Beauty (17 page)

Beauty watched him as he turned back to the computer. Wouldn’t it be good to tell Sharifa that she could read?

‘I could have another go, I suppose.’

Mark took the screwdriver from his mouth. Did that mean she might stick around?

‘Nice one,’ he said, and grinned.

He’d clean out the kitchen the next day.

Peter looked at the light around the curtain of Mark’s sitting-room window. Was Beauty there? Should he knock?

He went back inside and closed the front door. His house was silent, the television unplugged. Neither would do any more. He wanted her to come round, had felt in limbo since he’d last seen her. It bothered him that he hadn’t been able to enthral her with the prospect of her freedom. Her mind was a blank canvas waiting to be filled. He knew that he’d once had the words to describe mankind’s accomplishments and make a person’s heart sing. But if he was no longer able to summon up his own sense of wonder, how could he inspire anyone else? And what did that say about the time he had spent shunning the madding crowd’s ignoble strife and devoting himself to the pursuit of knowledge?

It was different when she was there. Her innocence and ignorance were an inspiration, as well as her exquisite looks. He’d felt alive in the thirty minutes of her visit, had lain awake for hours afterwards fantasizing about guiding her through all the pleasures of life which she’d been denied.

And peeling off her clothes, although he’d tried to keep this to a minimum.

He paced from the back door to the front and peered at
himself in the mirror at the bottom of the stairs. His eyes were glassy and red and he knew he’d smoked too much.

At least he still recognized his own image. Not like Baudelaire.

‘
Today I felt the wing of madness brush my cheek.
’ Or something like that.

If his thoughts could still turn to the poets maybe he could dredge up some
joie de vivre
. Maybe even a
raison d’être.

But the Frenchman had died of syphilis in his early thirties. Beguiled and poisoned by a woman.

He returned to the kitchen and looked through the window into the darkened backyard, at the uneven outline of the slatted wooden fence and the roofs of the houses beyond. Once, he would have found some melancholy beauty in it. Or in the dreary faces of those he passed in the street. All that had gone.

What was the point of thinking about Baudelaire and the finer things in life unless
she
was there to share it? Beauty.

He sat down on the sagging sofa and shut his eyes. He wasn’t thinking straight. She was just a charming distraction.

He’d go to Asda shortly. At least there would be housewives and forty-somethings to smile at over the fruit and vegetables. Or had that lost its allure too?

The minutes passed in silence. Would she come again? And did he really think he could have his way with her? Did he really want to? Surely his interest in her wasn’t just sexually motivated. Had he really become that shallow, as well as dissolute?

No, he hadn’t! She was good company, she was interested. Her eyes were keen and bright. It was proof that you could have a more stimulating conversation
with a religious devotee than with a metropolitan phoney like Kate. She would have asked him what he was ‘banging on about now’. Beauty had a nascent, timid intellectual curiosity. If he could overcome her irrational fears of transgressing the mores of her repressive belief system, he would be doing his bit for womankind. He could rediscover life’s mysteries through her exploration of them. And he might yet intellectualize his lustful thoughts for her. Let undressing her become a metaphor for stripping away the blinkers of religious dogma, or
vice versa
.

And if not her, then someone like her. Unformed, enquiring and innocent. The girl he’d met in the pub when he went out with Mark, what was her name? Louise. Wouldn’t she appreciate being lifted out of the darkness of satellite television and the hand-chapping grind of scullery work?

No. It had to be Beauty. The cultural gulf was a greater attraction. The promise of Eastern mystery. He tried to fight the thought that she was probably still a virgin … and of a wedding night on a flower-strewn bed in Rajasthan. Couldn’t he have a quick peek online at some Indian porn? There must be some.

No! It was wrong. It debased his noble thoughts about her.

It was Kate’s fault. She’d held him back for the last few years. Her endless talk of home improvements and ‘clearing out the loft’, the pseudo-intellectual conversations at dinner parties with her lowbrow media-generating and consuming friends (where everyone’s opinions were of equal validity by simple virtue of being opinions) had almost left him without the will to live.

