White Teeth

should be. In his place.

‘One more word from you Mr Ick-Ball and you are out!’

‘Shakespeare. Sweaty. Bollocks. That’s three. Don’t worry, I’ll let myself out.’

This was the kind of thing Millat did so expertly. The door slammed. The nice girls looked at each other in that way. (He’s just so out of control, so crazy… he really needs some help, some close one-to-one personal help from a good friend…) The boys belly-laughed. The teacher wondered if this was the beginning of a mutiny. Irie covered her stomach with her right hand.

‘Marvellous. Very adult. I suppose Millat Iqbal is some kind of hero.’ Mrs Roody, looking round the gormless faces of 5F, saw for the first time and with dismal clarity that this was exactly what he was.

‘Does anyone else have anything to say about these sonnets? Ms Jones! Will you stop looking mournfully at the door! He’s gone, all right? Unless you’d like to join him?’

‘No, Mrs Roody.’

‘All right, then. Have you anything to say about the sonnets?’

‘Yes.’

‘What?’

‘Is she black?’

‘Is who black?’

‘The dark lady.’

‘No, dear, she’s dark. She’s not black in the modern sense. There weren’t any… well, Afro-Carri-bee-yans in England at that time, dear. That’s more a modern phenomenon, as I’m sure you know. But this was the 1600s. I mean I can’t be sure, but it does seem terribly unlikely, unless she was a slave of some kind, and he’s unlikely to have written a series of sonnets to a lord and then a slave, is he?’

Irie reddened. She had thought, just then, that she had seen something like a reflection, but it was receding; so she said, ‘Don’t know, Miss.’

‘Besides, he says very clearly, In nothing art thou black, save in thy deeds… No, dear, she just has a dark complexion, you see, as dark as mine, probably.’

Irie looked at Mrs Roody. She was the colour of strawberry mousse.

‘You see, Joshua is quite right: the preference was for women to be excessively pale in those days. The sonnet is about the debate between her natural colouring and the make-up that was the fashion of the time.’

‘I just thought… like when he says, here: Then will I swear, beauty herself is black… And the curly hair thing, black wires-’

Irie gave up in the face of giggling and shrugged.

‘No, dear, you’re reading it with a modern ear. Never read what is old with a modern ear. In fact, that will serve as today’s principle – can you all write that down please.’

5F wrote that down. And the reflection that Irie had glimpsed slunk back into the familiar darkness. On the way out of class, Irie was passed a note by Annalese Hersh, who shrugged to signify that she was not the author but merely one of many handlers. It said: ‘By William Shakespeare: ODE TO LETITIA AND ALL MY KINKY-HAIRED BIG-ASS BITCHEZ.’

The cryptically named P. K.’s Afro Hair: Design and Management sat between Fairweather Funeral Parlour and Raakshan Dentists, the convenient proximity meaning it was not at all uncommon for a cadaver of African origin to pass through all three establishments on his or her final journey to an open casket. So when you phoned for a hair appointment, and Andrea or Denise or Jackie told you three thirty Jamaican time, naturally it meant come late, but there was also a chance it meant that some stone- cold church-going lady was determined to go to her grave with long fake nails and a weave-on. Strange as it sounds, there are plenty of people who refuse to meet the Lord with an Afro.

Irie, ignorant of all this, turned up for her appointment three thirty on the dot, intent upon transformation, intent upon fighting her genes, a headscarf disguising the bird’s nest of her hair, her right hand carefully placed upon her stomach.

‘You wan’ some ting, pickney?’

Straight hair. Straight straight long black sleek flickable tossable shakeable touchable finger- through-able wind-blowable hair. With a fringe.

‘Three thirty,’ was all Irie managed to convey of this, ‘with Andrea.’

‘Andrea’s next door,’ replied the woman, pulling at a piece of elongated gum and nodding in the direction of Fairweather’s, ‘having fun with the dearly departed. You better come sit down and wait and don’ bodder me. Don’ know how long she’ll be.’

Irie looked lost, standing in the middle of the shop, clutching her chub. The woman took pity, swallowed her gum and looked Irie up and down; she felt more sympathetic as she noted Irie’s cocoa complexion, the light eyes.

‘Jackie.’

‘Irie.’

‘Pale, sir! Freckles an’ every ting. You Mexican?’

‘No.’

‘Arab?’

‘Half Jamaican. Half English.’

‘Half-caste,’ Jackie explained patiently. ‘Your mum white?’

‘Dad.’

Jackie wrinkled her nose. ‘Usually de udder way roun’. How curly is it? Lemme se what’s under dere – ’ She made a grab for Irie’s headscarf. Irie, horrified at the possibility of being laid bare in a room full of people, got there before her and held on tight.

Jackie sucked her teeth. ‘What d’you ’spec us to do wid it if we kyant see it?’

Irie shrugged. Jackie shook her head, amused.

‘You ain’t been in before?’

‘No, never.’

‘What is it you want?’

‘Straight,’ said Irie firmly, thinking of Nikki Tyler. ‘Straight and dark red.’

‘Is dat a fact! You wash your hair recent?’

‘Yesterday,’ said Irie, offended. Jackie slapped her up-side her head.

‘Don’ wash it! If you wan’ it straight, don’ wash it! You ever have ammonia on your head? It’s like the devil’s having a party on your scalp. You crazy? Don’ wash it for two weeks an’ den come back.’

But Irie didn’t have two weeks. She had it all planned; she was going to go round to Millat’s this very evening with her new mane, all tied up in a bun, and she was going to take off her glasses and shake down her hair and he was going to say why Miss Jones, I never would have supposed… why Miss Jones, you’re-

‘I have to do it today. My sister’s getting married.’

‘Well, when Andrea get back she going to burn seven shades of shit out of your hair an’ you’ll be lucky if you don’ walk out of here with a ball ’ed. But den it your funeral. Ear,’ she said thrusting a pile full of magazines into Irie’s hands. ‘Dere,’ she said, pointing to a chair.

P. K.’s was split into two halves, male and female. In the male section, as relentless Ragga came unevenly over a battered stereo, young boys had logos cut into the back of their heads at the hands of slightly older boys, skilful wielders of the electric trimmers. ADIDAS. BADMUTHA. MARTIN. The male section was all laughter, all talk, all play; there was an easiness that sprang from no male haircut ever costing over six pounds or taking more than fifteen minutes. It was a simple enough exchange and there was joy in it: the buzz of the revolving blade by your ear, a rough brush-down with a warm hand, mirrors front and back to admire the transformation. You came in with a picky head, uneven and coarse, disguised underneath a baseball cap, and you left swiftly afterwards a new man, smelling sweetly of coconut oil and with a cut as sharp and clean as a swear