White Teeth (35 page)

He continued like this, one word flowing from another, with no punctuation or breath and with the same chocolatey delivery—one could almost climb into his sentences, one could almost fall asleep in them.

“Mill.
Mill.
'Simportant.”

Millat looked drowsy, whether from the hash or Hifan wasn't clear. Shaking Irie off his sleeve, he attempted an introduction. “Irie, Hifan. Him and me used to go about together. Hifan—”

Hifan stepped forward, looming over Irie like a bell tower. “Good to meet you, sister. I am Hifan.”

“Great.
Millat.
”

“Irie, man,
shit.
Could you just chill for
one
minute?” He passed her the smoke. “I'm trying to listen to the guy, yeah? Hifan is the don. Look at the suit . . . gangster stylee!” Millat ran a finger down Hifan's lapel, and Hifan, against his better instinct, beamed with pleasure. “Seriously, Hifan, man, you look wicked. Crisp.”

“Yeah?”

“Better than that stuff you used to go around in back when we used to hang, eh? Back in them Kilburn days. 'Member when we went to Bradford and—”

Hifan remembered himself. Reassumed his previous face of pious determination. “I am afraid I don't remember the Kilburn days, brother. I did things in ignorance then. That was a different person.”

“Yeah,” said Millat sheepishly. “'Course.”

Millat gave Hifan a joshing punch on the shoulder, in response to which Hifan stood still as a gatepost.

“So: there's a fucking spiritual war going on—that's fucking crazy! About time—we need to make our mark in this bloody country. What was the name, again, of your lot?”

“I am from the Kilburn branch of the Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation,” said Hifan proudly.

Irie inhaled.

“Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation,”
repeated Millat, impressed. “That's a wicked name. It's got a wicked kung-fu kick-arse sound to it.”

Irie frowned. “KEVIN?”

“We are aware,” said Hifan solemnly, pointing to the spot underneath the cupped flame where the initials were minutely embroidered, “that we have an acronym problem.”

“Just a bit.”

“But the name is Allah's and it cannot be changed . . . but to continue with what I was saying: Millat, my friend, you could be the head of the Kilburn branch—”

“Mill.”

“You could have what I have, instead of this terrible confusion you are in, instead of this reliance on a drug specifically imported by governments to
subdue
the black and Asian community, to
lessen
our powers.”

“Yeah,” said Millat sadly, in mid-roll of a new spliff. “I don't really look at it like that. I guess I
should
look at it like that.”

“Mill.”

“Jones,
give it a rest.
I'm having a fucking debate. Hifan, what school you at now, mate?”

Hifan shook his head with a smile. “I left the English education system some time ago. But my education is far from over. If I can quote to you from the Tabrõzõ, hadith number 220:
The person who goes in search of knowledge is on active service for God until he returns and the—
”

“Mill,” whispered Irie, beneath Hifan's flow of mellifluous sound.
“Mill.”

“For
fuck's sake. What?
Sorry, Hifan, mate, one minute.”

Irie pulled deeply on her joint and relayed her news. Millat sighed. “Irie, they come in one side and we go out the other. No biggie. It's a regular deal. All right? Now why don't you go and play with the kiddies? Serious business here.”

“It was good to meet you, Irie,” said Hifan, reaching out his hand and looking her up and down. “If I might say so, it is refreshing to see a woman who dresses demurely, wearing her hair short. KEVIN believes a woman should not feel the need to pander to the erotic fantasies of Western sexuality.”

“Er, ye-ah. Thanks.”

Feeling sorry for herself and more than a bit stoned, Irie made her way back through the wall of smoke and stepped through Joshua Chalfen's
Goblins and Gorgons
game once more.

“Hey, we're trying to play here!”

Irie whipped round, full of swallowed fury. “AND?”

