Pilgrims Way Page 11

  When the football came on they started to talk again. Every time a black player touched the ball, Karta cheered and stamped on the floor. Lloyd cringed but did not say anything. When a black player scored one of the goals, Karta rose and banged on the wall, inviting the Boer to take note. They switched channels after the football. Daud said he would go to bed soon but they could stay and watch TV if they wanted. They were just in time to catch the news, and a filmed report on the murder of Dora Bloch in the aftermath of the Entebbe rescue.

  ‘They are savages!’ Lloyd cried. ‘Nothing more than savage murderers. Look at that pot-bellied monster! The very personification of evil! There is nothing you would not believe about that greasy bastard. He is a killer, nothing more or less, a merciless bastard!’

  Daud watched with his chin in the palm of his hand, silent with shame, while Lloyd exacted his revenge against Karta.

  10

  They stopped by the river to watch the water streaming underneath them. The light had gone by then and they could see the water only as turbid shimmerings of reflected streetlights. ‘During the day,’ he told her, ‘you can see the shingle on the river bed, and the spindly weeds bending under the force of the water. You can see the slime on the river banks, and the allotments on the other side sprouting brassicas.’

  She nodded as if she had never heard of such things. They stood that way, leaning against the parapet of the bridge.

  ‘Behind us,’ he told her, ‘you can just make out the shadows of the cogs and wheels of the old weir. Can you see them? The mill was on the bank behind the weir but it’s all gone, washed away by those same waters that had turned its stones. Can you hear the water rushing through the sluices in the cogs?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Well, if you really strain you can hear a hum, a noise in the distance,’ he said, smiling self-consciously under her stare. ‘That’s the new mill now, grinding day and night, its yards crawling with fork-lift trucks. I used to hear that hum on quiet nights, and then found out what it was quite by chance. At night it looks like a prison camp, a floodlit yard surrounded by high-wire.’

  ‘I can’t hear anything,’ she confessed.

  Two men came walking towards them, and Daud felt the dregs of an old fear. He turned back to the river to avoid their sneering faces but his body was tense and alert. He heard their conversation change, and then knew they had stopped behind them.

  ‘Have you got a light, mate?’

  Catherine glanced at them and turned back to the river. Daud saw that the men were watching him unwaveringly. Their bodies were hunched forward. Their enormous shoulders were so muscle-bound that with one tweak of an index finger they could send him flying into the cabbage patch across the water, he thought. Or sprain themselves to perdition, if he was willing to take the chance and make a fight of it. He could see that they were struggling not to laugh.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  The man who had spoken reached into his pocket for a lighter. He lit his cigarette and puffed it twice, then curled his lips into a caricature of the Crown Prince of Pongoland.

  ‘Give us a kiss, nigger,’ he said. The two men laughed, turning their backs on him with complete assurance of their strength. They were both in their thirties, dressed in jeans and jumpers with the sleeves pulled up to reveal muscular forearms.

  Catherine had whipped round, staring at the two men in astonishment. It was as if she was taking them in for the first time, their cruel laughter and their gross muscles. ‘Let’s go,’ she said in a soft, frightened voice. The men heard her and shifted themselves a little to block the way.

  ‘Where are we going then, love?’

  She leant back with surprise, then Daud saw her frowning and beginning to get angry. It’s all right. They’re Englishmen, he wanted to say. They won’t hit a man who wears glasses. Her arm was trembling on his, and he could feel his own lower lip beginning to quiver out of control.

  ‘Is it true what they say about them boys?’ It was the same man doing all the talking, the more rugged-looking of the two. The other one’s role seemed to be to laugh and support, and put the boot in when the time for that came. ‘Cor!’ he now said, sticking his elbow in his crotch and allowing his forearm to dangle between his legs.

  ‘Oh, why don’t you piss off?’ Catherine said. ‘You’re pathetic!’

