Anita and Me (35 page)

How long ago that must have been, for Tollington to seem like heaven.

‘The mine was almost dead anyway, the owner saw us coming. ‘Arry tried to make it work but it broke him, and me also. But we did not want to go back to our families, we ‘ad travelled too far, we could not go back as…as failures. So we stayed.’

Her voice was an echo at the end of an entry now. I wanted to prise open my eyes and ask her was it just shame then, that had kept them so hidden for all these years, wasting their gifts and zest for life instead of sharing them with people whom they could have inspired and entertained, for whom they could have been living proof that the exotic and the different can add to and enrich even the sleepiest backwater.

‘We ‘ave lived you know, through all of you, so fascinating, the tiny things that happen every day. We felt proud, like parents. There are not many places left like this now…And in here, we only needed each other. ‘Oo else would have understood us, strange creatures like us?’

‘Meena! Meena! Meena…Meena …’ Mama was
shaking me so hard that I could feel my eyeballs banging against their sockets. She looked more angry than I had ever seen her, wild madwoman’s hair and scarlet-rimmed eyes, and then she broke into low moaning sobs and crushed me to her, wanting to absorb me back into her body where I was safe, where she could find me. I heard snorting from somewhere. I saw papa slumped onto a chaise longue, he was wiping his face with a hanky, bowed like an old old man, drained with relief. I was still in the library chair, but it was daylight, now I could see the faded flowers in the wallpaper and the dust motes rising from the thick velvet curtains. ‘Tracey,’ I said. ‘Have they found her?’ Mama nodded and burst into fresh weeping, burying her face in my shoulder now. ‘She…she was wearing your sweatshirt…oh my god, your sweatshirt …’

Tracey had been pronounced clinically dead by the ambulancemen when they arrived at hospital. They had found her by following a single flashing torchlight beckoning them through the undergrowth, and discovered a strange brown man standing over his soaking wet spaniel and Tracey’s sodden body. She had been so insubstantial somehow, the current had rejected her like a piece of litter and she had snagged in the bulrushes, waiting to be dragged out by a dog’s strongjaws. ‘But they put her on this machine …’ You heard the same story being broadcast on every corner, over every wall and fence, every intimate detail shared out even to strangers, this near tragedy reuniting Tollington for one last brief affair. ‘And you know, gave her shocks like, electric ones, and her heart started up again. They thought there’d be like brain damage, but the water was so cold, it like shut her down for a bit. Like when you pop a joint in the top bit of the fridge. All they did was thaw her out.’

Even if the village gossip had already reduced Tracey’s brush with death to a recipe card in the
People’s Friend
, the press saw it as nothing less than a modern-day miracle. ‘Tot Comes Back From the Dead!’ ‘Tracey Died For An Hour!’
‘Tollington “Angel” Refuses to Die!’ By the time my parents had got me home, the village was already crawling with reporters and photographers who had set up camp in the Mitre pub, ordering lavish fried breakfasts and kidnapping any passing body for some juicy quotes and anecdotes about Our Tracey, as she was now known by everyone, especially those who had written her off as one of Deirdre’s no-hope daughters.

I saw the whole giddy parade from my window, saw the Ballbearings women rush indoors when they spotted the reporters coming, and rushing out again, having quickly done their hair and slapped on some make-up, and then taking up casual poses in their gardens or on their front steps, as if they always did the dusting or weeding in their eyeliner and best frock. It seemed that the whole village had an opinion or theory as to what had happened, everyone stood around waiting to be asked or simply providing an audience to the lucky few who were chosen to comment.

I heard snatches of these sound bites as I lay in bed, waiting for the violent shivering that had plagued me since I had realised that today I was supposed to have been sitting my eleven-plus.

