I started walking away that I realised Anita had not even introduced me, they did not even know my name. I glanced back; the Poet was holding out the now open cigarette packet. Anita slipped one expertly into her mouth. It seemed that her lip gloss reflected the dying sun. I ran all the way home, crossing the road when I got to the Big House, muttering my prayer and desperate to be inside and anonymous.

I reached my front door at exactly the same time as papa. His suit looked crumpled at the knees and elbows and his tie hung loosely around his neck. He put his briefcase on the front step and lifted me up, nuzzling my neck. ‘How’s my beti?’

‘Fine,’ I lied. I opened the door to see mama on her knees, trying to push the windy yellow settee back against a wall.

‘What the hell are you doing, Daljit?’ barked papa, striding inside and pulling her up. ‘Are you mad?’

‘I was not going to lift it,’ mama said weakly, surrendering herself to his embrace.

‘Couldn’t you wait?’ papa shouted angrily. ‘You will damage yourself like this.’

He sat mama down on an armchair and ordered me to fetch her a glass of water, which she sipped slowly, watching papa shove the settee into a corner and lay out a clean white sheet on the floor, ready for the evening’s
mehfil.

He glanced into the kitchen. The pans were heavy and silent on the stove, a large bowl of chapatti dough stood untouched at the counter.

‘You haven’t even made the roti yet,’ he said. ‘We should cancel tonight. Too much work.’

‘Don’t be silly, darling,’ mama sighed. ‘Everyone is coming. How will it look?’

This was one of her favourite get-out clauses, the mantra for her self-imposed martyrdom – what will people think?

‘You could have waited till I got home,’ papa continued, plumping up cushions. ‘You don’t have to do everything yourself

‘Who else is there?’ mama muttered, and then I remembered I was supposed to cut the salad. I went into the kitchen and opened the fridge where a huge tupperware full of freshly-cut tomatoes and cucumber stared back accusingly at me.

The first guests began arriving around seven o’clock. I was admiring myself in mama’s dressing table mirror, deciding whether I liked this unfamiliar reflection staring back in a purple
salwar kameez
suit, stiff with yellow elephant embroidery around the cuffs and neckline. I liked the suit, but it did not quite go with the pudding basin haircut and chewed-down fingernails. I spotted mama’s modest cache of make-up, a couple of Revlon lipsticks with round blunt heads, a gold-plated compact case which when opened, played ‘Strangers in the Night’ in a tinkly offhand manner, and a tiny stub of black eyebrow pencil. I picked up one of the lipsticks, Pink Lady, and applied it carefully around my mouth, startled to see a glaring cerise grin appear on my face, seemingly hovering above it like the Cheshire Cat smile I had seen in one of the ink drawings in my Alice in Wonderland book. To finish off the
stunning effect, I rifled through mama’s jewellery case, a blue leather box with delicate filigree clasps, and chose a gold chain upon which hung a single teardrop-shaped diamond. Even though I was sure mama would not mind, I hid it under my vest.

‘Meena?’ mama called from downstairs. ‘Door please!’ I hurriedly opened the compact case and stuck my finger into its belly. The powder was surprisingly soft and crumbly, and I wiped a few smears around my nose and forehead, like I had seen mama do. I blew myself a kiss as I left, did I look gorgeous.

Auntie Shaila gave a shriek of alarm when I opened the door. ‘
Hai Ram!
What is this? Looking like a rumpty tumpty dancing girl already …’ She tottered inside, dragging Uncle Amman behind her, his smooth, polished billiard ball head glistening with raindrops. ‘Daljit! Eh! Look at your daughter!’ Auntie Shaila continued, peeling off her overcoat, two woollen shawls and finally a thick pair of old bedsocks, revealing a glorious emerald green sari. ‘Damn English weather…having to hide all the time under these smelly blankets…Daljit!’

Mama came bustling in from the kitchen, adjusting her sari
pulla
, and stopped short when she saw me pouting back. ‘Meena! What have you done to your face?’ she asked.

Auntie Shaila kissed mama and handed her a box of Ambala sweetmeats, sticky yellow
laddoos
pressing against the clear cellophane of the lid. ‘Happy Diwali, sister. You see what happens to our girls here? Wanting to grow up so quickly and get boyfriends-shoyfriends…Isn’t childhood short enough, eh?’

‘She was just experimenting,’ papa smiled, giving a jolly
namaste
to our visitors. ‘Meena, go upstairs and wipe it off, good girl …’

‘No!’ I said, shocked by the sound of my voice. ‘Where’s Pinky? Where’s Baby?’

Auntie Shaila’s two daughters were the only other girls
roughly around my age in our circle, and therefore I treated them as best friends in front of the adults, although I secretly thought they were boring and rather thick. I had planned a whole evening of ghost stories and plays in which we would take turns at playing a screaming blonde heroine being pursued by nameless wailing monsters. Auntie Shaila spoke carefully, as if addressing an idiot. ‘Pinky and Baby are home with their dadima. Tonight is for grown-ups. And please no naughtiness tonight. Your mama is in a delicate way, you should be pressing her feet and asking for forgiveness. Now upstairs, and come back down wearing your own pretty face.’

After scrubbing my cheeks and lips clean with tissues, I opened my bedroom window and saw, as I had expected to, the lights of the fairground twinkling through the trees surrounding the Big House. I caught glimpses of the Octopus whirling round and round, its tentacles hung with chairs containing screaming, laughing passengers, their voices mingling with the thumping soundtrack of a pop song,
One Two Three, Oh It’s So Easy, Ba-by
! as my papa began tuning up his harmonium in the room below. I could see couples drawn by the music and lights, picking their way through the rows of cars which clogged the road up to the pithead.

I could make out another crowd of people pushing their way through the fairground punters, struggling against the flow and press of bodies. This crocodile of renegades moved slowly. I saw the flash of a jewelled sandal picking its way through the mud, a glittering nose ring caught by the flare of a neon bulb, a streak of vermilion silk exposed by a winter coat whipped up by the night air, and knew the rest of our guests had arrived.

By the time I had realised no one had noticed I was sulking and went downstairs, the front room was full of my uncles and aunties, all sitting cross-legged on the white floor sheet. Mama was handing round starters of kebabs and chutney whilst papa leafed through his tattered notebook containing
ghazal
lyrics, deep in conversation with Uncle Tendon, who cradled his
tabla
like a child. ‘Ah Meena beti!’ they called out as one, and I did the round of
namastes
and kisses, smiling through the lipstick assaults and the over-hard cheek pinching as my suit was praised and tweaked, my stomach tickled and jabbed, my educational achievements listed and admired, until I felt I was drowning in a sea of rustling saris, clinking gold jewellery and warm, brown, overpowering flesh.

The men, as usual, had divided up into two distinct groups. There were the ones like Uncle Tendon and my papa, the dapper, snapping, witty men in crisp suits who smoked and joked and retired to women-free corners where their whispered conversation, no doubt risque, was punctuated by huge bear-hugs and back-slapping routines. Then there was the quieter type, like Auntie Shaila’s husband, Uncle Amman, self-effacing, gentle shadows who followed their wives around playing the role of benevolent protector, but well aware that they were merely satellites caught in the matronly orbit of their noisy, loving wives.