Beauty (3 page)

Dick’ead give ’er a car jooss to fook ’er and the big end went three weeks later.

Outside the RiteSkills building on School Street, a small huddle of New Deal claimants was waiting in silence on the pavement. Mark hung back until the doors opened. He pinched out his roll-up, put it in his pocket and walked up the steps into the building.

Twelve Jobcentre clients stood in the RiteSkills reception area, waiting for whatever was supposed to happen. The older men carried their lunch in plastic bags. Black-trousered women brought forms from their desks to the clients in the open-plan office, while multicultural men and women in various work poses smiled down from posters bearing the company slogan: ‘Training People’s Skills’. The staff approached the clients in turn and asked each one to confirm their name and address, and to sign a DH15 form. The clients gave their details quietly. No one wanted to be there.

Beauty Begum pressed herself against the wall, stuck between an old white guy with a walking stick and a youngish black bloke who’d smiled at her when she walked in scowling. She’d managed a quick glance at the other people waiting before she chose a spot to stand. A mix. White, black, young, old, a half-caste girl, a middle-aged Sikh woman, and a tall Somali woman with a big
hombol
. One of the young women working there was a Sikh.

A flirt, showing her stomach and flicking her hair. I bet her family’d chop her head off with a sword if she did anything wrong. Sikhs, man. Worser than anyone.

Beauty watched the Sikh girl approach.

Why’s she coming to me first? Cuz I’m Asian?

‘Hi there,’ said the girl, smiling. ‘I’m Bal – Baljinder. I
just need to get you to sign this form. Can I have your name, please?’

‘Begum,’ Beauty answered, not looking up. She didn’t like to say her first name out loud.
Is that your real name?
She hated the question, but someone always asked it. Faisal taunted her with it like the white kids had done at primary school.

‘And your address?’ Bal asked.

‘Three-oh-two Pendeford Dene.’

‘Is that Wolverhampton?’

‘Er …’ Beauty was thrown by the question. ‘Yeah. No … I don’t know,’ she faltered.

The room was silent.

‘That’s Parkfields,’ said the black man standing next to her.

‘Thanks,’ said Bal. ‘Can you just sign here for me, please?’ She offered the pen and held the clipboard for Beauty to sign the DH15 in the box marked with a cross.

Don’t look at me while I’m doing it.

But the eyes watched as Beauty laboured to produce her signature.

There.

She gave the pen back.

‘Thanks,’ said Bal and took the form away to return with another for the next person.

‘Have you just moved here?’ said the black man.

‘No,’ said Beauty. ‘I forgot if it was that place you said, or Woolverhamtun.’ She didn’t want to talk so much.

The man looked down at her. She was a pretty girl. Too skinny for him. Too pissed off as well. He preferred them big like the white girl working here, or the Somali woman. That was something to keep you warm on a winter’s night. Besides, Indian birds – no chance there.

When it came to Mark’s turn to fill in the form he wished he’d put cleaner clothes on. The place was close and
warm and he could smell himself. The big-arsed bird with the little titties was walking over to him.

‘Hiya, I’m Michaela,’ she said. Her smile was cold. She didn’t like the clients any more, not now the Jobcentre sent everyone with basic skills or employability issues here, and especially not this type. They always caused trouble, one way or another.

Mark straightened up. ‘Hi,’ he said, smiling for longer than she had.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘Mark. Aston.’

He craned his neck to look at the list in her hand, and at the shadow of cleavage between her small breasts.

‘What’s your address?’ She leaned away from him. This one stank and was standing too close.

‘Eleven Prole Street,’ he said.

‘Is that P-R-O-double L?’

‘Nah. P-R-O-L-E.’

‘Thanks. If you hang on here a sec until everyone’s signed in, someone will be along to take you upstairs,’ she said.

Mark leaned back against the wall and watched her arse from under the peak of his cap as she took his form back to her desk.

The door beside him opened and a tall man with red cheeks and white hair appeared. He was dressed in a black suit and shirt and wore a red tie. He nodded a count of the clients and called out over their heads, ‘Michaela, how many are we missing?’

‘Just two. If they’re not here by half-past, we’ll exit them and restart them next week.’

He addressed the group. ‘If everyone would like to come with me up to the induction room – there’s a lot to get through today.’