Mama and papa became alarmed at these shakes that began to rack my body. ‘It’s delayed shock! Get the doctor!’ mama had whispered to papa, but I could have told them it was blind, incoherent fury. I hated Tracey for coming to my door, hated Anita for speaking to me all those years ago when I sat on my front step eating stolen sweets, hated Sam for not being cruel to me so that I could have dismissed him long ago, and mainly hated myself for having completely forgotten all about it. How could I have been so stupid, to forget the chant that had carried me through last night, to miss this only opportunity to completely change my life? I saw everything crumble around me, every single daydream of wandering through the grammar school cloisters citing poetry, of my parents wiping tears away as I went up on a platform to
receive yet another prize for Debating Skills or Most Graceful Netball Player, of sitting in the garden of our new bungalow being applauded by my Aunties and Uncles as the first family member to win a university scholarship and meet a future husband on the same day—all that potential, all that hope, all gone because I made friends once with Anita Rutter.

The next morning began with the unexpected arrival of two letters. I recognised the writing of the one addressed to me, the same careful capitals, except this time, she had chosen to seal the note in an envelope. ‘Meena, come and talk to me about last night.
DON’T
talk to Sam!
VERY IMPORTANT
!!! Anita.’ I had foolishly supposed that she and Sam were locked somewhere in adjoining cells, trying to coordinate their stories through iron bars under the watchful gaze of a violent warder. But she was at home, a few familiar doors away. I tore up the letter into tiny pieces and flushed them down the toilet.

Papa’s letter was much more interesting; the envelope was silky and expensive looking, the postmark local, the handwriting in ink was large, ragged, intriguing, the address said only ‘Mr Kumar (Meena’s Papa), Corner House, Old Cottages, Tollington.’ It was not our official address, it was as if someone had written down the way he or she would describe how to get to our house to a lost traveller, and made perfect sense. Papa ripped it open and stared at it incredulously. ‘Daljit!’ he called. Mama came out of the kitchen holding Sunil at arm’s length; he was covered in cereal and looked proud of it. ‘Look at this,’ he said, showing her the letter. It seemed to be written in astrological symbols, all half moons and flying dots like comets. ‘Hindi?’ mama asked. Papa nodded and began to read. I could tell he was dragging up some old half-buried skills by the way his finger carefully followed the lines.

‘I’m rusty,’ he said mournfully to no one in particular, and then finally, ‘He has asked me to come for tea.’

‘Who? Who has?’ mama said, craning her neck to see the letter.

Papa looked over to the Big House. ‘Harinder P. Singh. All this time we have had a brother around the corner…all this time.’ Papa had to repeat himself several times and eventually take mama through the letter word by word until she finally absorbed the enormity of this information. Then she and papa both sat on the settee together, a curious wash of pride and betrayal sweeping over them. Finally mama asked me, ‘An Indian gentleman lives in the Big House, Meena. Isn’t that amazing?’ I could have told her then about meeting Ganesha in the forest, but that led onto the loss of her necklace and anyway, I realised it was better that my parents think they had been the first to know. ‘Arry had somehow let them down by remaining a secret for so long. ‘Amazing,’ I replied.

All morning we had loud men in macs banging on our door and telephoning incessantly for an interview with me, some of them offering money, all of them paranoid that maybe I had spilled the beans to someone else and that their scoop was already yesterday’s news. I heard them calling through the porch door to papa. ‘Mr Kumar? Has she told you what happened? Is it true she was the only witness? Did she mention that it was not an accident? Did she say she saw anyone push Tracey into the water? Mr Kumar?’

It was only when papa eventually let someone in and I saw the police car parked outside that I began to feel nervous. And when papa crept into my room, the set of his jaw confirmed my fears.

‘Meena, beti, the police want to talk to you. Did…did you see what happened?’

I nodded my head, regretting the moment when I had opened the door to that silly moo, Tracey.

‘Um, there is a bit of a complication you see,’ papa said carefully. ‘Tracey is saying that someone pushed her in.’

‘It wasn’t me!’ I cried.

Papa grabbed my hand and squeezed it. ‘No, no, I know, she’s not saying that. She is saying it was Sam Lowbridge or her sister.’ I wondered why he did not call Anita by name. ‘And they are accusing each other. So…well, so what you saw is quite important.’ I nodded again, a curious elation swelling inside me. ‘You just have to tell the truth, Meena,’ papa said gently.

