Story: Foxtrot in Fulham
Prem positioned his Lambretta Innocenti so that the foot plate was exactly parallel to the curb and kicked the stand into place. He checked his shoe to see if that had left any mark on the polished leather, but no, so he took off his helmet and stood for a moment coming to terms with the quiet caress of the air on his body after the pummelling he’d had on the dual carriageway.
The helmet presented him with something of a quandary. Should he take it in with him or not? He could carry it with the strap over his arm like a handbag, but he felt that that would make him look effeminate, and then there would be the whole palaver of where he was to place it once he was in there. As North London streets went, this was one of the more sedate. So, he decided to take the risk and hung it carefully over the handlebar.
The house was detached and pebble-dashed, with a five-paned bay above and another one below. It sat at the bottom of a slight gradient, which made it look squat. There was a porch with an arch edged with bricks. The bricks had a curved edge and a glazed surface. On a different occasion, he would certainly have stroked them. The porch enclosed a solid timber door with an oval window, a bit like a porthole. The porthole was underlined by a wavy wooden lip, and the window comprised thirty-five pieces of coloured glass organised into the shape of an amaryllis flower. There were two lozenge-shaped pieces on opposite sides of the symmetrical design that didn’t quite match in colour. If he’d been the homeowner, Prem would have found that intolerable.
A laburnum tree was in flower in the garden, drooping long, vibrant racemes that obscured part of the bottom bay. There was a stone bird bath, with an absence of birds and an absence of water, and nothing much else besides. The low wooden gate bore a plate with the name ‘Lepanto Lodge’ on it.
Prem took a deep breath, smoothed down his already flattened hair, adjusted his silk scarf and checked his Omega watch. He was in good time. He opened the gate. He knew he was expected, but he didn’t know exactly what Vivienne had said.
*
He’d flown Bombay to London by an Air India Boeing 707, landing at London Airport on 1st April 1962. He arrived six weeks after his cousin, Ashok, and six months and six days after his friend Sanjay. ‘April fool!’ said Ashok when he met him at the airport.
Of all the things that could have caught his attention on arrival in his new country, the one that had mesmerised him was the state of the streets. The earth between the interminable rows of houses was tamped down with tarmac and sealed along the edges with paving stones. The Mother Country’s filthy underwear was firmly under wraps. You could walk along the pavements without risk of breaking a leg, the traffic stayed on the allocated side of the road and behaved itself, and there were signs telling you what to do and lights telling you when to do it. There were no bullock carts, and no dogs with mange and the only animal that left ordure in the streets was the milkman’s horse. He liked it. He felt he could certainly get along here.
The fortnight’s-worth of hideous nights he spent on a damp settee in a cousin’s friend’s basement were discouraging, but then he managed to secure a small room in a house on the northern periphery of a northern suburb. It was a share of a room to be precise, though it became clear that both occupants paid full-size rent. The two men only crossed paths at week-ends. The other man worked nights in a sausage factory in Southall and slept during the day while Prem was out looking for work. The worst thing about the arrangement was the smell the roommate brought home on his clothes. It was something Prem couldn’t describe, a many layered distillations of tallow, flesh and sinew. All he knew was that it made him want to wretch whenever he experienced it.
One Saturday morning, the other fellow lay semi-naked and sweating on the opposite bed. His clothes rested in an untidy heap on the floor where he’d shed them the night before. Prem sat on the edge of his mattress with his nose screwed up. When he saw the man stir, he stuck the toe of his rubber chappal into them.
‘Can’t you clear these up?’
‘Fuck off! Where the hell else am I going to put them?’
‘They smell. You need to wash them.’
‘‘They smell!’’ the other guy mimicked. ‘Of course, they bloody smell. You’d bloody smell if you’d spent the night stripping carcasses and mopping up brains.’ He reached for a crushed packet of cigarettes at his bedside and swung his feet to the floor. He rummaged around for a bit in the jungle of hair on his chest, then lit up, took a hefty drag on his cigarette and coughed. Prem screwed his nose up even further.
‘You think I want to do a shit job like this? I’m Hindu. I never eat meat. But working nights in that place is the only way you’re going to make decent money round here, and I need to get money home quick.’ He looked at Prem appraisingly. ‘So, what’s your game?’
