White Teeth

going back and forth; your children are going round and round. There’s no proper term for it – original sin seems too harsh; maybe original trauma would be better. A trauma is something one repeats and repeats, after all, and this is the tragedy of the Iqbals – that they can’t help but re-enact the dash they once made from one land to another, from one faith to another, from one brown mother country into the pale, freckled arms of an imperial sovereign. It will take a few replays before they move on to the next tune. And this is what is happening as Alsana sews loudly on her monstrous Singer machine, double-stitching around the vacancy of a crotchless knicker, oblivious to the father and the sons who are creeping around the house, packing clothes, packing provisions. It is a visitation of repetition. It is a dash across continents. It is a rerun. But one at a time, now, one at a time…

Now, how do the young prepare to meet the old? The same way the old prepare to meet the young: with a little condescension; with low expectation of the other’s rationality; with the knowledge that the other will find what they say hard to understand, that it will go beyond them (not so much over the head as between the legs); and with the feeling that they must arrive with something the other will like, something suitable. Like Garibaldi biscuits.

‘They like them,’ explained Irie when the twins queried her choice, as the three of them rumbled to their destination on the top of the 52 bus, ‘they like the raisins in them. Old people like raisins.’

Millat, from under the cocoon of his Tomytronic, sniffed, ‘Nobody likes raisins. Dead grapes – bleurgh. Who wants to eat them?’

‘Old people do,’ Irie insisted, stuffing the biscuits back into her bag. ‘And they’re not dead, akchully, they’re dried.’

‘Yeah, after they’ve died.’

‘Shut up, Millat. Magid, tell him to shut up!’

Magid pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose and diplomatically changed the subject. ‘What else have you got?’

Irie reached into her bag. ‘A coconut.’

‘A coconut!’

‘For your information,’ snapped Irie, moving the nut out of Millat’s reach, ‘old people like coconuts. They can use the milk for their tea.’

Irie pressed on in the face of Millat retching. ‘And I got some crusty French bread and some cheese-singlets and some apples-’

‘We got apples, you chief,’ cut in Millat, ‘chief’, for some inexplicable reason hidden in the etymology of North London slang, meaning fool, arse, wanker, a loser of the most colossal proportions.

‘Well, I got some more and better apples, akchully, and some Kendal mint cake and some ackee and saltfish.’

‘I hate ackee and saltfish.’

‘Who said you were eating it?’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Well, you’re not going to.’

‘Well, good, ’cos I don’t want to.’

‘Well, good, ’cos I wouldn’t let you even if you wanted to.’

‘Well, that’s lucky ’cos I don’t. So shame,’ said Millat; and, without removing his Tomytronic, he delivered shame, as was traditionally the way, by dragging his palm along Irie’s forehead. ‘Shame in the brain.’

‘Well, akchully, don’t worry ’cos you’re not going to get it-’

‘Oooh, feel the heat, feel the heat!’ squealed Magid, rubbing his little palm in. ‘You been shamed, man!’

‘Akchully, I’m not shamed, you’re shamed ’cos it’s for Mr J. P. Hamilton-’

‘Our stop!’ cried Magid, shooting to his feet and pulling the bell cord too many times.

‘If you ask me,’ said one disgruntled OAP to another, ‘they should all go back to their own…’

But this, the oldest sentence in the world, found itself stifled by the ringing of bells and the stamping of feet, until it retreated under the seats with the chewing gum.

‘Shame, shame, know your name,’ trilled Magid. The three of them hurtled down the stairs and off the bus.

And the 52 bus goes two ways. From the Willesden kaleidoscope, one can catch it west like the children; through Kensal Rise, to Portobello, to Knightsbridge, and watch the many colours shade off into the bright white lights of town; or you can get it east, as Samad did; Willesden, Dollis Hill, Harlesden, and watch with dread (if you are fearful like Samad, if all you have learnt from the city is to cross the road at the sight of dark- skinned men) as white fades to yellow fades to brown, and then Harlesden Clock comes into view, standing like Queen Victoria’s statue in Kingston – a tall stone surrounded by black.

Samad had been surprised, yes surprised, that it was Harlesden she had whispered to him when he pressed her hand after the kiss – that kiss he could still taste – and demanded where it was he might find her, away from here, far from here (‘My children, my wife,’ he had mumbled, incoherent); expecting ‘Islington’ or maybe ‘West Hampstead’ or at least ‘Swiss Cottage’ and getting instead, ‘Harlesden. I live in Harlesden.’

‘Stonebridge Estate?’ Samad had asked, alarmed; wide-eyed at the creative ways Allah found to punish him, envisioning himself atop his new lover with a gangster’s four-inch knife in his back.

‘No – but not far from there. Do you want to meet up?’

Samad’s mouth had been the lone gunman on the grassy knoll that day, killing off his brain and swearing itself into power all at the same time.

‘Yes. Oh, dammit! Yes.’

And then he had kissed her again, turning something relatively chaste into something else, cupping her breast in his left hand and enjoying her sharp intake of breath as he did so.

Then they had the short, obligatory exchange that those who cheat have to make them feel less like those who cheat.

‘I really shouldn’t-’

‘I’m not at all sure how this-’

‘Well, we need to meet at least to discuss what has-’

‘Indeed, what has happened, it must be discu-’

‘Because something has happened here, but-’

‘My wife… my children…’

‘Let’s give it some time… two weeks Wednesday? 4.30? Harlesden Clock?’

He could at least, in this sordid mess, congratulate himself on his timing: 4.15 by the time he got off the bus, which left five minutes to nip into the McDonald’s toilets (that had black guards on the door, black guards to keep out the blacks) and squeeze out of the restaurant flares into a dark blue suit, with a wool V-neck and a grey shirt, the pocket of which contained a comb to work his thick hair into some obedient form. By which time it was 4.20, five minutes in which to visit cousin Hakim and his wife Zinat who ran the local ?1 + 50p shop (a type of shop that trades under the false premise that it sells no items above this price but on closer inspection proves to be the minimum price of the stock) and whom he meant inadvertently to provide him with an alibi.

‘Samad Miah, oh! So smart-looking today – it cannot be without a reason.’