Ali had been allowed to go into the uncles’ room whenever he liked. They had begun to speak to him as another man. One even called him ‘the next head of the family’. The oldest uncle owned factories in India, the second was a famous political journalist, and the third was an engineer who built dams. At home, all three were notorious ‘carousers’ and party-givers. During the cricket intervals, they entertained Ali by betting on tossed coins or on which auntie would come into the room next; they played ‘stone, paper, scissors’. Ali’s abstemious father had a minor job in a solicitor’s office.
Ali was an only child. He wrote down cricket scores next to imaginary teams in a notebook his mother had given him. He spent hours alone in the garden, batting a cricket ball, attached by rope to the branch of a tree, with a sawn-off broomstick. The garden was his kingdom, and he was eager to share it with his Indian family as he had today, opening the windows and back door of the small council house. This was unusuaclass="underline" both his parents disliked draughts, whatever the weather. Today, three of his cousins had played cricket out in the garden; the girls, aged between seven and fourteen, had played chase.
The aunties, after they had washed up, had sat on blankets in the shade, stroking and arranging one another’s hair like people in a French painting. Ali was kissed and fussed over, enjoying the sight of his aunties’ painted toes in their delicate sandals, even the rolls of fat around their stomachs, where their saris had come loose.
That afternoon, Ali had shown his cousin Zahida his bedroom. She was fourteen, a year older than him. They’d looked out at the view of suburban gardens (where he’d once seen a married couple kissing), and he pulled out his copy of The Man with the Golden Gun. They bounced on the bed and then she pressed her lips to his. She said she wanted to be ‘secret’ with him, and he got a torch and led her up the ladder into the attic where there were discarded toys and dusty trunks which had carried his father’s things from Bombay. Her bangles clattered and jangled. They couldn’t stop giggling. Zahida was convinced there were rats and bats. Who would hear her muffled screams so far up?
They kissed again, but she placed her mouth close to his ear. His body was invaded by such sweetness that he thought he would fall over. She bent forward, placing her hands on top of the filthy water-tank, and in a delirium he continued caressing, until, making his way through intricate whirls of material, he reached her flesh and slid his finger into the top of the crack. That was all. She made noises like someone suffering. He could have remained with her there for hours, but his excitement was yoked to a fear of discovery and punishment. He said they should go downstairs. He went first, and urged her to follow.
‘What’s wrong?’ she had asked. They were back in his bedroom.
‘You’re leaving tomorrow. I don’t want you to go.’
‘When I grow up,’ she said, ‘I’m going to be a pilot like my dad used to be.’ Ali had never been in an aeroplane. ‘I’ll fly everywhere. I’ll come and see you.’
‘That’s a long time away.’
Ali envied his cousins seeing one another almost every day. They lived close to one another and the family’s drivers ferried them to one another’s houses whenever they wanted. ‘We are being called to weddings and parties the whole time.’
Then Zahida said, ‘Papa told me you’re invited to stay with us.’
‘But that’s not going to happen, is it? My parents don’t like to go anywhere.’
‘Come on your own. There’s plenty of room. All kinds of bums and relatives turn up at home! Come for the holidays, like we do here. Christmas would be good.’
He said with shame, ‘I would, but Dad doesn’t have the money to send me.’
‘Why not?’
He shrugged. ‘He doesn’t earn enough.’
She said, ‘Save up. Didn’t you help out at the circus last Easter?’
‘Yes.’
‘It made us all laugh like mad. You weren’t a clown, were you?’
‘I came on to clean up after the elephant,’ he said. ‘It made the audience laugh. Mostly I carried props around.’
‘But you’re so small!’
‘I’ll get bigger.’
She said, ‘You’re big enough now to wash cars and dig gardens.’
‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘I can do that.’
‘You can.’
He kissed her. ‘Tell India I am coming!’
He was surprised to see his father standing at the foot of the stairs, watching them both.
It was then the taxis had arrived, hooting their horns.
When everyone had gone, Ali’s mother sighed with relief. She was leaving for work. His mother was a nurse who worked nights; when she could, she slept during the day. Now, she and father had a row about what the eldest uncles had said to Dad. In a sulk, Ali’s father went into his room and sat at his desk with his back to Ali. He was studying law by correspondence course, which Dad’s wealthiest brother, the head of the family, was paying for. He had become angry with Ali’s father, who had failed his exams and didn’t seem to be making much of himself in England. At lunchtime, he had shouted, ‘There are so many opportunities here, yaar, and the only one you’ve taken is to marry Joan! Why are you letting down the whole family?’
As it was, his mother was already annoyed with the men. A few days before, after she had shown off her new washing-machine, they had given her all the Bombay family’s washing to do. ‘I’m not their servant,’ she said, throwing down the pillowcases filled with dirty clothes. Father, with Ali’s help, had to figure out how to work the machine, one reading the instructions, the other fiddling with the dials, as a pool of water crept across the floor. Then they ironed and folded the clothes, pretending it was Joan’s handiwork.
Dad might now study for hours, with a furious look on his face. Ali sat down, too. In his father’s room, where Ali was supposed to have been preparing for the new school year if he was to keep up with the other pupils and not become like his father, all he could hear was the ticking clock. The house seemed to have stopped breathing. His mother wouldn’t return until the morning; she’d make his breakfast, ensure he had a clean towel, and, when Mike knocked, send him to the swimming baths.
Ali slipped out without his father appearing to notice; he didn’t want to stay at home if no one was laughing or talking. He was surprised to find Mike still outside, kicking a tennis ball against the front wall.
‘Come on out, yer bastard. Bin waitin’ for yer,’ he said. ‘What you bin doin’, cryin’ and all that?’
He and Mike trudged across the flat park at twilight; goal posts like gallows stood in the mud.
‘You took yer time gettin’ out,’ said Mike. ‘Nearly dark now.’
‘People were round.’
‘’Ate it when that ’appens. Yer with yer mates now. Everyone’ll be down the swings.’
Ali and Mike always went straight to the swings. If it was raining, they shared cigarettes in the dank shed where the footballers changed for the weekend league.
Mike shouted, ‘There they are! The scrubbers are out!’
They started to run. It wasn’t far. Ali knew all the kids; they weren’t his friends but they lived near by, some younger, others older. His mother called them ‘rough’.
‘Where you bin?’ one of them said to Mike.
‘Waitin’ for Ali.’ E ’ad idiots round. There were dozens of ’em, smellin’ the place out. It can’t be allowed, so many darkies in a council ’ouse!’