Following the trail of people upstairs, Beauty tried to
slip in front of a young white girl so that the black man wouldn’t walk up the stairs behind her, but she wasn’t quick enough. The salwar didn’t reveal her figure, but she held her hands behind her anyway, palms out, covering her
hombol
in case he was looking. She knew from school how black kids looked at her bum. It was wrong, but at night, when the house was quiet, she’d lie awake and think about the rude things they’d said to her.

Beauty followed the others into a large classroom, where a horseshoe of tables faced a whiteboard and a single teacher’s desk beneath it. She tried to leave an empty chair between her and the racist type with the baseball cap and football shirt, but the black bloke urged her on and she had to sit down next to him. He might not speak to her, but still, it was scary sitting next to people like that. The black guy smiled as he sat down on the other side of her. At least he was dressed nice. Clean. Not like the white people.

Tramps, man.

Chair legs clanged. The man in the black suit sat at the desk at the front, and busied himself with forms. The noise died down. He took off his glasses and slid them into his breast pocket, tugged at the knees of his trousers, cleared his throat and addressed the group in the deep voice of a heavy smoker.

‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘My name is Colin Bushell and I’m the Employability and Training Skills Coordinator for RiteSkills, Wolverhampton.’

He paused to let the effect sink in on this new bunch of unemployed scroungers in front of him.

‘Now, you’ve all been referred to us by the Jobcentre, because it has been identified that there are barriers to your employability, barriers that you need support with. In most cases that will mean help with yer reading,
writing and numbers, and some of you with yer Wider Key Skills: Improving Yer Own Learning, Problem-Solving and Working With Others. And everyone will do their Jobsearching, CVs, and Best Practice for Successful Interview Techniques. At the end of the day that’s what we do here at RiteSkills, as well as helping you to actually find a job.’

‘I do’ want a fookin’ job!’ a voice rang out.

Laughter erupted and Beauty looked up to see who had spoken. A white boy sat leaning back on his chair, swinging his legs and grinning at the room. His face was tanned, or unwashed; his clothes and trainers shapeless and dirty. He caught Beauty’s eye and smiled, his uneven teeth discoloured by nicotine and lack of brushing. She looked down quickly.

The Employability Co-ordinator laughed with them. It was too early to lose them. Especially not to this gypsy half-breed.

‘Stewart and I go a long way back, don’t we?’ Colin said.

Stewart ignored him.

‘Well, sit properly and don’t use that kind of language or I’ll be speaking to yer adviser. You may get sanctioned and lose yer benefits.’

‘Nah man, my adviser fookin’ loovs me,’ he said. ‘She’d get it ’n’ all, trooss me.’

Beauty looked in his direction again and he winked at her. She lowered her glance, covered her brow with her hand and touched her cheeks three times alternately with the tip of a finger so that God would forgive her for hearing sinful words.

Toba, toba astaghfirullah.

Colin stood up and handed out forms and pens.

‘I’ll explain some of the new sanctions procedures in a moment. Firstly, I need everybody to fill in this DH21 New Client Start-Up Notification.’

Some of the people in the room showed alarm at the prospect. Colin enjoyed their discomfort.

Beauty picked at the corners of the green and white form on her desk, her forearms shielding it from the men sitting next to her. She was sure of the first two questions, and wrote her name carefully. The nine little boxes on the line underneath she guessed were for her National Insurance number, which she knew by heart. She sounded out D-A-T-E from the next question to herself, but together the letters made no sense. The rest of the form, too, was a mystery, but she kept her pen over the page anyway. She glanced sideways at the black guy’s form. He’d filled in one box more than she had, but had stopped and seemed to be thinking about his next answer. She put down her pen in irritation and folded her arms.

One by one the others stopped writing. Colin walked slowly round the room collecting the forms, scanning each in turn and asking its author a detail here and there. Beauty kept her head down but could feel him drawing closer.

As he stopped at the black guy next to her she tugged her scarf down and left her hand there to cover her face. But she sensed Colin in front of her and saw his liver-spotted hand pick up the form from the desk.

‘Beauty?
Is that your real name?
’

There was silence and his question hung there, waiting for an answer.

She looked him up and down. ‘You never heard the word before?’ she said in a clear voice. Faces turned towards her.

