A Beginner's Guide to Acting English Page 10

  Betty wrapped up some biccies in kitchen paper to take upstairs to Maman.

  I held my palm up to Maman. 'Do "round and round the garden",' I pleaded.

  'You want to go in the garden? Then go.'

  'Noooo! You've got to do it on my hand! And do the teddy bear!'

  Maman had no idea what I was talking about and continued cooking. She sprinkled sugar on the barberries softening in the pan. I sighed and gave up. Maman just didn't know about these things. I wandered off to do 'tickly under there' with my dolls. Maman didn't know anything.

  Five stops up from Ealing Broadway Station, on the central line, was Notting Hill Gate. It was near where we used to live in Kensington.

  Portobello Road market was in Notting Hill Gate. It was a market but Baba called it a 'bazaar'. We made our first trip there by Underground soon after we moved to Ealing. Baba loved the bazaar. Things like that reminded him of Iran and he got as excited as us kids and walked around touching everything and talking to everyone.

  'Do you give discount for Iranians?' Baba asked the man in the ticket office at the Tube.

  'No, sir, you'll have to pay the full price,' the man said.

  'Baba!' Peyvand was embarrassed, 'you can't make jokes if you are foreign, they think you're being serious.'

  'I was being serious, we have come all this way!'

  We went around all the stores and Baba haggled with the owners over bric-a-brac. The stalls sold everything. There were coins, stamps, really old ones that Maman said people collected. Maman told me not to touch the fur coats packed on one rack. The lady who sold the coats was quite young and her hair was past her bum and she had a ring through her nose. She smiled at me as Maman pulled my hand away from the fur. 'It's dead animals, you know,' Maman told me.

  I looked at her in disbelief. 'The coats are a dead animal?'

  'Yes, they kill the animal and make coats out of them. Don't touch them, they're disgusting.'

  I looked at the lady with the nose ring in horror. She had smiled at me so nicely but she killed animals!

  'What animals are they?'

  Maman was looking at jewellery now. How quickly she shrugged off this killing. She was too absorbed to answer me. I tugged at her arm. 'What animals, Maman? Cats?' Please don't let it be cats, please.

  'No, not cats. Probably foxes,' Maman replied.

  Foxes! The lady with the nose ring murdered foxes and made them into coats. I wanted to tell everyone in the market to be careful of the woman. Maman took my hand and led me towards Baba and Peyvand. We passed the fox-woman again. I caught her eye. There was the smile again. I scowled back at her and struck my tongue out. I did it fast so Maman didn't see.

  I looked at the stalls and knew I wasn't to ask for everything I saw.

  'The fun is just in looking,' Baba said.

  I hardly ever wanted anything on the stalls anyway, it was mostly grown-ups' stuff, but I looked forward to the ice cream Baba got us when we were there.

  Passing one stall, something made me stop. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and I had to have it. It was a little matchbox. I wasn't allowed to play with matches, not after the fire, but this matchbox didn't have matches in it. When you opened the drawer, it had a miniature doll inside it. It was the most beautiful, exquisite thing I had ever seen. The doll's tiny face had been painted with rosy cheeks and full, smiling lips. She had dark hair and big dark, shining eyes. She lay in her matchbox in a perfect red dress and I desperately wanted to put her in my pocket and take her home.

  Baba talked to the stall owner. He had a shaved head and an earring in his left earlobe. But that wasn't what made him look scary. What made me frightened of him were all the tattoos up his arm of knives and blood. He had writing inked on his fingers too but I couldn't read what it said. Maman said people with tattoos were crazy. The stall owner might have been crazy, but it didn't really show. He just didn't smile and kept his cigarette in his mouth as he talked to Baba. I could see his breath in the cold air. Baba was smiling at the scowling man. It hurt my heart when people didn't smile back at Baba. English people didn't realise he was 'Baba'. They didn't like him and make a fuss of him the way Iroonis did. If the stall owner had been Irani, he would have tried to give Baba the matchbox girl for free. 'It's nothing, it's nothing,' he would have said, 'it's not even worthy of you.' Then Baba would have said his bit in the tarofing. 'I beg to differ, please, I insist' and try to give the stall owner money. The Irooni stallholder would not take it and would try and shove it back into Baba's hand. Baba then would have to press harder for the man to accept his money and they would have tarofed for ages and somehow, in a blur a price would be agreed and money exchanged and the matchbox doll would come home with us.