‘No game, as of now,’ said Prem.
‘That’s right,’ said his roommate. ‘Give it a week and let’s see what you have to say about your own washing, never mind mine,’ and he stalked off to the toilet with the fag on his lower lip and a towel over his shoulder, a ripe non-vegetarian fart rippling out from between his buttocks as he went.
*
There was the inevitable trip to the Labour Exchange. The clerk was walled up behind his desk and a pair of thick spectacles. Prem could barely hear him through the partition, and they got off to a bad start.
‘Education?’
‘Pardon?’
‘I said what’s the highest level of qualification you’ve got?’
‘Pass degree in Engineering, Punjab State…’
The official looked at him for a long moment, and then applied his pen to the form in front of him. Prem watched and read the words upside down as he wrote, ‘unskilled labourer’.
He returned for three weeks in a row. He was getting desperate. He was living on handouts from Ashok and Sanjay. Ashok had got a job on the Underground and had been rapidly promoted to train driver. In between shifts, he spent his time looking for opportunities in the music business. Sanjay, meanwhile, was working in a clothing factory in Fitzrovia, trundling racks of garments between the factory floor and the warehouse and flirting with the machinists all day long. Neither of them could understand why he was having such a struggle. But every time he went to the Labour Exchange, it was the same story. The man he’d met on his first visit or a woman with a tight perm and drawn-on eyebrows fingered their way through cards in the long box in front of them and then, with false regret, mouthed the words, ‘Nothing doing.’.
At last, on his fourth visit, the woman adjusted the cardigan hanging about her shoulders and asked, ‘Interested in military service?’ He wasn’t, but before he could clarify this, she’d picked up the phone and made him an appointment.
*
The opening was over in the uncharted Badlands out beyond Greenwich. Getting across town on public transport was a complicated business, so Prem set out well in advance of the appointment to be sure of completing manoeuvres on time. He wore his only suit, which he’d had made in India before he left.
He was propelled into a dark room with wood-panelled walls. The chap behind the desk was stiff in his khaki, with a smear of greying hair above each ear and a full and lovingly groomed moustache. A thin row of colours ran along the upper edge of his breast pocket. Behind him on the walls were framed photographs of soldiers in serried ranks. At either shoulder, a couple of military ensigns dropped, limp, from polished sconces.
The man introduced himself. Prem was in such a state of panic that the name and rank immediately passed him by.
‘Take a seat.’
Prem sat, the toes of his shoes together, his hands clutched nervously in his lap. The man eyed the paperwork in front of him.
‘The Poonjab, eh?’
‘Yes sir, Punjaab.’
‘Spent some time there myself. In the old days. Up near Lahore. Old city. Liked the place. So, what brings you here?’
‘Better opportunities, sir.’
‘Better opportunities? And what does your family think to that?’
‘They’re keen, sir. Want me to do well.’
‘Do they, now?’
It was a lie. Unlike Sanjay who’d had huge rows with his father about duty, nation-building and Independence when he’d told him he wanted to leave, and Ashok, who had a very clingy mother who went into catatonic decline at the thought of losing her only son, Prem had met with little opposition and no encouragement. His father had been away philandering on the far side of town. His mother had got word about this latest affair and was busy trying to catch him out. Her fury was so profound that she’d had little time for Prem’s concerns. As for Prem, he’d had no real aspirations as regards the UK. He only knew he didn’t want to be left behind in his home town, bereft of friends and trying to play cricket in a team of one. Eventually, after quiet but persistent nagging, one of his mother’s brothers dropped money into his paw for the journey. And that was that.
‘You know what you’re letting yourself in for here then?’ the officer continued.
‘Not exactly, sir. I got the impression it was something to do with the officers’ mess.’
‘It’s chief cook and bottle washer, minus the chief cook.’
Prem looked at him, perplexed.
‘We need someone to work in the kitchen, scraping the slops off the plates, washing the pots and pans for the forty men who dine here. Do you think you could do that?’
Prem looked down at his hands. Kitchen skivvy! That was not what he’d had in mind. He didn’t often allow himself to reflect on what his parents might think of him, but if ever they got wind of the fact that he was employed as the lowest of servants, a shudra in fact…’ He stayed silent.
