12 Canines: The Ripping Teeth -1

It is only this late in the day, and possibly only in Willesden, that you can find best friends Sita

and Sharon, constantly mistaken for each other because Sita is white (her mother liked the name)

and Sharon is Pakistani (her mother thought it best less trouble). Yet, despite all the mixing up,

despite the fact that we have finally slipped into each other's lives with reasonable comfort (like a

man returning to his lover's bed after a midnight walk), despite all this, it is still hard to admit that

there is no one more English than the Indian, no one more Indian than the English. There are still

young white men who are angry about that; who will roll out at closing time into the poorly lit

streets with a kitchen knife wrapped in a tight fist.

But it makes an immigrant laugh to hear the fears of the nationalist, scared of infection,

penetration, miscegenation, when this is small fry, peanuts, compared to what the immigrant fears

dissolution, disappearance. Even the unflappable Alsana Iqbal would regularly wake up in a puddle

of her own sweat after a night visited by visions of Millat (genetically BB; where B stands for Bengali-ness) marrying someone called Sarah (aa where 'a' stands for Aryan), resulting in a child

called Michael (Ba), who in turn marries somebody called Lucy (aa), leaving Alsana with a legacy

of unrecognizable great-grandchildren (Aaaaaaa!), their Bengali-ness thoroughly diluted, genotype

hidden by phenotype. It is both the most irrational and natural feeling in the world. In Jamaica it is

even in the grammar: there is no choice of personal pronoun, no splits between me or you or they,

there is only the pure, homogenous I. When Hortense Bowden, half white herself, got to hearing

about Clara's marriage, she came round to the house, stood on the doorstep, said, "Understand: I

and I don't speak from this moment forth," turned on her heel and was true to her word. Hortense

hadn't put all that effort into marrying black, into dragging her genes back from the brink, just so

her daughter could bring yet more high-coloured children into the world.

Likewise, in the Iqbal house the lines of battle were clearly drawn. When Millat brought an

Emily or a Lucy back home, Alsana quietly wept in the kitchen, Samad went into the garden to

attack the coriander. The next morning was a waiting game, a furious biting of tongues until the

Emily or Lucy left the house and the war of words could begin. But with Me and Clara the issue

was mostly unspoken, for Clara knew she was not in a position to preach. Still, she made no

attempt to disguise her disappointment or the aching sadness. From Irie's bedroom shrine of

green-eyed Hollywood idols to the gaggle of white friends who regularly trooped in and out of her

bedroom, Clara saw an ocean of pink skins surrounding her daughter and she feared the tide that

would take her away.

It was partly for this reason that Me didn't mention the Chalfens to her parents. It wasn't that she

intended to mate with the Chalfens.. . but the instinct was the same. She had a nebulous

fifteen-year-old's passion for them, overwhelming, yet with no real direction or object. She just

wanted to, well, kind of, merge with them. She wanted their Englishness. Their Chalfishness. The

purity of it. It didn't occur to her that the Chalfens were, after a fashion, immigrants too (third

generation, by way of Germany and Poland, nee Chalfenovsky), or that they might be as needy of

her as she was of them. To Me, the Chalfens were more English than the English. When Me

stepped over the threshold of the Chalfen house, she felt an illicit thrill, like a Jew munching a

sausage or a Hindu grabbing a Big Mac. She was crossing borders, sneaking into England; it felt

like some terribly mutinous act, wearing somebody else's uniform or somebody else's skin.

She just said she had netball on Tuesday evenings and left it at that.

Conversation flowed at the Chalfen house. It seemed to Me that here nobody prayed or hid their

feelings in a toolbox or silently stroked fading photographs wondering what might have been. Conversation was the stuff of

life.

"Hello, Me! Come in, come in, Joshua's in the kitchen with Joyce, you're looking well. Millat

not with you?"

"Coming later. He's got a date."

"Ah, yes. Well, if there are any questions in your exams on oral communication, he'll fly

through them. Joyce! Irie's here! So how's the study going? It's been what? Four months now? The

Chalfen genius rubbing off?"

"Yeah, not bad, not bad. I never thought I had a scientific bone in my body but... it seems to be

working. I don't know, though. Sometimes my brain hurts."

"That's just the right side of your brain waking up after a long sleep, getting back into the swing of things. I'm really impressed; I told you it was possible to turn a wishy-washy arts student into a

science student in no time at all oh, and I've got the Future Mouse pictures. Remind me later, you

wanted to see them, no? Joyce, the big brown goddess has arrived!"

"Marcus, chill out, man .. . Hi, Joyce. Hi, Josh. Hey, Jack. Oooh, hell-low, Oscar, you cutie."

"Hello, Me! Come here and give me a kiss. Oscar, look, it's Irie come to see us again! Oh, look

at his face .. . he's wondering where Millat is, aren't you, Oscar?"

"No, I'm not."

"Oh dear, yes he is ... look at his little face ... he gets very upset when Millat doesn't turn up.

Tell Irie the name of the new monkey, Oscar, the one Daddy gave you."

"George."

"No, not George you called it Millat the Monkey, remember? Because monkeys are

mischievous and Millat's just as bad, isn't he, Oscar?"

"Don't know. Don't care."

"Oscar gets terribly upset when Millat doesn't come."

"He'll be along in a while. He's on a date."

Me 1990, 1907

"When isn't he on a date! All those busty girls! We might get jealous, mightn't we, Oscar? He

spends more time with them than us. But we shouldn't joke. I suppose it's a bit difficult for you."

"No, I don't mind, Joyce, really. I'm used to it."

"But everybody loves Millat, don't they, Oscar! It's so hard not to, isn't it, Oscar? We love him,

don't we, Oscar?"

"I hate him."

"Oh, Oscar, don't say silly things."

"Can we all stop talking about Millat, please."

"Yes, Joshua, all right. Do you hear how he gets jealous? I try to explain to him that Millat

needs a little extra care, you know. He's from a very difficult background. It's just like when I give

more time to my peonies than my Michaelmas daisies, daisies will grow anywhere .. . you know

you can be very selfish sometimes, Joshi."

