It is better to marry than to burn, says Corinthians I, chapter seven, verse nine.

　　Good advice. Of course, Corinthians also informs us that we should not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain so, go figure.

　　By February 1975, Clara had deserted the church and all its biblical literalism for Archibald Jones, but she was not yet the kind of carefree atheist who could laugh near altars or entirely dismiss the teachings of St. Paul. The second dictum wasn't a problem having no ox, she was excluded by proxy. But the first was giving her sleepless nights. Was it better to marry? Even if the man was a heathen? There was no way of knowing: she was living without props now, sans safety net. More worrying than God was her mother. Hortense was fiercely opposed to the affair, on grounds of colour rather than of age, and on hearing of it had promptly ostracized her daughter one morning on the doorstep.

　　Clara still felt that deep down her mother would prefer her to marry an unsuitable man rather than live with him in sin, so she did it on impulse and begged Archie to take her as far away from Lambeth as a man of his means could manage Morocco, Belgium, Italy. Archie had clasped her hand and nodded and whispered sweet nothings in the full knowledge that the furthest a man of his means was going was a newly acquired, heavily mortgaged, two-storey house in Willesden Green.

　　But no need to mention that now, he felt, not right now in the heat of the moment. Let her down gently, like.

　　Three months later Clara had been gently let down and here they were, moving in. Archie scrabbling up the stairs, as usual cursing and blinding, wilting under the weight of boxes which Clara could carry two, three at a time without effort; Clara taking a break, squinting in the warm May sunshine, trying to get her bearings. She peeled down to a little purple vest and leant against her front gate. What kind of a place was this? That was the thing, you see, you couldn't be sure. Travelling in the front passenger seat of the removal van, she'd seen the high road and it had been ugly and poor and familiar (though there were no Kingdom Halls or Episcopalian churches), but then at the turn of a corner suddenly roads had exploded in greenery, beautiful oaks, the houses got taller, wider and more detached, she could see parks, she could see libraries. And then abruptly the trees would be gone, reverting back into bus-stops as if by the strike of some midnight bell; a signal which the houses too obeyed, transforming themselves into smaller, st airless dwellings that sat splay opposite derelict shopping arcades, those peculiar lines of establishments that include, without exception, one defunct sandwich bar still advertising breakfast one locksmith uninterested in marketing frills (keys cut here) and one permanently shut unisex hair salon, the proud bearer of some unspeakable pun (Upper Cuts or Fringe Benefits or Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow).

　　It was a lottery driving along like that, looking out, not knowing whether one was about to settle down for life amongst the trees or amidst the shit. Then finally the van had slowed down in front of a house, a nice house somewhere midway between the trees and the shit, and Clara had felt a tide of gratitude roll over her. It was nice, not as nice as she had hoped but not as bad as she had feared; it had two small gardens front and back, a doormat, a doorbell, a toilet inside .. . And she had not paid a high price. Only love. Just love. And whatever Corinthians might say, love is not such a hard thing to forfeit, not if you've never really felt it. She did not love Archie, but had made up her mind, from that first moment on the steps, to devote herself to him if he would take her away.

　　And now he had; and, though it wasn't Morocco or Belgium or Italy, it was nice not the promised land but nice, nicer than anywhere she had ever been.

　　Clara understood that Archibald Jones was no romantic hero. Three months spent in one stinking room in Cricklewood had been sufficient revelation. Oh, he could be affectionate and sometimes even charming, he could whistle a clear, crystal note first thing in the morning, he drove calmly and responsibly and he |was a surprisingly competent cook, but romance was beyond , passion, unthinkable. And if you are saddled with a man as age as this, Clara felt, he should at least be utterly devoted t^^bi to your beauty, to your youth that's the least he could do^wnake up for things. But not Archie. One month into their maiMce and he already had that funny glazed lookmen have whel^fcey are looking through you. He had already reverted back ^^ his bachelorhood:

　　pints with Samad Iqbal, dinner with Samac^Bbal, Sunday breakfasts with Samad Iqbal, every spare moment with the man in that bloody place, O'Connell's, in that bloody ABe. She tried to be reasonable. She asked him: Why are you nevemRre? Why do you spend so much time with the Indian? But a pat on[K back, a kiss on the cheek, he's grabbing his coat, his foot's oJ'e door andalways the same old answer: Me and Sam? We go vifback. She couldn't argue with that. They went back to befonMie was born.

