Archie fingered the vouchers like they were so many fifty pound notes. Kelvin thought for a moment he saw tears of happiness in his eyes.
‘Well, I don’t know what to say. There’s a place I go to, pretty regular like. If they take these I’m made for life. Ta very much.’
Kelvin took a handkerchief to his forehead. ‘Think nothing of it, Arch. Please.’
‘Mr Hero, could I…’ Archie gestured towards the door. ‘It’s just that I’d like to phone some people, you know, give them the news about the baby… if we’ve finished here.’
Kelvin nodded, relieved. Archie lifted himself out of his seat. He had just reached for the handle of the door when Kelvin snatched up his Parker pen once more and said, ‘Oh, Archie, one more thing… that dinner with the Sunderland team… I talked to Maureen and I think we need to cut down on the numbers… we put the names in a hat and yours came out. Still, I don’t suppose you’ll be missing much, eh? These things are always a bit of a bore.’
‘Right you are, Mr Hero,’ said Archie, mind elsewhere; praying to God that O’Connell’s was a ‘food outlet’; smiling to himself, imagining Samad’s reaction when he copped fifty quids’ worth of bloody Luncheon Vouchers.
Partly because Mrs Jones becomes pregnant so soon after Mrs Iqbal and partly because of a daily proximity (by this point Clara is working part time as a supervisor for a Kilburn youth group which looks like the fifteen-man line-up of a ska and roots band – six-inch Afros, Adidas tracksuits, brown ties, Velcro, sun-tinted shades – and Alsana attends an Asian Women’s Pre-natal Class in Kilburn High Road round the corner), the two women begin to see more of each other. Hesitant in the beginning – a few lunch dates here and there, the occasional coffee – what begins as a rearguard action against their husbands’ friendship soon develops. They have resigned themselves to their husbands’ mutual appreciation society and the free time this leaves is not altogether unpleasant; there is time for picnics and outings, for discussion and personal study; for old French movies where Alsana screams and covers her eyes at the suggestion of nudity (‘Put it away! We are not wanting to see the dangly bits!’) and Clara gets a glimpse of how the other half live: the half who live on romance, passion and joie de vivre. The other half who have sex. The life that might have been hers had she not been at the top of some stairs one fine day as Archibald Jones waited at the bottom.
Then, when their bumps become too large and cinema seats no longer accommodate them, the women begin to meet up for lunch in Kilburn Park, often with the Niece-of-Shame, the three of them squeezed on to a generous bench where Alsana presses a thermos of P. G. Tips into Clara’s hand, without milk, with lemon. Unwraps several layers of cling-film to reveal today’s peculiar delight: savoury dough-like balls, crumbly Indian sweets shot through with the colours of the kaleidoscope, thin pastry with spiced beef inside, salad with onion; saying to Clara, ‘Eat up! Stuff yourself silly! It’s in there, wallowing around in your belly, waiting for the menu. Woman, don’t torture it! You want to starve the bump?’ For, despite appearances, there are six people on that bench (three living, three coming); one girl for Clara, two boys for Alsana.
Alsana says, ‘Nobody’s complaining, let’s get that straight. Children are a blessing, the more the merrier. But I tell you, when I turned my head and saw that fancy ultra-business thingummybob…’
‘Ultrasound,’ corrects Clara, through a mouthful of rice.
‘Yes, I almost had the heart attack to finish me off! Two! Feeding one is enough!’
Clara laughs and says she can imagine Samad’s face when he saw it.
‘No, dearie.’ Alsana is reproving, tucking her large feet underneath the folds of her sari. ‘He didn’t see anything. He wasn’t there. I am not letting him see things like that. A woman has to have the private things – a husband needn’t be involved in body-business, in a lady’s… parts.’
Niece-of-Shame, who is sitting between them, sucks her teeth.
‘Bloody hell, Alsi, he must’ve been involved in your parts sometime, or is this the immaculate bloody conception?’
‘So rude,’ says Alsana to Clara in a snooty, English way. ‘Too old to be so rude and too young to know any better.’
And then Clara and Alsana, with the accidental mirroring that happens when two people are sharing the same experience, both lay their hands on their bulges.
Neena, to redeem herself: ‘Yeah… well… How are you doing on names? Any ideas?’
Alsana is decisive. ‘Meena and Malānā, if they are girls. If boys: Magid and Millat. Ems are good. Ems are strong. Mahatma, Muhammad, that funny Mr Morecambe, from Morecambe and Wise – letter you can trust.’
But Clara is more cautious, because naming seems to her a fearful responsibility, a god-like task for a mere mortal. ‘If it’s a girl, I tink I like Irie. It patois. Means everyting OK, cool, peaceful, you know?’
Alsana is horrified before the sentence is finished: ‘ “OK”? This is a name for a child? You might as well call her “Wouldsirlikeanypoppadomswiththat?” or “Niceweatherweare having”.’
‘-And Archie likes Sarah. Well, dere not much you can argue wid in Sarah, but dere’s not much to get happy ’bout either. I suppose if it was good enough for the wife of Abraham-’
‘Ibrāhim,’ Alsana corrects, out of instinct more than Qur’ānic pedantry, ‘popping out babies when she was a hundred years old, by the grace of Allah.’
And then Neena, groaning at the turn the conversation is taking: ‘Well, I like Irie. It’s funky. It’s different.’
Alsana loves this. ‘For pity’s sake, what does Archibald know about funky. Or different. If I were you, dearie,’ she says, patting Clara’s knee, ‘I’d choose Sarah and let that be an end to it. Sometimes you have to let these men have it their way. Anything for a little – how do you say it in the English? For a little’ – she puts her finger over tightly pursed lips, like a guard at the gate – ‘shush.’
But in response Niece-of-Shame puts on the thick accent, bats her voluminous eyelashes, wraps her college scarf round her head like purdah. ‘Oh yes, Auntie, yes, the little submissive Indian woman. You don’t talk to him, he talks at you. You scream and shout at each other, but there’s no communication. And in the end he wins anyway because he does whatever he likes, when he likes. You don’t even know where he is, what he does, what he feels, half the time. It’s 1975, Alsi. You can’t conduct relationships like that any more. It’s not like back home. There’s got to be communication between men and women in the West, they’ve got to listen to each other, otherwise…’ Neena mimes a small mushroom cloud going off in her hand.
‘What a load of the cod’s wallop,’ says Alsana sonorously, closing her eyes, shaking her head, ‘it is you who do not listen. By Allah, I will always give as good as I get. But you presume I care what he does. You presume I want to know. The truth is, for a marriage to survive you don’t need all this talk, talk, talk; all this “I am this” and “I am really like this” like in the papers, all this revelation – especially when your husband is old, when he is wrinkly and falling apart – you do not want to know what is slimy underneath the bed and rattling in the wardrobe.’
Neena frowns, Clara cannot raise serious objection, and the rice is handed around once more.
‘Moreover,’ says Alsana after a pause, folding her dimpled arms underneath her breasts, pleased to be holding forth on a subject close to this formidable bosom, ‘when you are from families such as ours you should have learnt that silence, what is not said, is the very best recipe for family life.’