White Teeth (48 page)

‘Really?’ said Millat, impressed. ‘Whereabouts you from?’

‘Clapham North,’ said Sister Aeyisha, with a shy smile.

Millat clapped his hands together and stamped his foot. ‘Oh, man, you
must
know the Redback Café?’

Sister Aeyisha the African goddess lit up. ‘
Yeah
, man, that was my place from way back when! You go there?’

‘All the time! Wicked place. Well, maybe I’ll see you round them gates sometime. It was nice to meet you, sister. Brother Tyrone, I’ve got to chip, man, my gal’s waiting for me.’

Brother Tyrone looked disappointed. Just before Millat left, he pressed another leaflet into his hand and continued holding his hand until the paper got damp between their two palms.

‘You could be a great leader of men, Millat,’ said Brother Tyrone (why did everybody keep telling him that?), looking first at him, then at Karina Cain, the curve of her breasts peeping over the car door, beeping her car horn in the street. ‘But at the moment you are half the man. We need the whole man.’

‘Yeah, wicked, thanks, you too Brother,’ said Millat, looking briefly at the leaflet, and pushing open the doors. ‘Laters.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Karina Cain, reaching over to open the passenger door and spotting the slightly soggy paper in his hand.

Instinctively, Millat put the leaflet straight in his pocket. Which was weird. He usually showed Karina everything. Now just her asking him grated somehow. And what was she wearing? Same belly top she always wore. Except wasn’t it shorter? Weren’t the nipples clearer, more deliberate?

He said, ‘Nothing.’ Grumpily. But it wasn’t nothing. It was the final leaflet in the KEVIN series on Western women.
The Right to Bare: The Naked Truth about Western Sexuality
.

Now, while we’re on the subject of nakedness, Karina Cain had a nice little body. All creamy chub and slender extremities. And come the weekend she liked to wear something to show it off. First time Millat noticed her was at some local party when he saw a flash of silver pants, a silver boob-tube, and a bare mound of slightly protruding belly rising up between the two with another bit of silver in the navel. There was something welcoming about Karina Cain’s little belly. She hated it, but Millat loved it. He loved it when she wore things that revealed it. But now the leaflets were making things
clearer
. He started noticing what she wore and the way other men looked at her. And when he mentioned it she said, ‘Oh, I
hate
that. All those leery old men.’ But it seemed to Millat that she was encouraging it; that she positively
wanted
men to look at her, that she was — as
The Right to Bare
suggested — ‘prostituting herself to the male gaze’. Particularly white males. Because that’s how it worked between Western men and Western women, wasn’t it? They liked to do it all in public. The more he thought about it, the more it pissed him off. Why couldn’t she cover up? Who was she trying to impress? African goddesses from Clapham North respected themselves, why couldn’t Karina Cain? ‘I can’t respect you,’ explained Millat carefully, making sure he repeated the words just as he had read them, ‘until you respect yourself.’ Karina Cain said she did respect herself, but Millat couldn’t believe her. Which was odd, because he’d never known Karina Cain to lie, she wasn’t the type.

When they got ready to go out somewhere, he said, ‘You’re not dressing for me, you’re dressing for everybody!’ Karina said she didn’t dress for him or anybody, she dressed for herself. When she sang ‘Sexual Healing’ at the pub karaoke, he said, ‘Sex is a private thing, between you and me, it’s not for everybody!’ Karina said she was
singing
, not having sex in front of the Rat and Carrot regulars. When they made love, he said, ‘Don’t do that . . . don’t offer it to me like a whore. Haven’t you heard of unnatural acts? Besides, I’ll take it if I want it — and why can’t you be a lady, don’t make all that noise!’ Karina Cain slapped him and cried a lot. She said she didn’t know what was happening to him. Problem is, thought Millat, as he slammed the door off its hinges,
neither do I
. And after that row they didn’t talk for a while.

About two weeks later, he was doing a shift in the Palace for a little extra money, and he brought the matter up with Shiva, a newish convert to KEVIN and a rising star within the organization. ‘Don’t talk to me about white women,’ groaned Shiva, wondering how many generations of Iqbals he’d have to give the same advice to. ‘It’s got to the point in the West where the women are men! I mean, they’ve got the same desires and urges as men —
they want it all the fucking time
. And they dress like they want everyone to
know
they want it. Now is that right? Is it?’