Joshua's friends—a fat kid, a spotty kid, and a kid with an abnormally large head—shrank back in fear. But Joshua stood his ground. He played oboe behind Irie's second viola in the excuse for a school orchestra, and he had often observed her strange hair and broad shoulders and thought he might have half a chance there. She was clever and not entirely unpretty, and there was something in her that had a strongly nerdy flavor about it, despite that boy she spent her time with. The Indian one. She hung around him, but she wasn't
like
him. Joshua Chalfen strongly suspected her of being
one of his own.
There was something innate in her that he felt he could bring out. She was a nerd-immigrant who had fled the land of the fat, facially challenged, and disarmingly clever. She had scaled the mountains of Caldor, swum the River Leviathrax, and braved the chasm Duilwen, in the mad dash away from her true countrymen to another land.

“I'm just
saying.
You seem pretty keen to step into the land of Golthon. Do you want to play with us?”

“No, I don't want to play with you, you fucking prick. I don't even
know
you.”

“Joshua Chalfen. I was in Manor Primary. And we're in English together.
And
we're in orchestra together.”

“No, we're
not.
I'm in orchestra. You're in orchestra. In no sense are we there
together.
”

The goblin, the elder, and the dwarf, who appreciated a good play on words, had a snivelly giggle at that one. But insults meant nothing to Joshua. Joshua was the Cyrano de Bergerac of taking insults. He'd taken insults (from the affectionate end,
Chalfen the Chubster, Posh Josh, Josh-with-the-Jewfro;
from the other,
That Hippie Fuck, Curly-haired Cocksucker, Shit-eater
), he'd taken never-ending insults all his damn life, and survived, coming out the other side to smug. An insult was but a pebble in his path, only proving the intellectual inferiority of she who threw it. He continued regardless.

“I like what you've done with your hair.”

“Are you taking the piss?”

“No, I like short hair on girls. I like that androgyny thing. Seriously.”

“What is your fucking problem?”

Joshua shrugged. “Nothing. The vaguest acquaintance with basic Freudian theory would suggest you are the one with the problem. Where does all that aggression come from? I thought smoking was meant to chill you out. Can I have some?”

Irie had forgotten the burning joint in her hand. “Oh, yeah, right. Regular puff-head, are we?”

“I dabble.”

The dwarf, elder, and goblin emitted some snorts and liquid noises.

“Oh, sure,” sighed Irie, reaching down to pass it to him. “Whatever.”

“Irie!”

It was Millat. He had forgotten to take his joint off Irie and was now running over to retrieve it. Irie, about to hand it over to Joshua, turning around in midaction, at one and the same time spotted Millat coming toward her and felt a rumble in the ground, a tremor that shook Joshua's tiny cast-iron goblin army to their knees and then swept them off the board.

“What the—” said Millat.

It was the raid committee. Taking the suggestion of Parent-Governor Archibald Jones, an ex-army man who claimed expertise in the field of ambush, they had resolved to come from
both sides
(never before tested), their hundred-strong party utilizing the element of surprise, giving no prewarning bar the sound of their approaching feet; simply boxing the little bastards in, thus cutting off any escape route for the enemy and catching the likes of Millat Iqbal, Irie Jones, and Joshua Chalfen in the very act of marijuana consumption.

The headmaster of Glenard Oak was in a continual state of implosion. His hairline had gone out and stayed out like a determined tide, his eye sockets were deep, his lips had been sucked backward into his mouth, he had no body to speak of, or rather he folded what he had into a small, twisted package, sealing it with a pair of crossed arms and crossed legs. As if to counter this personal, internal collapse, the headmaster had the seating arranged in a large circle, an expansive gesture he hoped would help everybody speak to and see each other, allowing everybody to
express their point
and
make themselves heard
so together they could work toward
problem solving
rather than
behavior chastisement.
Some parents worried the headmaster was a bleeding-heart liberal. If you asked Tina, his secretary (not that no one never
did
ask Tina a bloody thing, oh no, no fear, only questions like
So, what are these three scallywags up for, then?
), it was more like a hemorrhage.

“So,” said the headmaster to Tina with a doleful smile, “what are these three scallywags up for, then?”

Wearily, Tina read out the three counts of “mari-jew-ana” possession. Irie put her hand up to object, but the headmaster silenced her with a gentle smile.