With the right woman he might have done more over the last five years. His thirties had passed him by. Kate hadn’t understood his brilliant mind, he decided. Maybe
that wasn’t even necessary in a woman. Perhaps all you needed was someone quietly supportive, who understood that she didn’t understand but who wanted to; a woman who hadn’t imbibed an over-inflated sense of her centrality in the universe from the pages of glossy magazines. Did such women exist? Otherwise you were better off alone. At least you weren’t pulled down from the stars – the rightful place for a thinking man like himself – by trips to Homebase every Sunday afternoon.

Kate. Her text message asking him whether he loved her had so far gone unanswered.

Of course I do.
It had always been easier than telling her the truth.

Kate Morgan hung up. Peter wasn’t answering. That was three missed calls. What was he doing? Why didn’t he ring back? He knew she’d be anxious; that she needed to talk things through with him, to discuss their relationship and where it was headed. Wasn’t she his partner? They were supposed to be in love, weren’t they? Didn’t that mean being together, doing things together, sharing?

‘Bastard,’ she said aloud.

She was
physically exhausted
and
mentally drained
, and couldn’t afford to wait forever. Life was slipping by. She wanted to share it with someone who made her feel special, like a … woman, someone who loved her
for who she was
. Was that too much to ask? If Peter wasn’t able to make that kind of commitment, then what was the point of being with him? She could get other men. She knew they looked at her in the street. Revolting van drivers still honked at her in summer.

But the thought of being alone until she found another man was frightening. At least Peter listened. Maybe he did still love her? She knew she was difficult to be with, high-maintenance, but that’s what love was all about,
wasn’t it? Maybe he just felt challenged because he didn’t have enough money to buy a house. The thought had crossed her mind before.

She needed to be positive.

Didn’t she have a right to be happy, too?

She’d go and see him.

She’d need a repeat prescription of antidepressants before she went. Maybe some more Citalopram, or Lofepramine.

That would show him what he was doing to her.

Peter splashed some water on his face, checked himself in the mirror and left the house. He drove the short distance to Asda, safely past the chip shop and the murderous-looking gangsters, yobs and hags in Graiseley Park.

The bright lights of the superstore blinded him momentarily, and he wandered around, unable to decide what to eat. There was an entire aisle of sliced white bread. He looked into other people’s trolleys for inspiration but everything was in boxes. A couple of women flicked their hair at him among the cheeses, but they reminded him of Kate. How soon before they started talking about house prices and saying things like ‘I’m thinking of knocking that wall through into the lounge to make one big space’?

Peter knew he could never go back to that type of life. But what were the alternatives? Giving up altogether? Staying here and slumming it with the underclass in the freezer section? Why not? It couldn’t be more worthless an existence than living in London, on the edges of what passed for society. Were the downtrodden welfare masses, filling their trolleys with oven-ready chips, less fitting company for him? He watched an impoverished, elderly man in a thin coat inspect a bag of chicken nuggets through pale, watery eyes, and place it carefully
in the bottom of his basket, next to a bottle of tomato ketchup, with a liver-spotted hand.

Peter was no ragged-trousered philanthropist. There was nothing romantic to be found in Asda.

And there was nothing to eat either. He put the basket back and went to the car. What if Beauty came round while he was out?

It bothered him that he could find nothing with which to entertain himself, other than the thought of the Bangladeshi girl and her possible reappearance.

He was restless, that was all, and had latched on to the nearest thing to drag him out of his
ennui.

But he feared spending the rest of his days in a bare sitting room on someone else’s sofa. In Wolverhampton.

The West Mids.

Alone in front of the computer.

After Beauty had gone to bed, Mark sat at the computer and scrolled through the list of tunes he’d downloaded. He couldn’t get into the chatrooms. But for the first time since the line had been cut, he didn’t mind.

She was nice. And he liked talking to her. Beauty.

He’d told her about growing up in Burntwood, what it was like in jail, and how he was never going back. He’d asked her about her brothers and gripped the arms of the chair when he heard how often they used to beat her up. They needed a damn good kicking.

But she didn’t tell him much, he knew. Something bad had happened to her. He recognized the dead-eyed look she had sometimes. He’d seen it in other boys in care, when they were talking of one thing and thinking about another.