The officer studied him for some time. ‘Look,’ he said at last, ‘I can’t make out why they’ve sent you here. You seem like a nicely brought up, well-educated young man, but it says here you’re an unskilled labourer. What unskilled labouring have you ever done?’
‘I haven’t, sir,’ said Prem. ‘I have a degree in mechanical engineering. I was hoping for an opening related to that, but there don’t appear to be any.’
The man stroked his moustache ruminatively: ‘Unfortunately, you’d have to be an enlisted man to get that kind of work with us.’ He reflected a while longer, his quick, grey eyes assessing Prem as he sat deflatedly in his chair.
‘I tell you what. I think we might be a bit short-handed in the dining hall. How would you feel if we could fit you in as a messman? It’s not what you were hoping for, but it’s not as filthy as the kitchen.’
There was that. And if ever he sent word home, he could say he was with the Army. So Prem agreed. And that was how he got his job with the British Armed Forces.
Which lasted exactly three months and five days. He was genuinely surprised when he was summoned at the start of his shift by the mess steward. He’d taken pride in polishing the glasses until they were absolutely blemish-free and had enjoyed learning how to set out the many items of cutlery, from teaspoons to steak knives, in the correct configuration. He was absolutely finickity about using the wooden rule to ensure that each item in each place setting was precisely aligned. He knew that others were far less fastidious than himself and deplored their lower standards. He’d enjoyed the ethos of the place too. On nights when there were special events and the ladies attended and there was dancing in the adjoining hall, he had felt that, even if only by association, he was part of something special. The only thing he had hated was the travelling: the convoluted walk to the railway station in the mist-filled early hours of the morning, and returning late through the narrow avenues of suburbia where the meagre street lights always prickled with haze.
‘Look, Sagar,’ the M. S. said. ‘No point beating about the bush. We’ve done our best with you, and we think you’ve done your best. In fact, that’s the problem. I don’t know what it is with you. You’re just far too slow. You take an age to set up; it drives your colleagues to distraction. And you’re not much better when it comes to service. This is a quick-fire establishment. Meant to be slick. The men want to get in here, order their food and receive it without hesitation. They haven’t got time to be waiting around for you, faddling about over some detail somewhere in the wings. I can’t fault you on punctuality and politeness, but I’m afraid that’s not enough. Sorry, but there’s your pay packet…’ He pushed a square, buff envelope with some tight handwriting on it into Prem’s hand. ‘…and we’ll call it a day.’
*
One Friday evening when Prem had nothing to do, and very little money to do it with, Sanjay turned up on his newly acquired Vespa Piaggio. ‘What the hell is this, bhai, still in your shorts at this time of day? Smarten yourself up. We’re going into town! Quick! Ashok’s waiting for us.’
‘Where’re we going?’
‘Wait and see.’
It turned out it was a dance hall in Kilburn. Sanjay and Ashok had been frequenting it for some weeks. ‘We didn’t ask you before because we thought you wouldn’t fancy it. And to be honest, knowing you, we thought you would cramp our style. But every man needs a woman, including you, and this is the place to find them. If you click with one on Friday, you can take her to a film on Saturday. Then, you never know, you might get your hand in.’ ‘Women!’ thought Prem. ‘Who cares?’ They were nowhere near the top of his agenda. But, nevertheless, he got himself ready.
*
The queue for tickets was bad enough, with people stamping on your feet and knocking their elbows in your face, but the press once you got inside was of a different order altogether. The hall was vast and crammed with people. Not a person over thirty years of age to be seen. The place roared with the energy of firing pheromones. Hordes of couples, most of them in close embrace, bobbed and shuffled their way around the dance floor, in time to a musical hit belted out by a ten-piece band seated on an elevated stage at the far end of the hall.
A gallery ran around the other three sides of the hall, and many more young people had congregated beneath this, men to one side, women to the other, some seated at tables, others standing in tight knots with their pals. Everyone hell-bent on making the most of their night out, the twang of guitars and the high-octane blare of brass barely able to ride out their seething continuo.
Ashok pushed off through the throng in search of drinks while Sanjay wangled them a table. He could barely speak for excitement.
‘Look at it,’ he said. ‘All these women. You can touch them. You can smell them. You can hold them. And they don’t even mind! Isn’t this what we came here for? Total freedom. No restrictions.’
Prem shrugged. No, he hadn’t been thinking along those lines.
