Beauty (16 page)

Going to the Parkfields Health Centre was risky, she knew, and Beauty walked into the surgery without looking at the block of flats where her family lived. Jackie had phoned her to remind her to go.

The waiting room was full of people from all over the world, and the receptionist told her to wait for a cancellation. She sat down between an old Sikh and a large, grimacing Somali woman, and watched the door. If her father walked in she would have nowhere to escape. But what could he do to her in here?

No one had phoned her since she’d stayed out that first night. That didn’t mean they’d given up, and she had checked the cars in the street every time she left Mark’s house. Would Dulal send someone to watch her? He probably thought a dumb bitch like her wouldn’t last more than a few days. But if she could work and earn enough money to survive …

I aynt never going back.

‘You can meet whoever you want.’

Was it the white girl who’d said it? She couldn’t remember.

Forget that.

They hadn’t seemed like slappers. Louise was divorced and lived with her mum, and Maria lived with her boyfriend. Were they doing anything wrong, and why shouldn’t Beauty live like that?

You’re Muslim.

Beauty looked at the pictures in the waiting room, at health warnings she didn’t understand, drawings of dissected body-parts she didn’t recognize. Was that an ear?

A queue had formed at the receptionist’s window. A white mother let her child make too much noise before scolding him harshly.

My kids aynt gonna do that.

What kids?

An Iraqi-looking woman in a niqab sat down in the empty chair on the other side of the Somali lady. Beauty caught their whispered exchange.

‘
Asalaam alaikum
.’

‘
Alaikum salaam
.’

The Iraqi said she was from Libya.

Where was that?

Beauty stood up when her name was called and made her way past people’s knees. So what if they looked to see who had such a name? Why should she be embarrassed by it? Hadn’t those girls said it was
wicked
?

The door to room number three opened as she reached it, and she was glad to see the doctor was white. You couldn’t trust Asian doctors. They gave you village advice and told your parents everything.

A clean-shaven man in his mid-fifties with side-parted, fair hair and a tweed jacket welcomed her and closed the door. Beauty sat on the chair beside his desk.

‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.

‘The lady from the Jobcentre said I should come and see you,’ Beauty said, not looking up.

‘What about?’

Beauty studied her hands. This was embarrassing.

‘Getting Incapacity Benefit.’

Doctor Russell put down his pen and turned to the Asian girl in front of him. She avoided his eye.

What was it this time? Since the Jobcentre had introduced these schemes the number of patients claiming an incapacitating ailment had doubled. Half the people outside his door were waiting to explain their new disabilities to him. What they didn’t know was that a mental health nurse and a Department for Work and Pensions panel were waiting along the corridor to assess their availability for work. Patients didn’t like it. They didn’t have enough time to get their stories and symptoms straight. They balked at seeing a ‘mental’ health nurse. It was their own fault for pretending. Depression was what most of them said … or backache, which was just as hard to disprove.

What would this girl say? She might be a genuine case. He doubted her parents allowed her to work anyway. But Doctor Russell had given up on Asian females. If there was something genuinely wrong, and there often was, you met a wall of silence when you probed too deeply. And some of these village peasant parents couldn’t grasp the concept of clinical depression.

At least this girl had been honest about her reason for coming. Most of the scroungers out there pretended they’d never heard of Incapacity Benefit. He enjoyed sending them shuffling along the corridor. But it was a waste of his precious time.

‘What seems to be the problem?’ he asked.

Beauty looked at a poster of the muscle system on the wall.

‘My adviser said she thought I was … I had … stress.’

She didn’t like to say the word, but knew she might have to say more. She’d planned how much.

The doctor watched the girl fumbling with her hands.

‘Why did your adviser say that?’

‘I had to leave home,’ Beauty said, and glanced at the doctor. The doctor was looking at her but his eyes were kind, not scary.

Would he understand what that meant? Did it mean she couldn’t work, or that she was ill?

Doctor Russell waited for more.

Seconds passed before the girl spoke.

‘There was … things … going on at home,’ she said. ‘They wanted me to get married –’

He held up his hand to stop her and watched her twist her fingers in her lap. He could fill in the blanks: forced marriage, physical and psychological pressure, anxiety, guilt, depression, self-harm and attempted suicide. It was enough to fell an ox, never mind the nonsense his own daughter claimed to suffer from. This girl would need specialist support and counselling.

There was a newly-opened Asian women’s group and mental health facility in Wolverhampton, he told her. The mental health nurse just along the corridor could refer her. In the meantime Amitriptyline would help stop her from worrying. He told her to read the instructions carefully. If she suffered from any of the symptoms described she should stop taking them immediately. She could collect the prescription on the way out.