"OK, Mum, OK. What's happening with dinner-before study or after?"

"Before, I think, Joyce, no? I've got to work on Future Mouse all night."

Future Mouse

"Shh, Oscar, I'm trying to listen to Daddy."

"Because I'm delivering a paper tomorrow so best have dinner early. If that's all right with you,

Me, I know how you like your food."

"That's fine."

"Don't say things like that, Marcus, dear, she's very touchy about her weight."

"No, I'm really not'

"Touchy? About her weight? But everybody likes a big girl, don't they? I know I do."

"Evening all. Door was ajar. Let myself in. One day somebody's going to wander in here and

murder the fucking lot of you."

"Millat! Oscar, look it's Millat! Oscar, you're very happy to see Millat, aren't you, darling?"

Oscar screwed up his nose, pretended to barf and threw a wooden hammer at Millat's shins.

"Oscar gets so excited when he sees you. Well. You're just in time for dinner. Chicken with

cauliflower cheese. Sit down. Josh, put Millat's coat somewhere. So. How are things?" Millat sat down at the table with violence and eyes that looked like they had recently seen tears.

He pulled out his pouch of tobacco and little bag of weed.

"Fuckin' awful."

"Awful how?" inquired Marcus with little attention, otherwise engaged in cutting himself a

chunk from an enormous block of Stilton. "Couldn't get in girl's pants? Girl wouldn't get in your

pants? Girl not wearing pants? Out of interest, what kind of pants was she '

"Dad! Give it a rest," moaned Joshua.

"Well, if you ever actually got in anybody's pants, Josh," said Marcus, looking pointedly at Me,

"I'd be able to get my kicks through you, but so far'

"Shhh, the two of you," snapped Joyce. "I'm trying to listen to Millat."

Four months ago, having a cool mate like Millat had seemed to Josh one hell of a lucky break.

Having him round his house every Tuesday had upped Josh's ante at Glenard Oak by more than he

could have imagined. And now that Millat, encouraged by Me, had begun to come of his own

accord, to come socially, Joshua Chalfen, the Chalfen the Chubster, should have felt his star rising.

But he didn't. He felt pissed off. For Joshua had not bargained on the power of Millat's

attractiveness. His magnet-like qualities. He saw that Me was still, deep down, stuck on him like a

paper clip and even his own mother seemed sometimes to take Millat as her only focus; all her

energy for her gardening, her children, her husband, streamlined and drawn to this one object like

so many iron filings. It pissed him off.

"I can't talk now? I can't talk in my own house?"

"Joshi, don't be silly. Millat's obviously upset.. . I'm just trying to deal with that at the moment."

"Poor little Joshi," said Millat in slow, malicious, purring tones. "Not getting enough attention

from his mummy? Want mummy to wipe his bottom for him?"

"Fuck you, Millat," said Joshua.

"OooooooOOO .. ."

"Joyce, Marcus," appealed Joshua, looking for an external judgement. "Tell him."

Marcus popped a great wedge of cheese in his mouth and shrugged his shoulders. "I'm afwaid

Miyat's oar mu'rer's jurishdicshun." "Let me just deal with this first, Joshi," began Joyce. "And then

later .. ." Joyce allowed the rest of her sentence to get jammed in the kitchen door just as her eldest

son slammed it.

"Shall I go after .. . ?" asked Benjamin.

Joyce shook her head and kissed Benjamin on the cheek. "No, Benji. Best leave him to it."

She turned back to Millat, touching his face, tracing the salt path of an old tear with her finger.

"Now. What's been going on?"

Millat began slowly rolling his spliff. He liked to make them wait. You could get more out of a

Chalfen if you made them wait.

"Oh, Millat, don't smoke that stuff. Every time we see you these days you're smoking. It upsets

Oscar so much. He's not that young and he understands more than you think. He understands about

marijuana."

"What's mary wana?" asked Oscar.

"You know what it is, Oscar. It's what makes Millat all horrible, like we were talking about

today, and it's what kills the little brain cells he has."

"Get off my fucking back, Joyce." "I'm just trying to .. Joyce sighed with melodrama, and drew

her fingers through her hair. "Millat, what's the matter? Do you need some money?"

"Yeah, I do, as it happens

"Why? What happened? Millat. Talk to me. Family again?"

Millat tucked the orange cardboard roach in and stuck the joint between his lips. "Dad chucked

me out, didn't he?"

"Oh God," said Joyce, tears springing immediately, pulling her chair closer and taking his hand,

'if I was your mother, I'd well, anyway I'm not, am I ... but she's just so incompetent ... it makes me

so.. . I mean, imagine letting your husband take away one of your children and do God knows what

with the other one, I just-'

"Don't talk about my mother. You've never met her. I wasn't even talking about her."

"Well, she refuses to meet me, doesn't she? As if it were some kind of competition."

"Shut the fuck up, Joyce."

"Well, there's no point, is there? Going into ... it upsets you to ... I can see that, clearly, it's all

too close to the .. . Marcus, get some tea, he needs tea."

"For fucks sake I don't want any fucking tea. All you ever do is drink tea! You lot must piss

pure bloody tea."

"Millat, I'm just try '

"Well, don't."

A little hash seed fell out of Millat's joint and stuck on his lips. He picked it off and popped it in

his mouth. "I could do with some brandy, though, if there is any."

Joyce motioned to Irie with a what can you do look and mimed a tiny measure of her

thirty-year-old Napoleon brandy between forefinger and thumb. Irie stood on an overturned bucket

to get it off the top shelf.

"OK, let's all calm down. OK? OK. So. What happened this time?"

"I called him a cunt. He is a cunt." Millat walloped Oscar's

Me 1990, 1907

creeping fingers that were looking for a plaything and reaching speculatively for his matches.

Till need somewhere to stay for a bit."

"Well, that's not even a question, you can stay at ours, naturally."

