Beauty (10 page)

That white lady must have told him.

‘People aal tahk ’bout you,’ he added.

Horace looked from Beauty to the food.

‘I’ll be fine,’ she said.

She picked up a chip, and his eyes followed her hand. Was he hungry? She noticed his battered shoes and
shiny trousers, and the sagging pockets of his old black jacket.

‘Aren’t you having lunch?’ she asked.

‘Me nah gat no money till me giro come tomorra.’

Beauty put the chip down. ‘Take these, I can’t eat any more.’

‘Nah, yar ahright.’

‘Go on.’

Horace got to his feet slowly.

‘No sense makin’ them go to waste,’ he said, and took the food back to his chair.

Beauty watched as he raised a trembling hand to his mouth and began to eat.

She looked away, sorry for embarrassing him.

Al-l
h, how can people do that?

He’s hungry and old.

Eating someone else’s food! I’d rather die.

He aynt eaten.

I should have given him some money for chips.

He was smoking outside earlier. If he’s got money for fags, he could eat.

He’s Jamaican, though, aynit? Cigarettes and drink – that’s what sharabi spend their money on.

Where’m I gonna stay tonight?

There was no one outside the building. Beauty walked up to the empty churchyard at the top of the street and sat down on one of the wooden benches. She looked around at the graves and wondered what the words said.

As the clock moved towards half-past twelve the other clients drifted back from surrounding streets and through the churchyard. Some nodded to her. The large Somali woman with the red jumper stopped at the bench.

‘I hear you leave home,’ she said.

Everybody knows.

The woman sat down next to her.

‘That is very difficult. I leave my husband and boy and come to this country.’ She gestured around the churchyard and the brown-brick council offices in the square beyond the railings.

‘Have you got place to sleep?’

She asked Beauty if she had any money, and told her not to waste it on a hotel. She could stay with her for a few days, if she wanted.

‘You don’t go to hostel,’ the woman continued. ‘They are terrible place, full of drugs people. It’s not safety.’

The woman told Beauty her name was Hana. She took out her purse and passed Beauty a photo of a small boy, sitting on his mother’s lap.

‘Sweet,’ said Beauty.

‘It’s two years I don’t see him. He seven now. So, you stay with me?’

Beauty looked at her, and the people passing, going somewhere. Home, maybe. Could she trust the lady?

‘I take you to Civic Centre now. It’s here.’

Hana pointed to the building across the plaza in front of them.

‘You make appointment to see Housing Officer, and say you have no home.’

The woman walked slowly across the square and talked about how hard it was in Somalia for her husband and little boy, of the wars with countries Beauty had never heard of. But she felt safe with the lady, and it would only be for one night.

At three o’clock she was on the bus going back to Parkfields. Hana lived in the tall tower block across the road from Beauty’s family. Perhaps it was a good thing she would be close to home. Her brothers wouldn’t think to look so near. As long as she wasn’t seen going in or out of the building, it might be all right for a few days.

Hana showed Beauty round her clean and simple flat, and took her to a bedroom so she could phone home. She closed the door and told Beauty not to worry. Things would be OK.

Beauty didn’t want to ring yet, dreaded saying the words:

I aynt coming back.

She went to the window and looked out over the dual carriageway and the estates of Parkfields.

How high they were!

Was her ama really down there?

She don’t deserve this.

And I didn’t deserve that infection the mullah’s brother gave me with his dirty fingers. Say it:

I aynt going back!

Beauty picked up the phone. Her heart pounded in her ears as she waited for someone to answer.

‘Hello? Who’s that?’

Faisal.

‘
Ami
,’ she said. ‘It’s me.’

‘Where are you? And what are you doing with my phone?
Bhai-sahb
’s gonna go mad when he gets up. It’s half-past four.’

‘Just shut up and listen. Is he awake?’

‘Where the fuck are you?’

‘Go and wake him.’

‘No fucking way! He’ll kill me.’

‘I aynt messin’ about. Go and get him.’

‘You better come back before he gets up or they’ll be a fight.’

‘I aynt coming back.’

Silence.

Then, ‘They’re gonna go mad! They’ll fucking kill you. Wait there while I get
Bhai-sahb
. You better come back or Allah’s gonna punish you big time.
Allah guna diba.
’

‘Let Him. I aynt coming back. Go and wake
Bhai-sahb
up. I aynt talking to you.’

