Beauty Page 7

  EastEnders was dull. It had been ever since Sharon had died in a ball of flame on Tracey Fowler’s bench in the park. Peter picked up the TV guide to see if there was anything else that would help draw out his internet research. He didn’t want to have to do it twice just to fill up the evening. But there was nothing to watch, apart from DIY programmes, chat shows with special guests who were the presenters of other chat shows, repeats of unfunny sit-coms, opinion-as-fact on the news, or lurid documentaries with titles like Half Ton Man, The Boy With A Tumour For A Face, and The Woman Who Lost Forty Stone And Put It Back On Again. Or there was a two-part thriller that had started the day before.

  Peter stood up and went back to the computer.

  Mark found himself with nothing to do. If it had been Wednesday or Thursday The Bill would have been on. He brought the iron and board in from the kitchen and ran upstairs to fetch a discoloured and misshapen jumper from the cold spare bedroom. He sniffed at it but couldn’t tell if it was mildewed. He’d know when he ironed it, and if he left it in front of the fire it should be ready for later. He thought about knocking on that bloke Pete’s door to see if he wanted a smoke. Pay him back for earlier on.

  The file was building up as Peter passed through Peeing Lesbian Secretaries (English sites mostly), Rope Bondage (alarming and Japanese), Shemale Blowjobs (Brazilians with perfect breasts, large hands and Adam’s apples), and Weird Insertions (painful-looking German gynaecology and pictures of feet up men’s arses). Ignoring some of the more disturbing elements, he reordered the pictures to build up to a finale. Satisfied with the arrangement, he settled back to watch the slide-show. He’d finish off at the second viewing. After two hours he was aching and the relief would be huge, heightened by the light-headedness from smoking.

  The doorbell rang as he reached the last three slides and his final throes. He looked round as the release came, his enjoyment of the delicious relief wrecked by the interruption. He cleaned up hurriedly, slammed the laptop shut and went to the door, breathing heavily and stuffing himself back into his trousers.

  He looked through the spyhole and recognized – Mark, was it? Jesus, what did he want?

  ‘Oright Pete! Thought you said you were coomin’ rowund.’

  ‘Oh … sorry, I didn’t realize.’

  ‘I fetched some weed jooss. You skinned up earlier, so I thought I’d offer. If you want.’

  ‘Actually … erm, I’m sort of falling asleep on the sofa. I’ve got to get up early in the morning.’

  ‘Oh well, I won’t stop for long in that case. I’m off up the town soon anyway.’ Mark looked at Peter, waiting for him to stand aside and let him in.

  ‘Sure. Come in,’ Peter said. He’d need the weed.

  8

  Beauty lay on the sofa, exhausted and aching. Her arms and wrists hurt where she’d been pulled and punched. They hadn’t hit her as much as in the past, because now she had to go out every day. She’d got two hard slaps across the face, but the stinging would be gone by the morning. Bhai-sahb had done most of the shouting and hitting, while the old man stood at the door, his eyes shining as they always did when she got beaten. She’d have to go back to Bangladesh, Dulal said, marry the mullah legally and bring him back to this country. She only had to live with him for a year to make it look good for the Home Office. Once he was allowed to stay in Britain she could divorce him.

  That’s what they said, but would it be like that? And if she didn’t want to marry him then they would send her to live with the old man’s brother in Saudi Arabia. His sons were looking for wives, too.

  The choice was hers.

  Beauty had refused, and got the first slap across the face. The old man told his son not to hit her where it would be noticed. Like at primary school when Miss McKenzie had asked her about the bruises on her back. Beauty saw the anger in her brother’s eyes. She tried not to flinch at the blow, but she knew they would probably hear her sobs that night when the fight had ended. And he did slap her face again, harder, catching her cheek with the ball of his open hand. The blow knocked her sideways, but the sideboard was there and she managed to stay on her feet.

  Beauty’s mother screamed from the open doorway for him to stop.

  ‘Ar ita horissna!’

  The old man cursed his wife and slammed the door in her face.

  ‘Ama!’ Beauty cried. But what could her mother do?

