I heard about the heavy stacks of cloth, for cutting, which the workers had to move around. The sewing machines were unsafe; the needles broke constantly, scoring the fingers of the employees. Bits of fabric seemed to fly through the air; everyone had blocked noses; no one breathed properly. There was an accident on the premises at least once a month. The workers were allowed only two weeks’ holiday a year, but not in the summer, when there was more work to do. The washrooms and toilets were filthy; women were paid less than men; pregnant women were sacked; one woman said the white bosses forced the female workers to have sex with them.
The crowd increased in size and noise. I noticed that the protesters were carrying stones, bricks and lumps of wood. Then, suddenly, the bus carrying the scabs was coming through, its windows covered in chicken wire. I was amazed to see it race recklessly through the crowd as a hail of missiles rained down on it. Using their truncheons, the police tried to shove us back, but people broke through to spit and thump at the bus.
Right behind the bus was an expensive car, and I noticed Ajita’s father driving.
I recognised him because I’d seen him one time at the house, when he returned suddenly “to find some papers” but really, it seemed to me, to watch a boxing match on TV. Looking at Ajita’s face that day, as he opened the door and strode into the room where we were sitting with our feet up on the glass-topped coffee table, eating Smith’s crisps and grooving to the Fatback Band, I realised she was scared of him. This wasn’t just nerves; I thought she might faint.
Luckily, Mustaq was at home, sitting in a corner peeping at me over the cover of Young Americans as usual, and Ajita was able, as planned, to introduce me as his friend. If only that had been enough. To show how consanguineous we really were, I had to spend the afternoon in Mustaq’s bedroom. Ajita had often asked me to “speak to” her brother, about whom she was worried. Their father was too “distracted” to pay him much attention. He lacked fatherly guidance and example; he was girlish and knew nothing about football.
That day the kid was delighted to have me to himself. Did he make the most of it! He took my picture, before presenting his “special” things: a train set, his Peanuts annual, his Snoopy stickers, a voodoo doll he’d carved himself from driftwood, complete with pins and numbers scrawled on it in black marker pen, his drum kit and acoustic guitar. There was also an ancient packet of condoms, a flick-knife and a picture of a female cousin in a bikini at the seaside.
Then he asked me to wrestle with him.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
Why would I agree to that? I thought it would shut him up. The blood drained from my head when slowly he began to remove all his clothes, apart from his pants.
I wasn’t into the wrestling thing, particularly when I saw how up for it he was, jiggling and jogging on his toes and smacking one meaty fist into the palm of his other hand-bam, bam, bam! Although he had a lot of loose blubber on him, it didn’t stop him looking like a tough, kicky little fucker.
He came at me like a bear, his teeth exposed, his arms out, and he embraced me straightaway and held me. He threw me off the bed, picked me up and tossed me around the room, eventually sitting on me, tickling me and kissing my cheeks. When I tried to get up, he forced his hands down the front of my trousers. I couldn’t shout out for fear of his father banging through the door with a shotgun. On top of me, Mustaq was wiggling his hips and coming on like a teenage trannie or vamp; he wanted to suck me off with his father and sister a few yards away.
It was a relief when he jumped across to the piano and started singing one of his own songs, called, apparently, “Everyone Has Their Heart Torn Apart, Sometime.”
“Listen, listen,” he said. “Tell me what you think!”
“Great, great song, man,” I said. “I like the ‘sometime.’”
“You really think so?”
“You should record it, man, and send it in somewhere.”
In my haste to get away, I stumbled over the edge of the bed and, being forced for a moment to look under it, noticed a sea of half-eaten chocolate bars, bright sweet wrappers, and rotting Easter eggs.
I just about got out of there intact, cursing his whole family.
“Come back soon,” Mustaq whispered.
“Nice time?” said Ajita, smiling. “I’m so happy you two really get on!”
I was so in love with her. The rest of the family I could have done away with.
I didn’t tell Ajita what her brother had attempted with me, but next time I took some books and magazines, mainly “outlaw” American stuff that I thought he wouldn’t have known about, Rechy, Himes, Algren, even Burroughs, all of which I handed over on condition he didn’t fondle me. “Fathers like boys who read,” I told him. “They think books are only a good thing. They have no idea how dangerous they can be.”
To my surprise, he read everything I gave him, talked about it and asked for more. I gave him Tropic of Cancer and Quiet Days in Clichy, and he wrote me a note, saying he’d never before come across such Surreal poetry, madness and stupidity in one book. (Then he began to read Céline.) I gave Mustaq my own worn copy of Lou Reed’s Transformer because I knew it too well, but continued to hear its dirty, decadent Bowie-sound every time I visited.
I liked to show off to him, to stir him up in an older-sibling, know-it-all, impressive way, as my sister did with me. If I’d wondered whether I could scandalise or even corrupt him, I soon saw he was more adventurous than me.
He did, from time to time, attempt a grope, and he was always changing his clothes in front of me-“All I want is to know if you like me in stripes” “Only if they’re embedded in your arse”-but he was a decent ally in the house, providing I talked to him. It was like having an annoying kid brother. He even stuck a photograph of me on the wall, beside boxers and actors and one of Bailey’s early pictures of Jagger, when Mick looked like a surly teenage mod.
Every time I saw him, Mustaq invited me to a gig or movie. I always refused, until he hit on the irresistible thing: three tickets for the Stones at Earl’s Court. We were sitting at the back and the tiny figures onstage resembled little puppets. It was like watching TV, except you couldn’t change channels. Ajita and I snogged while Mustaq was enthralled, leaning forward in his Mick Jagger tee-shirt. At the end, he said, “I want to be looked at like that. I want to do that every day of my life! Jamal, tell me, do you think I could achieve it?”
“Your father would be delighted,” I said.
The day their father came home early, he took no notice of me, but I did get a good look at him. He didn’t return to work, but lay on the sofa with a huge whisky, staring at the television and smoking continuously. He was tall, thin, severe-looking and almost bald. His face was brown, creased and pockmarked, as if a bomb had exploded near him.
Even though the 60s were over and feminism had become assertive, the old men still had, and were expected to have, most of the power. Fathers were substantial men; they had too much authority to get on the floor with the children. They were remote; they scared you. This man laughed with Ajita a couple of times, but he didn’t smile. He appeared to have no charm. I’d say he was terrifying. While I wanted Ajita to be my wife, I didn’t want to be related to her father.
Standing in the picket line as the car rushed through the factory gates, I also glimpsed Ajita in the backseat, crouching down, with her hands over her ears, or was it her head? What was she doing there? Why hadn’t she told me?
I shouted out and waved, but it was no use. The spectacle didn’t last long. People began to drift away.
“What an odd sight,” I said aloud.
“What do you mean?” said two students beside me, exhilarated by their activity.