　　No JBte knight, then, this Archibald Jones. No aims, no hopesJK ambitions. A man whose greatest pleasures were Eng|">reakfasts and DIY. A dull man. An old man. And yet 3d. He was a good man. And good might not amount to i, good might not light up a life, but it is something. She at ted it in him that first time on the stairs, simply, directly, the same way she could point out a good mango on a Brixton stall without so much as touching the skin.

　　These were the thoughts Clara clung to as she leant on her garden gate, three months after her wedding, silently watching the way her husband's brow furrowed and shortened like an accordion, the way his stomach hung pregnant over his belt, the whiteness of his skin, the blueness of his veins, the way his 'elevens' were up those two ropes of flesh that appear on a man's gullet (so they said in Jamaica) when his time was drawing to a close.

　　Clara frowned. She hadn't noticed these afflictions at the wedding. Why not? He had been smiling and he wore a white polo-neck, but no, that wasn't it she hadn't been looking for them then, that was it. Clara had spent most of her wedding day looking at her feet. It had been a hot day, 14 February, but unusually warm, and there had been a wait because the world had wanted to marry that day in a little registry office on Ludgate Hill. Clara remembered slipping off the petite brown heels she was wearing and placing her bare feet on the chilly floor, making sure to keep them firmly planted either side of a dark crack in the tile, a balancing act upon which she had randomly staked her future happiness.

　　Archie meanwhile had wiped some moisture from his upper lip and cursed a persistent sunbeam that was sending a trickle of salty water down his inside leg. For his second marriage he had chosen a mohair suit with a white polo-neck and both were proving problematic. The heat prompted rivulets of sweat to spring out all over his body, seeping through the polo-neck to the mohair and giving off an unmistakable odour of damp dog. Clara, of course, was all cat. She wore a long brown woollen Jeff Banks dress and a perfect set of false teeth; the dress was backless, the teeth were white, and the overall effect was feline; a panther in evening dress; where the wool stopped and Clara's skin started was not clear to the naked eye. And like a cat she responded to the dusty sunbeam that was coursing through a high window on to the waiting couples. She warmed her bare back in it, she almost seemed to unfurl. Even the registrar, who had seen it all horsy women marrying weaselly men, elephantine men marrying owlish women raised an eyebrow at this most unnatural of unions as they approached his desk. Cat and dog.

　　"Hullo, Father," said Archie.

　　"He's a registrar, Archibald, you old flake," said his friend Samad Miah Iqbal, who, along with his wife Alsana, had been called in from the exile of the Wedding Guest Room to witness the contract. "Not a Catholic priest "Right. Of course. Sorry. Nervous."The stuffy registrar said, "Shall we get on? We've got a lot of you to get through today."This and little more had constituted the ceremony. Archie was passed a pen and put down his name (Alfred Archibald Jones), nationality (English) and age (47). Hovering for a moment over the box entitled "Occupation', he decided upon "Advertising: (Printed Leaflets)', then signed himself away. Clara wrote down her name (Clara Iphegenia Bowden), nationality (Jamaican) and age (19).

　　Finding no box interested in her occupation, she went straight for the decisive dotted line, swept her pen across it, and straightened up again, a Jones. A Jones like no other that had come before her.

　　Then they had gone outside, on to the steps, where a breeze lifted second-hand confetti and swept it over new couples, where Clara met her only wedding guests formally for the first time: two Indians, both dressed in purple silk. Samad Iqbal, a tall, handsome man with the whitest teeth and a dead hand, who kept patting her on the back with the one that worked.

