One night I told Benji of my life in Zanzibar, how the only activity that gave shape to our days had been the walk at dusk with Mrs F and my mother. He said: “So every evening you walked through the city down to the water. Now every evening you walk down Westbourne Grove to the Porchester Baths. It’s the same thing.”
“Don’t say that,” I said. “I thought I was doing something new.”
Bayswater was, I thought, just like me, Asian, Arab, European, African in about the right proportions. Later, during my studies at Cookham College, I discovered that, more than a century before, Bayswater was known as “Asia Minor” to Victorian Londoners. Immediately I imagined that people like me had always lived there and my affinity with the place lay in its history. This turned out not to be the case. The nickname came from the high concentration of houses belonging to colonial administrators, with their taste for Indian produce and the need to equip for their next visit to the East. Whiteley’s was the jewel in their crown. Instead of being inheritors, we new Orientals were usurpers, the tide that was pulled behind the retreating colonialists and that had now washed them from their homes.
Benji left the accounts for our nameless restaurant to me. I liked keeping track of the money and seeing the profit increase day by day. As the time on the lease began to run out, I wondered if there might be a way to extend our restaurant’s life beyond two months, or to start another one much like it. More tables perhaps. Maybe lunch time opening? It would need a name. Benmar? Marbenj? We would need some money to start it and equip it. So far our profits were two thousand pounds, excluding the five hundred Benji had needed when an angry creditor from another deal had tracked him all the way to the kitchen. (Benji had paid up cheerfully, saying to me, “Always pay when they find you. It makes them feel foolish for not trusting you.”)
“Benji, can’t we extend our lease?”
“Here? No. That would be expensive. In any case we would have to be properly licensed. The health authorities would find us. This was just for fun.”
“It’s not just fun! This is something to be proud of. Something we’ve done together. Do you even know how much money we’ve made?”
“No. I know it can’t be much. Restaurants are a lot of work for not much money. But you’re right, it’s something to be proud of.” I was never able to make Benji angry.
“It’s three thousand pounds in six weeks, including the five hundred you took out to pay that man.”
“You see.”
“Four thousand by the time we close. That’s good, isn’t it?
“Marcella, it’s good. We made something out of nothing. But it’s not serious. People are making fortunes in London these days. It’s wide open. Eurodollars.”
“What?”
“Eurodollar trading. London’s the world centre for it. Or export to the Arab countries. Or Asia. Or Africa, even. Or helping the Arabs invest their money in London. Look at Adnam. He didn’t make his money cooking curry.”
“I don’t know anything about those things. But I can do this. I’ve been doing this. You left it to me.”
“Because you’re good at it. And I needed to think about other things.”
“But if we’re good at something, why don’t we continue with it, make it bigger? I like us working together.”
“No, no. It doesn’t work that way. Anyone can run a restaurant. London is full of poor immigrants working themselves to death running restaurants. You need to find something only you can do, a deal only you can put together. That’s how you get rich. Something only you can do, that can be done only by you because you are the only person who knows all the other people needed to do it. Something a bit secret that isn’t open to everyone, maybe a bit dangerous that scares some people off. Something international that the Brits won’t think of. And it has to be big, because you may only get one chance. After you’ve done it, it isn’t secret anymore. Then you’re rich and you make money just by having money.”
We were cleaning the cooking pots at the end of the evening. I had been taking satisfaction in scouring the one in the sink. Now it hardly seemed worth my trouble. Benji was continuing to stack plates as if all he said had no implication for our current work. I turned to argue, but then I found myself quiet, enjoying the look of him, his carefulness.
He turned towards my silence. “What’s the matter?” “I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to be very rich. Just rich enough. I like having customers. I thought we were doing well.”
He gave a little laugh. “Our customers? There will always be customers. Just not foreign students without any money. If you can manage this, you can manage something else.”
“But this is ours! What are we going to do with the money?”
“You take it.”
“I don’t want to take it. It’s ours. Half yours. I don’t want you to give it all to me, just like that. I want it to be business-like. Why