  The old man stood at the door, trembling with rage.

  ‘Which is it going to be?’ Dulal Miah asked her.

  She refused again. And so it went on. Eventually Dulal tried to reason with her.

  ‘Who else is gonna marry you? You ain’t gonna find anyone – you’re ugly, dark and dumb – who’s gonna look at you? Anyone marries you’s gonna drag you by the hair and kick you out the kitchen door.’

  She’d heard it before, but her brother’s words always hurt more than his punches. And what if he was right? With a broken marriage behind her, who would look at her? And it was true, she was dark-skinned; darker than anyone else in the family.

  The men left the room. Beauty’s mother pushed past them to comfort her child, and persuade her to do what was right. It wouldn’t be so bad, she said. Once she’d spent a couple of years with Habib Choudhury and divorced him she would be free to come back home and look after the family.

  Later on, after they’d eaten the food Beauty had prepared, Dulal told her to stay downstairs and not go up to Sharifa’s room where their mum would be explaining everything to the little girl. That her big sister would be going away again soon. Back home or to Saudi Arabia. Beauty would have liked to have gone upstairs to lie down with her mother and sister, and feel their warmth on either side of her, but Bhai-sahb and the old man rarely let her do that.

  Beauty got up from the sofa and went to the window to look down on the estate. There was more life outside at this time of night. Scary black blokes in hooded tops and young Iraqis moved about in the darkness below her. She’d be on a flight back to Bangladesh, or Saudi Arabia, as soon as they’d fixed everything. How long? In two weeks? A month?

  They were all tired of fighting now. Tonight had been the last time.

  I’ll go there, get married, and come straight back, aynit?

  No, you won’t. They’ll keep you there until you do what everyone wants. You’ll give in eventually.

  Al-lh, I gotta get out.

  How? You got no money. Where you gonna sleep?

  In the station.

  You’ll get raped by black blokes.

  They got places for Asians in London.

  They’ll find you wandering about and stick you in a loony bin, the same way what happened to Fatima.

  I am faggol like her. Crazy.

  Outside, the rain fell through the glow of the street lamps. Beauty looked at the squat buildings below her in the darkness, and across the road to the tower block. What would it be like to live there, alone, and look down from its windows? Free.

  To do what?

  Stuff. Like walk to the shops on my own and talk to people. I won’t have to stay in, looking out of the window. I won’t have to listen to the old man shouting at my mum. I won’t have to turn the TV over when they kiss on EastEnders.

  You can’t watch people kissing on TV. Thass gross!

  OK then, I won’t have to cook and clean for them again, ever.

  But Mum can’t do it; she’s ill.

  She aynt ill, she just says that to make me do everything. Anyway, Sharifa can learn how to do them stuff. She’s old enough.

  She’s only nine.

  So? I started when I was that age.

  Thass a different story. You were born back home. Nowadays-girls don’t learn to cook.

  So the old man can help out. Mum won’t have to do it all. Bhai-sahb’s a good cook, too. And at Eid I won’t have to cook for everyone and sit alone.

  You’ll always be alone.

  I’ll meet people. Not everyone out there’s a monster.

  Who’s gonna be friends wi
th a dumb corner-girl?

  Maybe I’ll stop being dumb. I could try the reading thing again.

  That aynt gonna work. They tried everything.

  Like what, the mullah’s pervert brother?

  What else you gonna do?

  I’ll be able to … to go out at night.

  Thass for Sikhs. You’re a Muslim girl.

  Muslim girls don’t go out? I saw what they were like in Dhaka. I’ll be able to wear what I want, too.

  What about Mum?

  She’ll be OK. They can tell people I’m ill. Gone to hospital. And the fighting’s gonna stop if I go. It’s gonna be better for the kids too. Fa ranná. This aynt good for them.

  *

  It’s a zinna though, aynit?

  Sleeping with a bloke – thass a zinna.

  Parents come first and Allah comes second – thass in the Qur’an.

  I aynt never going back to Bangladesh. I aynt living with no mullah. And I aynt going to that other place … Saudi Arabia … neither. No one comes back from there.

