The Cambridge Curry Club (4 page)

‘Wild sex with white blokes,’ interrupted Durga.

Swarnakumari was shocked. ‘My Mallika needs—’

‘Wild sex with black blokes? Oh, of course, sorry, these things don’t happen in good Asian families.’

‘What dirty talk is this? It does not suit you, Durga. Take my advice, and let your parents help you get married. They can easily find an intelligent boy, good personality, same values, same social background.’

‘Leave my parents out of this. And what’s with you first-generation Indians, anyway? You came here thirty years ago with a suitcase you never unpacked. It’s all about tradition, family, culture, honour, isn’t it? Why are you so keen on carrying on tradition? It’s as if you’re scared – you have to obey, or else. But does tradition exist? Is it real for us to taste, smell, feel and hold?’

A customer approached the till. ‘Er, could you …’

‘Anything wrong with what I said? One day when you girls become mothers you will understand your own mothers. Each generation will not listen. It will understand only later. That is the tragedy of life. Tell me, Durga, who are you without your roots,
hanh
? It is because of our roots that we can survive in this society. Why do you want to deny our Indian culture, that’s what I don’t understand.’ Swarnakumari matched Durga’s passionate outburst with one of her own.

‘Don’t you see that you seize upon “Indian culture” out of desperation and fear? Fear of erosion and erasure of identity. Why not welcome the churn of East–West encounters instead, take the plunge into the flow and see what happens? Diaspora isn’t only about
displacement
; it’s a progression, a moving to a new location of the liberated self.’

‘
Baba
, I do not understand this high talk of yours. What I am saying is there is nothing wrong if parents guide and advise children even when they are older. That’s all. Your parents must surely be telling you the same thing.’

‘Blankets,’ interjected the customer.

Durga cried, ‘Leave my parents out of it!’

‘My Arthur used to say—’ reported the customer unsuccessfully.

‘Why, your parents should not worry about you just because you are grown up?’ pursued Swarnakumari.

‘I said, drop it.’

The customer grew bold. ‘Could I just …’

‘Yes, madam?’ inquired Swarnakumari, noticing her for the first time.

‘Do you have any electric blankets, dear?’

‘No, madam, but do look in that section there. We
have some new Edinburgh wool blankets,’ replied Swarnakumari as the customer moved away.

She continued, ‘
Baba
, forget it, why are you getting so upset? You know, so many things have changed for the better from twenty-five years ago. You must have heard how we used to buy baked beans to make an Indian dish, and in those days we could not even get coriander. What could we teach our children about India, living here in Britain? That is why I am thinking there is nothing wrong at all if youngsters like these Bollywood films nowadays.’

‘Did you understand anything I said? Oh, and about Bollywood, let me tell you, the only reason you
welcome
those films is because at last there’s something much bigger than a bunch of coriander to reflect your “Indian values”. But I think Bollywood has stereotyped us further in this country, shut us all in a cage called “Asian”. One size fits all, so my Asian bum doesn’t look big in this. Do the J. Kumar grocer and I have anything in common? No, but we’re all Asian, so let’s party.’

‘I don’t understand—’ Swarnakumari began.

Durga interrrupted sharply, ‘At last, Mr and Mrs Jones next door know the real me. I’m Asian, right, so
of course
, all I do is I boogie my belly and bounce my bosom to the bhangra beat. Jerk and jhatka, ooh, that’s hot, that’s Asian cool! Swarna, the future is so bright it’s not orange, but brown.’

‘Durga, what are you talking about? Everything is so easy for your generation now. Let me tell you
something
. Mallika’s father and I got married in Kolkata. He left, and I came later to England. In Kolkata my family had five servants –
five
. And first day in England, he gave me an empty milk bottle in my hand and told
me, “Roll out chapattis with this!” The kitchen
window
must be kept shut also. “No Indian cooking smell should go to the neighbour,” he warned me. You cannot imagine the shock; it took me such a long time to forget my Kolkata, to like this country, even other Bengalis, the weather, even my own house …’

The eavesdropping customer agreed. ‘Don’t blame you, dear. I still don’t like the weather. No good for me bones – got arthritis you see, just like me sister Maud. She’s the younger one, holidaying in Spain at the moment she is, but our poor Edith was buried with her pacemaker she was, and ooh, what a problem she used ter have going through metal detectors in airports. She went on a holiday to Rome and those Italians thought she was a terrorist. Bleep, bleep, bleep, the detector went off and poor Edith got such a fright, I can tell yer. My Arthur used to say—’

‘How can we help you, madam?’ prodded Swarnakumari.

