For entertainment I would be handed the Daily Express or The People. My newspaper addiction has never diminished. But that wasn’t alclass="underline" we would go to Epsom for the races, to Catford for the dogs and to Brighton by “charabanc” to see someone about a pigeon. On Saturdays we visited football grounds in the vicinity. The nearest was Crystal Palace, but Mill-wall-“The Den”-was the most feared. As we walked about the neighbourhood, Grandad pointed out bombsites where his former school friends had been killed, and bomb shelters where he’d hidden with Mum as a child.
Pubs, for me, particularly if they had a piano player, always had a Dickensian exaggeration: overdressed, perfumed landladies pinching your cheek and giving you crisps and lemonade; red-faced men in ties in the “private” bars, and always a frisson between Grandad and some waiting woman, a subtle acknowledgement of available pleasure that made me wonder when it might be my turn.
You might consider my later penchant for the low life an affectation, but most days I’ve popped into some pub or other, hoping to find the characters from my childhood, the original white working class of London.
When I was with my grandfather, I more or less passed for white. Sometimes people asked if I were “Mediterranean”; otherwise, there were few Asian people where we lived. Most whites considered Asians to be “inferior,” less intelligent, less everything good. Not that we were called Asian then. Officially, as it were, we were called “immigrants,” I think. Later, for political reasons, we were “blacks.” But we always considered ourselves to be Indians. In Britain we are still called Asians, though we’re no more Asian than the English are European. It was a long time before we became known as Muslims, a new imprimatur, and then for political reasons.
Being so far the only dark-skinned student in the philosophy class, I thought Ajita and I would be a fine fit. She was thin and small, with a compact, boyish body not unlike mine. Her hair was long and dark, and she wore expensive clothes with jewellery, handbags and high heels. She might have been Indian, but she dressed like an Italian girl, sprinkled with gold. She loved Fiorucci, whose shop was near Harrods. Every Saturday she went shopping with her female cousins.
Ajita was no wild girl, feminist, hippy or mod. I could imagine her running a business. But it didn’t take me long to grasp from her sighs, helpless looks and moody pouts that she would have trouble with metaphysics. I thought I could help her with that, along with epistemology, ontology, hermeneutics, methodology, logic and, maybe, some other things, but not as much as I thought she could help me.
I was starting to become fond of money, too, having learned from the media what good use pop stars put it to. Ajita’s family appeared wealthy to me, while we’d always struggled. If Mum bought us a present, we knew what an effort it represented, and we tried to use it for longer than its interest merited. Apparently my father, in Pakistan, had a driver, a cook, a guard. But he gave us nothing; it didn’t occur to him.
Now Ajita went off to fetch some records, and on this, my first day with her, I strolled about the spaces, trying them out, like I was about to buy the place and have it redecorated. Her father and brother were not there, but I could smell onions frying in oil and spices, and then I glimpsed a nose and a brown eye, which must have belonged to her beaky aunt, who was side-on to an almost closed door.
Ajita said with sudden nervousness, as she put the music on, “If anyone asks, say you’re a friend of my brother. You’ve come to see him.”
“What is your brother’s name?” Ajita muttered something. “What?” I said, not catching it. “What did you say?”
“He’s called Mustaq. Some of us call him Mushy-or Mushy Peas. I think you’re going to like each other a lot. You want to like him too, don’t you? He is so much needing to be liked right now.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“You don’t have to whisper. She is not speaking English.”
“But my family is similar,” I said eagerly. “Many of my aunts and cousins come to London in the summer. The rest have never left Pakistan.”
“Haven’t you been there?”
“Dad has been inviting us, and Mum thinks Miriam and I should go. But Miriam can hardly get to the end of the street without tearing it up. You’ll see, when you meet her. Ajita, can’t you and I go to Pakistan together?”
“Not unless we’re married.”
“Already?”
“They’re very old-fashioned there. Anyway, my mother is busy finding me a husband in India. My brother takes the piss. ‘How is your lovely new hubby doing?’ he asks. Come, Jamal, you want to step out with me, my new friend?”
We danced to her favourite disco records, watching one another’s feet, holding hands and touching each other’s hair. Later, after we’d kissed and I didn’t know what to do next-it seemed too soon to go further, like eating all the chocolates at once-I said, “Do you want to see Last Tango in Paris or go for a drive to Keston Ponds for a walk? Or we could go to my house. It’s ten minutes away.”
“Your house.”
As we went, I hung out of the window, hoping people I knew would see me in the car with a girl. But they were at work, or at college or school. At least Ajita wanted to see my house; she wanted to know me. I needed Miriam, too, to know I had a real girlfriend, to see me as a grown-up, not a baby brother.
Yet I was nervous of them meeting. Not that I knew whether my sister was at home. Her bedroom door was always closed, and I was forbidden, on pain of having my berries come into unwilling contact with a cheese grater, to press against it in any way. Often, the only way to find out whether Miriam was in was to get down on your knees and try to smell roll-ups, dope or joss sticks drifting out from under her door. If I was feeling brave, after she’d left the house, I’d nip in, take a couple of records from their covers-Blood on the Tracks and Blue and Split were my favourites, but I liked Miles too-and listen to them in my room, over and over, until I believed I had them inside me.
You might also find in Miriam’s room a college lecturer, a couple of neighbourhood boys, a pickup or her latest girlfriend. If Miriam was indeed there, she’d be in bed until Mother returned from work at five. Mother worked, at that time, in a bakery, wearing a kooky little white hat. We always had plenty to eat at home, even if it was a little stale.
That day Ajita and I didn’t get as far as my house but stopped in a quiet street nearby, where we kissed in her car, something we liked a lot and were unable to stop doing, as though we were glued together.
It wasn’t until the following morning that we drove to some woods not far away, near my old school, and made love for the first time, though her jeans and boots were so tight we thought for a while we’d never get them off without seeking help. Then we did it in the car in a secluded street near her house.
Something important had started. She was all mine, almost. She was not my first girlfriend, but she was my first love.
CHAPTER FOUR
My girl and I began to see one another all the time; mostly in London, at college or in Soho. Or we would meet at a bus stop near my house and drive into the city together.
I don’t think I’ve ever stopped seeing London like a small boy. The London I liked was the city of exiles, refugees and immigrants, those for whom the metropolis was extraterrestrial and the English codes unbreakable, people who didn’t have a place and didn’t know who they were. The city from the point of view of my father.
My best friend, Valentin, was Bulgarian and his other best mate, Wolf, was German. Neither of them resembled the average student; they weren’t overgrown public school boys. Wolf was ten years older than me, and Valentin at least five. My father had numerous older brothers, who I idealised. I figured Dad always had someone to look after him, and that’s what I wanted for myself.