‘You see a girl you like the look of, you just go over and ask her if she’d like to dance. As simple as that! She may say yes; she may say no. Just keep trying. One of them will say yes.’
‘I can’t dance,’ said Prem.
‘Don’t be pathetic. Shuffle about a bit in time to the music, is all. You’ll soon get the hang of it.’
Ashok reappeared with a tray of soft drinks. He gave Prem a Vimto. ‘Looks a bit like stout,’ he said, but it had a straw in it.
Ashok and Sanjay rolled their eyes over the rims of their glasses as they surveyed the scene. Every now and then they would nod in the direction of a woman on the far side of the hall, or raise an eyebrow, and then confer. Sanjay was the first to say, ‘Right, I’m off to try my luck,’ and leave the table. Within a couple of minutes, he was chaperoning a girl towards the dance floor, his hand in the small of her back. The girl was striking in a white sleeveless dress with a dipping neckline front and back. Her dark hair was piled high on her head with a sparkling bow that sat at the front, in a way that reminded Prem of a pet dog.
According to Ashok’s account of things, he had eventually escaped from his mother’s clutches by telling her that he was queer and was involved with the son of a shoemaker. This was abhorrent on so many levels, that his air fare had been forthcoming pretty well tout de suite. Prem had never really known what truth there was to that story, but now he watched Ashok push away his glass, get to his feet and make off for a table behind them. He bent forward and whispered something in the ear of one of the young men sitting there. Then someone moved between them and obscured the view.
Left to his own devices, Prem decided to have a wander about. He found the stairs up to the gallery. There, there were more tables and chairs, and more couples, gazing intimately at each other. There was also a bar. He bought himself a lemonade and went to look over the rail. He watched the unseemly and counterproductive crush on the dance floor. In the middle of the mêlée he made out Sanjay twirling the girl in the white frock about. Things seemed to be going well for him.
The people Prem most admired were the musicians, sitting aloft under their spangled canopy. There with a purpose. There with a skill. Doing something they knew how to do. Competent, capable, accomplished. He suddenly knew that this was the kind of human being he wanted to be. Most of the dancers he observed were inept. They had some basic sense of rhythm, but most of them had no more than the vaguest of ideas about any dance form. The women gyrated their hips, the men jerked their shoulders forward and back, but there was no proficiency. Unlike the occasions he’d witnessed at the barracks; times when officers in full uniform and ladies in evening dress had swept round the room performing the Valeta, here, the whole business was shambolic.
He stayed a while longer on the balcony. Although he didn’t approve of the goings-on, something in the experience reminded him of his college days in India, the time when Ashok was developing a career as a singer, welcome for a small fee at all festive gatherings. At graduation he and his instrumentalist friends had entertained the entire body of students gathered on the parade ground with a rendition of Dean Martin’s, ‘Volare’. His light baritone voice had been as smooth and creamy as malai. Prem looked up at the ceiling of the dance hall with its twinkling lights, so far above them all it seemed as unknowable as interstellar space. Somewhat like the summer skies of Punjab just before the arrival of monsoons. For the first time, he felt a twinge of nostalgia.
*
He searched the local paper. There were many options. He selected the Peggy Latham School of Dance. Unfortunately, he couldn’t afford to sign up.
But then, he had a stroke of luck. Through a series of coincidences and words-of-mouth, he fell into a job as a clerk in the lost property office at a London Transport bus depot. On his second day at work, his supervisor had a heart attack in the lavatory and was stretchered off on long-term sick leave. By default, Prem took his place. He told his managers he didn’t need an assistant if they could just give him a few bob extra in his pay packet, which they did. The job suited him perfectly. He kept an extensive log – items in, items out – and filled out the columns meticulously in his best cursive hand. He could answer definitively any query submitted by a member of the public about any missing item. After six weeks, unclaimed items were auctioned off among depot staff, as a result of which, he managed to land himself a silk scarf and an Omega watch with a crocodile strap.
Now he was able to take dance classes regularly. After three weeks, he had the basic format of the waltz and the foxtrot under his belt, and soon he was learning about rise and fall, rock and sway, body positioning and how to lead with his shoulder. At home in the evenings he practised heel-toe manoeuvres, skimming the balls of his feet across the disintegrating lino. Ballroom dancing, it seemed, had a beautiful logic all its own. The steps of man and woman combined in a synchronous geometry that he found extremely satisfying.
