Anita and Me (13 page)

And then to my mortification, and in front of the rest of the mafia, mama actually presented an entire C V of my misdemeanours, including some I’d completely forgotten about.

‘You remember, that time she told my entire staff room that she had been a bridesmaid at our wedding?’ This wasn’t fair!
every other girl in my class of four-year-olds had been a bridesmaid and boasted about it continually, I just did not see why I had to be left out, that was all. ‘And then the story about India, when she told her class we had gone there on holiday? She told them we stayed in mud huts and killed a tiger for breakfast …’ Well, I’d been watching too much ‘Tarzan’ on the TV and it was better than saying the highlight of our holiday had been a daytrip to Blackpool. And they had been really impressed. ‘Then that time she attacked that boy with a milk bottle top …’ Peter James had said my blood was not red like everyone else’s , so I cut my finger to show him it was, and then stabbed his leg just to double check his theory.

Mama paused for a second to flip a chapatti over. This was my chance to clear my throat or something, but I missed it. ‘And she gets into so many fights, Shailaji, comes home with ripped clothes and scratches…What if she starts that at school as well?’ Well I already had, but luckily mama had not found out yet. Launching immediately into anyone who started name-calling was the only way to stop it becoming day-to-day bullying, as I saw happened to other kids—the fatties, the spotties, the swots and naturally, the only other four non-white children at my school. Surely mama would understand this, being a teacher…‘And all the times she steals money from my purse and thinks she is being clever and I don’t know …’ She had got me there. And I did not want to hear any more.

‘Hello mama,’ I said loudly. Mama actually jumped at my voice which strangely pleased me.

‘Meena…beti …’ mama said carefully, weighing up what I might have heard with what I had said in mixed company just half an hour before. ‘You want to eat now?’ mama continued, whilst Auntie Shaila was already reaching over her to fetch me a plate.

‘Er, no, mama, I’m going to the toilet first…thanks,’ I added and slipped out of the back door, bypassing the outside loo smartly. I flung open the back gate to our yard, snuck into
the entry, and simply followed the flashing fairground lights.

It was spitting raindrops as I reached the first stall, cursing myself that I had not brought, or stolen, any money. A red-faced plump man stood guarding a pool of bobbing ducks, occasionally poking them with a long pole topped with a claw. ‘Hook a duck, chick?’ I smiled and shook my head. He forgot I existed immediately, looking over my head for the next punter. The noise was deafening, several pop songs blared out simultaneously from different rides, the flashing lights held back the darkness, I felt as if I was on a floating neon island in a sea of inky endless black.

The fair was full of teenagers, respectable families had long since gone home. I recognised some of the youths from the council estate near the shops a few miles away who trailed round in packs, sniffing the air for unaccompanied women, displaying their hardness by thumping hell out of the Test Your Strength Punchbag or knocking down coconuts with a single deadly throw. I thought I saw Hairy Neddy and Sandy strolling arm in arm past the amusement arcade. She was holding a huge, demented-looking fluffy rabbit whilst he fed her candy floss from a plastic bag.

Sam Lowbridge and a group of his biker mates had taken over the shooting range. He was aiming a rifle at a jungle scene where tigers, lions and occasionally a grinning black face with a bone in its nose would pop out from the foliage, daring him to fire. Sam pulled in his rifle and blew on the end of it like a cowboy, making his mates laugh. He saw me and cocked a surprised eyebrow, blowing a lock of sandy hair from his eyes. ‘Alright littl’un. Yow cum to have some fun?’

I nodded airily, as if this was a fairly regular occurrence.

Sam handed me the air rifle and said, ‘Goo on then. Have one on me.’

I’d never held a gun before. I’d seen the farmers up the top end of the village firing at crows, and sometimes, tramping down the hill with several furry corpses hanging from their shoulders, so I knew what I had could do some damage.

I tried to hold the gun evenly and it slipped off my shoulder. The bikers laughed loudly. Sam smiled at me lazily. He was all loose limbs and offhand gestures, almost foppish, but his body was lean and hard and ready to move and no one was fooled by the apparent indifference in those half-lidded grey eyes. I wondered how many girls he had kissed, and why he ever bothered to talk to me. ‘Hee-yaar,’ he said, turning me round to face the moving jungle, holding the gun for me but pressing his fingers over mine on the trigger. ‘Just watch, right…dead carefully …’ He squeezed my hand and I closed my eyes, recoiling slightly with the bang. When I opened them, a surly young woman, the one I had seen smoking on the caravan step, was holding a plastic bracelet out to me ungraciously. ‘Yow got him right in the head, girl,’ said Sam, taking the piece of tat and slipping it on my wrist. I did not want to look and see what damage I had done to the poor man with the bone in his nose. I knew it had not been me that had won the prize.