  9

  Peter shut the front door and invited Mark to sit down. He glanced at the laptop. The green lights flickered on the side of the computer, the modem running. Inside, the last slide would still be up on the screen, but he couldn’t exit it without raising the lid or switching the laptop off at the wall, which would look strange.

  ‘Coffee?’ he asked, going into the kitchen.

  ‘Tea,’ Mark said. ‘Got any skins?’

  ‘Somewhere,’ Peter called, coming back into the sitting room to find them. Mark was standing by the computer, his thumb on the catch of the laptop. Peter took the single stride to the table and clicked the lid shut.

  ‘That’s private,’ he said. ‘Work stuff.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Mark. ‘Just seeing what make it is. Nice laptop.’ He picked up the cigarette papers and went back to the armchair.

  ‘Here, I waar interrupting anything, was I?’

  Peter reappeared with two mugs.

  ‘How long have you been living here?’ he asked Mark.

  Getting on for nearly two years now, Mark said. Came down from Burntwood to get away from old mates and bad influences, sort his head out and start afresh, did Peter know what he meant?

  He did.

  Wolvo was all right, man. Dunstall Park, too. There were too many foreigners around though.

  London was the same.

  Still, there were plenty of cheap pubs and birds. Well, slags. What more did he want?

  Peter watched Mark’s large fingers crumble the dried weed along the bed of tobacco on the cigarette paper, noticing the span of his knuckles and the blue dots of home-made tattoos on each one. Mark looked up at him.

  ‘Do’ worry, I ay front-loaded it,’ he said. ‘Here, you got any chunes?’

  He hadn’t. He’d left his stuff in London, at his sort-of ex’s.

  Couldn’t he listen to something online?

  The speakers didn’t work very well, Peter said.

  Mark had some computer speakers Peter could lend. Got them down the re-cyke. Or he could borrow him some CDs. Did he like dance music?

  Er … yeah, it was OK, although he didn’t get much chance to listen to music.

  What about in the car?

  The stereo was playing up.

  Mark could fix it – anything like that. He was a damn good mechanic, too.

  Really?

  Ye’man. He could have a look at it this weekend, if Peter wanted.

  Yeah – that would be great.

  Mark passed Peter the spliff. The bloke seemed all right. A bit scared, like, and a pushover as well, but he might be a useful pulling partner that night. At least he wouldn’t have to walk into the pub on his own.

  Did Peter fancy coming up the town for a drink in a bit, Mark asked.

  Peter was a little tired.

  Mark, too, needed an early night. Had to be at the course for nine the next morning. But it was pound-a-pint night up Flanagan’s and there’d be loads of birds there. It would do Peter good to take his mind off his ex. (Had Peter told her to fook off, by the way?) And when was the last time he’d been out on the town?

  Peter hadn’t been out in Wolverhampton.

  Right, that was settled. He was coming out.

  What was Flanagan’s like?

  Sowund. He needn’t worry, the place wasn’t rough. Mark didn’t like trouble either, but there were so many fucking knobs around these days you had to be careful.

  Peter passed the spliff back. He wasn’t sure about going ‘up the town’. Mark didn’t seem the type who avoided trouble. Still, he looked as if he would be able to handle himself in a tight spot. And it was true, Peter hadn’t been anywhere without Kate for a long time. It might do him good. He used to go to pubs and clubs looking for girls. Why not here? It would beat the hours he’d otherwise spend on the internet. Talking to real people might provide some mental stimulus, too. And if he was careful not to chat up some maniac’s girlfriend or catch the wrong person’s eye, he might get through the evening without a glass shoved in his face. Wasn’t that what happened in pubs in towns like this? He didn’t fancy walking there though.

  ‘Shall we get a taxi?’ he asked Mark.

  ‘Am you fookin’ mad?’ It was only a ten-minute walk. The price of a cab would buy him four pints in Flanagan’s.

  They could get a taxi back though, couldn’t they? Peter would pay.

  Whatever. He just had to go home and iron some clothes and they could go straight away.