‘Er, well, yes, I wanted an electric blanket, you see, but you don’t have any, so I thought I’d donate these ten pounds. Mary did say to me ter make sure the money goes ter those wee cats. My Arthur always said—’

‘I think you mean the cats’ charity next door, madam. It is called Catnap. This is IndiaNeed. Our money goes to poor Indian villagers.’ Swarnakumari shook her head vigorously. ‘No cats here.’ She pointed to the photograph on the wall behind her of the group of smiling Rajasthani villagers. A larger
photograph
of Diana Wellington-Smythe shaking hands with the Duke of Edinburgh hung adjacent on the wall.

‘Oh, but we do have one,’ contradicted Durga. ‘Her name is Mrs Well—’

Swarnakumari frowned.

‘Well, dear, I’ll be off, then. Goodbye. You too, dear, goodbye,’ sang the customer, opening the door. ‘My Arthur always used to say …’ The traffic outside drowned her voice.

Durga wanted to call her back, ask about Arthur. What did he always say? Who was he? Husband, lover or son? He was dead, or perhaps he was alive and now said something different, something he had never said before. And what if everything Arthur had ever said was gone, washed away like the ashes and flowers
floating
on an Indian river, and one human being had the power to keep his spoken word alive in an echoing universe?

The customer returned, popping her head through the door. She paused, lost in thought. ‘There was something I had to remember,’ she announced
amiably
. ‘And I’ve forgotten what it is. Never mind. Goodbye.’

Memory was a capricious tool; it airbrushed the cavities of time. Javed no longer wrote Urdu love poems – he wrote invoices. After a successful career as a builder in Dubai, he had recently purchased a plot of land in
Harrow
, north-west London, for the development of offices and residential flats. His wife had custody of the
children
, for whom he felt affection but no pangs of
separation
. Javed was now a new man, and he intended to behave like one. ‘Freedom by fifty’ was his new life slogan.

He had never sat on a camel again, although fate had
confidently despatched him to the land of camels. As long as he was within sight of a dromedary, it was clear that his marriage to Shabana would remain doomed. Shabana was a Pathan, fair and loose-limbed, with light grey eyes and silky brown hair; she was also a deeply religious shopaholic. He had indulged her excesses, and even when her two younger sisters and mother joined a household already bursting with servants, his protests remained benevolent and mild. With the sunlight pouring onto his desk one afternoon, he stumbled upon her latest bank statement. Blinded by the intensity of the light, he misread the digits and decided that Shabana had stretched both her credit and credibility too far; he had reached his limit. In a moment of insight, Javed discovered his was a marriage by numbers.

His thoughts turned to Heera pickled in time, and of her soft arms and bubbly optimism. He had heard she had married an Englishman. His lip curled. What did an Englishman know of love, of its obsessive sweep, rain-drenched passion, mystic couplets of yearning
divided
by immeasurable distance? Of the glance like a sweetly poisoned arrow and the tender curve of lips, of the dusky, honeyed surrender of being and soul, of the tortured wait for an answering echo of devotion? What ardour could an Englishman produce in that miserable weather, when the rain and the cold could only dampen the blood to congeal into colourlessness? He tried to recall the poems he had written to her more than two decades ago, but remembered nothing. He wondered if a fragment was what his life was, she the other; together were they meant to be whole, for what had driven her to an Englishman, revenge or indifference?
She had haunted him. She could not be happy with an elegiac Englishman.

He looked at the slip of paper on which Heera’s disapproving cousin had reluctantly written the
telephone
number and address of the charity shop. He was driven by dread; would she be as he
remembered
? A man needed a dream, a passion to live and die for, or what was life worth? He had made a
mistake
once in relinquishing her love. Far worse to yearn and ache, never knowing, than to try to make it happen and fail; far better to reach for the dream than pluck air.