  The two men were briefly shaken by the contempt with which she spoke to them but they began to grin. They will discover a new game soon, Daud thought, and will taunt her. None the less he relished the disdain with which she had sought to despatch the barbarians. He gently tugged at her arm and they walked away. He expected the men to follow and look to recover their supremacy by humiliating them some more, but they stood on the bridge, laughing and shouting abuse at them. A car drove slowly past, its occupants deep in conversation, unaware of the drama on the pavement.

  ‘Stupid bastards!’ she said.

  He embraced her, flashing a strong grin at the starlit sky. He had seen Sidney Poitier do that in a film once. They stood in the middle of the pavement, tight in each other’s arms. She laughed and drew away from him a little.

  ‘Honestly, it’s like a bad joke,’ she said. ‘Stupid shits!’

  He kissed her. She leant heavily against him, her arms wrapped tightly around him. He smelt the perfume in her hair and nuzzled his face in its fragrance. She held on to him as they began to walk again.

  ‘The fascist bastards,’ she laughed. ‘It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I didn’t know people actually said things like that. You’d have thought they’d be a bit more original at least.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s funny,’ he said, taking a deep draught of her fragrant hair, to fortify himself in case they suffered a brief rupture so soon after joining fates.

  She leant back to look at him, smiled and pressed his arm. Bear up, darling. Don’t turn bitter and twisted. It’s not worth it. ‘You’re not going to get upset about those idiots, are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Where would they get the brains to be original? What do you think they are? Comedians making jokes? They do what they’ve always done, and what their fathers and grandfathers have always done. Why change a winning formula? The place is crawling with them. If you can step out of the line of their antics then they are ridiculous. But they demoralise me . . . The first time it happened I stood and stared, stunned. Who? Me? A man drove past and shouted, and stuck two fingers out of the window for good measure. Suck on that, you fucking wog. What’s original about that? But when it happens to you it is shocking. And it goes on all the time. It’s nothing much. People call you names or make faces at you. Kids shout at you like you’re a naked lunatic. Clerks in offices get smart with you. When you get on a bus you feel the conductor marshalling the passengers against you, daring you to have the wrong change or name the wrong route. It’s demoralising. I can do without originality on top of that, thank you very much. Let them come as predictable as they know how. It evens the odds a little.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it in that sort of detail,’ she said after a moment, reluctant to concede. She was determined not to take the two men seriously. To her they were two yobs: they made stupid remarks to him as they might have done to her if she had walked past them. ‘Perhaps you’re being too sensitive, expecting too much,’ she said.

  He grinned at her. ‘Perhaps I’ve got a chip on my shoulder. That’s what it used to be a few years ago,’ he said. ‘Next time somebody tells me my mother is a monkey, or frowns because I’ve walked into a restaurant, I’ll remind myself not to be too sensitive. I’ll just blow them a kiss with my rubbery lips and carry on polishing my halo. Or if some high-spirited vagabonds chase me through half-deserted streets, looking to crush my infamous loins with well-aimed kicks, I’ll appeal to their sense of honour as Englishmen. I won’t think to curse their free-booting ancestors who rifled the treasure chests of the world for gewgaws, and then returned home like gleeful burglars, laughing at their victims. I won’t expect too much or g
et upset over a bit of name-calling. Ho ho ho, not me!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t thought . . . That was feeble, what I said.’

  ‘You just don’t want me to make a fuss,’ he replied. ‘You want me to take this like a man, despise my tormentors and conduct myself with dignity. Be brave!’

  She grinned at his sarcasm. ‘I hadn’t thought you would have to put up with that all the time. I don’t think my parents would call you names, although they’d probably like to. I know they’d frown if you walked into their favourite restaurant. I don’t know what that proves. That it wouldn’t be amusing to be at the receiving end of it? I know they think it’s silly of Richard to waste his talents on Bengali tenants who want to take their landlords to court. Especially since the landlord is often the Council, who own the courts as well. Did I tell you that’s what he did? My brother?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps you should come home with me one weekend and we can ask my parents if they’d like to call you names. I can just see that,’ she laughed. ‘Especially if you give them that free-booting ancestors stuff. I expect my father will pour you a glass of his best whisky and then call you names behind your back.’