I was not surprised to see Sherrie sitting on the steps of the waltzers. She was sharing a cigarette with Tonio and was wearing his denim jacket over her mini-skirt. She saw me and smiled briefly before flicking back her hair and revealing a bruise the size of a saucer on her neck. I gasped, horrified at this deformity. Tonio stood up and shouted as he walked off, ‘Gooing for a slash, chick. Don’t go away!’

Sherrie sighed and pulled the denim jacket around herself, sniffing it tenderly. ‘Seen this?’ she demanded, pointing to the livid purple and yellow blotch. ‘Tonio did it.’

‘Really?’ I said. ‘What for?’

‘’Cos he likes me, you daft cow.’

‘Oh,’ I whispered, wondering if this abuse was part and parcel of hanging around boys.

‘He wants to give me another one,’ Sherrie confided. ‘What do you think I should do?’

‘I think you should hit him back,’ I said.

Sherrie snorted and got up, wiping dirt off her bum before
tottering off after Tonio. The waltzers were spinning round giddily, each carriage containing faceless, screaming blurs whose voices were snatched by the wind and spirited away. Dave, the Poet, was standing behind one car, tossing it round and round as he leaned into the swell and dip of the wooden floor, so perfectly balanced that the ash hung suspended from the cigarette dangling from his lips. I knew Anita was inside, being thrown about. I caught glimpses of her skinny ankles scrabbling for a foothold. But there was someone else in there with her, someone in high heels and shiny tights whose feet never moved from the floor of the car, whose pudgy knees exuded bravado and promise.

When the ride finally rolled to a halt, Anita tumbled out followed by her mother, Deirdre, who patted her perm and looked bored. Anita’s mother has brought her to the fair! Anita’s mother actually goes on rides with her, rides that would give my mama a migraine for a week. I was completely impressed, so impressed that I forgot the day’s earlier humiliation and waved to Anita madly. She waved back, and then, completely for my benefit, turned to the Poet and gave him a light kiss on the face. Deirdre tapped her on the shoulder and handed her some money which Anita took with grateful amazement. She yelled over to me, ‘I’m gooing to get summat to eat! Wait there, yeah?’

I sat down on the muddy planks and prepared to wait, vaguely aware that I might be missed at home but anxious not to miss the opportunity of going round the fair with Anita. I looked up as the ride began again and wondered where Deirdre and the Poet had disappeared to. And then I saw them, only because the Octopus ride had paused in mid-air and its headlights lit up the two figures running hand in hand towards the caravans. Deirdre had taken off her high heels and was holding them as she was dragged along by the Poet. They did not quite make the door but sank down together on the metal steps, hands tugging at each other’s buttons, their faces locked together as if they were trying to swallow each
other whole. Deirdre broke free for a second; she was not smiling, she looked sombre almost, and pulled the Poet into the caravan where a moment later, the lights snapped off.

I felt as if the wind had frozen my face into a mask, lockjaw set in, my eyelids would not close. Anita entered my line of vision at the far end of the fair. She was walking slowly, carrying two toffee apples and two bags of chips. She had bought me dinner. I knew I should be going home, I was already in big trouble and each minute I stayed would only increase my parents’ panic and the severity of my punishment. But at this moment I could not leave Anita alone. I smiled inanely until she got close enough to grab, and slipped my arm through hers, pulling her away from the caravans behind us.

‘Careful! I’ll drop me sauce!’ she yelled, but she did not pull her arm away. ‘Where’s me mom?’ she inquired, through a gob full of chips.

‘Er, I think I saw her gooing that way…you know, sort of home way…your home I mean …’ I was gabbling. I rallied myself, I was supposed to be good at this. ‘Let’s goo on some rides, Nita, yeah? I ain’t never had someone to goo on rides with before …’

I could tell Anita was impressed by my authentic Yard accent; she appraised me coolly, absorbing the fact I was younger and yet out at night without parents, and was apparently cocky enough to assume she would want to waste some of her time with me. She tipped up the paper cone of chips (I had not touched mine), and shook a few into her mouth. She took another look behind her whilst I willed the caravan door to stay closed, and then squeezed my arm which was still in hers. ‘Come on then Meena, let’s goo on all the fast ones, eh?’