There wasn’t much else one could do for her or others like her, apart from deporting their close male relatives. And whither, if they were born here? Besides, it wasn’t in his power.

Doctor Russell watched the Asian girl close the door, wrote up his notes and buzzed through to reception. They could send in his next appointment. Adrian Bennett. Fifty-five years old. Unemployed.

Backache or depression?

*

Beauty was glad she hadn’t had to tell the man any more. What was coming next? More questions? And she didn’t want to go to any Asian women’s place either. If she was going to start work in a couple of weeks she wouldn’t need Incapacity Benefit.

Telling strangers your family stuff for a few quid aynt good. Thass gotta be a zinna.

She didn’t have to stay long with the mental health nurse. She mentioned her arranged marriage, that she had had to leave home, and answered ‘no’ to all the questions: she had no trouble sleeping or concentrating, no feelings of hopelessness, tiredness, of having let herself or her family down, no loss of appetite and no thoughts of self-harm. But the nurse looked at her as if she didn’t believe it and offered to refer her to the Asian women’s centre, if she wanted. They had a hostel too. And she needn’t worry about the Jobcentre. She’d ask the doctor to give Beauty a three-month sick note.

Beauty took the piece of paper with the telephone number of the Shanti Asian Women’s Service, thanked the woman and left.

She waited for her prescription and sick note at the receptionist’s window, and hurried away without looking at the block of flats on the other side of the dual carriageway.

It was almost dark when she got off the bus in the town centre and headed towards Mark’s house.

Was that home now?

She looked over her shoulder to check her little brother wasn’t following, and felt safer when she reached the early evening movement at the park in Graiseley and the row of shops. People stood outside the chip shop and bookies, cars vibrated with the rumble of amplified bass speakers. Young white men, cans of beer in one hand, let themselves be pulled across the park by English bull terriers, Rhodesian Ridgebacks and Japanese Akitas. Perfumed Kurds with bulging groins and dark-stubbled faces stood outside their own barbers, comparing phones and cars; an Indian newsagent came out of his shop; white kids on bikes circled slowly. And no one seemed to take any notice of Beauty. The Iraqis didn’t nudge each other as she passed.

It felt good walking through these people unnoticed. But who were they? How had they come here? What did they do? Did they have families?

Beauty turned into Prole Street and made towards the van outside Mark’s house. The lights in the windows were on, the front door open. A short white man with a round belly came out, his thumbs hooked into the
pockets of his dirty jeans. Gold flashed on his little fingers, wrists and neck. He smiled and nodded at Beauty when she stopped in front of him.

Mark appeared in the doorway behind him, staggering with the weight of a washing machine.

‘Out the fookin’ way Bob, I caar see fook all.’

Beauty watched Mark struggle out of the house, his fingertips straining to grip the machine to his bare chest. She saw his filthy hands and the taut muscles of his thin arms, the blue outline of home-made tattoos and the muscles and ribs of his back. His reddened face was pressed against the white metal, the sinews bulging in his neck as he passed her. He raised his eyebrows in greeting and smiled through the effort.

Mark tipped the washing machine onto the van, and pushed it in among the rest of the furniture from his sitting room. He faced Beauty, breathing heavily.

Bob rested an arm on the tailgate. ‘This yer new lodger?’

‘This is me mate, Bob,’ Mark said to Beauty. ‘Cheers for the help, Bob.’

‘You managed it.’ The man winked at Beauty. ‘He’s a strong lad.’

Beauty didn’t mean to look at Mark again, at his tight white chest as it rose and fell from his exertion, at his flat white stomach and pelvic bones disappearing into low-hanging beltless jeans.

Mark saw her glance at him. Birds loved it … lean and mean – but she turned away, and it felt cold in the street.

‘S freezin’ out here,’ he said. ‘You coomin’ in for a drink, Bob? You’ll have one won’t you, Beauty?’

If you put some clothes on.

The older man climbed into the cab of the van.

‘I’ll leave you two to it,’ he said.

Beauty winced.

The engine rattled into life. ‘I’ll tek a look at that timing belt tomorrer,’ Mark said above the noise. ‘It’s burning oil ’n’ all.’

The van left them in the street. Beauty prepared herself for the bad air and followed the topless man into his house.