She hung up.

‘Al-l
h!’

How long would it take to for Dulal to call back? Faisal would be running up the stairs two at a time, bursting into his brother’s room.

The phone rang.

‘Hello?’

‘Sis, what’s going on?’ Dulal Miah’s voice was heavy with sleep. Beauty struggled to speak.

‘I can’t do it.’

‘You can’t do what? What’s happened?’

‘I can’t live with the mullah. Or go to that place.’

‘Where the fuck are you?’

‘At a friend’s house.’

‘What friend?’

‘It’s a girl’s house. Somebody I met on that course. She’s Muslim.’

‘You with some other fucking prostitute?’

‘Don’t swear at me, Dulal.’

She’d never used his name before. She pictured him standing in the hall downstairs in his underpants and vest, which she had washed.

‘Come back, sis. We can talk about this,’ he said.

‘I aynt coming back,
Bhai-sahb
. I can’t take it no more. I’m getting out.’

She leaned against the window and looked down at the flats below, and thanked
Al-l
h
she wasn’t at home.

‘Be back here in an hour and we won’t say any more about it. I know you been through a lot. I won’t tell the old man.’

‘
Bhai-sahb
, I aynt coming back. Don’t you get it?’

She could never have spoken to him like this if she had been at home. He’d have punched her across the room.

‘Be back in an hour or there’ll be trouble!’ he shouted. ‘This is a fucking
zinna!
’

Beauty sat down on the bed and held her knees between her hands to stop them shaking. She’d told him! Her mouth felt dry and her chest still hurt.

He thinks I’m gonna go back.

I aynt!

I’m out!

But she knew it wasn’t over. He’d phone again and then come looking for her.

She went to the bathroom to wash, returned to the bedroom and tried to recite the sunset
namaz
.

‘
Alhamdo lillahi rabbil aalameen ar rahmaanir …
’

What was she supposed to do?

‘
Maaliki yaomid deen iyya kana budoo wa iyya kanastaeen ihdinas siratual mustaqeem …
’

Was she turning her back on Him too?

‘
Siratual lazeena an amta alaihim ghairil magh-doobe alaihim walad dualleen. Ameen
.’

Was He listening?

Beauty went back to the sitting room. It was better to be with someone, until her brother phoned back.

‘What he say?’ Hana asked. She’d changed into a knee-length denim skirt, white woollen tights and a white jumper.

‘That I was doing a
zinna
.’

Hana laughed.

‘Why is it
zinna
?’

Beauty didn’t know. ‘What happens if I do other bad stuff?’ she asked.

‘Like have a boyfriend?’

‘I didn’t mean
that
.’

The woman smiled at her. ‘Why not? You can have a boyfriend.’

‘Don’t you get pregnant?’ Beauty asked. Was it a stupid question?

‘You don’t have to be pregnant. You can use
condoms
.’

Beauty blushed. What little she knew had come from cousins, giggling about what a bride could expect on her wedding night, and from things the black girls used to say at primary school that she’d never understood. Her mum had warned her that just being near a man was enough to get pregnant.

What if I was pregnant? What would Bhai-sahb do then?

‘Yeah, I know about that,’ she said.

I am dumb.

She touched her cheeks. It wasn’t good to be talking like this already.

*

Beauty looked round the sitting room. The flat was clean and warm. If Hana could live like this, why couldn’t she?

How much did it cost?

Three or four hundred pounds for a deposit and the same every month for rent.

‘Can you get it?’ Hana asked. ‘Have you got things to sell?’

‘I might be able to get my sister to bring some of my jewellery.’ It was wrapped up in a sock at the bottom of her bag, with her passport.

Beauty felt guilty for lying to someone who was helping her.

‘You can sell all things in Wolverhampton,’ said Hana. ‘How much money you got now?’

She had about thirty pounds.

‘OK, that is enough for five people to eat. I give you money back when the boys are coming.’

Beauty started. What boys?

‘It’s OK,’ said Hana. ‘It’s my friend, and two his friends. They just coming for eat and after we go out maybe. You come too?’

Beauty didn’t want to be in a house with men.

‘Where are they from?’

‘Dudley.’

Was that a country?

‘What are they? Pakistanis? Somali?’