One evening Mrs. Peggy Latham introduced a new student to the group. This was Vivienne. Prem didn’t pay her much attention. He was used now to having different practice partners every week and took it in his stride. The matter under consideration was the slow foxtrot. They practised the men’s and women’s steps separately, and then the two of them, being roughly the same height, were paired to attempt the whole figure. Mrs. Peggy Latham turned her back briefly to drop Nat King Cole on to the turntable.
The disc emitted a preliminary crackle. Vivienne placed her hand on Prem’s shoulder and he placed his beneath the cusp of her shoulder-blade. The bass began its emphatic thump and the piano spelled out the melody. Prem drew Vivienne a little closer. The strings swung up from some velvety nether region and the King began to croon: ‘But first of all please, let there be love’. Prem felt as though he were having his brain massaged from the inside. From exactly that moment it was clear to him that he had entered a different realm of being. As he and Vivienne made bodily contact, a delicious thrill ran through him, alternating like electric current between a profound respect for the constraints of the discipline and an equally profound recognition of his own sexuality.
As the pair wheeled their way round the floor, her head turned to one side in the recommended manner as though she were avoiding his breath, he grew in confidence. He discovered that he was able to guide his new partner with an ease he’d not found possible with others.
‘Very good,’ said Mrs. Peggy Latham. ‘Let’s try it again.’
On their third attempt, Prem executed the feather step with great assurance, and found that Vivienne was quick to respond. Her body surrendered to his so intuitively, that he had to remind himself that this was a legitimate part of the technique. The music drew to a close. But just before they separated, he lowered his hand until it was in contact with the hard flanges of her ribs. As he did so, he felt that he had finally achieved a homecoming.
Afterwards, he invited her to a nearby milk bar and to his utter surprise, she agreed. He chaperoned her in past the ice cream counter, placing his hand in the small of her back, the way he had seen Sanjay do it.
She ordered a strawberry shake and he chose banana. As he placed the two glasses on the table in front of them in the booth, Vivienne eyed him up and down as though she were measuring the space for a piece of furniture and observed, ‘You pulled that feather manoeuvre off really well. How come?’
‘I practise a lot at home. You?’
‘I was taught ballroom dancing at school, but it was a girls’ school, so I never had a proper male partner.’
It was his turn to study her, and he did it the same way that he studied everything else – forensically. Her spectacles with the fly-away wingtips did not become her. Her eyes looked pale and watery behind the lenses and her complexion was rather pasty. Her hair was probably her best asset – it was a striking red-blonde shade that he’d never seen before – but she wore it up in a complicated assortment of coils and rolls that was, frankly, a mess. Still, Prem thought, he was no Sunil Dutt himself so what did it matter? He sucked steadily on his shake. ‘How would you fancy being my regular dance partner?’ he said.
*
‘Yaar, what?’ said Sanjay, as they were sitting one evening wolfing down mutton tikka in Shahi Nan Kebab on the Ealing Road. ‘Ballroom dancing? Isn’t that what woofters do?’ He looked at Ashok. ‘Sorry, mate.’
‘I am not queer,’ hissed Ashok. ‘Just because I’m a musician and don’t fancy sleeping with every slapper I come across, unlike some people…Anyway, let him be. If that’s what he wants to do, it’s his look out. At least he won’t be under our feet.’
And Prem wasn’t. He and Vivienne spent their time at Mrs. Peggy Latham’s studio, learning and practising, practising and learning, every hour that they could afford, and as soon as they could, they started competing as a couple.
*
Vivienne arrived at the coach station out of breath with her green taffeta dress thrashing about on her arm, and her lacquered cone of hair tilting sideways. Prem was already on the stand with the tickets for Clacton in his hand. The coach had its engine running. ‘This it?’ gasped Vivienne. ‘Yes. On you get. Quick!’ said Prem and he handed her up the steps.
They sank into the first available double seat with the bilious dress nesting in between them. ‘That was close,’ Vivienne said, wiping her brow with a folded handkerchief. ‘Asked to take dictation at the last possible minute. Would you believe it?’