　　"My idea this, you know," he repeated again and again. "My idea, all this marriage business. I have known the old boy since when?" '1945, Sam.""That's what I am trying to tell your lovely wife, 1945 when you know a man that long, and you've fought alongside him, then it's your mission to make him happy if he is not. And he wasn't! Quite the opposite until you made an appearance! Wallowing in the shit-heap, if you will pardon the French. Thankfully, she's all packed off now. There's only one place for the mad, and that's with others like them," said Samad, losing steam halfway through the sentence, for Clara clearly had no idea what he was talking about. "Anyway, no need to dwell on ... My idea, though, you know, all this."And then there was his wife, Alsana, who was tiny and tightlipped and seemed to disapprove of Clara somehow (though she could only be a few years older); said only "Oh yes, Mrs. Jones' or "Oh no, Mrs. Jones', making Clara so nervous, so sheepish, she felt compelled to put her shoes back on.

　　Archie felt bad for Clara that it wasn't a bigger reception. But there was no one else to invite.

　　All other relatives and friends had declined the wedding invitation; some tersely, some horrified; others, thinking silence the best option, had spent the past week studiously stepping over the mail and avoiding the phone. The only well-wisher was Ibelgaufts, who had neither been invited nor informed of the event, but from whom, curiously, a note arrived in the morning mail:

　　14 February 1975 Dear Archibald,Usually, there is something about weddings that brings out the misanthrope in me, but today, as I attempted to save a bed of petunias from extinction, I felt a not inconsiderable warmth at the thought of the union of one man and one woman in lifelong cohabitation. It is truly remarkable that we humans undertake such an impossible feat, don't you think? But to be serious for a moment: as you know, I am a man whose profession it is to look deep inside of' Woman and, like a psychiatrist, mark her with a full bill of health or otherwise. And I feel sure, my friend (to extend a metaphor), that you have explored your lady-wife-to-be in such a manner, both spiritand mentally, and found her not lacking in any particular, and so what else can I offer but ike hearty congratulations of your earnest competitor, Horst Ibelgaufts What other memories of that day could make it unique and lift it out of the other 355 that made up 1975? Clara remembered a young black man stood atop an apple crate, sweating in a black suit, who began pleading to his brothers and sisters; an old bag-lady retrieving a carnation from the bin to put in her hair. But then it was all over: the ding-filmed sandwiches Clara had made had been forgotten and sat suffering at the bottom of a bag, the sky had clouded over, and when they walked up the hill to the King Ludd Pub, past the jeering Fleet Street lads with their Saturday pints, it was discovered that Archie had been given a parking ticket.

　　So it was that Clara spent the first three hours of married life in Cheapside Police Station, her shoes in her hands, watching her saviour argue relentlessly with a traffic inspector who failed to understand Archie's subtle interpretation of the Sunday parking laws.

　　"Clara, Clara, love '

　　It was Archie, struggling past her to the front door, partly obscured by a coffee table.

　　"We've got the Ick-Balls coming round tonight, and I want to get this house in some kind of order so mind out the way.""You wan' help?" asked Clara patiently, though still half in daydream. "I can lift so meting if-'

　　"No, no, no, no I'll manage."Clara reached out to take one side of the table. "Let me jus' -'

　　Archie battled to push through the narrow frame, trying to hold both the legs and the table's large removable glass top.

　　"It's man's work, love.""But' Clara lifted a large armchair with enviable ease and brought it over to where Archie had collapsed, gasping for breath on the hall steps. "Sno problem. If you wan' help: jus' arks farrit." She brushed her hand softly across his forehead.

　　"Yes, yes, yes." He shook her off in irritation, as if batting a fly. "I'm quite capable, you know ' "I know dat '

　　"It's man's work.""Yes, yes, I see-I didn't mean '

　　"Look, Clara, love, just get out of my way and I'll get on with it, OK?"Clara watched him roll up his sleeves with some determination, and tackle the coffee table once more.

　　"If you really want to be of some help, love, you can start bringing in some of your clothes.

　　God knows there's enough of 'em to sink a bloody battleship. How we're going to fit them in what little space we have I'm sure I don't know.""I say before we can trow some dem out, if you tink it best.""Not up to me now, not up to me, is it? I mean, is it? And what about the coat-stand?"This was the man: never able to make a decision, never able to state a position.