  Baba and the English stallholder agreed a price. The doll would soon be mine. Baba handed over his money. The stall owner looked really angry with Baba. I couldn't think why. I just wanted my matchstick doll, then I wanted to get away from this stall. The uneasy feeling in my belly had to do with the way the stall owner was treating Baba. I could tell he thought Baba was a 'bloody foreigner'. I wanted to tell the stall owner that I knew 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' and all the other songs by heart, I wanted to tell him that Maman had learned to make mashed potato and we had it at home now. I didn't want to tell him we had them with Persian rice. But the stall owner was too frightening for me to tell him anything.

  He shoved the change in Baba's hand and straight away started serving another customer. Baba looked at the money in his hand. 'Excuse me!' Baba called. Excyoos mee. The man on the stall ignored him. 'Hey! Gentleman! Excuse me!'

  A few people in the busy market turned around to look at Baba. The stall owner still ignored him. He was chatting to an old lady on the next stall with a red face, thin grey hair and a cigarette screwed into her thin, heavily lined lips. 'Gentleman! This change not correct! I give you five pounds, you just give three pounds' change!'

  Baba's eyes popped out of his head slightly. The stallholder clearly had never seen Baba angry before, otherwise he'd have just given him the right change and saved himself a lot of bother. Baba was only small, all the other dads were much bigger than him, and he had unruly curly hair and a goatee but he still looked fierce when he was angry. When he was angry he seemed ten foot tall.

  The man on the stall turned round at last and growled at Baba in a thick cockney accent which didn't sound anywhere near as nice as Mr Canning's and said, 'Are you Irish?'

  He was calling Baba stupid. When English people wanted to call something stupid, they called it Irish. In his heavy Middle Eastern accent Baba replied, 'Do I look Irish?'

  'You paid your money,' the stall owner snarled. 'I gave you your change, now push off back to where you came from.'

  The man turn away to the red-faced fat woman next to him and sneered, 'Fucking Pakis.'

  Baba did not 'push off'. Baba never 'pushed off'.

  A small crowd of people gathered to watch as Baba shouted, 'This man cheat me! He is liar! Call the police!'

  The red-faced lady and the stall owner waved their arms, yelling back at Baba, 'Gerrahrrovit!'

  People not only looked round but actually came right up to watch.

  'You cheat me!' Baba was shouting. His big eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head. The man on the stall and the old lady swore at Baba. They said a really bad word that Maman said only punks used.

  I said, 'Baba, let's just give the doll back, I don't want it any more.'

  I felt sick. I always felt sick when Baba shouted, even when he wasn't shouting at me.

  In the midst of Baba's arm flapping and the swearing from the stall owners, two policemen appeared. The lady in the fox fur coat was alongside them, pointing to the stallholders and saying, 'They short-changed him, I saw the whole thing.' The stall owner ranted and raved his side of the story. Baba kept calm and when it was his turn explained his side. It wasn't very fair on Baba because he had to explain everything in English and his accent was very strong. I a
sked one of the tall policemen if I could just give the doll back and then it would all be over. He bent down and patted me on the arm. 'Don't worry, poppet, we'll sort this out.'

  I was a poppet, whatever the horrid stallholder thought of us. Buoyed by the policeman's warmth, I told him that the stallholder and the red-faced woman had sworn. I thought they ought to know.

  The red-faced woman started talking loudly to the policeman. 'They're all the same, dirty liars,' I heard her say.

  I couldn't tell if the policemen thought Baba was a 'bloody foreigner' or not. They seemed very nice. I think they could tell none of this was his fault. Even so, I don't think they would have been able to do anything if another lady, one of the ones who'd stood around to watch, hadn't stepped in and declared herself 'a witness'. Apparently, everyone listens to the witnesses and they decide who is right. The witness said she heard Baba and the stall owner agree on a price and the stall owner go back on it.