I cannot remember how long we were at the fair, as every stomach-churning ride seemed to last for hours. We did them all – the Waltzers, the Octopus, the Wall of Death, the Big Ship, several rounds of the House of Evil, in which we
screamed and yelled and begged for mercy and never let go of each other’s bodies.

It was during our last go on the Waltzers, when Anita had got down to her mom’s last sixpence, that she finally asked about the Poet. ‘Where’s Dave gone, then?’ she shouted over the ear-splitting soundtrack of The Kinks to Gary, who had made it his personal mission to try and fling our car off its coasters. Gary shrugged unhelpfully, leaning his pudgy body away from the swell of the boards beneath him. ‘Tell him, right …’ Anita yelled over her shoulder. ‘Tell him to call for me tomorrer…two o’clock, yeah? Or he’s in for a duffing!’ she added and then turned to nudge me in the ribs. I laughed, nudged her back and wondered if the Poet and Deirdre were exchanging play-slaps like us right now, giggling about Anita and her silly schoolgirl crush.

It was much darker when we climbed off the Waltzers on aching, wobbly legs; night had closed its lid on the vaulted sky, pushing the stars down towards us so they lay low and heavy like milky sponges. I began to panic. They must have noticed I was missing by now, maybe they had called the police, maybe papa was out in the cornfields right now with a torch and his heart hanging from his mouth. ‘I gorra go Nita,’ I said.

‘Not yet, I wanna show yow summat first …’ Anita replied, pulling me with her towards the back of the fairground, where the concrete yard met the high fence of the Big House grounds.

‘No!’ I said, knowing we would have to pass the Poet’s caravan. ‘Not this way …’

‘Yow don’t know the way I know so shurrup,’ Anita replied, holding onto me tightly. I actually shut my eyes as we passed the caravans, and did not open them until I felt the ridges of a fence bump against my knees. I found myself looking up at a thicket of tree trunks, solid and scaly as elephant legs. The Big House trees, which from my bedroom window looked distant and symbolic, were now almost close enough to touch. The
first few rows were lit up occasionally by the passing tentacles of the Octopus, barnacled with flashing bulbs, but beyond these there was darkness, a syrupy gloom which somewhere housed a child-eating monster.

My breathing quickened as I watched Anita expertly prise apart a couple of rotting boards in the perimeter fence and begin slipping her thin body through the gap.

‘What yow dooing, Nita? They’ve got dogs, yow know!’ I whispered fiercely, quickly thinking it was much cooler to be frightened of alsatians than witches.

‘They ain’t,’ Anita replied, her voice straining as she eased a last bit of foot through the hole. ‘He’s inside, chewing up babies’ bones I expect. I ain’t never seen a dog in here…and anyway, I thought yow said yow wanted to hang round with uz?’

She used the Royal We, which seemed entirely natural. I clutched mama’s gold chain to me like a talisman, I could feel the diamond digging into my breastbone, a sharp sweet pain which reminded me I was still alive and breathing. Then I panicked as Anita seemed to be slowly disappearing by inches into the branches, like the Cheshire Cat’s smile, and without thinking, heaved myself through the loose boards and followed the flash of Anita’s white winklepicker shoes.

At first I could see nothing; the darkness had a texture so dense I fancied my outstretched hands were pushing against giant elastic cobwebs. The ground under me conspired to disorientate me. It was spongy and silent under my uncertain feet, no crackling branches or noisy heather to reassure me that I walked on the earth and owned it; I felt this forest now owned
me.
After slapping head-first into a few low branches I became accustomed to the gloom and began to pick my way more confidently through the trees, fixing my gaze on the back of Anita’s shoes which seemed to glow like low, uneven landing lights. Then I suddenly realised that I could not hear the fairground any more. It had been replaced by a much louder noise, a low breathing made up of night breeze,
whispering leaves, insects humming in morse code and the sporadic mournful hoots of a lone high owl.

‘Hee-yaar!’ whispered Anita, who came from nowhere to appear next to me and yanked my hand, pulling me after her up a pebbly rise until we were looking down at an immense black hole, which I only realised was water when I saw the moon suspended in its centre, a perfect silver disc in what looked like another upside-down sky.