Mark pulled on a T-shirt and tried to hide his satisfaction with his new sitting room. By two o’clock he and Bob had collected nearly two tonne of scrap from round Wednesbury-way and he’d come away with sixty-five quid. Bob’d had a load of stuff he didn’t need, including a sofa, and Mark had managed two runs to the tip to dump his old furniture by the time Beauty got back. He’d kept his computer chair, the dresser and the TV cabinet, but the rest had gone. Bob’s old leather three-piece still looked mint, and he’d given Mark eight litres of emulsion as well. He still had to clean out the kitchen but at least the front room was looking good.

Beauty was surprised. And the white bloke was grinning, waiting for her to say something. She looked around the room and nodded her approval. Had he cleaned up for her?

‘Just did a spot of clearing out,’ he explained. ‘Bob gimme some things he dey need. He ay got dogs, well not in the house anyway, so it’s all … clean.’

Beauty nodded again.

‘It looks nice.’

‘Innit,’ Mark agreed.

He told her to sit down and went to the kitchen to make tea. Beauty waited and looked around the room. The rotten carpet had gone and he’d washed the wooden floor beneath. The surfaces were clean and the rubbish thrown out.

‘Do’ worry about Bob, he dey mean nothing by it,’
Mark said, returning with two mugs. ‘He’s a good mate. More of an old man to me than me own.’

Beauty didn’t ask him what he meant. How could a stranger be more than your own father?

Mark rolled a cigarette and asked her how she had got on. Beauty told him about the care home and the job that might come out of it, that the doctor had given her a sick note, and that the crisis loan had arrived in her bank.

Mark was impressed. And three or four weeks’ rent money up front would be handy.

‘Sorted,’ he said. ‘You can stay on here till yer first wage comes through, if you like. I’m gonna do the whole place up. Mek it nice like.’

He looked away when their eyes met. Beauty didn’t know what to say. She needed to stay somewhere until she had more money, but how could she live with a man and dogs?

What about that Asian women’s place?

The phone vibrated in her pocket. Beauty didn’t recognize the number on the screen.

Mark waited for her to answer so he could tell her more about his plans. By the look on her face it might be her family. He hoped they wouldn’t convince her to go home.

Beauty pressed ‘OK’ and held the phone to her ear.

‘Bew-tee?’ Her mother’s voice was weak and scared. Beauty felt her eyes begin to sting.
Ama!

Mark stood up and went to the kitchen. He’d still be able to hear from there.

‘
Balla asson’ee? Sharifa keta horra? Baht hai lisson’ee. Bhai-sahb ye keta hoi la?
’

He listened anyway. He was surprised to hear the flood of Bengali. He’d never heard her talk so much. She didn’t make it sound so bad. Not like the ignorant Pakis in the
shops all gabbling away.
Gora
this,
gora
that. That’s when you knew they were slagging off white people.

‘
Ai tam nai. Ami kham erchta faissee gorro roybar zaga assé. Sinta horrio na. Sinta horrio na.
I love you.’

The line went dead. Beauty looked at the phone in her hand.

Mark heard her sniffing and went into the sitting room.

‘You OK?’ He offered her a roll of grey toilet paper.

Beauty thanked him.

Things were OK. They weren’t looking for her, not yet anyway. Her mother had told her that Dulal was convinced she’d be back within a few days. Let her come home on her knees, begging for forgiveness, he’d said. And if she didn’t, he’d bring her back.

But it was easier to deal with her brother’s punches than her mother’s pleas for Beauty to go home. And why had Ama hung up suddenly? Someone must have come into the room. The old man would scream if he found out she’d phoned.

Maybe they told Mum to ring, and make out she was suffering.

‘Families, man,’ Mark said.

Beauty smiled.

‘Was that yer mum?’

She nodded.

‘Was she telling you to go home?’

‘Not really. I just miss her. Sorry.’ Beauty pressed the tissue to her nose again.

‘Do’ mind me,’ Mark said. ‘Ay they gonna come looking?’ He looked at the pretty Bengali girl on his new sofa and hoped not.

It was just about the rent money, right?

‘They think I’ll go back in a couple of days.’

*

Mark wanted to cheer her up. She looked miserable. He knew what it meant to be alone, trapped inside yourself, trapped in jail, trapped in a house where no one came to visit. You needed someone to talk to. Not about anything in particular. Just things.

He drew the curtains and switched on
Midlands Today
. The halogen heaters would make it cosy. She could watch TV while he fixed the computer.

‘Y’m all right now though. Y’ve got a roof over yer head, if you want it, and a job lined up.’

