White Teeth

to remember her debt to him. ‘You said the Iqbals are comin’ to dinner. I was just thinkin’… if they’re going to want me to cook dem some curry – I mean, I can cook curry – but it’s my type of curry.’

‘For God’s sake, they’re not those kind of Indians,’ said Archie irritably, offended at the suggestion. ‘Sam’ll have a Sunday roast like the next man. He serves Indian food all the time, he doesn’t want to eat it too.’

‘I was just wondering-’

‘Well, don’t, Clara. Please.’

He gave her an affectionate kiss on the forehead, for which she bent downwards a little.

‘I’ve known Sam for years, and his wife seems a quiet sort. They’re not the royal family, you know. They’re not those kind of Indians,’ he repeated, and shook his head, troubled by some problem, some knotty feeling he could not entirely unravel.

Samad and Alsana Iqbal, who were not those kind of Indians (as, in Archie’s mind, Clara was not that kind of black), who were, in fact, not Indian at all but Bangladeshi, lived four blocks down on the wrong side of Willesden High Road. It had taken them a year to get there, a year of mercilessly hard graft to make the momentous move from the wrong side of Whitechapel to the wrong side of Willesden. A year’s worth of Alsana banging away at the old Singer that sat in the kitchen, sewing together pieces of black plastic for a shop called Domination in Soho (many were the nights Alsana would hold up a piece of clothing she had just made, following the pattern she was given, and wonder what on earth it was). A year’s worth of Samad softly inclining his head at exactly the correct deferential angle, pencil in his left hand, listening to the appalling pronunciation of the British, Spanish, American, French, Australian:

Go Bye Ello Sag, please.

Chicken Jail Fret See wiv Chips, fanks.

From six in the evening until three in the morning; and then every day was spent asleep, until daylight was as rare as a decent tip. For what is the point, Samad would think, pushing aside two mints and a receipt to find fifteen pence, what is the point of tipping a man the same amount you would throw in a fountain to chase a wish? But before the illegal thought of folding the fifteen pence discreetly in his napkin hand even had a chance to give itself form, Mukhul – Ardashir Mukhul, who ran the Palace and whose wiry frame paced the restaurant, one benevolent eye on the customers, one ever watchful eye on the staff – Mukhul was upon him.

‘Saaamaad’ – he had a cloying, oleaginous way of speaking – ‘did you kiss the necessary backside this evening, cousin?’

Samad and Ardashir were distant cousins, Samad the elder by six years. With what joy (pure bliss!) had Ardashir opened the letter last January, to find his older, cleverer, handsomer cousin was finding it hard to get work in England and could he possibly…

‘Fifteen pence, cousin,’ said Samad, lifting his palm.

‘Well, every little helps, every little helps,’ said Ardashir, his dead-fish lips stretching into a stringy smile. ‘Into the Piss-Pot with it.’

The Piss-Pot was a black Balti pot that sat on a plinth outside the staff toilets and into which all tips were pooled and then split at the end of the night. For the younger, flashy, good-looking waiters like Shiva, this was a great injustice. Shiva was the only Hindu on the staff – this stood as tribute to his waitering skills, which had triumphed over religious differences. Shiva could make a four quid tip in an evening if the blubberous white divorcee in the corner was lonely enough and he batted his long lashes at her effectively. He could also make his money out of the polo-necked directors and producers (the Palace sat in the centre of London’s theatreland, and these were still the days of the Royal Court, of pretty boys and kitchen-sink drama) who flattered the boy, watched his ass wiggle provocatively to the bar and back, and swore that if anyone ever adapted A Passage to India for the stage he could have whichever role tickled his fancy. For Shiva, then, the Piss-Pot system was simply daylight robbery and an insult to his unchallenged waitering abilities. But for men like Samad, in his late forties, and for the even older, like the white-haired Muhammed (Ardashir’s great-uncle), who was eighty if he was a day, who had deep pathways dug into the sides of his mouth where he had smiled when he was young, for men like this the Piss-Pot could not be complained about. It made more sense to join the collective than pocket fifteen pence and risk being caught (and docked a week’s tips).