But before the debate could progress, Samad came through the double doors looking for some mango chutney and Millat returned to his chopping.

That evening after work, Millat saw a moon-faced, demure-looking Indian woman through the window of a Piccadilly café who looked, in profile, not unlike youthful pictures of his mother. She was dressed in a black polo-neck, long black trousers and her eyes were partly veiled by long black hair, her only decoration the red patterns of mhendi on the palms of her hands. She was sitting alone.

With the same thoughtless balls he used when chatting up dolly birds and disco brains, with the guts of a man who had no qualms about talking to strangers, Millat went in and started giving her the back page of
The Right to Bare
pretty much verbatim, in the hope that she’d understand. All about soulmates, about self-respect, about women who seek to bring ‘visual pleasure’ only to the men who love them. He explained: ‘It’s the liberation of the veil, innit? Look, like here:
Free from the shackles of male scrutiny and the standards of attractiveness, the woman is free to be who she is inside, immune from being portrayed as sex symbol and lusted after as if she were meat on the shelf to be picked at and looked over
. That’s what we think,’ he said, uncertain if that was what he thought. ‘That’s our opinion,’ he said, uncertain whether it was his opinion. ‘You see, I’m from this group—’

The lady screwed up her face and put her forefinger delicately across his lip. ‘Oh, darling,’ she murmured sadly, admiring his beauty. ‘If I give you money, will you go away?’

And then her boyfriend turned up, a surprisingly tall Chinese guy in a leather jacket.

Deep in a blue funk, Millat resolved to walk the eight miles home, beginning in Soho, glaring at the leggy whores and the crotchless knickers and the feather boas. By the time he reached Marble Arch he had worked himself into such a rage he called Karina Cain from a phonebox plastered with tits and ass (whores, whores, whores) and dumped her unceremoniously. He didn’t mind about the other girls he was shagging (Alexandra Andrusier, Polly Houghton, Rosie Dew) because they were straight up, posh-totty slags. But he minded about Karina Cain, because she was his
love
, and his love should be his love and nobody else’s. Protected like Liotta’s wife in
GoodFellas
or Pacino’s sister in
Scarface
. Treated like a princess. Behaving like a princess. In a tower. Covered up.

Walking slower now, dragging his heels, there being nobody to go home to, he got waylaid in the Edgware Road, the old fat guys calling him over (‘Look, it’s Millat, little Millat the Ladies’ Man! Millat the Prince of Pussy-pokers! Too big to have a smoke is he, now?’) and gave in with a rueful smile. Hookah pipes, halal fried chicken and illegally imported absinthe consumed around wobbling outdoor tables; watching the women hurry by in full purdah, like busy black ghosts haunting the streets, late-night shopping, looking for their errant husbands. Millat liked to watch them go: the animated talk, the exquisite colours of the communicative eyes, the bursts of laughter from invisible lips. He remembered something his father once told him back when they used to speak to each other. You do not know the meaning of the erotic, Millat, you do not know the meaning of
desire
, my second son, until you have sat on the Edgware Road with a bubbling pipe, using all the powers of your imagination to visualize what is beyond the four inches of skin hajib reveals, what is under those great sable sheets.

About six hours later Millat turned up at the Chalfen kitchen table, very, very drunk, weepy and violent. He destroyed Oscar’s Lego fire station and threw the coffee machine across the room. Then he did what Joyce had been waiting for these twelve months. He asked her advice.

It seemed like months had been spent across that kitchen table since then, Joyce shooing people out of the room, going through her reading material, wringing her hands; the smell of dope mingling with the steam that rose off endless cups of strawberry tea. For Joyce truly loved him and wanted to help him, but her advice was long and complex. She had read up on the subject. And it appeared Millat was filled with self-revulsion and hatred of his own kind; that he had possibly a slave mentality, or maybe a colour-complex centred around his mother (he was far darker than she), or a wish for his own annihilation by means of dilution in a white gene pool, or an inability to reconcile two opposing cultures . . . and it emerged that 60 per cent of Asian men did
this
. . . and 90 per cent of Muslims felt
that
 . . . it was a known fact that Asian families were often . . . and hormonally boys were more likely to . . . and the therapist she’d found him was really very nice, three days a week and don’t worry about the money . . . and don’t worry about Joshua, he’s just sulking . . . and, and,
and
.