Beauty looked at Mark as he sat hunched over the back of the computer fiddling with the wires, at his closely shaven dark hair and sideburns and the sharp line of his jaw and chin. He was right, wasn’t he? Not long ago she’d been running through the streets, with nowhere to go and no money. Who was he? How come he was in the street just when she had needed someone? Maybe this was her
tochdir,
her
kishmut.
Fate, or whatever white people called it.

Maybe Al-l
h sent him.

To make me live with a strange man?

It aynt haram if you’re in danger.

‘Anyway, y’m better off on yer own in this life,’ he said. ‘Least, that’s what I reckon.’

‘Don’t you get on with your family?’ she asked. How could it be better with no mother or sister near you?

Let him talk.

‘Put it this way … they dey get on wi’ me.’

Mark closed one eye as smoke drifted into it.

‘Give ’em too much grief as a kid,’ he said.

Beauty thought of her older brother and the times she had cleaned up his puke when he’d come home drunk. And the smell of ganja coming from his room.

‘All kids do wrong things. Thass normal,’ she said, and looked at him to see what was in his eyes.

‘Not like me,’ he said, and was silent. She might be shocked by how much time he’d spent inside. But why was he bothered what she thought? ‘Anyway, I caar blame ’em. I was bad.’

He looked at her to see the effect.

‘I ay like that no more,’ he added. He wanted her to know that he’d changed. And that life wasn’t better on your own.

‘What did you do?’ Beauty asked. What if he’d killed or raped someone? He didn’t seem that type. You could tell a pervert by his eyes.
The way they look at you.
The mullah, his brother, cousins, men in London, Iraqis …

Mark watched Beauty tapping ash into the saucer on the arm of the sofa. He wondered what her hair looked like under her scarf.

‘I started pinching cars when I was eleven years old.’

‘Why?’ Beauty asked.
Stealing!

‘For a laff. Getting chased by the old bill.’

‘Thass fun?’

Mark thought about it, the flashing lights in the rearview mirror, the understeer and handbrake turns, ditching the car and running.

‘Ye’man!’

But the time inside hadn’t been fun, and that period in his life was over. He decided not to tell her about the thefts of two hundred motor vehicles he’d had Taken into Consideration. Pinched to order, most of them. You got three hundred quid for a Cozzie back in them days. At fourteen he was making and spending a couple of grand a month.

‘I ay diwin’ that shit again. Put my family through hell, dey I? Thass why they ay bothered wi’ me now, d’you
know woddamean?’ He shrugged. ‘I ay bin in jail now for nearly two years, and I ay giwin’ back. I wanna show me mam.’

‘What about your dad?’ Beauty asked.

‘I ay sin ’im since I was six.’

He wrapped two wires with tape and cut it with his teeth. Why was he telling her all this? He’d never mentioned it to the counsellors in jail. Not even the ex-wife. It felt right telling Beauty. Like they were in it together.

‘I ay blamin’ ’em though. I were a pain in the arse, but I’m diwin’ all right at the minute. Got me dogs, and the rent paid by the social.’

Beauty looked around the room and nodded.

Mark was pleased with her approval. ‘And I could sort me business plan out if I dey have to go on that fookin’ course. You won’t have to if y’m on Incapacity. What did the doctor say?’

‘I told him I had to leave home,’ Beauty said. ‘He gave me a sick note for three months and some pills.’

‘You do’ wanna be tekkin’ pills. They gimme tons a that shit in jail. Proper messes wi’ yer head, them things. Mek you feel ten times worse. What am they?’

Beauty took the slim box of tablets from her pocket.

‘Wossit say about the side effects?’ Mark asked. ‘Thass what you godder watch out for.’

‘I dunno,’ she said, passing the packet to him.

Mark took it from her. ‘Caar you read?’ he asked. He didn’t make it sound bad.

‘I got a problem with it, aynit.’

He didn’t laugh at her, and she didn’t feel embarrassed in front of him. It felt right to tell him. ‘I didn’t go to school much,’ she explained. But she didn’t tell him that they’d tried many times to make her read. She’d sat at tables at home and stared at the letters on the page. She
copied the words when the mullah’s pervert brother shouted, but none of it made sense. And she’d believed them when they said there was something wrong with her. She was thick, she’d never be able to do it. Anyway, what did it matter? She was a girl. What her brothers did at school was more important.

Mark passed back the pills. ‘I taught misself to read in jail. Went to a few lessons, like. It’s a piece a piss.’

Beauty didn’t want to shame herself in front of him. ‘I tried loads of times. I’m a bit thick,’ she said.

‘Bollocks. Iss like riding a bike or driving a car – you godder practise. Tay hard. I’ll teach you if y’m staying for a while.’