‘You’re all on my back!’ Shiva would snarl, when he had to relinquish five pounds at the end of the night and drop it into the pot. ‘You all live off my back! Somebody get these losers off my back! That was my fiver and now it’s going to be split sixty-five-fucking-million ways as a hand-out to these losers! What is this: communism?’

And the rest would avoid his glare and busy themselves quietly with other things, until one evening, one fifteen pence evening, Samad said, ‘Shut up, boy,’ quietly, almost under his breath.

‘You!’ Shiva swung round to where Samad stood, crushing a great tub of lentils for tomorrow’s dal. ‘You’re the worst of them! You’re the worst fucking waiter I’ve ever seen! You couldn’t get a tip if you mugged the bastards! I hear you trying to talk to the customer about biology this, politics that – just serve the food, you idiot – you’re a waiter, for fuck’s sake, you’re not Michael Parkinson. “Did I hear you say Delhi” ’ – Shiva put his apron over his arm and began posturing around the kitchen (he was a pitiful mimic) – ‘ “I was there myself, you know, Delhi University, it was most fascinating, yes – and I fought in the war, for England, yes – yes, yes, charming, charming.” ’ Round and round the kitchen he went, bending his head and rubbing his hands over and over like Uriah Heep, bowing and genuflecting to the head cook, to the old man arranging great hunks of meat in the walk-in freezer, to the young boy scrubbing the underside of the oven. ‘Samad, Samad…’ he said with what seemed infinite pity, then stopped abruptly, pulled the apron off and wrapped it round his waist. ‘You are such a sad little man.’

Muhammed looked up from his pot-scrubbing and shook his head again and again. To no one in particular he said, ‘These young people – what kind of talk? What kind of talk? What happened to respect? What kind of talk is this?’

‘And you can fuck off too,’ said Shiva, brandishing a ladle in his direction, ‘you old fool. You’re not my father.’

‘Second cousin of your mother’s uncle,’ a voice muttered from the back.

‘Bollocks,’ said Shiva. ‘Bollocks to that.’

He grabbed the mop and was heading off for the toilets, when he stopped by Samad and placed the handle inches from Samad’s mouth.

‘Kiss it,’ he sneered; and then, impersonating Ardashir’s sluggish drawl, ‘Who knows, cousin, you might get a rise!’

And that’s what it was like most nights: abuse from Shiva and others; condescension from Ardashir; never seeing Alsana; never seeing the sun; clutching fifteen pence and then releasing it; wanting desperately to be wearing a sign, a large white placard that said:

I AM NOT A WAITER. I HAVE BEEN A STUDENT, A SCIENTIST, A SOLDIER, MY WIFE IS CALLED ALSANA, WE LIVE IN EAST LONDON BUT WE WOULD LIKE TO MOVE NORTH. I AM A MUSLIM BUT ALLAH HAS FORSAKEN ME OR I HAVE FORSAKEN ALLAH, I’M NOT SURE. I HAVE A FRIEND – ARCHIE – AND OTHERS. I AM FORTY-NINE BUT WOMEN STILL TURN IN THE STREET. SOMETIMES.

But, no such placard existing, he had instead the urge, the need, to speak to every man, and, like the Ancient Mariner, explain constantly, constantly wanting to reassert something, anything. Wasn’t that important? But then the heart-breaking disappointment – to find out that the inclining of one’s head, poising of one’s pen, these were important, so important – it was important to be a good waiter, to listen when someone said-

Lamb Dawn Sock and rice. With chips. Thank you.

And fifteen pence clinked on china. Thank you, sir. Thank you so very much.

On the Tuesday after Archie’s wedding, Samad had waited till everyone left, folded his white, flared trousers (made from the same fabric as the tablecloths) into a perfect square, and then climbed the stairs