Me reached between the two of them, Joyce and Millat, to place the big-bottomed brandy glass

on the table.

"OK, Me, give him a little space right now, I think."

"I was just-'

"Yes, OK, Me he just doesn't need crowding right at this moment-'

"He's a bloody hypocrite, man," Millat cut in with a growl, looking into the middle distance and

speaking to the conservatory as much as to anyone, 'he prays five times a day but he still drinks and

he doesn't have any Muslim friends, then he has a go at me for fucking a white girl. And then he's

pissed off about Magid. He takes all his shit out on me. And he wants me to stop hanging around

with KEVIN. I'm more of a fucking Muslim than he is. Fuck him!"

"Do you want to talk about it with all this lot about," said Joyce, looking meaningfully round

the room. "Or just us?"

"Joyce," said Millat, downing his brandy in one, "I don't give a fuck'

Joyce took that to mean just us and ushered the rest of them out of the room with her eyes.

Me was glad to leave. In the four months that she and Millat had been turning up to the

Chalfens, ploughing through Double Science, band I, and eating their selection of boiled food, a

strange pattern had developed. The more progress Me made whether in her studies, her attempts to

make polite conversation or her studied imitation of Chalfenism the less interest Joyce showed in

her. Yet the more Millat veered off the rails turning up uninvited on a Sunday night, off his face,

bringing round girls, smoking weed all over the house, drinking their 1964 Dom

Perignon on the sly, pissing on the rose garden, holding a K E VIN meeting in the front room,

running up a three hundred pound phone bill calling Bangladesh, telling Marcus he was queer,

threatening to castrate Joshua, calling Oscar a spoilt little shit, accusing Joyce herself of being a

maniac the more Joyce adored him. In four months he already owed her over three hundred pounds,

a new duvet and a bike wheel.

"Are you coming upstairs?" asked Marcus, as he closed the kitchen door on the two of them,

and bent this way and that like a reed while his children blew past him. "I've got those pictures you

wanted to see."

Irie gave Marcus a thankful smile. It was Marcus who seemed to keep an eye out for her. It was

Marcus who had helped her these four months as her brain changed from something mushy to

something hard and defined, as she slowly gained a familiarity with the Chalfen way of thinking.

She had thought of this as a great sacrifice on the part of a busy man, but more recently she

wondered if there was not some enjoyment in it. Like watching a blind man feeling out the contours

of a new object, maybe. Or a laboratory rat making sense of a maze. Either way, in exchange for his

attention, Irie had begun to take an interest, first strategic and now genuine, in his Future Mouse

Consequently invitations to Marcus's study at the very top of the house, by far her favourite room,

had become more frequent.

"Well, don't stand there grinning like the village idiot. Come on up."

Marcus's room was like no place Irie had ever seen. It had no communal utility, no other

purpose in the house apart from being Marcus's room; it stored no toys, bric-a-brac, broken things,

spare ironing boards; no one ate in it, slept in it or made love in it. It wasn't like Clara's attic space,

a Xanadu of crap, all carefully stored in boxes and labelled just in case she should ever need to flee

this land for another one. It wasn't like the spare rooms of immigrants packed to the rafters with all

that they have ever possessed, no matter how defective or damaged, mountains of odds and ends that

stand testament to the fact that they have things now, where before they had nothing.) Marcus's

room was purely devoted to Marcus and Marcus's work. A study. Like in Austen or Upstairs,

Downstairs or Sherlock Holmes. Except this was the first study Me had ever seen in real life.

The room itself was small and irregular with a sloping floor, wooden eaves that meant it was

possible to stand in certain places but not others and a skylight rather than a window which let light

through in slices, spotlights for dancing dust. There were four filing cabinets, open-mouthed beasts

spitting paper; paper in piles on the floor, on the shelves, in circles around the chairs. The smell of a

rich, sweet Germanic tobacco sat in a cloud just above head level, staining the leaves of the highest

books yellow, and there was an elaborate smoking set on a side table spare mouthpieces, pipes

ranging from the standard U-bend to ever more curious shapes, snuffboxes, a selection of gauzes all

laid out in a velvet-lined leather case like a doctor's instruments. Scattered about the walls and

lining the fireplace were photos of the Chalfen clan, including comely portraits of Joyce in her pert-breasted hippy youth, a retrousse nose sneaking out between two great sheaths of hair. And

then a few larger framed centre pieces A map of the Chalfen family tree. A head shot of Mendel

looking pleased with himself. A big poster of Einstein in his American icon stage Nutty Professor

hair, 'surprised' look and huge pipe subtitled with the quote God does not play dice with the world.

Finally, Marcus's large oaken armchair backed on to a portrait of Crick and Watson looking tired

but elated in front of their model of deoxyribonucleic acid, a spiral staircase of metal clamps,

reaching from the floor of their Cambridge lab to beyond the scope of the photographer's lens.

"But where's Wilkins?" inquired Marcus, bending where the ceiling got low and tapping the

photo with a pencil. '1962, Wilkins won the Nobel in medicine with Crick and Watson. But no sign

of Wilkins in the photos. Just Crick and Watson. Watson and Crick. History likes lone geniuses

or double acts. But it's got no time for threesomes." Marcus thought again. "Unless they're

comedians or jazz musicians."

"Spose you'll have to be a lone genius, then," said Me cheerfully, turning from the picture and

sitting down on a Swedish backless chair.

"Ah, but I have a mentor, you see." He pointed to a poster-sized black and white photograph on

the other wall. "And mentors are a whole other kettle offish."

It was an extreme close-up of an extremely old man, the contours of his face clearly defined by

line and shade, hachures on a topographic map.

"Grand old Frenchman, a gentleman and a scholar. Taught me practically everything I know.

Seventy-odd and sharp as a whip. But you see, with a mentor you needn't credit them directly.

That's the great thing about them. Now where's this bloody photo

While Marcus scrabbled about in a filing cabinet, Me studied a small slice of the Chalfen

family tree, an elaborate illustrated oak that stretched back into the i6oos and forward into the

present day. The differences between the Chalfens and the Jones/ Bowdens were immediately plain.