How many times had mama and papa begged me to do just that? And how many times had I laughed at their pleas and abused their renewed trust after every occasion when I had been caught and vowed never to do it again? Even now I could see a tiny seed of doubt planting itself in papa’s brain, he so much wanted to believe that I would not be foolish enough to lie, romantic enough to embroider the occasion to suit my own dramatic desires. But the truth was, every little fabrication that went before, every extra twist in the tale and gilt on the lily, had merely been the rehearsal for the show which was about to begin. I had lost my best friend to someone who could have been a friend and lost himself, and between them, they had caused me what I thought was agonizing pain, until I met two other people, Nanima and Robert, who had thrown all previous self-pity into stark relief. But I hated Sam and Anita even more then, for making me believe that the power they had exercised over me was important, everlasting. I had been planning a spectacular revenge for so long and now, finally, I was ready.

Up until this moment I had been supremely prepared, going over every fine detail of what I would say, how Sam and Anita caught Tracey spying on their lovemaking (that was not the right word, far too kind a term for what they had been doing), that they flew into a rage, chased and caught her, egged each other on to push her into the water (I did not see who dealt the final shove, the important bit was that they both
knew what they were doing), that I watched helplessly from my hiding place in the bushes, (‘No, officer, I was too scared to stop them. They both picked on me all the time, ask anyone…What was I doing there? Tracey asked me to help her. Tracey was always more my friend anyway.’), and then ran for help as soon as I saw my dear friend hit the water, (‘And the worst bit was the way they laughed at the splash…I felt sick.’)

‘Now don’t be nervous Meena, wejust want to ask you a few questions.’ I had expected two burly thugs in dirty macs with dog-ends hanging out of their mouths, like the two detectives in
The Sweeney
on television. I had even prepared myself for the Nice Cop, Nasty Cop routine, deciding I would burst into tears if things got too hairy. But these two were soft-cheeked rookies, their hats looked too big and they ate all of mama’s snacks within a minute of sitting down, suggesting that their own mums had got up too late to feed them their usual fry-up. They opened their notebooks (pick up your pencils please), they turned to a page of notes (no turning over the exam paper until I say begin), and as they began their enquiries, I gradually drifted far away until I was outside my body, watching a fat brown girl chew her lip and talk in faltering sentences.

Yes, I went because Tracey called for me, said the girl. Yes, she knew the way, she had been watching them all night. Yes, they were…they were having sex. I saw the girl’s parents hang their heads and grip the side of their chairs, but the girl herself, well, she was completely unperturbed, a natural. Yes, there was a fight, kind of, Tracey ran at them…yes, she did start it. And then. And then? And then I flew right through the roof of my house and I saw everything: I saw the Ballbearings women haring down the street and grabbing life in their hands with every short barking laugh, I saw Mrs Worrall eating her daily treat of a lemon puff and feeding the best bit to Mr Worrall with devotion, I saw Tracey fuming in her hospital bed, reunited with her anger, I saw Sam polishing his
bike, avoiding his own reflection in the chrome, I saw Anita at her kitchen table eating toast which she had burned just like her mother and she liked it that way, I saw Mireille laying out a tea table with her best china and ‘Arry watching her quick delicate movements with quiet joy, I saw that Tollington had lost all its edges and boundaries, that the motorway bled into another road and another and the Bartlett estate had swallowed up the last cornfield and that my village was indistinguishable from the suburban mass that had once surrounded it and had finally swallowed it whole. It was time to let go and I floated back down into my body which, for the first time ever, fitted me to perfection and was all mine.

‘Tracey went for Sam and missed him and fell into the water.’ ‘Come again?’ The police-boy was staring right at me, disappointment already flushing his face. I knew he wanted to get Sam, with a previous record as long as his arm and that Rutter girl, well maybe it would stop another kid having yet another kid who would live off the State. He was telling me I could put them away if I wanted, but I’d had my revenge, I was leaving them to themselves and I believed utterly now in the possibilities of change. ‘It was an accident. I saw it. Tracey’s lying if she says anything else.’

I sat the eleven-plus in my headmaster’s office the next day. It felt like a mere formality as I had replayed it so often in my head. I had peaked far too early, what could I do? So I was surprised to see papa hammering in a F
OR
S
ALE
sign in our front garden when I got home.

‘Meena, beti! How did it go?’

‘Okay. Not as good as you think it went,’ I said, smiling at the sign.