‘Sorry, it seemed like an unusual name …’

‘For an Asian?’ she interrupted. ‘So, an Asian can’t have a name like that?’ She sucked her teeth. ‘Thass a typical Bangladeshi name,’ she added. Like Lucky, Fancy, Simple, Polly, Colly, Sweetie … She thought of her
cousins back home and the girls in the village, and wished she’d been given a holy name instead.

If someone cusses your name you’ve gotta say something, aynit?
Colin didn’t reply. He didn’t want another Equal Ops situation on his hands. He spent a few seconds pretending to read the rest of the empty form, before moving on. The noise started up again and Beauty could hear the others repeating her name.

Let them.

One of the older white ladies sitting a few seats away leaned towards her. ‘Thass a loovly name, loov,’ she said.

At eleven o’clock Colin let them out for their comfort break. Beauty followed the trail back downstairs, out of the building to the other side of the road, and stood apart from the small groups that formed on the pavement. The older men pulled out tins of tobacco with ready-rolled cigarettes inside. A large, round-faced white girl with a long denim skirt and a small nose approached.

‘Oright? It’s Beauty, ay it?’ she asked.

‘Uh-huh.’ People spoke funny here. Her little sister had picked up the accent.

‘Thass a really noice nayum. Suits you.’

‘Thanks,’ said Beauty, but didn’t know what else to say.

‘Have you gorra spare fag?’ the girl asked.

‘Sure.’ She took the packet from her breast pocket and offered it. The girl’s fat fingers struggled to remove a cigarette.

‘Thanks, Beauty. I’m Nicola. Tonks. Have you got a light ’n’ all?’

The rude, dirty boy spotted the cigarettes and left his group.

‘Yo!’ he called to Beauty, showing his stained teeth. ‘You told ’im, all right! I berr’e waar expectin’ that, fookin’ ’ell!’

Stewart balanced in front of her on the edge of the pavement. ‘He’s a right tosser, that bloke.’

‘Is he?’ Beauty said, not looking up. ‘I didn’t know.’

He looked at the cigarette in her hand and nodded at it.

‘Can I go twos on that fag wi’ you?’

Share a cigarette with you? You gone crazy?

She gave him the whole cigarette and he swaggered back to the group, flaunting his trophy to the fagless.

‘Got it off that Asian bird,’ she heard him say.

‘Her’s gorra name you know!’ Nicola shouted back at him. ‘Dey you hear ’er jooss?’ She turned to Beauty. ‘Do’ worry about him – he’s a fookin’ knob!’

‘Oh right.’ Beauty smiled to hide her embarrassment.

‘See? You can smile!’ Nicola said. ‘Hey!’ She turned and called out to the others. ‘She can smile!’

‘Sshh! Don’t!’ But no one looked over.

‘Y’m not from rowund here, am y’?’ Nicola asked. ‘I can tell from yer accent.’

‘No, I’m from London.’ White people were nosy in this town.

‘Oh, roight.’ She sounded impressed. ‘I ay never bin to London.’

Arwa type – innocent.

The two girls smoked in silence.

‘Hey,’ Nicola said. ‘We’m giwin’ to the pub at lunchtime. D’you wanna coom with us? You can meet me chap?’

‘Er … Pub’s not my thing,’ Beauty said. She looked down at the pavement.

‘Coom on, it wo’ hurt.’

‘Maybe next time.’

Beauty remained alone. She finished the cigarette and watched the half-caste girl from the group come towards her, hair stretched tight back against her head, a diamond beauty-spot jumping as she chewed.

‘God, what a bunch of tramps!’ she said. She stood next to Beauty and lit a cigarette. ‘I’m Lesley. Where you from?’

‘Hackney,’ Beauty lied. A
halla
should know where it was.

‘Oh really!’ Lesley said. ‘Christ, what you diwin’ here?’

Beauty was glad not to have to answer as the girl carried on.

‘I love Hackney. D’you ever go to the Empire?’

Beauty saw the girl glance at her salwar and headscarf.

Hackney Empire? The big white and brown building on Mayor Street?

‘Yeah, I did,’ she lied again.

Where they do concerts?

‘Who did you go and see?’

‘Uh … just some Bhangra singers.’

Al-l
h, amarray maff horrio ami missa mattissee.
Would God forgive her for lying to this girl?