For starters, in the Chalfen family everybody seemed to have a normal number of children. More to

the point, everybody knew whose children were whose. The men lived longer than the women. The

marriages were singular and long lasting. Dates of birth and death were concrete. And the Chalfens

actually knew who they were in 1675. Archie Jones could give no longer record of his family than

his father's own haphazard appearance on the planet in the back-room of a Bromley public house

circa 1895 or 1896 or quite possibly 1897, depending on which nonagenarian ex-barmaid you

spoke to. Clara Bowden knew a little about her grandmother, and half believed the story that her

famed and prolific Uncle P. had thirty-four children, but could only state definitively that her own mother was born at 2.45 p.m.

14 January 1907, in a Catholic church in the middle of the Kingston earthquake. The rest was

rumour, folk-tale and myth:

another man & Great-great-great-Grandma (Lady The?) & Great-great-great-Grandfather

another man & [Way Back When-Lord Knows]

Old man Bob [Hoi heap of time]

[Way Back When-Lord Knows]

I I I | ^ I

Great-grandmother Great Uncle P. Great Auntie Great Auntie Great Auntie

Ambrosia Bowden [iSpoish- i96oish] Meeshell Lavinia Patricia

[iSpoish-ipsoish] & God knows how & some no-good Si Captain Charlie many women raggamuffins

"Whitey' Durham [i88oish-Lord Knows]

Grandmother 34 children. unknown unknown 3 kids

Hortense Bowden Amongst them, issue issue

[1907- ] Auntie Susie, Bobo,

= fm. 1947] G-man, Delroy,

Darcus Bowden Bigface,

[1910-1985] Lady Penelope

Clara Bowden = Archie Jones [1955- ] [1927- ]

fm. 1975]

Irie Ambrosia Jones [1975- ]

Key

& = copulated with % = paternity unsure ? = child's name unknown G = brought up by grandmother

"You guys go so far back," said Irie, as Marcus came up behind her to see what was of interest.

"It's incredible. I can't imagine what that must feel like."

"Nonsensical statement. We all go back as far as each other. It's just that the Chalfens have

always written things down said Marcus thoughtfully, stuffing his pipe with fresh tobacco. "It helps

if you want to be remembered

"I guess my family's more of an oral tradition said Irie with a shrug. "But, man, you should ask

Millat about his. He's the descendant of-'

"A great revolutionary. So I've heard. I wouldn't take any of that seriously, if I were you. One

part truth to three parts fiction in that family, I fancy. Any historical figure of note in your lot?"

asked Marcus, and then, immediately uninterested in his own question, returned to his search of

filing cabinet number two.

"No ... no one .. . significant. But my grandmother was born in January 1907, during the Kingston '

"Here we are!"

Marcus emerged triumphant from a steel drawer, brandishing a thin plastic folder with a few

pieces of paper in it.

"Photographs. Especially for you. If the animal-rights lot saw these, I'd have a contract out on

my life. One by one now. Don't grab Marcus passed Irie the first photo. It was of a mouse on its back. Its stomach was littered with

little mushroom-like growths, brown and puffy. Its mouth was unnaturally extended, by the

prostrate position, into a cry of agony. But not genuine agony, Irie thought, more like theatrical

agony. More like a mouse who was making a big show of something. A barn-mouse. A

luwie-mouse. There was something sarcastic about it.

"You see, embryo cells are all very well, they help us understand the genetic elements that may

contribute to cancer, but what you really want to know is how a tumour progresses in living tissue,

I mean, you can't approximate that in a culture, not really. So then you move on to introducing

chemical carcinogens in a target organ but Irie was half listening, half engrossed in the pictures passed to her. The next one was of th same mouse, as far as she could tell, this time on its front, where

the tumours were bigger. There was one on its neck that appeared practically the same size as its ear. But the mouse looked quite pleased about it. Almost as if it had purposefully grown new apparatus to hear what Marcus was saying about him. Irie was aware this was a stupid thing to think about a lab mouse. But, once again, the mouse-face had a mouse-cunning about it. There was a

mouse-sarcasm in its mouse-eyes. A mouse-smirk played about its mouse-lips. Terminal disease?

(the mouse said to Irie) What terminal disease? '.. . slow and imprecise. But if you're-engineer the actual genome, so that specific cancers are expressed in specific tissues at predetermined, times in the mouse's development, then you're no

longer dealing with the random. You're eliminating the random actions of a mutagen. Now you're

talking the genetic program of the mouse, a force activating oncogenes within cells. Now you see,

this particular mouse is a young male .. ."

Now FutureMouse(c) was being held by his front paws by two pink giant fingers and made to

stand vertical like a cartoon mouse, thus forcing his head up. He seemed to be sticking out his little

pink mouse-tongue, at the cameraman initially and now at Irie. On his chin the tumours hung like

big droplets of dirty rain. '.. . and he expresses the H-ras oncogene in certain of his skin cells, so he develops multiple

benign skin papillomas. Now what's interesting, of course, is young females don't develop it, which

is .. ."

One eye was closed, the other open. Like a wink. A crafty mouse-wink.

'.. . and why? Because of inter-male rivalry the fights lead to abrasion. Not a biological

imperative but a social one. Genetic result: the same. You see? And it's only with trans genic mice,

by adding experimentally to the genome, that you can understand those kind of differences. And

this mouse, the one you're looking at, is a unique mouse, Me. I plant a cancer and a cancer turns up precisely when I expect it.

Fifteen weeks into the development. Its genetic code is new. New breed. No better argument for a

patent, if you ask me. Or at least some kind of royalties deal: 80 per cent God, 20 per cent me. Or

the other way round, depending on how good my lawyer is. Those poor bastards in Harvard are still

fighting the point. I'm not interested in the patent, personally. I'm interested in the science."

"Wow," said Me, passing back the pictures reluctantly. "It's pretty hard to take in. I half get it

and I half don't get it at all. It's just amazing."

