White Teeth

baboon, Archie, you’ve got something upstairs, you’d have put two and two together-’

‘And made four.’

‘And made four, exactly, Archie. You would have made four. Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Archie?’ said Mr Hero.

‘No, Mr Hero,’ said Archie.

Kelvin prepared to cut to the chase. ‘That company dinner last month – it was awkward, Archie, it was unpleasant. And now there’s this annual do coming up with our sister company from Sunderland, about thirty of us, nothing fancy, you know, a curry, a lager and a bit of a boogie… as I say, it’s not that I’m a racialist, Archie…’

‘A racialist…’

‘I’d spit on that Enoch Powell… but then again he does have a point, doesn’t he? There comes a point, a saturation point, and people begin to feel a bit uncomfortable… You see, all he was saying-’

‘Who?’

‘Powell, Archie, Powell – try and keep up – all he was saying is enough is enough after a certain point, isn’t it? I mean, it’s like Delhi in Euston every Monday morning. And there’s some people around here, Arch – and I don’t include myself here – who just feel your attitude is a little strange.’

‘Strange?’

‘You see the wives don’t like it because, let’s face it, she’s a sort, a real beauty – incredible legs, Archie, I’d like to congratulate you on them legs – and the men, well, the men don’t like it ’cos they don’t like to think they’re wanting a bit of the other when they’re sitting down to a company dinner with their lady wives, especially when she’s… you know… they don’t know what to make of that at all.’

‘Who?’

‘What?’

‘Who are we talking about, Mr Hero?’

‘Look, Archie,’ said Kelvin, the sweat now flowing freely, distasteful for a man with his amount of chest hair, ‘take these.’ Kelvin pushed a large wad of Luncheon Vouchers across the table. ‘They’re left over from that raffle – you remember, for the Biafrans.’

‘Oh no – I already won an oven mitt in that, Mr Hero, there’s no need-’

‘Take them, Archie. There’s fifty pounds’ worth of vouchers in there, redeemable in over five thousand food outlets nationwide. Take them. Have a few meals on me.’

Archie fingered the vouchers like they were so many fifty pound notes. Kelvin thought for a moment he saw tears of happiness in his eyes.

‘Well, I don’t know what to say. There’s a place I go to, pretty regular like. If they take these I’m made for life. Ta very much.’

Kelvin took a handkerchief to his forehead. ‘Think nothing of it, Arch. Please.’

‘Mr Hero, could I…’ Archie gestured towards the door. ‘It’s just that I’d like to phone some people, you know, give them the news about the baby… if we’ve finished here.’

Kelvin nodded, relieved. Archie lifted himself out of his seat. He had just reached for the handle of the door when Kelvin snatched up his Parker pen once more and said, ‘Oh, Archie, one more thing… that dinner with the Sunderland team… I talked to Maureen and I think we need to cut down on the numbers… we put the names in a hat and yours came out. Still, I don’t suppose you’ll be missing much, eh? These things are always a bit of a bore.’

‘Right you are, Mr Hero,’ said Archie, mind elsewhere; praying to God that O’Connell’s was a ‘food outlet’; smiling to himself, imagining Samad’s reaction when he copped fifty quids’ worth of bloody Luncheon Vouchers.

Partly because Mrs Jones becomes pregnant so soon after Mrs Iqbal and partly because of a daily proximity (by this point Clara is working part time as a supervisor for a Kilburn youth group which looks like the fifteen-man line-up of a ska and roots band – six-inch Afros, Adidas tracksuits, brown ties, Velcro, sun-tinted shades – and Alsana attends an Asian Women’s Pre-natal Class in Kilburn High Road round the corner), the two women begin to see more of each other. Hesitant in the beginning – a few lunch dates here and there, the occasional coffee – what begins as a rearguard action against their husbands’ friendship soon develops. They have resigned themselves to their husbands’ mutual appreciation society and the free time this leaves is not altogether unpleasant; there is time for picnics and outings, for discussion and personal study; for old French movies where Alsana screams and covers her eyes at the suggestion of nudity (‘Put it away! We are not wanting to see the dangly bits!’) and Clara gets a glimpse of how the other half live: the half who live on romance, passion and joie de vivre. The other half who have sex. The life that might have been hers had she not been at the top of some stairs one fine day as Archibald Jones waited at the bottom.

Then, when their bumps become too large and cinema seats no longer accommodate them, the women begin to meet up for lunch in Kilburn Park, often with the Niece-of-Shame, the three of them squeezed on to a generous bench where Alsana presses a thermos of P. G. Tips into Clara’s hand, without milk, with lemon. Unwraps several layers of cling-film to reveal today’s peculiar delight: savoury dough-like balls, crumbly Indian sweets shot through with the colours of the kaleidoscope, thin pastry with spiced beef inside, salad with onion; saying to Clara, ‘Eat up! Stuff yourself silly! It’s in there, wallowing around in your belly, waiting for the menu. Woman, don’t torture it! You want to starve the bump?’ For, despite appearances, there are six people on that bench (three living, three coming); one girl for Clara, two boys for Alsana.

Alsana says, ‘Nobody’s complaining, let’s get that straight. Children are a blessing, the more the merrier. But I tell you, when I turned my head and saw that fancy ultra-business thingummybob…’

‘Ultrasound,’ corrects Clara, through a mouthful of rice.

‘Yes, I almost had the heart attack to finish me off! Two! Feeding one is enough!’

Clara laughs and says she can imagine Samad’s face when he saw it.

‘No, dearie.’ Alsana is reproving, tucking her large feet underneath the folds of her sari. ‘He didn’t see anything. He wasn’t there. I am not letting him see things like that. A woman has to have the private things – a husband needn’t be involved in body-business, in a lady’s… parts.’

Niece-of-Shame, who is sitting between them, sucks her teeth.

‘Bloody hell, Alsi, he must’ve been involved in your parts sometime, or is this the immaculate bloody conception?’

‘So rude,’ says Alsana to Clara in a snooty, English way. ‘Too old to be so rude and too young to know any better.’

And then Clara and Alsana, with the accidental mirroring that happens when two people are sharing the same experience, both lay their hands on their bulges.

Neena, to redeem herself: ‘Yeah… well… How are you doing on names? Any ideas?’

Alsana is decisive. ‘Meena and Malana, if they are girls. If boys: Magid and Millat. Ems are good. Ems are strong. Mahatma, Muhammad, that funny Mr Morecambe, from Morecambe and Wise – letter you can trust.’

But Clara is more cautious, because naming seems to her a fearful responsibility, a god-like task for a mere mortal. ‘If it’s a girl, I tink I like Irie. It patois. Means everyting OK, cool, peaceful, you know?’

Alsana is horrified before the sentence is finished: ‘ “OK”? This is a name for a child? You might as well call her “Wouldsirlikeanypoppadomswiththat?” or “Niceweatherweare having”.’

‘-And Archie likes Sarah. Well, dere not much you can argue wid in Sarah, but dere’s not much to get happy ’bout either. I suppose if it was good enough for the wife of Abraham-’

‘Ibrahim,’ Alsana corrects, out of instinct more than Qur’anic pedantry, ‘popping out babies when she was a hundred years old, by the grace of Allah.’

And then Neena, groaning at the turn the conversation is taking: ‘Well, I