Mark smoked and swung round slowly in the chair, thinking of ways he could help her. He fantasized about protecting her in the streets from her brothers, or from
those Asian blokes in the car. He’d take a couple of blows, knock one out and headbutt the other on the bridge of his nose, then push her into a car that he’d have to hot-wire. Maybe get chased across Wolves and lose them with his superior driving skills.

And he liked the idea of teaching her to read.

Beauty lay on the bed and listened to the wind in the trees outside. The dogs barked when they heard Mark in the kitchen below. She liked the different threats he yelled at them through the open window.

He’s all right.

She wondered again whether Allah had sent him, and tried to imagine what would have happened that night if he hadn’t been there. She might be at home already, packing her bags for Bangladesh, or that other place.

As soon as she had enough money she’d find her own place to live. Even if God had sent him, she shouldn’t live with him if there was somewhere else to go. That would be
haram
.

For now it was OK.

Aynit.

They weren’t doing anything wrong, apart from sitting in a room together. Why should she feel guilty about that?

I don’t.

He was a good man, you could tell. He looked like a typical scary white bloke, but she felt safe knowing he was there. He seemed to understand, and didn’t ask too many questions. And he’d had a bad life. Did all white people do things like him? Did they all have families like that?

Beauty felt sorry for him. His father had left him when he was only six years old. How could a man abandon his child? And his stepdad drank alcohol and beat him, the
first time when he was eight after the police brought him home. He’d climbed into a place for broken cars. By the time he was sixteen he’d stolen over a hundred.

She couldn’t tell if he was proud or sorry. He looked embarrassed, but there was a cheeky smile on his face. Beauty didn’t mind. Was it his fault? He’d had no father and his mother didn’t care for him. Still, he should have known it was wrong when he got older.

He’d stopped now, he said.

She asked him about prison, too. He told her how he’d been in just about every jail north of Birmingham, constantly moved around, rarely able to settle for more than a few weeks at a time; how the main thing inside was to keep busy and work, do all the courses you could; and how he’d warned the guards not to put him in a cell with any queers. Anything but that. Often they put him in with Asians. That’s how he’d learned how to say rude things in Bengali.

Ami tamar …

Beauty slipped the scarf from her head, closed her eyes and smiled at his accent and the thought that she had made a white friend, one like him …

… and saw his flat stomach, the bones disappearing into his jeans, the tightness of his muscles as he carried the washing machine …

Fa ranná. That is not good.

But was it really so bad to think about it?

Think about what?

‘This is a fucking zinna!’

Who said that?

‘You fucking slapper.’

There was milk on her brother’s lip.

‘How many you done today, bitch?’

A white man’s eyes stared straight into her.

‘There is no God.’

Toba, toba astaghfirullah.

What kind of a devil is he?

‘You’re free to choose.’

‘Hello love, have you come for the job?’

The lady’s hand was so light.

‘You’ll come back and talk to me, won’t you, dear?’

‘It’s all wroten before.’

‘Beauty!’

The girls smoke cigarettes, and laugh. They don’t care.

‘That is a wicked nayum.’

How free they must feel!

‘Are you still a virgin?’

Beauty woke up and knew where she was for the first time since she’d left home. She washed as best she could and left the house to go to work. It was early, but she wanted to be there on time. She was pleased to be going to help the old people at the home. They had no children to do it. And it took her mind off her own thoughts.

At the park in Graiseley a few white people were already out with their dogs. She passed the green-domed mosque on the corner of Dunstall Road and Waterloo Road, and from the bus stop watched the Pakistani men walk in slowly through the gates.

I aynt never been in a Mox.

Neither had her mum.

It was early when she got to the care home. The manager, Janet, was a nice lady. Fattish, with a friendly round face. Beauty liked her. No one had given her a form to fill in, or asked her about her reading yet. She would tell the manager today about her problem, and that she was doing something about it. If the white bloke was able to help her.

Most of the armchairs in the main sitting room were empty, but the lady with the curly white hair, who had spoken kindly to her on the first day, beckoned her over to the corner where she was watching television.

‘Hello again, dear. Have you come to look after us?’

Beauty went to sit by her until Maria came to tell her what to do. The lady turned back to the silver-haired man and overweight woman on the screen.