  ‘It could be worse,’ he said. He knew he had not made her understand the way the little acts of abuse and mockery became a relentless pressure. She wanted them to be more shocking before she could take them seriously, he guessed, not these silly gestures of resentment. Not all of them were as crude as the two men, he might have assured her. Some thought that a bland, dissembling smile hid their contempt from the victim. When the realisation came to him in those early years that he provoked such profound disdain, he had felt a bitterness that was now hard to credit. It had unnerved him, made him lose heart. But that was not how people were made, he thought, not to live on pain and bitterness. When he could, he hid his misery behind better things, covered the lesser with the pleasure that he took in small acts of recovery.

  They bought fish and chips and ate them as they walked. He had never done that before, not strolled the streets eating out of newspaper, but he did not tell her. He wolfed the food down quickly to get it out of the way. His fingers were impregnated with grease, and he felt as if his skin was standing out in bubbles of oil. His breath had the smoky smell of hot, stale fat. He insisted that they stop at the Black Dog for a refresher.

  They could not stay long because she was on early duty again the following day. They said long and lingering good nights at her front door. Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow . . . He left her at the door and turned to hurry home. The men had frightened him more than he had admitted, and now as he walked home, the memory of the encounter made him rush. They could have tracked his every movement since the bruising they received at Catherine’s hands. They could pop up from behind any dustbin, crawl out from any manhole. Or they might do something original for a change. He walked into the house with a bark of triumph. Ha! He had given the racist freaks a clean sight of his right royal again.

  England duly disgraced themselves at Old Trafford, losing by 425 runs. Even this triumph over historical inertia did not make the rest of the week go any more quickly. He could think of little else but her. When Lloyd called, Daud could think of nothing to say to him, and Lloyd left after half an hour looking hurt. Karta turned up on Thursday to find out why Daud had not come to the pub. He spent the evening there, watching TV and helping himself to the soup that Daud had warmed up to convince Karta that he was too ill to go out.

  He kept his eyes peeled for her at work but could not see her. They had arranged to meet on Saturday, because she said she had too much to do during the week, but he had hoped that they might run into each other at lunch-times. When he could not see her he began to wonder if she went out with anyone else. He thought of the person who had taken her to the Yacht Club, about whom she had been so discreet. He imagined a rich young farmer or a cocky surgeon with whom she would have a great deal more in common than with him. She had talked of other places too: a famous pub on the road to Margate, and a jazz club in the country that he had heard about. For all he knew there were others she had not even mentioned. And although she did not say so, he knew she would have gone there with the same man. He could picture them, he thought, sharing a joke and chatting, perfectly at ease with each other. With friends like that, what was she doing with him? Perhaps it meant nothing to her. He could not believe that was true. He guessed that she had not really thought the matter out, had simply followed an instinct, overcome by his great charm. He would be able to tell on Saturday, he thought.

  What had she meant that she should have met him years ago? Was she in trouble? Perhaps the jazz club farmer was really something much sleazier, something truly sick and disgusting. Say a disappointed intellectual who relied on her for moral support and a platonic friendship. Perhaps that was why she went red when she mentioned the jazz club.

  He thought of the way she had said piss off to those men with such irresistible contempt, of the way she felt as she leant against him, and the things she had said as they stood in the doorway. She had said she wished Saturday was not so far away. How sorry she was that the evening was so short! And how nice that she was free all next weekend.

  He waited impatiently for her at the bus station on Saturday morning. She waved to him as soon as she saw him, embraced him and held him for a long moment. I missed you all week, he told her. She grinned and kissed him on the lips. They found a café and ordered coffee and cakes. She liked the coffee and he liked the cakes. They sat within sight of the cathedral gates, and saw hundreds of visitors pouring in and out in a constant stream. He imagined a time when the visitors would have dragged themselves from the corners of the land, to find succour at this shrine. How irritated those pilgrims would have been to see these curious unbelievers, wandering passionless through the holy places, clutching glossy picture-books of martyred saints.