‘You can calm down now,’ Prem soothed. The driver dropped the handbrake to the floor and the coach groaned out into the road. Vivienne reached into her handbag for her powder compact. She examined herself briefly with one eye and then stopped with the puff still on the cake of powder: ‘There’s just one thing, Prem, as we’re going be travelling about like this.’
‘Yes?’
‘This business you do with your hand in my back.’
‘Ah ha.’
‘Don’t. I’m not your property.’
‘I thought it was good manners.’
‘Maybe last century. Not now. Women do have independent suspension, you know.’
‘Oh!’ said Prem. Funny Sanjay didn’t know that.
*
The return journey was an altogether different matter.
‘We did it!’ Vivienne whooped. ‘I can’t believe it!’
‘Basic level only,’ said Prem. ‘No need for excitement.’
‘You stick-in-the-mud! Our first competition and we got a medal!’ and she flung herself across the still buoyant dress and gave him a peck on the cheek. He was disconcerted, but rather pleased.
*
Prem had a mind like a steel trap when it came to picking up figures and lengthy routines, whereas Vivienne added elegance to their partnership. But they decided they needed to invest more time on their Latin programme if they were really going to excel. This took Prem right to the outer edge of his comfort zone. He gradually came to terms with the histrionics of the rumba, but struggled week after week to master the centrifugal and centripetal forces of the cha-cha with its stiff-legged, tilted-hip action that made him feel like some electrified stalking predator. But then Vivienne turned up one evening in a split-seam skirt and he suddenly realised that she had legs as long as a stepladder, which he might fancy ascending. And that was the end of his awkwardness.
But his favourite dance remained the slow foxtrot with its lilting action, its improbable hesitations, its complicated changes in direction and speed. Dance provided him with the architecture through which he could express his desire for this woman without transgressing any social code at all, and the foxtrot was, in his book, the ultimate means of doing so.
Some months later, they invited Sanjay and Ashok to their next competition at the Hammersmith Palais. In the event, only Ashok turned up as Sanjay was busy trying to extricate himself from some complicated affair with a pattern cutter. It turned out to be Prem and Vivienne’s finest hour. Even the cha-cha went well and they polished off the routine with a flamboyant strutting promenade, hand to hand, shoulder to shoulder.
‘Did you hear what the judges said?’ said a jubilant Vivienne as they sat afterwards in the sticky bar of a Stakis hotel, celebrating their win with a bottle of super-sweet champagne. ‘A beautiful quality of movement.’’
‘A lovely shoulder line,’ added Prem, who’d been worried about this during their practice.
‘‘Wonderful feet!’’
‘You can say that all right,’ said Ashok, ‘It was like that thing… horse dressage, but for humans.’ The pair of them glared at him. ‘I mean that as a compliment,’ he stammered. ‘Really, you were stunning.’
‘A marvellous togetherness of flight,’ Vivienne continued.
‘A su-blime-ly executed foxtrot,’ said Prem.
Ashok polished off his drink and got up to leave. ‘Work in the morning,’ he said. ‘Early shift.’
Prem refilled their glasses after he’d gone. ‘Good communication between partners,’ he said. ‘Let’s not forget that.’ He set the cup they’d won to one side and then took a deep breath. ‘Vivienne,’ he said, ‘would you marry me?’
*
Vivienne had been as good as her word. She’d taken a week to think it over, and then she’d said ‘Yes’. So here he was on the porch of the parental home with his finger on the enamel button that said ‘Press’. He knew by now that her father was a bank manager and that her mother was active in the Townswomen’s Guild. He felt that his own family would be able to look favourably on this. He also knew that Vivienne was a secretary with a music publisher’s, a job that was as secure as his own, so he reckoned he could make a good case to her parents. He just had to overcome his natural reserve to do it.
The mother opened the door, offered him a clipped greeting and a tense smile and ushered him into the sitting-room. The shadows of the laburnum tree outside played across the window, spreading an unworldly gloom into every corner. Vivienne was already there, sitting at one end of the settee with her knees held close together. She indicated that he should sit at the other end, and the mother went off into the kitchen to jiggle around with teaspoons and caddies. Prem looked about. There was a bevel-fronted china cabinet full of ladies in crinoline skirts against one wall. And on the opposite one, there was a tall fireplace, lined with dark red ceramic tiles. A set of ornate fire irons stood resolute on the hearth. Prem cast a sideways look at Vivienne: ‘Where’s your father?’ Vivienne pressed her lips together, glared at her kneecaps and shrugged.