"Well," said Marcus, mock humble. "It fills the time."

"Being able to eliminate the random .. ."

"You eliminate the random, you rule the world," said Marcus simply. "Why stick to oncogenes?

One could program every step in the development of an organism: reproduction, food habits, life

expectancy' automaton voice, arms out like a zombie, rolling eyeballs "WORLD

DOMINA-SHUN." "I can see the tabloid headlines," said Me.

"Seriously though," said Marcus, rearranging his photos in the folder and moving towards the

cabinet to refile them, 'the study of isolated breeds of trans genic animals sheds crucial light on the

random. Are you following me? One mouse sacrificed for 5.3 billion humans. Hardly mouse

apocalypse. Not too much to ask."

"No, of course not."

"Damn! This thing is such a bloody mess!"

Marcus tried three times to shut the bottom drawer of his cabinet, and then, losing patience,

levelled a kick at its steel sides. "Bloody thing!"

Me peered over the open drawer. "You need more dividers," she said decidedly. "And a lot of the paper you're using is A3, a 2 or irregular. You need some kind of folding policy; at the moment

you're just shoving them in."

Marcus threw his head back and laughed. "Folding policy!

Well, I suppose you should know; like father like daughter."

He crouched down by the drawer and gave it a few more pushes.

"I'm serious. I don't know how you work like that. My school shit is better organized, and I'm

not in the business of World Domination."

Marcus looked up at her from where he was kneeling. She was like a mountain range from that

angle; a soft and pillowy version of the Andes.

"Look, how about this: I'll pay you fifteen quid a week if you come round twice a week and get

a grip on this filing disaster. You'll learn more, and I'll get something I need done, done. Hey? What

about it?"

What about it. Joyce already paid Millat a total of thirty-five quid a week for such diverse

activities as baby-sitting Oscar, washing the car, weeding, doing the windows and recycling all the

coloured paper. What she was really paying for, of course, was the presence of Millat. That energy

around her. And that reliance.

Me knew the deal she was about to make; she didn't run into it drunk or stoned or desperate or

confused, as Millat did. Furthermore, she wanted it; she wanted to merge with the Chal fens, to be

of one flesh; separated from the chaotic, random flesh of her own family and transgenically fused

with another. A unique animal. A new breed.

Marcus frowned. "Why all the deliberation? I'd like an answer this millennium, if you don't

mind. Is it a good idea or isn't it?" Me nodded and smiled. "Sure is. When do I start?"

Alsana and Clara were none too pleased. But it took them a little while to compare notes and

consolidate their displeasure. Clara was in night school three days a week (courses: British

Imperialism 1765 to the Present; Medieval Welsh Literature; Black Femin ism), Alsana was on the sewing machine all the daylight hours God gave while a family war raged around her. They talked on the phone only occasionally and saw each other even less. But

both felt an independent uneasiness about the Chalfens, of whom they had gradually heard more

and more. After a few months of covert surveillance, Alsana was now certain that it was to the

Chalfens Millat went during his regular absences from the family home. As for Clara, she was

lucky to catch Me in on a week night, and had long ago rumbled her netball excuses. For months

now it had been the Chalfens this and the Chalfens that; Joyce said this wonderful thing, Marcus is

so terribly clever. But Clara wasn't one to kick up a fuss; she wanted desperately what was best for

Irie', and she had always been convinced that sacrifice was nine tenths of parenting. She even

suggested a meeting, between herself and the Chalfens, but either Clara was paranoid or Irie was

doing her best to avoid it. And there was no point looking to Archibald for support. He only saw

Irie in flashes when she came home to shower, dress or eat and it didn't seem to bother him whether

she raved endlessly about the Chalfen children (They sound nice, love), or about something Joyce

did (Did she? That's very clever, isn't it, love?), or something Marcus had said (Sounds like a right

old Einstein, eh, love? Well, good for you. Must dash. Meeting Sammy at O'Connell's at eight).

Archie had skin as thick as an alligator's. Being a father was such a solid genetic position in his

mind (the solidest fact in Archie's life), it didn't occur to him that there might be any challenger to his crown. It was left to Clara to bite her lip alone, hope she wasn't losing her only daughter, and

swallow the blood.

But Alsana had finally concluded that it was all-out war and she needed an ally. Late January

'91, Christmas and Ramadan safely out of the way, she picked up the phone.

"So: you know about these Chaffinches?"

"Chalfens. I think the name is Chalfen. Yes, they're the parents of a friend of Irie's, I think," said

Clara disingenuously, wanting to know what Alsana knew first. "Joshua Chalfen. They sound a nice family."

Alsana blew air out of her nose. Till call them Chaffinches little scavenging English birds

pecking at all the best seeds! Those birds do the same to my bay leaves as these people do to my

boy. But they are worse; they are like birds with teeth, with sharp little canines they don't just steal,

they rip apart! What do you know about them?"

"Well.. . nothing, really. They've been helping Me and Millat with their sciences, that's what she

told me. I'm sure there's no harm, Alsi. And Irie's doing very well in school now. She is out of the

house all the time, but I can't really put my foot down."

Clara heard Alsana slap the Iqbal bannisters in fury. "Have you met them? Because I haven't

met them, and yet they feel free to give my son money and shelter as if he had neither and bad

mouth me, no doubt. God only knows what he is telling them about me! Who are they? I am not

knowing them from Adam or Eve! Millat spends every spare minute with them and I see no

particular improvement in his grades and he is still smoking the pot and sleeping with the girls. I try

and tell Samad, but he's in his own world; he just won't listen. Just screams at Millat and won't

speak to me. We're trying to raise the money to get Magid back and in a good school. I'm trying to

keep this family together and these Chaffinches are trying to tear it apart!"

Clara bit her lip and nodded silently at the receiver.

"Are you there, lady?"

"Yes," said Clara. "Yes. You see, Me, well .. . she seems to worship them. I got quite upset at

first, but then I thought I was just being silly. Archie says I'm being silly."