‘They Muslims, Kurdish,’ Hana said. ‘You can stay here if we go out. Anyway, maybe you like one of them?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Beauty looked down and felt her face flush.

What’s Kurdish?

‘Don’t worry. They just friends,’ said Hana. ‘It’s good to have friends. They can help you when you need.’

Maybe the woman was right. Why was it so bad? If she
didn’t think it was wrong, why should Beauty? The lady was married with a kid. As long as the ‘boys’ weren’t Iraqi.

But she wished she’d found a B&B instead.

Muslim women don’t have men friends that visit at night.

Mark Aston sat with his feet on the dashboard of Bob’s K-reg Transit pick-up on the way back from weighing in the metal they’d collected. A day spent scrapping with Bob never brought in less than forty quid. They’d just picked up nearly two tonne around the streets of Bilston and Bob had split the money evenly with him, fifty quid each, even though it was Bob’s van, diesel, insurance and everything. Mind you, Mark had done most of the heavy lifting. It was good work when he could get it, which wasn’t that often. Bob’s nephews usually went with him, or Karen’s brother Mick. Fair play to him though.

Mark had often heard more concern for his welfare in Bob’s voice than in his own mother’s – she never phoned him on his birthday or at Christmas. Bob was a sound bloke. He put work Mark’s way whenever he could, either fence-building, looking for scrap metal or fixing cars for Bob’s friends and relatives, which was near enough everyone in the city. Mark had met Bob through his ex-missus, and had immediately taken a liking to the short man, his pot belly and cheeriness. And he was still a hard bastard, despite his size, his greying hair and good nature. Mark had seen him sort out a couple of loan sharks in a pub toilet and knew he did unofficial evictions for Asian landlords with troublesome tenants, and
he was forever dealing with the messes his extended family members made for themselves. He’d nearly taken a swing at Mark once with a crowbar for winding him up about something when they’d been laying paving outside a house in Codsall. He was one of ten brothers and sisters, and if you needed anything he was the best person to see. He worked hard to look after his ex-wife and kids and had a hand in all sorts, from greyhounds to scrapping metal, car boot sales and building. His house and garden were piled high with useful things. Most of what Mark possessed had come from Bob. He looked up to the older man, and wanted to become like him one day – a pillar of his family and community.

‘Get yer fookin’ feet off the dashboard will you,’ Bob said as they reached Wolverhampton. ‘D’you wan’ us to get pulled, wi’ that fookin’ hat on as well?’

‘Sorry, mate,’ said Mark. ‘The van’s clean though, ay it?’

‘I can do without the hassle. You coming down the club for a pint?’

The Transit bumped up onto the pavement outside the All Saints Working Men’s Club on Earl Street. Mark slammed the ill-fitting door and followed Bob into the building: a low, red-brick square with two lounges and a function room at the back.

He tipped his cap back on his head and greeted Tony and the ageing and suited Gerald behind the bar. Mark liked walking in with Bob, filthy from scrapping metal. It showed others he was trusted enough to work with, and had become part of the clan.

They sat down on the fixed padded benches near the bar and sipped their pints. Mark rolled a cigarette and Bob eyed him.

‘They’ll kill you them things will, one day,’ he said.

Mark raised his eyebrows as he licked the paper and nodded in agreement.

‘You still giwin’ up the towun wi’ them lunatics of a night?’ Bob asked him.

‘What? Wi’ me mates, you mean?’

‘Them lot ain’t mates. They’ll drag you into all sorts a shit again, specially that little one.’

‘What, Small Paul? He’s all right. They’re jooss drinking buddies.’

Mark thought of the Vauxhall Cavalier he’d crashed into the lamp post on Gorsebrook Lane a few nights before. Maybe Bob was right. Paul had egged him on to do it. It had been a piece of piss to rob (he’d taken out the hazard light switch, put it back upside down and it unlocked the ignition) and it had made him feel good to relive his youth and show off his knowledge of motors to someone. But he’d realized the next day it was a stupid thing to have done. He’d have got three years this time, for the drink-drive.

‘You know what’ll happen if you get caught,’ Bob warned.

‘I ay pinched a car since I got out a year and a half ago, Bob. I swear.’

‘Keep yer voice dowun, for fook’s sake, will y’? Fookin’ ’ell.’