  ‘Tourists!’ he said. ‘They’re so undignified, gawking like voyeurs.’

  She was taken aback with surprise. ‘That seems . . . harsh,’ she said, uncertain if she should take him seriously. ‘Isn’t everybody a tourist the first time they visit a place? You must’ve been a tourist the first time you went into the cathedral.’

  ‘I’ve never been inside the cathedral,’ he said triumphantly.

  ‘Never?’ she asked, watching him with suspicion.

  ‘Never!’ he replied firmly.

  ‘Why not?’ she asked after a moment, intrigued.

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t want to be like them,’ he said. ‘I’m on the side of the pilgrims in this.’

  ‘But aren’t you interested? Don’t you find that great building challenging? Something you should go and wander in?’ she asked, not satisfied with his explanation.

  ‘I could discover it,’ he said. ‘As Columbus did the Maya shrines.’ It came to him suddenly that he had wanted to visit the cathedral all along. Of course he had! He had scoffed at the idea because it was what tourists did. It was the kind of thing that drew attention to you, that forced you out of the woodwork and into the open. He told her this, and smiled at the look of smug vindication on her face.

  ‘That’s a silly excuse,’ she said. ‘You should’ve visited it instead of being scared . . . What do you mean forced you out of the woodwork?’ she asked.

  ‘If you look different in a place, you try and avoid making yourself conspicuous, don’t you? You just go from one place to another, like everybody else, and don’t dawdle in places that will make people turn and wonder what you’re up to.’

  ‘Like hanging around bridges in the evening, for example?’ she suggested. ‘Is that really why you haven’t visited the cathedral?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, listening to himself to see if this was true. ‘Everybody gushes so much about the cathedral here as well. They’re so enthusiastic about it. It’s become a symbol, a kind of cultural testimonial. Look at this thing we made, look at how clever we are. I find it intimid
ating, I think. The cathedral, I mean. It makes me feel like a Pygmy, a hunter-gatherer grubbing about on the forest floor.’

  ‘We should visit it then,’ she said firmly, the way Nurse might insist on a necessary injection.

  ‘Not today,’ he said, alarmed by the resolute manner in which she spoke. Not after he had cleaned the house thoroughly, and washed and aired the bedsheets, and sprinkled the mattress with essence of sandalwood. All that remained was to do the shopping . . . ‘Soon,’ he told her. ‘We’ll visit it soon.’ He mentioned his grand plan for the summer, boat rides on the river, picnics in the countryside and a hike along the Pilgrims Way, perhaps ending at the cathedral. She became so enthusiastic that he was tempted to calm her down by suggesting an evening at the jazz club as well.

  ‘I rang up my mother before I came out,’ she said suddenly, and then turned to look for the waitress, trying to seem casual. ‘Did you want some more coffee?’

  ‘Is everything all right?’ he asked. ‘Is your mother . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ she interrupted him. ‘Everything’s fine. I don’t know why I rang her.’

  ‘Why not?’ he asked.

  She looked at him as if she suspected him of something. ‘I suppose that’s it,’ she said, sighing. ‘I do know why I rang her. To tell her about you. I thought this morning: What would she say if she knew? No, that’s not true. What I thought was . . . What I’ve been thinking about all week is: Am I crazy, going to spend a weekend with this man I hardly know? A black man. And I found myself feeling relieved that she wasn’t here, feeling relieved that I would not have to be faced with that complication. Part of me was ashamed of . . . us. As if it was a kind of failure, coming to be with you. There’s a part of me that said I should know better, should not indulge myself. Everybody will think there’s something wrong with me, that I can’t find anyone better. So I had to ring her and tell her, didn’t I? I had to ring her and say: I know you don’t want to hear this but you’re going to. Now what do you think about it?’