‘… your son, Chris, was put into care when he was nine years old. That’s right, isn’t it?’

‘That’s correct, Jeremy, yes. He threatened to burglarize me.’

‘Chris is coming out of prison next week. He’s hired private security guards to protect himself from you. Can you tell us a little bit about that?’

The lady shook her head.

‘Three children with different men, and she wasn’t married to a single one of ’em,’ she said, leaning towards Beauty. ‘Things didn’t use to be like that,’ she sighed. ‘We had sweethearts and they’d do the right thing. None of this living together. I bet you’re not doing that, are you, dear?’

She patted Beauty’s hand on the armrest between them.

Maria burst into the room, flushed and out of breath.

‘Oright, Ethel?’ she shouted. ‘Beauty, am y’ coomin’ for a fag? Lemme giw for a pee first, I’m boostin’.’

Beauty waited for her to go before she answered Ethel.

‘Asian girls don’t do them stuff.’

You’re living with a white bloke.

That was different though, wasn’t it?

The tall old man with the stick appeared in the doorway and walked slowly to an armchair opposite Beauty and Ethel. He tugged at the knees of his trousers and sat down.

‘Morning,’ he said to both women and opened the newspaper.

Beauty tried to smile.

‘I was just saying, Norris –’ Ethel called across the room to him, ‘– young people nowadays? It’s shocking how they live.’

The man looked up. ‘Damn right,’ he said, looking at Beauty. ‘This country’s gone to the dogs.’

Ethel whispered to her not to worry. Norris was a grumpy old so-and-so and a bit deaf. But he was right, she said, about most things, and he kept everyone informed about what was going on in the world.

But the things the staff got up to! Their language!

‘They talk to each other in front of us like we’re not there.’ It was enough to make your ears curl with embarrassment, the things they said.

Beauty nodded. Things had changed, the lady said. They didn’t used to do them things – having different mens ’n’ that.

‘But we don’t like to complain, do we, Norris?’

Norris turned a page and looked up when he realized he’d been addressed. ‘Eh?’

‘I said we don’t like to complain!’

‘I bloody do!’

Ethel whispered to Beauty that he’d been a hero during the War.

What war?

He’d fought in Singapore, Burma, India, North Africa and Italy, killed a Japanese soldier with his bare hands and had a chestful of medals for bravery. Fifty-six years he’d been married, but had no children.

Beauty stole quick glances at him as he lowered the newspaper to turn the pages; at his short white hair, thick eyebrows and long nose. He had a kind face, she decided.

Norris Winterton caught her looking at him and winked.

He killed someone.

She was sure he’d had a good reason. And he was an old man, so respect to him.

*

Maria re-appeared, uniformed in a white tunic and blue trousers.

‘Morning, Norris!’ she shouted.

She nodded to Beauty. ‘You coomin’ then?’

Maria sat down next to her on the bench in the garden. Beauty liked the girl’s cheerfulness, but she looked tired today.

‘How’s it giwin’?’ Maria asked. And could she scrounge a cigarette?

Beauty offered her the packet. ‘You OK?’

‘No, I fookin’ ay! I’m pissed off,’ Maria said.

‘How come?’

‘Me boyfriend’s a fookin’ useless twat, that’s why. He jooss sits rowund the howuss all day gerrin’ fookin’ stowund with ’is mates. The place is a fookin’ tip when I gerr’ome from work. And another thing …’ She lowered her voice. ‘I was savin’ up for a boob job, you know. To boost me self-esteem?’ Maria looked down at her chest. ‘I’ll be tucking ’em into me trousers soowun,’ she added. ‘But he’s only gone and spent the money on a fookin’ noine bar a hash.’

She’d had enough of him, she said. Apart from not working and spending her money, he never wanted to do anything or go anywhere. He came to bed late every night, and when they did, you know, do it, it was over really quickly. ‘D’you know woddamean?’

Beauty didn’t, but nodded.

If her boyfriend didn’t work why didn’t she kick him out? Not that she should have been living with him.

Why not? And what are you doing?

‘I would not put up with that,’ she said. It was all she could think of to say.