Way-back-when in the fuddle of the hash and the talk Millat remembered a girl called Karina Somethingoranother whom he had liked. And she liked him. And she had a great sense of humour which felt like a miracle, and she looked after him when he was down and he looked after her too, in his own way, bringing her flowers and stuff. She seemed distant now, like conker fights and childhood. And that was that.

There was trouble at the Joneses. Irie was about to become the first Bowden or Jones (possibly, maybe, all things willing, by the grace of God, fingers crossed) to enter a university. Her A-levels were chemistry, biology and religious studies. She wanted to study dentistry (white collar! £20k+!), which everyone was very pleased about, but she also wanted to take a ‘year off’ in the subcontinent and Africa (Malaria! Poverty! Tapeworm!), which led to three months of open warfare between her and Clara. One side wanted finance and permission, the other side was resolved to concede neither. The conflict was protracted and bitter, and all mediators were sent home empty-handed (
She has made up her mind, there are no arguments to be had with the woman
— Samad) or else embroiled in the war of words (
Why can’t she go to Bangladesh if she wants to? Are you saying my country is not good enough for your daughter
? — Alsana).

The stalemate was so pronounced that land had been divided and allocated; Irie claimed her bedroom and the attic, Archie, a conscientious objector, asked only for the spare room, a television and a satellite (state) dish, and Clara took everything else, with the bathroom acting as shared territory. Doors were slammed. The time for talking was over.

On the 25th of October 1991, 01.00 hours, Irie embarked upon a late-night attack. She knew from experience that her mother was most vulnerable when in bed; late at night she spoke softly like a child, her fatigue gave her a pronounced lisp; it was at this point that you were most likely to get whatever it was you’d been pining for: pocket money, a new bike, a later curfew. It was such a well-worn tactic that until now Irie had not considered it worthy of this, her fiercest and longest dispute with her mother. But she hadn’t any better ideas.

‘Irie? Wha — ? Iss sa middle of sa nice . . . Go back koo bed . . .’

Irie opened the door further, letting yet more hall light flood the bedroom.

Archie submerged his head in a pillow. ‘Bloody hell, love, it’s one in the morning! Some of us have got work tomorrow.’

‘I want to talk to Mum,’ said Irie firmly, walking to the end of the bed. ‘She won’t talk to me during the day, so I’m reduced to this.’

‘Irie, pleaze . . . I’m exhaushed . . . I’m shrying koo gesh shome shleep.’

‘I don’t just
want
to have a year off, I
need
one. It’s essential — I’m young, I want some experiences. I’ve lived in this bloody suburb all my life. Everyone’s the same here. I want to go and see the people of the world . . . that’s what Joshua’s doing and
his
parents support him!’

‘Well, we can’t bloody afford it,’ grumbled Archie, emerging from the eiderdown. ‘We haven’t all got posh jobs in science, now have we?’

‘I don’t
care
about the money — I’ll get a job, somehow or something, but I do want your permission!
Both
of you. I don’t want to spend six months away and spend every day thinking you’re angry.’

‘Well, it’s not up to me, love, is it? It’s your mother, really, I . . .’

‘Yes, Dad. Thanks for stating the bloody obvious.’

‘Oh, right,’ said Archie huffily, turning to the wall. ‘I’ll keep my comments to meself, then . . .’

‘Oh,
Dad
, I didn’t mean . . . Mum? Can you please sit up and speak properly? I’m trying to talk to you? It seems like I’m talking to myself here?’ said Irie with absurd intonations, for this was the year Antipodean soap operas were teaching a generation of English kids to phrase everything as a question. ‘Look, I want your permission, yeah?’

Even in the darkness, Irie could see Clara scowl. ‘Permishon for
what
? Koo go and share and ogle at poor black folk? Dr Livingshone, I prejume? Iz dat what you leant from da Shalfenz? Because if thash what you want, you can do dat here. Jush sit and look at me for shix munfs!’

‘It’s nothing to do with that! I just want to see how other people live!’

‘An’ gek youshelf killed in da proshess! Why don’ you go necksh door, dere are uvver people dere. Go shee how dey live!’