‘Have you told them?’
Vivienne started to say something, but her mother returned with a tray of rattling crockery which she set down in front of them. She unloaded a stand of bourbon biscuits and custard creams and began her ministrations with the tea pot. ‘I understand you and Vivienne like dancing…’ Prem nodded. ‘… and that you meet up a couple of times a week…’ She handed him a cup wobbling unsteadily on its saucer. Prem did his best to steer it to the small table at the end of the settee without causing an upset. The tea was weak and had too much milk in it. He tried to stop himself from frowning. He always let tea brew for exactly five minutes ten seconds. If it was mixed tea, then that was a different matter, of course.
‘It’s nice for young people to have friends,’ the mother twittered. Prem was just about to try and respond to this when the father entered the room. Immediately the mood took a darker turn. The father stepped over to the fireplace where he stood with one elbow on the oak mantelshelf, fumbling with finger and thumb of his other hand in the pocket of his hand-knitted waistcoat. Prem got half to his feet, prepared for an exchange of greetings. The father ignored him. Instead, he drew a pipe from his pocket and proceeded to tamp shreds of tobacco down into the bowl. He was a thick-set man, with the build of a pugilist, and his heavy rimmed spectacles gave him a perpetual frown.
‘It’s nice for young people to have a hobby,’ the mother continued.
‘We enjoy the discipline,’ said Prem.
The father clamped his pipe between his teeth but refrained from lighting it. ‘What’s your name, boy?’ he interjected.
Prem liked neither the tone nor the terminology, but he replied, managing to keep his voice level.
‘Well, we understand all about discipline in this household, Mr. So-called Sagar. Don’t we Dorothy? We understand exactly what’s what and who’s who. Do you know what’s what, and who’s who?’
‘Have a biscuit,’ said the mother. Distracted momentarily, Prem took a bourbon and stuck it on the edge of his saucer. The father got his pipe going at last, and took a long draw on it, shaking the match briskly to extinguish the flame.
‘I understand you’ve taken a shine to my daughter,’ he said.
Prem blushed, hearing what had been an emotion he’d nurtured cautiously and very privately expressed in that odd way.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’ve been dance partners for some time. Vivienne’s probably told you. The thing is: we get on pretty well…’
‘And just how well might that be?’
Prem was taken aback by the insinuation, but he carried on anyway: ‘We enjoy each other’s company. We work well together. And a common interest is a good thing, I think. We…’ And then he thought he might as well get things out in the open as social niceties seemed to be in short supply. ‘The things is, we’ve both got steady jobs, and decent ones at that, so our long-term prospects are sound… so we were hoping, with your permission…’
‘I’ve told you dad,’ Vivienne cut in. ‘We’d like to get engaged.’
The father sucked so hard at his pipe so that you could hear the tobacco crackling in the bowl, and then he took it from his mouth and pointed the stem towards the mother. ‘Listen to him, Dorothy. ‘Our long-term prospects are sound.’ Doesn’t it just make you laugh.’ He addressed Prem directly:
‘I don’t know what you darkies are doing, coming over here. You’ve got plenty to be getting on with over in your own country. But you won’t, will you? Haven’t got the wit. Need the white man to show you how. You were all scratching about in the dirt with sticks until we showed up.’
‘Dad!’ cried Vivienne.
‘You’ll never make anything of yourselves. Just bloody parasites, the lot of you!’
‘Dad!’ cried Vivienne again.
‘So, the last thing you’ll be doing is getting your hands on my daughter, whatever you might think.’
Prem pushed his wobbling teacup away from him and thought about getting up. The mother was already bobbing about uncomfortably in the background with her hand on the door handle as though she couldn’t wait to be shot of him.
‘So, there’ll be no more of this dancing hanky-panky.’
‘Dad!’ shouted Vivienne. ‘Does it not matter to you that there’s two of us involved here. I want to marry Prem.’
‘Hold your tongue, Vivienne!’ said the father. ‘You’re in no position to know what’s best for you.’
‘I know exactly what’s best for me. Prem’s the best chance I’ve had so far. He’s the gentlest, most courteous man I’ve ever met. And I like him.’