"If you told that potato-head there was no gravity on the moon he'd think you were being silly.

We get by without his opinion for fifteen years, we'll manage without it now. Clara," said Alsana,

and her heavy breath rattled against the receiver, her voice sounded exhausted, 'we always stand by each other ... I need you now."

"Yes .. . I'm just thinking .. ."

"Please. Don't think. I booked a movie, old and French, like you like two thirty today. Meet me

in front of the Tricycle Theatre. Niece-of-Shame is coming too. We have tea. We talk."

The movie was A Bout de Souffle. 16 mm, grey and white. Old Fords and boulevards. Turn-ups

and handkerchiefs. Kisses and cigarettes. Clara loved it (Beautiful Belmondo! Beautiful Seberg!

Beautiful Paris!), Neena found it too French, and Alsana couldn't understand what the bloody thing

was about. "Two young people running around France talking nonsense, killing policemen, stealing

vehicles, never wearing bras. If that's European cinema, give me Bollywood every day of the week.

Now, ladies, shall we get down to business?"

Neena went and collected the teas and plonked them on the little table.

"So what's all this about a conspiracy of Chaffinches? Sounds like Hitchcock."

Alsana explained in shorthand the situation.

Neena reached into a bag for her Consulates, lit one up and exhaled minty smoke. "Auntie, they

just sound like a perfectly nice middle-class family who are helping Millat with his studies. Is that

what you dragged me from work for? I mean, it's hardly Jonestown, now, is it?"

"No," said Clara cautiously, 'no, of course not but all your auntie is saying is that Millat and Me

spend such a lot of time over there, so we'd just like to know a bit more about what they're like, you

know. That's natural enough, isn't it?"

Alsana objected. That is not all I'm saying. I am saying these people are taking my son away

from me! Birds with teeth! They're Englishifying him completely! They're deliberately leading him

away from his culture and his family and his religion '

"Since when have you given two shits about his religion!"

"You, Niece-of-Shame, you don't know how I sweat blood for that boy, you don't know about '

"Well, if I don't know anything about anything, why the bloody hell have you brought me here?

I've got other fucking things to do, you know." Neena snatched her bag and made to stand up.

"Sorry about this, Clara. I don't know why this always has to happen. I'll see you soon .. ."

"Sit down," hissed Alsana, grabbing her by the arm. "Sit down, all right, point made, Miss

Clever Lesbian. Look, we need you, OK? Sit down, apology, apology. OK? Better."

"All right," said Neena, viciously stubbing out her fag on a serviette. "But I'm going to speak

my mind and for once just shut that chasm of a mouth while I do it. OK? OK. Right. Now, you just

said Irie's doing tremendous in school, and if Millat's not doing so well, it's no great mystery he

doesn't do any work. At least somebody's trying to help him. And if he's seeing too much of these

people, I'm sure that's his choice, not theirs. It's not exactly Happy Land in your house at the

moment, is it? He's running away from himself and he's looking for something as far away from the

Iqbals as possible."

"Ah ha! But they live two roads away!" cried Alsana triumphantly.

"No, Auntie. Conceptually far away from you. Being an Iqbal is occasionally a little suffocating,

you know? He's using this other family as a refuge. They're probably a good influence or

something."

"Or something," said Alsana ominously.

"What are you afraid of, Alsi? He's second generation you always say it yourself you need to let

them go their own way. Yes, and look what happened to me, blah blah blah I may be

Niece-of-Shame to you, Alsi, but I earn a good living out of my shoes." Alsana looked dubiously at

the knee-length black boots that Neena had designed, made and was wearing. "And I live a pretty

good life you know, I live by principles. I'm just saying.

He's already having a war with uncle Samad. He doesn't need one with you as well

Alsana grumbled into her blackberry tea.

"If you want to worry about something, Auntie, worry about these KEVIN people he hangs

around with. They're insane. And there's bloody loads of them. All the ones you wouldn't expect.

Mo, you know, the butcher yes, you know the Hussein Ishmaels - Ardashir's side of the family.

Right, well, he's one. And bloody Shiva, from the restaurant he's converted!"

"Good for him," said Alsana tartly.

"But it's nothing to do with Islam proper, Alsi. They're a political group. And some politics. One

of the little bastards told me and Maxine we were going to roast in the pits of hell. Apparently we

are the lowest forms of life, lower than the slugs. I gave his ball-bag a 360-degree twist. Those are the people you need to worry about."

Alsana shook her head and waved Neena off with a hand. "Can't you understand? I worry about

my son being taken away from me. I have lost one already. Six years I have not seen Magid. Six

years. And I see these people, these Chaffinches and they spend more time with Millat than I do.

Can you understand that, at least?"

Neena sighed, fiddled with a button on her top, and then, seeing the tears forming in her auntie's

eyes, conceded a silent nod.

"Millat and Irie often go round there for dinner," said Clara quietly. "And Alsana, well, your

auntie and I were wondering.. . if once you could go with them you look young, and you seem

young, and you could go and '

"Report back," finished Neena, rolling her eyes. "Infiltrate the enemy. That poor family they've

no idea who they're messing with, have they? They're under surveillance and they don't even know

it. It's like the bloody Thirty-nine Steps."

"Niece-of-Shame: yes or no?"

Neena groaned. "Yes, Auntie. Yes, if I must." "Much appreciated," said Alsana, finishing her

tea.