　　"I alreddy say: if ya nah like it, den send da damn ting back. I bought it 'cos I taut you like it.""Well, love," said Archie, cautious now that she had raised her voice, 'it was my money it would have been nice at least to ask my opinion.""Man! It a coat-stand. It jus' red. An' red is red is red. What's wrong wid red all of a sudden?""I'm just trying," said Archie, lowering his voice to a hoarse, forced whisper (a favourite voice-weapon in the marital arsenal: Not in front of the neighbours children 'to lift the tone in the house a bit. This is a nice neighbourhood, new life, you know. Look, let's not argue. Let's flip a coin; heads it stays, tails .. ."True lovers row, then fall the next second back into each other's arms; more seasoned lovers will walk up the stairs or into the next room before they relent and retrace their steps. A relationship on the brink of collapse will find one partner two blocks down the road or two countries to the east before something tugs, some responsibility, some memory, a pull of a child's hand or a heart string, which induces them to make the long journey back to their other half. On this Richter scale, then, Clara made only the tiniest of rumbles. She turned towards the gate, walked two steps only and stopped.

　　"Heads!" said Archie, seemingly without resentment. "It stays. See? That wasn't too hard.""I don' wanna argue." She turned round to face him, having made a silent renewed resolution to remember her debt to him. "You said the Iqbals are comin' to dinner. I was just thinkin' .. . if they're going to want me to cook dem some curry1 mean, I can cook curry but it's my type of curry.""For God's sake, they're not those kind of Indians," said Archie irritably, offended at the suggestion. "Sam'll have a Sunday roast like the next man. He serves Indian food all the time, he doesn't want to eat it too.""I was just wondering '

　　"Well, don't, Clara. Please."He gave her an affectionate kiss on the forehead, for which she bent downwards a little.

　　"I've known Sam for years, and his wife seems a quiet sort. They're not the royal family, you know. They're not those kind of Indians," he repeated, and shook his head, troubled by some problem, some knotty feeling he could not entirely unravel.

　　Samad and Alsana Iqbal, who were not those kind of Indians (as, in Archie's mind, Clara was not that kind of black), who were, in fact, not Indian at all but Bangladeshi, lived four blocks down on the wrong side of Willesden High Road. It had taken them a year to get there, a year of mercilessly hard graft to make the momentous move from the wrong side of Whitechapel to the wrong side of Willesden. A year's worth of Alsana banging away at the old Singer that sat in the kitchen, sewing together pieces of black plastic for a shop called Domination in Soho (many were the nights Alsana would hold up a piece of clothing she had just made, following the pattern she was given, and wonder what on earth it was). A year's worth of Samad softly inclining his head at exactly the correct deferential angle, pencil in his left hand, listening to the appalling pronunciation of the British, Spanish, American, French, Australian:

　　Go Bye Ello Sag, please.

　　Chicken Jail Fret See wiv Chips, fan ks From six in the evening until three in the morning; and then every day was spent asleep, until daylight was as rare as a decent tip. For what is the point, Samad would think, pushing aside two mints and a receipt to find fifteen pence, what is the point of tipping a man the same amount you would throw in a fountain to chase a wish? But before the illegal thought of folding the fifteen pence discreetly in his napkin hand even had a chance to give itself form, Mukhul - Ardashir Mukhul, who ran the Palace and whose wiry frame paced the restaurant, one benevolent eye on the customers, one ever watchful eye on the staff- Mukhul was upon him.

　　"Saaamaad' he had a cloying, oleaginous way of speaking 'did you kiss the necessary backside this evening, cousin?"Samad and Ardashir were distant cousins, Samad the elder by six years. With what joy (pure bliss!) had Ardashir opened the letter last January, to find his older, cleverer, handsomer cousin was finding it hard to get work in England and could he possibly.. .

　　"Fifteen pence, cousin," said Samad, lifting his palm.