  The policeman made sure Baba got the right change but still the red-faced woman and the stall owner were shouting and cursing, right in front of the policemen. They used words that made Maman take my and Peyvand's hands and lead us away from the stall. Some old ladies who had been watching started saying what lovely thick hair Peyvand and I had. One woman actually touched my hair. Another time this might have made me go crazy and want her to get off, but she was an English lady and if she was touching my hair it meant she definitely didn't think I was dirty. Baba took us all home after that. He said, 'Never let anyone cheat you ever. Not even for a penny!'

  I dropped the matchstick doll in the toy box and left her there. I didn't even give her a name.

  'Why did the man think you were Irish?' Peyvand asked Baba.

  'Because he is a donkey. The world is full of donkeys, pesaram, donkeys don't think, they just kick.'

  A NEW GUEST AT THE PARTY

  Peyvand and I shared a room at 11 Marcourt Lawns, which was fine because I had never slept in a room by myself and was too scared that a ghost might come out of the walls. Peyvand slept on the top bunk.

  Our flat had a long hallway which ran past our bedroom and the guests came in for parties and said their 'salaam's and Maman and Baba told them that all the gifts were too much and then the guests all said, no no, they are not even worthy of you and Maman said that on the contrary, she was not worthy of them.

  Goodbyes took even longer. When a guest decided to leave, everyone stood in the hall to say goodbye and then whole new conversations started.

  Maman and Baba weren't the only ones who dragged their children to late-night dinner parties; all Iranians did. Other children would find their way into my and Peyvand's room and we played great games like Cowboys and Indians, which Maziar taught us, and if the parents said to get ready because they were going, we knew we still had loads of playing time left because it took a million years to say goodbye at the door.

  Very soon I became aware that each week, there was a new guest at the parties. Everyone was talking about the Shah and every time the talking turned loud and passionate and sometimes led to proper shouting again. No one could talk about him without waving their arms around in the air.

  'Listen to me, my good man, the Shah is on his way out! He is destroying our country! He is a slave to America. A puppet of the English, that's all he is. Finito!'

  'The Shah is destroying Iran? The Shah dragged Iran into the modern world, he has brought glory back to Iran!'

  'He has brought glory to the rich, the rich are the people the Shah cares about, that is all!'

  And on and on and on. Some people wouldn't come to certain parties because so-and-so was going to be there and so-and-so was a traitor or such-and-such was a Shahi. It was hard to keep track of who was who, who talked nonsense and who had lost their mind. Everyone talked about what was going on in Iran.

  We were definitely not Shahi.

  Peyvand was in bed resting. He'd had an egg sandwich and then, all of a sudden, right in front of my eyes his face turned into a big, misshapen balloon and he couldn't breathe properly. Things like that always happened to Peyvand, never to me. He always got all the attention. I wasn't allergic to anything. For a change, I'd like to have been the one rushed to the doctors or better still, to the hospital. Peyvand was allergic to eggs and frequently cracked his head open. Ever since falling off the stool with the Coke bottle, I had had nothing. Even his eczema was worse than mine.

  It was a Saturday afternoon. Baba was home and drove Peyvand to the hospital. All the doctors and nurses fussed over him and gave him injections then told him to go home and not to eat eggs any more. Maman put Peyvand to bed and stroked his hair until he fell asleep, then she went off into the kitchen.

  With the panic of Peyvand's balloon face over, the flat was calmer than usual. Maman and Baba's relief was soothing. Maman went off into the kitchen and Baba sat at the dining-room table.

  I was being very very quiet as I tiptoed to the dining-room table and sat across from Baba. With his cigarette in one hand, he filled his fountain pen from the big jar of blue ink. He squeezed the sides of the pen, put it in the jar and then slowly let go, drawing up the liquid. I knew how it worked, I did the same with my milkshake at McDonald's in High Street Kensington. We still went there a lot because the Iranian National Bank was there and so was Apadana and a lot of Baba's friends, and whenever we passed McDonald's Peyvand and I would beg and plead until Maman and Baba took us there. The air in there was always bright and fresh and it smelled delicious. Nothing was ever more tempting to us than the smell of McDonald's. I always had the same thing: hamburger, chips, Coke. Peyvand always had a Big Mac because he ate more than me and liked the cheese. We both hated the gherkin and always took it out, even though Baba said it was a waste.

  Baba let me take the jar and smell the ink after he'd finished so I could smell the 'J'.