The day passed quickly. Beauty followed Maria – ‘shadowing’, they called it – and liked the work. Some of
the residents needed help with everything. Beauty had looked after her grandmother in Bangladesh when her mum went back to England so she knew what to do. They had special ways here to lift and turn people over in bed, and a big metal thing to lower them into the bath.

When the shift ended she sat next to Ethel and had a cup of tea while everybody watched
Midlands Today.
She didn’t want to leave. It was comfortable in the sitting room, and it felt right being there to help these old people. Beauty had always expected to take care of a mother-in-law, but now that that dream had ended, looking after Ethel and the other ladies was a good thing to do. And she hadn’t thought about herself all day.

The bus was warm and the windows steamed up. She looked at the older white people around her and wondered if they too had done things like Norris.

He killed a Japanese.

Is that like Chinese?

And how come old white people were so different from the young ones? Asians shook their heads, too, about how the world was changing. Nowadays no one knew if their kids were going to grow up gangsters.
Gunda, sharabi.
Drinking and taking drugs.

Or worse.

Tabligs.

Beauty got off the bus and walked through the town centre. The streets were full of people going home. Young men in suits, Asian boys with gelled hair and razor-thin lines of beard, and bored-looking white blokes came out of closing shops and banks. No one seemed to take any notice of her. Did she look like a normal person now? She was on her way home from work, like them.

Home?

She passed the long queues at the bus stops on Darlington Street and glanced at the Asian girls in long black trousers, Sikh mostly and some Hindus, judging by their jewellery, with tong-straightened hair and too much pale foundation.

Why do they paint themselves white?

They were having a normal life. Why shouldn’t she?

I’m Muslim.

So what? I can’t live?

And so what if she had problems at home? So did these girls. White people, too.

I aynt feeling sorry for myself.

‘Yo!’

Beauty started and looked up at the black-clad figure of Delford Johnston. He had a scabby cut under one eye.

‘
Asalaam alaikum
,’ he said seriously.

The dangerous one.

She mumbled the return greeting and made to step round him.

‘Don’t go, my beauty! Come on, I’ll let you buy me a drink.’

He needed the money for another pint. Until his missus arrived. He held open the door of the pub from which he had appeared.

It was dark in there and smelled of cigarette smoke and beer. Beauty looked at Delford’s unfocused eyes.

He’s drunk!

‘I aynt your beauty. Thass my name. And a Muslim shouldn’t drink.’

Delford brushed her words away with a gold-sovereigned hand. He knew how to handle her type. Fiery ones needed smothering and smiles.

‘You can’t live your whole life like that, you know. Come on, I’ll look after you. You don’t know who you’re with.’

Two other tall black men touched fists with Delford on their way into the pub.

‘Yo, Delford. Safe.’

‘Respect.’

‘Ya cool, dred?’

As the door closed he called to them in a heavy Jamaican accent: ‘No boda gan yam all a dem food dere! Me gonna broke your backside pon da pou-ul table!’

Delford turned round, laughing heartily, but Beauty had gone. He looked over the tops of the passing heads, and kissed his teeth in disappointment.

What a little cracker she was!

Beauty hurried along the crowded pavement and turned left into Waterloo Road, glad to have got away.

Gunda, aynit. Drinking, too.

She wasn’t frightened of him. He was too old-looking.

But what kind of a Muslim was he?

He aynt. He’s a convert.

So was my mum’s grandfather.

And the old man’s great-grandfather
.

They were Hindus once … toba, toba. Who am I to say the black guy aynt a Muslim? Am I?

It’s in my blood.

But how could it be? What did that mean?

He aynt a good Muslim if he’s drinking modh.

‘
You can’t live your whole life like that
.’

There were fewer people as she walked away from the town centre. A young woman in a jilbab was coming towards her. Was she going home from work too?

Probably married, aynit
.

These days, some husbands liked their wives to work. Not all men were monsters.

Or did this girl have trouble at home too?

Bas! Everyone’s got problems. You’re nothing special.

Look at them old people in the home. They never had no children to look after them. Feel sorry for them.

Beauty passed the orange struts and stands of the football stadium and a bronze statue of a man in shorts kicking a football. As the two women passed one another, their eyes met briefly.