　　"Well, every little helps, every little helps," said Ardashir, his dead-fish lips stretching into a stringy smile. "Into the Piss-Pot with it."The Piss-Pot was a black Balti pot that sat on a plinth outside the staff toilets and into which all tips were pooled and then split at the end of the night. For the younger, flashy, good-looking waiters like Shiva, this was a great injustice. Shiva was the only Hindu on the staff- this stood as tribute to his waite ring skills, which had triumphed over religious differences. Shiva could make a four quid tip in an evening if the blubberous white divorcee in the corner was lonely enough and he batted his long lashes at her effectively. He could also make his money out of the polo-necked directors and producers (the Palace sat in the centre of London's theatre land and these were still the days of the Royal Court, of pretty boys and kitchen-sink drama) who flattered the boy, watched his ass wiggle provocatively to the bar and back, and swore that if anyone ever adapted A Passage to India for the stage he could have whichever role tickled his fancy. For Shiva, then, the Piss-Pot system was simply daylight robbery and an insult to his unchallenged waite ring abilities. But for men like Samad, in his late forties, and for the even older, like the white-haired Muhammed (Ardashir's great-uncle), who was eighty if he was a day, who had deep pathways dug into the sides of his mouth where he had smiled when he was young, for men like this the Piss-Pot could not be complained about. It made more sense to join the collective than pocket fifteen pence and risk being caught (and docked a week's tips).

　　"You're all on my back!" Shiva would snarl, when he had to relinquish five pounds at the end of the night and drop it into the pot. "You all live off my back! Somebody get these losers off my back!

　　That was my river and now it's going to be split sixty-five-fucking-million ways as a hand-out to these losers! What is this: communism?"And the rest would avoid his glare and busy themselves quietly with other things, until one evening, one fifteen pence evening, Samad said, "Shut up, boy," quietly, almost under his breath.

　　"You!" Shiva swung round to where Samad stood, crushing a great tub of lentils for tomorrow's dal. "You're the worst of them! You're the worst fucking waiter I've ever seen! You couldn't get a tip if you mugged the bastards! I hear you trying to talk to the customer about biology this, politics that just serve the food, you idiot you're a waiter, for fuck's sake, you're not Michael Parkinson. "Did I hear you say Delhi'" Shiva put his apron over his arm and began posturing around the kitchen (he was a pitiful mimic) - '"I was there myself, you know, Delhi University, it was most fascinating, yes and I fought in the war, for England, yes yes, yes, charming, charming."" Round and round the kitchen he went, bending his head and rubbing his hands over and over like Uriah Heep, bowing and genuflecting to the head cook, to the old man arranging great hunks of meat in the walk-in freezer, to the young boy scrubbing the underside of the oven. "Samad, Samad .. ." he said with what seemed infinite pity, then stopped abruptly, pulled the apron off and wrapped it round his waist. "You are such a sad little man."Muhammed looked up from his pot-scrubbing and shook his head again and again. To no one in particular he said, "These young people what kind of talk? What kind of talk? What happened to respect? What kind of talk is this?""And you can fuck off too," said Shiva, brandishing a ladle in his direction, 'you old fool. You're not my father.""Second cousin of your mother's uncle," a voice muttered from the back. "Bollocks," said Shiva.

　　"Bollocks to that."He grabbed the mop and was heading off for the toilets, when he stopped by Samad and placed the handle inches from Samad's mouth.

　　"Kiss it," he sneered; and then, impersonating Ardashir's sluggish drawl, "Who knows, cousin, you might get a rise!"And that's what it was like most nights: abuse from Shiva and others; condescension from Ardashir; never seeing Alsana; never seeing the sun; clutching fifteen pence and then releasing it; wanting desperately to be wearing a sign, a large white placard that said:

　　I AM NOT A WAITER. I HAVE BEEN A STUDENT, A SCIENTIST, A SOLDIER, MY WIFE IS CALLED AL SANA WE LIVE IN EAST LONDONBUT WE WOULD LIKE TO MOVE NORTH. I AM A MUSLIM BUT ALLAH HAS FORSAKEN ME OR I HAVE FORSAKEN ALLAH, i'm NOT SURE. I HAVE A FRIEND ARCHIE AND OTHERS. I AM FORTY-NINE BUTWOMEN STILL TURN IN THE STREET. SOMETIMES.

　　But, no such placard existing, he had instead the urge, the need, to speak to every man, and, like the Ancient Mariner, explain constantly, constantly wanting to reassert something, anything. Wasn't that important? But then the heart-breaking disappointment to find out that the inclining of one's head, poising of one's pen, these were important, so important it was important to be a good waiter, to listen when someone said Lamb Dawn Sock and rice. With chips. Thank you.

　　And fifteen pence clinked on china. Thank you, sir. Thank you so very much.