  Baba drew deeply on his cigarette and exhaled as he put pen to paper. He wrote in Farsi, from right to left. I listened for the little crackle in the cigarette paper as Baba took another drag. He put his cigarette hand to his temple and rested it there as he exhaled again, this time up into the air. His legs were crossed at the ankle under the table and he gently jiggled his right knee up and down. This what Baba did while he was thinking.

  'Are you thinking, Baba?' I asked him, quietly.

  'Yes, aziz.'

  I let a few seconds go by so he could think some more. I held my breath in for a few seconds each time before I exhaled. It was so quiet, I thought breathing less would make it seem I wasn't really there.

  'What are you thinking about?'

  'My poem.'

  'Is it about the Shah?'

  'Sort of.'

  'Does it rhyme?'

  'Yes.'

  'Is it funny?'

  'I hope so.'

  'Can you read it to me so far?'

  Baba gave out a little laugh; after all he had allowed this interruption, this break in his concentration, so now he said, 'Okay, then', and I moved on to his lap and he picked up his papers and read me his poem. It was a lovely poem. I didn't understand any of it. I did understand the rhythm and the rhyme and Baba's rich, warm, soft voice as he read it and I understood that the time Baba took to read it to me was rare and precious and I loved him for it with my whole heart. This was my other baba, the very still, very quiet baba who, in the dead of the night, would put his pen down and talk to me about whatever I wanted.

  The first summer at Marcourt Lawns, Peyvand and I spent our days almost entirely in Hanger Hill park. Our flats backed on to the pretty park on the hill with a playground and a putting green and a small bandstand. It was nowhere near as big as Hyde Park, but it was right next door to our house so we were allowed to go into it by ourselves. All we had to do was climb over the rose-garden wall.

  'Oi! Dontchoo climb over that wall, walk to the park like everyone else!' Mr Canning appeared from nowhere, even when we had checked ten times that he wasn't around.

  Betty said he had eyes at the back of
his head. She must have been right because we'd be nowhere in sight but the second we went to jump over the wall we'd hear his 'Oi!' and he would appear, usually with a broom in his hands. Yuk! I didn't want to see that so I tried not to look at the back of his head. Betty was not Betty Khanoom or Betty Jaan or Mrs Canning, she was the first grown-up we could just call by her first name.

  The wall was higher than me so when I dangled from it, my feet didn't touch the ground. 'Jump! Jump!' Peyvand urged as I clung to the wall. It was too late to scramble back up and I was too scared to let go. Peyvand was whispering urgently, 'Just let go, jump! Someone is going to see you!' Peyvand had been really encouraging at first, grabbing my legs to break my fall, but now he was fed up with me being so scared. I know Peyvand wished I were a boy so I would just do things without needing his help all the time. 'Jump before Mr Canning sees!' I jumped.

  Finally. Pain shot through my black plimsolls and through the soles of my feet. Plimsolls never give much protection when you jumped from things.

  'Looks like that Shah's on his way out, eh, Hadi?' Mr Canning was helping Baba change a tyre on his sky-blue Volkswagen Beetle. 'Bet you're pleased about that.'

  Everybody knew about this revolution because it was on the TV all the time. Our milkman, Terry, who smelled of egg, chatted with me every morning and I sang him songs from my Muppet Show tape. Once he asked me if my mum and dad were for the Shah or the Ayatollah. I said what Baba told me to say whenever people asked me that question: 'Neither.'

  But I knew everyone thought the Shah was the baddie. At one of the parties at our house, Mr Farmani threw a bread roll at Dr Jalali for saying that the Shah should stay. People always ended up shouting when they talked about enghelab, revolution, which was all the time. At the parties, I tried to follow the conversations and catch the moment when the arguments started. I could never do it. The more serious they got, the more words they used that I couldn't understand.

  Things would always begin pleasantly. 'Hello, Reza! How are you!' and 'Simin Jaan! What a wonderful time we had at your place last week! My husband hasn't stopped talking about your cooking!' They would chatter and laugh and talk about the quality of Bam dates, then you'd blink and it would be 'Shah' this and 'Shah' that and 'so-and-so is a traitor' and such-and-such 'is a spy'. Before you knew it arms would be flailing, fingers pointing and the occasional bread roll would be thrown.