Now, it wasn't that Joyce was a homophobe. She liked gay men. And they liked her. She had

even inadvertently amassed a little gay fan club in university, a group of men who saw her as a kind

of Barbra Streisand/Bette Davis/ Joan Baez hybrid and met once a month to cook her dinner and

admire her dress sense. So Joyce couldn't be homophobic. But gay women .. . something confused

Joyce about gay women. It wasn't that she disliked them. She just couldn't comprehend them. Joyce

understood why men would love men; she had devoted her life to loving men, so she knew how it

felt. But the idea of women loving women was so far from Joyce's cognitive understanding of the

world that she couldn't process it. The idea of them. She just didn't get it. God knows, she'd made

the effort. During the seventies she dutifully read The Well of Loneliness and Our Bodies Ourselves

(which had a small chapter); more recently she had read and watched Oranges Are Not the Only

Fruit, but none of it did her any good. She wasn't offended by it. She just couldn't see the point. So

when Neena turned up for dinner, arm in arm with Maxine, Joyce just sat staring at the two of them

over the starter (pulses on rye bread), utterly fixated. She was rendered dumbstruck for the first

twenty minutes, leaving the rest of the family to go through the Chalfen routine minus her own vital

bit-part. It was a little like being hypnotized or sitting in a dense cloud, and through the mist she

heard snippets of dinner conversation continuing without her.

"So, always the first Chalfen question: what do you do?"

"Shoes. I make shoes."

"Ah. Mmm. Not the material of sparkling conversation, I fear. What about the beautiful lady?"

"I'm a beautiful lady of leisure. I wear the shoes she makes."

"Ah. Not in college, then?"

"No, I didn't bother with college. Is that OK?"

Neena was equally defensive. "And before you ask, neither did I."

"Well, I didn't mean to embarrass you '

"You didn't."

"Because it's no real surprise ... I know you're not the most academic family in the world." Joyce knew things were going badly, but she couldn't find her tongue to smooth it out. A million

dangerous double entendres were sitting at the back of her throat, and, if she opened her mouth

even a slit (I), she feared one of them was going to come out. Marcus, who was always oblivious to

causing offence, chundled on happily. "You two are terrible temptations for a man."

"Are we."

"Oh, dykes always are. And I'm sure certain gentlemen would have half a chance though you'd

probably take beauty over intellect, I suspect, so there go my chances."

"You seem awfully certain of your intellect, Mr. Chalfen."

"Shouldn't I be? I am terribly clever, you know."

Joyce just kept looking at them, thinking: Who relies on whom? Who teaches whom? Who

improves whom? Who pollinates and who nurtures?

"Well, it's great to have another Iqbal round the table, isn't it, Josh?"

I'm a Begum, not an Iqbal/ said Neena.

"I can't help thinking," said Marcus, unheeding, 'that a Chalfen man and an Iqbal woman would

be a hell of a mix. Like Fred and Ginger. You'd give us sex and we'd give you sensibility or

something. Hey? You'd keep a Chalfen on his toes you're as fiery as an Iqbal. Indian passion. Funny

thing about your family: first generation are all loony tunes, but the second generation have got

heads just about straight on their shoulders."

"Umm, look: no one calls my family loony, OK? Even if they are. I'll call them loony."

"Now, you see, try to use the language properly. You can say "no one calls my family loony",

but that's not a correct statement. Because people do and will. By all means say, "I don't want

people to, etc." It's a small thing, but we can all understand each other better when we don't abuse

terms and phrases."

Then, just as Marcus was reaching into the oven to pull out the main course (chicken hot pot

Joyce's mouth opened and for some inexplicable reason this came out: "Do you use each other's

breasts as pillows?"

Neena's fork, which was heading for her mouth, stopped just as it reached the tip of her nose.

Millat choked on a piece of cucumber, trie struggled to bring her lower jaw back into alliance with

the upper. Maxine began to giggle.

But Joyce wasn't going to go purple. Joyce was descended from the kind of bloody-minded

women who continued through the African swamps even after the bag-carrying natives had

dropped their load and turned back, even when the white men were leaning on their guns and

shaking their heads. She was cut of the same cloth as the frontier ladies who, armed with only a

bible, a shotgun and a net curtain, coolly took out the brown men moving forwards from the

horizon towards the plains. Joyce didn't know the meaning of backing down. She was going to

stand her ground.

"It's just, in a lot of Indian poetry, they talk about using breasts for pillows, downy breasts,

pillow breasts. I just just just wondered, if white sleeps on brown, or, as one might expect, brown

sleeps on white? Extending the the the pillow metaphor, you see, I was just wondering which .. .

way The silence was long, broad and malingering. Neena shook her head in disgust and dropped her

cutlery on to her plate with a clatter. Maxine tapped her fingers on the tablecloth, marking out a

nervous "William Tell'. Josh looked like he might cry.

Finally, Marcus threw his head back, clapped his hands and let out an enormous Chalfen guffaw. "I've been wanting to ask that all night. Well done, Mother Chalfen!"

And so for the first time in her life Neena had to admit that her auntie was absolutely right.

"You wanted a report, so here's a full report: crazy, nut so raisins short of a fruitcake, rubber walls,

screaming-mad basket-cases. Every bloody one of them."

Alsana nodded, open-mouthed, and asked Neena to repeat for the third time the bit during

dessert when Joyce, serving up a trifle, had inquired whether it was difficult for Muslim women to

bake while wearing those long black sheets didn't the arm bits get covered in cake mixture? Wasn't

there a danger of setting yourself alight on the gas hobs?

"Bouncing off the walls," concluded Neena.

But, as is the way with these things, once confirmation had arrived nobody knew quite what to

do with the information. Me and Millat were sixteen and never tired of telling their respective

mothers that they were now of the legal age for various activities and could do whatever, whenever.

Short of putting locks on the doors and bars on the windows, Clara and Alsana were powerless. If

anything, things got worse. Irie spent more time than ever immersing herself in Chalfenism. Clara

noticed her wincing at her own father's conversation, and frowning at the middlebrow tabloid Clara

curled up with in bed. Millat disappeared from home for weeks at a time, returning with money that

was not his and an accent that modulated wildly between the rounded tones of the Chalfens and the

street talk of the KEVIN clan. He infuriated Samad beyond all reason. No, that's wrong. There was

a reason. Millat was neither one thing nor the other, this or that, Muslim or Christian, Englishman

or Bengali; he lived for the in between, he lived up to his middle name, Zulfikar, the dashing of two

swords:

"How many times," Samad growled, after watching his son purchase the autobiography of Malcolm X, 'is it necessary to say thank you in a single transaction? Thank you when you hand the book over, thank you when she receives it, thank you

when she tells you the price, thank you when you sign the cheque, thank you when she takes it!