　　On the Tuesday after Archie's wedding, Samad had waited till everyone left, folded his white, flared trousers (made from the same fabric as the tablecloths) into a perfect square, and then climbed the stairs to Ardashir's office, for he had something to ask him.

　　"Cousin!" said Ardashir, with a friendly grimace at the sight of Samad's body curling cautiously round the door. He knew that Samad had come to inquire about a pay increase, and he wanted his cousin to feel that he had at least considered the case in all his friendly judiciousness before he declined.

　　"Cousin, come in!""Good evening, Ardashir Mukhul," said Samad, stepping fully into the room.

　　"Sit down, sit down," said Ardashir warmly. "No point standing on ceremony now, is there?"Samad was glad this was so. He said as much. He took a moment to look with the necessary admiration around the room, with its relentless gold, with its triple-piled carpet, with its furnishings in various shades of yellow and green. One had to admire Ardashir's business sense. He had taken the simple idea of an Indian restaurant (small room, pink tablecloth, loud music, atrocious wallpaper, meals that do not exist in India, sauce carousel) and just made it bigger. He hadn't improved anything; everything was the same old crap, but it was all bigger in a bigger building in the biggest tourist trap in London, Leicester Square. You had to admire it and admire the man, who sat now like a benign locust, his slender in sectile body swamped in a black leather chair, leaning over the desk, all smiles, a parasite disguised as a philanthropist.

　　"Cousin, what can I do for you?"Samad took a breath. The matter was this .. .

　　Ardashir's eyes glazed over a little as Samad explained his situation. His skinny legs twitched underneath the desk, and in his fingers he manipulated a paper clip until it looked reasonably like an A. A for Ardashir. The matter was .. . what was the matter? The house was the matter. Samad was moving out of East London (where one couldn't bring up children, indeed, one couldn't, not if one didn't wish them to come to bodily harm, he agreed), from East London with its NF gangs, to North London, north-west, where things were more .. . more .. . liberal.

　　Was it his turn to speak?

　　"Cousin .. ." said Ardashir, arranging his face, 'you must understand ... I cannot make it my business to buy houses for all my employees, cousin or not cousin ... I pay a wage, cousin . That is business in this country."Ardashir shrugged as he spoke as if to suggest he deeply disapproved of "Business in this country', but there it was. He was forced, his look said, forced by the English to make an awful lot of money.

　　"You misunderstand me, Ardashir. I have the deposit for the house, it is our house now, we have moved in '

　　How on earth has he afforded it, he must work his wife like a bloody slave, thought Ardashir, pulling out another paper clip from the bottom drawer.

　　"I need only a small wage increase to help me finance the move. To make things a little easier as we settle in. And Alsana, well, she is pregnant."Pregnant. Difficult. The case called for extreme diplomacy.

　　"Don't mistake me, Samad, we are both intelligent, frank men and I think I can speak frankly ...

　　I know you're not a fucking waiter' he whispered the expletive and smiled indulgently after it, as if it were a naughty, private thing that brought them closer together "I see your position ... of course I do ... but you must understand mine ... If I made allowances for every relative I employ I'd be walking around like bloody Mr. Gandhi. Without a pot to piss in. Spinning my thread by the light of the moon. An example: at this very moment that wastrel Fat Elvis brother-in law of mine, Hussein-Ishmael '

　　"The butcher?""The butcher, demands that I should raise the price I pay for his stinking meat! "But Ardashir, we are brothers-in-law!" he is saying to me. And I am saying to him, but Mohammed, this is retail It was Samad's turn to glaze over. He thought of his wife, Alsana, who was not as meek as he had assumed when they married, to whom he must deliver the bad news; Alsana, who was prone to moments, even fits yes, fits was not too strong a word of rage. Cousins, aunts, brothers, thought it a bad sign, they worried if there wasn't some 'funny mental history' in Alsana's family, they sympathized with him the way you sympathize with a man who has bought a stolen car with more mileage on it than first thought. In his naivety Samad had simply assumed a woman so young would be ... easy. But Alsana was not.. . no, she was not easy. It was, he supposed, the way with these young women these days. Archie's bride .. . last Tuesday he had seen something in her eyes that wasn't easy either. It was the new way with these women.