Despite his roguish looks, Javed was in torment as he glanced in the mirror at his dyed black hair, the tiny wobbles of flesh fanning his cheeks and the portly frame. He was forty-nine, and dissipated. The doctor had warned him about his cholesterol. He took three tablets twice a day and had to remember the large white pill was to be taken first, before the smaller two. His lips twisted ruefully. Romance had to be more than a weak-hearted, pill-popping middle-aged man, who couldn’t chase a bus any more, asking a lost love if she had ever thought of him again. Then the image of the jeering crowds and the camel arose before him, and he was filled with new resolve. The camel had not moved then, but today he would move mountains with his hope. He would go to Mill Road to see Heera.

The telephone rang. ‘Sir Puzzle’, who had been
standing
near the till, jumped like an electrocuted cat. Every Tuesday and Thursday the elderly man wandered into the shop, lifted his cap with gallantry to greet the women and request new jigsaw puzzles. The harder the
better, he pleaded with a twinkle in his eye, preferably with a piece missing.

‘Good morning, IndiaNeed,’ said Heera. ‘Heera here …
Heera
… The wheelchair? For the Arthur Rank Hospice? Yes, I’ll keep it ready for collection this afternoon … Yes, I’ll remember what you said earlier … No, it won’t happen again, Mrs
Wellington-Smythe
… Goodbye.’

Heera returned to the Staff Area and brought out a wheelchair from behind the curtain to park near the till. She noticed a video cassette lying on one of the smaller sorting tables.

‘My little nephew loves
Thomas the Tank Engine
,’ she confided amiably, ‘but I’d better check the tape first. Those Korean girls sold
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
, and that
eediot
customer complained after a whole week that it was an adult video. She bought it for her toddler’s birthday party, she says, and the children saw some hot Russian babe called Nikita with seven LittleJohns. What does she expect? This is not
Blockbuster
. But she kept the video a whole week, so how many “children” watched the Russian babe Nikita “by mistake” is what I’d like to know.
Arre
, I also found a video once, and it was called
Birds in the Bush
. So I nicked it from the shop for a day, and it really was about some rare Australian birds, but I didn’t
complain
,’ divulged Heera with a chuckle. ‘Anyway, girls, sad news. Meera Patel’s husband died last week. Massive heart attack. He was watching
Jerry Springer.
Don’t tell anyone, all right? Meera told me she’s telling everyone he was watching
Newsnight
.’

Looking shocked, Swarnakumari moved to a table to arrange children’s books. ‘Poor Meera,’ she murmured
sadly. ‘Who will colour her hair for her now? Terrible,
na
.’

Discovering a second pair of trousers and a tweed cap in another black bag, Heera continued, ‘Her sister Madhuri was mixed up in some dispute with her English neighbour fifteen years ago. There was a
common
blocked pipe, and they wouldn’t decide who was going to pay for the repairs. Anyway, things got really bad between them and the neighbour called Madhuri a “black bitch” in front of her in-laws from Surat – can you imagine, during the Diwali days, that too! And then Madhuri said that during the night this
angrez
woman’s dog had done a wee over her rangoli pattern on the ground near the garage. She said it must be on purpose, naturally, because English dogs are so
well-trained
, they never do their business just anywhere, so how else can it happen? But of course, who knows the truth? The English neighbour may not have been to blame, but anyway, one thing is clear. I would not like to be called a “black bitch”, either,’ concluded Heera firmly.

‘Nor “fast colour”,’ added Durga, enjoying Eileen’s puzzlement.

There was a twist to the story: Madhuri had garnered her children’s support during Diwali to enthusiastically etch traditional Diwali rangoli patterns using white powder on the path near the garage. The English neighbour’s elderly father was visiting that year, and took an evening walk with his terrier in the fading light. The moon was already visible among the bare branches of the tree-lined street as he noticed what appeared to be a ghostly white Nazi swastika shining on the ground. A war veteran, he returned unsteadily to
his daughter’s home, incoherent and disoriented.
Convalescing
on his bed, he pointed wordlessly with a trembling finger in the direction of the window. Later that night there was a sharp passing shower, and the rangoli patterns were washed away, leaving the ground dry by the morning. The rest was history.