“I see. That'll be all, Tina. If you could just leave the door ajar on your way out, yes, that's it, bit more
. . . fine—
don't want anyone to feel boxed in, as it were. OK. Now. I think the most
civilized
way to do this,” said the headmaster, laying his hands palm up and flat on his knees to demonstrate he was packing no weapons, “so we don't have everybody talking over each other, is if I say my bit, you each then say your bit, starting with you, Millat, and ending with Joshua, and then once we've taken on board all that's been said, I get to say my final bit and that's it. Relatively painless. All right? All right.”

“I need a fag,” said Millat.

The headmaster rearranged himself. He uncrossed his right leg and slung his skinny left leg over instead, he brought his two forefingers up to his lips in the shape of a church spire, he retracted his head like a turtle.

“Millat,
please.
”

“Have you got a fag-tray?”

“No, now, Millat, come
on . . .
”

“I'll just go an' have one at the gates, then.”

In this manner, the whole school held the headmaster to ransom. He couldn't have a thousand kids lining the Cricklewood streets, smoking fags, bringing down the tone of the school. This was the age of the league table. Of picky parents nosing their way through
The Times Educational Supplement,
summing up schools in letters and numbers and inspectors' reports. The headmaster was forced to switch off the fire alarms for terms at a time, hiding his thousand smokers within the school's confines.

“Oh . . . look, just move your chair closer to the window. Come on, come on, don't make a song and dance about it. That's it. All right?”

A Lambert & Butler hung from Millat's lips. “Light?”

The headmaster rifled about in his own shirt pocket, where a packet of German rolling tobacco and a lighter were buried amid a lot of tissue paper and Biros.

“There you go.” Millat lit up, blowing smoke in the headmaster's direction. The headmaster coughed like an old woman. “OK, Millat, you first. Because I expect this of
you,
at least. Spill the legumes.”

Millat said, “I was round there, the back of the science block, on a matter of spiritual growth.”

The headmaster leaned forward and tapped the church spire against his lips a few times. “You're going to have to give me a little more to work on, Millat. If there's some religious connection here, it can only work in your favor, but I need to know about it.”

Millat elaborated, “I was talking to my mate. Hifan.”

The headmaster shook his head. “I'm not following you, Millat.”

“He's a spiritual leader. I was getting some advice.”

“Spiritual leader? Hifan? Is he in the school? Are we talking cult here, Millat? I need to know if we're talking cult.”

“No, it's not a bloody cult,” barked Irie, exasperated. “Can we get on with it? I've got viola in ten minutes.”

“Millat's speaking, Irie. We're listening to Millat. And hopefully when we get to you, Millat will give you a bit more respect than you've just shown him. OK? We've
got
to have communication. OK, Millat. Go on. What
kind
of spiritual leader?”

“Muslim. He was helping me with my faith, yeah? He's the head of the Kilburn branch of the Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation.”

The headmaster frowned. “KEVIN?”

“They are aware they have an acronym problem,” explained Irie.

“So,” continued the headmaster eagerly, “this guy from KEVIN. Was he the one who was supplying the gear?”

“No,” said Millat, stubbing his fag out on the windowsill. “It was my gear. He was talking to me, and I was smoking it.”

“Look,” said Irie, after a few more minutes of circular conversation. “It's very simple. It was Millat's gear. I smoked it without really thinking, then I gave it to Joshua to hold for a second while I tied my shoelace, but he really had nothing to do with it. OK? Can we go now?”

“Yes, I did!”

Irie turned to Joshua.
“What?”

“She's trying to cover for me. Some of it was my marijuana. I was dealing marijuana. Then the pigs jumped me.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. Chalfen, you're nuts.”

Maybe. But in the past two days, Joshua had gained more respect, been patted on the back by more people, and generally lorded it around more than he ever had in his life. Some of the glamour of Millat seemed to have rubbed off on him by association, and as for Irie—well, he'd allowed a “vague interest” to develop, in the past two days, into a full-blown crush. Wipe that. He had a full-blown crush on both of them. There was something compelling about them. More so than Elgin the dwarf or Moloch the sorcerer. He liked being connected with them, however tenuously. He had been plucked by the two of them out of nerddom, accidentally whisked from obscurity into the school spotlight. He wasn't going back without a struggle.