　　Ardashir came to the end of what he felt was his perfectly worded speech, sat back satisfied, and laid the M for Mukhul he had moulded next to the A for Ardashir that sat on his lap.

　　"Thank you, sir," said Samad. "Thank you so very much."That evening there was an awful row. Alsana slung the sewing machine, with the black studded hot pants she was working on, to the floor.

　　"Useless! Tell me, Samad Miah, what is the point of moving here nice house, yes, very nice, very nice but where is the food?""It is a nice area, we have friends here.""Who are they?" She slammed her little fist on to the kitchen table, sending the salt and pepper flying, to collide spectacularly with each other in the air. "I don't know them! You fight in an old, forgotten war with some Englishman .. . married to a black! Whose friends are they? These are the people my child will grow up around? Their children half blacky-white? But tell me," she shouted, returning to her favoured topic, 'where is our food?" Theatrically, she threw open every cupboard in the kitchen. "Where is it? Can we eat china?" Two plates smashed to the floor. She patted her stomach to indicate her unborn child and pointed to the pieces. "Hungry?" Samad, who had an equally melodramatic nature when prompted, yanked upon the freezer and pulled out a mountain of meat which he piled in the middle of the room. His mother worked through the night preparing meat for her family, he said. His mother did not, he said, spend the household money, as Alsana did, on prepared meals, yoghurts and tinned spaghetti.

　　Alsana punched him full square in the stomach.

　　"Samad Iqbal the traditionalist! Why don't I just squat in the street over a bucket and wash clothes? Eh? In fact, what about my clothes? Edible?"As Samad clutched his winded belly, there in the kitchen she ripped to shreds every stitch she had on and added them to the pile of frozen lamb, spare cuts from the restaurant. She stood naked before him for a moment, the yet small mound of her pregnancy in full view, then put on a long, brown coat and left the house.

　　But all the same, she reflected, slamming the door behind her, it was true: it was a nice area; she couldn't deny it as she stormed towards the high road, avoiding trees where previously, in Whitechapel, she avoided flung-out mattresses and the homeless. It would be good for the child, she couldn't deny it. Alsana had a deep-seated belief that living near green spaces was morally beneficial to the young, and there to her right was Gladstone Park, a sweeping horizon of green named after the Liberal Prime Minister (Alsana was from a respected old Bengal family and had read her English History; but look at her now; if they could see what depths ...!), and in the Liberal tradition it was a park without fences, unlike the more affluent Queens Park (Victoria's), with its pointed metal railings. Willesden was not as pretty as Queens Park, but it was a nice area. No denying it. Not like Whitechapel, where that madman E-knock someoneoranother gave a speech that forced them into the basement while kids broke the windows with their steel-capped boots.

　　Rivers of bloodsilly-billy nonsense. Now she was pregnant she needed a little bit of peace and quiet. Though it was the same here in a way: they all looked at her strangely, this tiny Indian woman stalking the high road in a mackintosh, her plentiful hair flying every which way. Mali's Kebabs, Mr. Cheungs, Raj's, Malkovich Bakeries she read the new, unfamiliar signs as she passed. She was shrewd. She saw what this was. "Liberal? Hosh-kosh nonsense!" No one was more liberal than anyone else anywhere anyway. It was only that here, in Willesden, there was just not enough of any one thing to gang up against any other thing and send it running to the cellars while windows were smashed.

　　"Survival is what it is about!" she concluded out loud (she spoke to her baby; she liked to give it one sensible thought a day), making the bell above Crazy Shoes tinkle as she opened the door.

　　Her niece Neena worked there. It was an old-fashioned cobblers. Neena fixed heels back on to stilettos.

　　"Alsana, you look like dog shit," Neena called over in Bengali. "What is that horrible coat?""It's none of your business, is what it is," replied Alsana in English. "I came to collect my husband's shoes, not to chitchat with Niece-of-Shame."Neena was used to this, and now that Alsana had moved to Willesden there would only be more of it. It used to come in longer sentences, i.e." You have brought nothing but shame ... or My niece, the shameful.. . but now because Alsana no longer had the time or energy to summon up the necessary shock each time, it had become abridged to Niece-of-Shame, an all-purpose tag that summed up the general feeling.