‘I told you to hold your tongue! And if you don’t, you’re not too old to feel the back of my hand.’
Now Prem did get up and tried to extricate himself from behind the table. ‘I think I’d better go,’ he said.
‘That’s right, sunshine. That’s the idea,’ said the father. ‘You be on your way.’
Vivienne stretched out a restraining hand. ‘Don’t go, Prem! Just don’t! I’m twenty-bloody-three, Dad,’ she yelled at the father. ‘And you’re not being fair. The world is changing. It’s not like it was in your day. And if you won’t let us get engaged now, I’ll marry him anyway.’
Prem looked at Vivienne in amazement. She’d already thought further ahead than he had.
‘I’ll tell you one thing for certain,’ the father roared, the colour now high in his cheeks. ‘You marry this or any other black bastard, and you won’t be setting foot in this house again.’
‘Right then!’ screamed Vivienne, ‘Right!’ and she burst into tears.
‘Erm…,’ said Prem. ‘Erm…,’ and he made his fumbled exit. The mother had every door open for him in a flash. ‘Thank you for the refreshments,’ he said as he stepped out on to the porch. At least the mother had the grace to look sheep faced as she closed the front door behind him. It took Prem a couple of minutes to steady himself, and then he found he had to kick-start the scooter. Eventually, he wobbled off in the direction of Neasden.
*
He lay on the bed with his head under the pillow. He had never felt so wretched. He had thought the encounter might be awkward, but he’d expected a logical argument at the worst, not such outright abuse. He also felt he’d made a pretty poor showing as far as Vivienne was concerned. The fight had gone out of him early on. She’d shown much greater metal than him. What thwarted suitor in his right mind would say, ‘Thank you for the refreshments.’? He cringed with embarrassment at the very thought of it.
Then there was the business of Vivienne announcing that they would get married anyway. He’d never even imagined getting married without parental consent. Try that on in India and see how far you would get. But did she mean it? And would he do it? The earliest he might get to know the answer to the first question would be on Thursday evening, when their next dance class was due to take place. But would Vivienne turn up after his paltry display? Even if she wanted to, would her parents not be holding her under house arrest? And if they were, wouldn’t it be his job to go and rescue her?
These thoughts tormented him throughout the intervening days. He dragged himself to work every morning, but his heart wasn’t in it. Even the mechanics in the garage commented that he looked down in the mouth. In the evening, when he came home, he had dal and chapatti and went straight to bed in his vest.
Thursday came and he hauled himself to the studio with his heart in his boots. He was sitting by the lockers, preparing himself for the fact that he might have to work with another partner and wondering whether he really wanted to go on dancing at all when, suddenly, the street door was flung open and in flounced Vivienne, hefting a cumbersome holdall.
‘So?’ she said. ‘You haven’t changed your mind, have you? ‘Because I’ve burned my boats.’
*
They got married in a registry office. The Indian suit, the silk scarf and a competition dress were brought into play. Ashok was the best man and Sanjay was in attendance. He had brought with him the pattern cutter he’d not been able to get shot of. No members of Vivienne’s family came to witness the occasion. The sun was shining and a light breeze flickered through the plane trees as the small group came out on to the town hall steps. Ashok took some snaps with his Polaroid camera. He urged the bride and groom to stand closer together. ‘Hand to hand, shoulder to shoulder,’ whispered Prem, drawing his partner to him. Afterwards, all those who had turned up crossed the road to Negroni’s ice cream parlour and had knickerbocker glories to celebrate.
*
And now, on April Fools’ Day, 1967, the couple were in the maternity ward at the Queen Anne Memorial Hospital. Prem looked at the small bundle in Vivienne’s arms. The small bundle had a pale complexion, a delicate wisp of red hair on the crown of its head and a spray of freckles across its nose. Prem checked his Omega watch: ‘You know she was born at exactly 10.10 on the 1st April. That has to be auspicious, doesn’t it?’
‘Does it, Prem?’ Said a weary Vivienne. ‘What shall we call her, then?’
Prem thought for a while. ‘How about Foxy?’ he said.
‘You can’t call a baby that.’
‘Why not?’
Vivienne thought it over. ‘Bugger it, then,’ she said. ‘Foxy it is.’