They call it English politeness when it is simply arrogance. The only being who deserves this kind

of thanks is Allah himself!"

And Alsana was once again caught between the two of them, trying desperately to find the

middle ground. "If Magid was here, he'd sort you two out. A lawyer's mind, he'd make things

straight." But Magid wasn't here, he was there, and there was still not enough money to change the

situation.

Then the summer came and with it exams. Me came in just behind Chalfen the Chubster, and

Millat did far better than anyone, including he, had expected. It could only be the Chalfen influence,

and Clara, for one, felt a little ashamed of herself. Alsana just said, "Iqbal brains. In the end, they

triumph," and decided to mark the occasion with a joint Iqbal/Jones celebration barbecue to be held

on Samad's lawn.

Neena, Maxine, Ardashir, Shiva, Joshua, aunties, cousins, Irie's friends, Millat's friends, KEVIN

friends and the headmaster, all came and made merry (except for KEVIN, who formed a circle in

one corner) with paper cups filled with cheap Spanish bubbly.

It was going well enough until Samad spotted the ring of folded arms and green bow-ties. "What are they doing here? Who let in the infidels?"

"Well, you're here, aren't you?" sniped Alsana, looking at the three empty cans of Guinness

Samad had already got through, the hotdog juice dribbling down his chin. "Who's casting the first

stone at a barbecue?"

Samad glared and lurched away with Archie to admire their shared handiwork on the

reconstructed shed. Clara took the opportunity to pull Alsana aside and ask her a question.

Alsana stamped a foot in her own coriander. "No! No way at

all. What should I thank her for? If he did well, it was because of his own brains. Iqbal brains.

Not once, not once has that long-toothed Chaffinch even condescended to telephone me. Wild

horses will have to drag my dead body, lady."

"But... I just think it would be a nice idea to go and thank her for all the time she's spent with

the children ... I think maybe we misjudged her '

"By all means, go, Lady Jones, go if you like," said Alsana scornfully. "But as for me, wild

horses, wild horses could not do it."

"And that's Dr. Solomon Chalfen, Marcus's grandfather. He was one of the few men who would

listen to Freud when everybody in Vienna thought they had a sexual deviant on their hands. An

incredible face he has, don't you think? There's so much wisdom in it. The first time Marcus

showed me that picture, I knew I wanted to marry him. I thought: if my Marcus looks like that at

eighty I'll be a very lucky girl!"

Clara smiled and admired the daguerreotype. She had so far admired eight along the

mantelpiece with Me trailing sullenly behind her, and there were at least as many left to go.

"It's a grand old family, and if you don't find it too presumptuous, Clara is "Clara" all right?"

"Clara's fine, Mrs. Chalfen."

Irie waited for Joyce to ask Clara to call her Joyce.

"Well, as I was saying, it's a grand old family and if you don't find it too presumptuous I like to

think of Irie as a kind of addition to it, in a way. She's just such a remarkable girl. We've so enjoyed

having her around."

"She's enjoyed being around, I think. And she really owes you a lot. We all do."

"Oh no, no, no. I believe in the Responsibility of Intellectuals besides which, it's been a joy.

Really. I hope we'll still see her, even though the exams are over. There's still A-levels, if nothing else!"

"Oh, I'm sure she'd come anyway. She talks about you all the time. The Chalfens this, the

Chalfens that.. ."

Joyce clasped Clara's hands in her own. "Oh, Clara, I am pleased. And I'm pleased we've finally

met as well. Oh now, I hadn't finished. Where were we oh yes, well here are Charles and Anna

great-uncles and aunts long buried, sadly. He was a psychiatrist yes, another one and she was a

plant biologist woman after my own heart."

Joyce stood back for a minute, like an art critic in a gallery, and put her hands on her hips. "I

mean, after a while, you've got to suspect it's in the genes, haven't you? All these brains. I mean,

nurture just won't explain it. I mean, will it?"

"Er, no," agreed Clara. "I guess not."

"Now, out of interest I mean, I really am curious which side do you think Me gets it from, the

Jamaican or the English?" Clara looked up and down the line of dead white men in starched collars, some monocled, some

uniformed, some sitting in the bosom of their family, each member manacled into position so the

camera could do its slow business. They all reminded her a little of someone. Of her own

grandfather, the dashing Captain Charlie Durham, in his one extant photograph: pinched and pale,

looking defiantly at the camera, not so much having his picture taken as forcing his image upon the

acetate. What they used to call a Muscular Christian. The Bowden family called him Whitey. Djam

fool bwoy taut he owned every ting he touched.

"My side," said Clara tentatively. "I guess the English in my side. My grandfather was an

Englishman, quite la di da, I've been told. His child, my mother, was born during the Kingston

earthquake, 1907.1 used to think maybe the rumble knocked the Bowden brain cells into place 'cos

we been doing pretty well since then!"

Joyce saw that Clara was expecting a laugh and quickly supplied one.

"But seriously, it was probably Captain Charlie Durham. He taught my grandmother all she

knew. A good English education. Lord knows, I can't think who else it could be."

"Well, how fascinating! It's what I say to Marcus it 15 the genes, whatever he says. He says I'm

a simplifier, but he's just too theoretical. I'm proven right all the time!"

As the front door closed behind her, Clara bit her own lip once more, this time in frustration and

anger. Why had she said Captain Charlie Durham? That was a downright lie. False as her own

white teeth. Clara was smarter than Captain Charlie Durham. Hortense was smarter than Captain

Charlie Durham. Probably even Grandma Ambrosia was smarter than Captain Charlie Durham.

Captain Charlie Durham wasn't smart. He had thought he was, but he wasn't. He sacrificed a

thousand people because he wanted to save one woman he never really knew. Captain Charlie

Durham was a no-good djam fool bwoy.

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