　　"See these soles?" said Neena, moving one of her dyed blonde bangs from her eye, taking Samad's shoes off a shelf and handing Alsana the little blue ticket. "They were so worn through, Auntie Alsi, I had to reconstruct them from the very base. From the base! What does he do in them? Run marathons?""He works," replied Alsana tersely. "And prays," she added, for she liked to show people her respectability, and besides she was really very traditional, very religious, lacking nothing except the faith. "And don't call me Auntie. I am two years older than you." Alsana swept the shoes into a plastic carrier bag and turned to leave.

　　"I thought that praying was done on people's knees said Neena, laughing lightly.

　　"Both, both, asleep, waking, walking," snapped Alsana, as she passed under the tinkly bell once more. "We are never out of sight of the Creator.""How's the new house, then?" Neena called after her.

　　But she had gone; Neena shook her head and sighed as she watched her young aunt disappear down the road like a little brown bullet. Alsana. She was young and old at the same time, Neena reflected. She acted so sensible, so straight-down the-line in her long sensible coat, but you got the feeling .. .

　　"Oil Miss! There's shoes back here that need your attention," came a voice from the store room.

　　"Keep your tits on," said Neena.

　　At the corner of the road Alsana popped behind the post office and removed her pinchy sandals in favour of Samad's shoes. (It was an oddity about Alsana. She was small but her feet were enormous. You felt instinctively when looking at her that she had yet more growing to do.) In seconds she whipped her hair into an efficient bun, and wrapped her coat tighter around her to keep out the wind. Then she set off up past the library and up a long green road she had never walked along before. "Survival is all, little Iqbal," she said to her bump once more. "Survival."Halfway up the road, she crossed the street, intending to turn left and circle round back to the high road. But then, as she approached a large white van open at the back and looked enviously at the furniture that was piled up in it, she recognized the black lady who was leaning over a garden fence, looking dreamily into the air towards the library (half dressed, though! A lurid purple vest, underwear almost), as if her future lay in that direction. Before she could cross over once more to avoid her, Alsana found herself spotted.

　　"Mrs. Iqbal!" said Clara, waving her over.

　　"Mrs. Jones."Both women were momentarily embarrassed at what they were wearing, but, looking at the other, gained confidence.

　　"Now, isn't that strange, Archie?" said Clara, filling in all her consonants. She was already some way to losing her accent and she liked to work on it at every opportunity.

　　"What? What?" said Archie, who was in the hallway, becoming exasperated with a bookcase.

　　"It's just that we were just talking about you you're coming to dinner tonight, yes?"Black people are often friendly, thought Alsana, smiling at Clara, and adding this fact subconsciously to the short 'pro' side of the pro and con list she had on the black girl. From every minority she disliked, Alsana liked to single out one specimen for spiritual forgiveness. From Whitechapel, there had been many such redeemed characters. Mr. Van, the Chinese chiropodist, Mr. Segal, a Jewish carpenter, Rosie, a Dominican woman who continuously popped round, much to Alsana's grievance and delight, in an attempt to convert her into a Seventh-Day Adventist all these lucky individuals were given Alsana's golden reprieve and magically extrapolated from their skins like Indian tigers.

　　"Yes, Samad mentioned it," said Alsana, though Samad had not.

　　Clara beamed. "Good .. . good!"There was a pause. Neither could think of what to say. They both looked downwards.

　　"Those shoes look truly comfortable," said Clara.

　　"Yes. Yes. I do a lot of walking, you see. And with this' She patted her stomach.

　　"You're pregnant?" said Clara surprised. "Pickney, you so small me ky ant even see it."Clara blushed the moment after she had spoken; she always dropped into the vernacular when she was excited or pleased about something. Alsana just smiled pleasantly, unsure what she had said.

　　"I wouldn't have known," said Clara, more subdued.

　　"Dear me," said Alsana with a forced hilarity. "Don't our husbands tell each other anything?"But as soon as she had said it, the weight of the other possibility rested on the brains of the two girl-wives. That their husbands told each other everything. That it was they themselves who were kept in the dark.