  *

  At ten o’clock Mark knocked on the door and they set off. Peter had put on a clean white shirt and a pair of straight navy blue trousers, and had patted his cheeks with aftershave. He felt good in his tan loafers. Mark, he noticed, had made an effort to smarten himself up with clean jeans, misshapen but polished Rockport shoes, and a saggy, grey acrylic jumper. He’d shaved to leave long, thin sideburns, and he smelled strongly of body spray. And he looked tough enough. Maybe people would stay away from them.

  At the bottom of the road Peter nodded to the street sign.

  ‘Do you know why it’s called Prole Street?’

  ‘I’ve got no idea, mate. Why?’

  ‘It’s a strange word. Prole, as in – well, you know … proletariat.’

  ‘Prol-a-what?’

  ‘Proletariat.’

  ‘Never heard of it. What is it?’

  ‘It means … er, working class.’

  ‘Dunno what you’re on about, mate, sorry.’

  ‘I could be wrong. Maybe it’s just a name. You’d have to go to the library to find out.’

  ‘Why the fook would I wanna do that?’

  At the row of shops in Graiseley, Peter kept his eyes lowered as he threaded through the people standing on the pavement outside the chip shop or leaning into the open windows of parked cars. A police car bumped over the speed humps and made him feel braver.

  When they reached Asda and the Molineux, Mark cut through the badly lit, empty car park of the football stadium to the long subway under the ring road. The walls of the tunnel were covered with talentless graffiti, the floor stained every few paces with faded explosions of vomit and blackened trickles of piss.

  ‘I kicked in some Baggies here six month back,’ Mark said.

  ‘What are Baggies?’

  ‘Christ! You don’t know shit! Baggies – West Brom fans. Small Paul phoned me – he’s a mate a mine – said they’d got three of them surrounded, so I legged it up here. Course, I dey do things like that no more. Got too much to lose, what wi’ me dogs ’n’ that. Who’s gonna look after them if anything happens to me?’

  Peter looked sideways at him. Was Mark smiling wistfully at the memory of kicking a West Brom fan?

  He had come out with a madman.

  The rest of the journey passed without alarm. The subway brought them to the centre of town, to bright and deserted Monday night streets. Maybe it wouldn’t be so life-threatening after all.

  Flanagan’s
turned out to be a large pub full of yobs in sweatshirts, jeans and shoes like Mark’s, heavy gold chains and sovereign rings. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and yelled conversations over loud music. As Peter followed Mark through the crowd of young men clutching pints to their chests, he scowled at the back of Mark’s head to stop himself from catching anyone’s eye and was surprised to notice that people moved to let them pass. Maybe everyone was conscious of the potential for sudden and explosive violence in others. Or was it just Mark’s hardness? Whatever the reason, by the time they reached the bar Peter felt more confident than he had when they’d walked in.

  ‘What do you want to drink?’ he shouted to Mark.

  ‘Get Carling. It’s a quid a pint. The Carlsberg’s two quid and Stella’s two-forty. I’ll get the next ones in.’

  Peter would have preferred the stronger, more expensive beer, but felt he should avoid an ostentatious display of wealth. He’d already put a ten-pound note in his trouser pocket to avoid having to pull out his wallet.

  As they waited for the beer Mark scanned the crowd for any birds he knew, especially the fat one from RiteSkills and her mate.

  He spotted Nicola sitting in a far corner with two girlfriends, the table in front of them covered by empty pint glasses.

  ‘Let’s go and talk to them over there,’ he shouted to Peter. ‘I know two of ’em, and the other one looks all right ’n’ all!’

  Peter nodded and followed him through the crowd. Younger men moved out of the way of their brimming glasses.

  ‘Oright? It’s Nicola, ay it? D’you mind if we sit down wi’ you? There ay nowhere else.’

  Mark slid into the empty chair next to Nicola.

  ‘Hi,’ Peter said, smiling awkwardly as he sat down on the other side of the table. The girls smiled back.

  ‘All right, mate?’ said the blonde girl in the England top. ‘I’m Louise and this is Kelly.’