‘I ay giwin’ back inside,’ Mark said, lowering his voice.

‘Well you wanna watch it driving.’

‘I know. Look, I drove that Omega for Alan the once, but you saw that car. It were mint. You ay gonna get pulled in that kinda motor during the day.’

‘You will wi’ that fookin’ hat on!’

‘Have you gone mad? You think I drive around like this?’

‘Well, you wanna sort yerself out, smarten up and get yerself a good woman.’

‘I’m all right as I am, Bob,’ Mark said. He liked Bob’s nagging.

‘Bullshit am y’.’

‘Why not? I got me dogs, and one of ’em’s about to drop – which could give me a grand. I got me house. Yeah, it’s in bad condition, but the rent’s paid, I got work wi’ you, I’m diwin’ all right.’

‘You need somewhere else to live with all them dogs.’

‘Bob. You know I look after them dogs, tek ’em out, feed ’em.’

He didn’t like the suggestion that his dogs suffered.

‘OK, keep yer knickers on. I ay havin’ a go. You need somewhere with a bigger yard if you want to breed properly. And a driving licence. When’s yer ban up?’

‘Six months.’

‘Well, don’t drive again.’

‘I got too much to lose, Bob.’

‘Anyway, I ain’t yer old man. You do what you like.’

Mark came back from the bar with two more pints.

‘What yer diwin’ later?’ Bob asked.

‘Nothing. I do’ fancy giwin’ up the town again. I might bump into that Kelly bird from last night.’

‘Oh ar, knacker you out did she?’

‘Summing like that.’

‘Come up here later. There’s a do on out the back. Steve’s coming with his missus and Karen and Hayley’ll be here.’

Peter Hemmings sat in his car behind a lorry at the slow-changing traffic lights on the A5 in Brownhills, listening to Five Live Traffic and Weather. He adjusted the speed of the wipers and looked across at the driver of the car in the next lane, a young girl mouthing the words to a song and bouncing in her seat.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had been moved by any music. Had he grown out of it? His loss of interest
in the other passions of his youth had only become apparent to him recently. Once, everything he beheld contained some existential significance and he had marvelled at the world and human endeavour. But what had filled the gaps left by his waning philosophical wonder? Sex? Or, more accurately, internet porn?

Peter stared unseeing at the truck in front and thought again of Louise, the care worker he’d met the night before. He felt a wave of non-sexual longing for her. To lie down with her, fully clothed, and feel her warmth next to him, or her fingers touching his, would be enough.

Had he lost the desire to do lewd things with a woman? Years of a mutually disastrous and unsatisfactory sexual relationship with Kate had been largely his fault. Occasionally he blamed his poor performance on her
Cosmopolitan
/
Marie Claire
need for ‘fulfilment’, and her Anglo-Saxon lower-middle-class squeamishness about touching his erect member as lovingly and frequently as he did himself. Could he find pleasure only in front of the computer screen? And could he really regain his love of life?

Peter slipped the car into gear and pulled away from the traffic lights. The beige council flats of Brownhills slipped past. This was where you ended up if you drifted from one lousy job to another without doing a vocational post-grad course. The books Peter sold were imbecilic study guides to the woeful GCSE English curriculum. He’d read the entire
English Literary Heritage
in a lay-by on the A460 between Walsall and Burntwood in the time it took to eat the supermarket sandwiches he usually had for lunch. Apart from something by Shakespeare and Wordsworth tacked on at the end, he’d barely recognized his own cultural patrimony.

Peter dreaded becoming the man in the Rover 75 whom he saw in the car park outside the office in Rugby, where
he went for his monthly area meetings. A crumpled and balding sales rep with a pot belly and a mac. Peter still felt young enough to turn his life around and to reach Zarathustra atop his mountain. Quite how, he didn’t know. But he was aware of the danger of becoming a middle-aged onanist with an unfulfilling job and little money. Not much Will to Power in that.

The road became a dual carriageway. Peter flicked the indicator and accelerated past the lorry.

Maybe things weren’t so bad.

At least he was free from Kate.

He could take part in life again and see what opportunities arose. A fling with a local girl like Louise might be an entertaining enough starting point. Wasn’t she the modern version of a healthy, rosy-cheeked wench from a Thomas Hardy novel?

And it would be more romantic than the fruits of his internet searches.