Short Story: ''Real Men''

"Darren’s expression is one of deep emotion; his love for his country, for the land of his forefathers is deep. He imagines a country peopled only by his white kinsmen; this fatherless man’s only real sense of family comes from the warm, accepting camaraderie of the men he meets in the National Front, with their air of confidence, strength and solidity."
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by Rajeswary Balasubramaniam

(April 20, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Putting on her make-up, Janet was pleased by her appearance. The red lipstick made her look sexy; seductive. As she perfected her lips she recalled the remarks of the young man at the corner shop. His eyes would sparkle as he spoke to her. “Voluptuous!” he’d said, about her lips.

He, and many other men made these comments and she knew well enough about her beauty.

She would have preferred a slightly different shade, but looking through her make up, which although plentiful was consistently the cheaper type, and finding nothing quite right, she thought “Well, I am beautiful anyway”.

“Janet!”

Peter, standing in the doorway, was ready to pick an argument; he would probably say something about the way she looked. Ignoring him for the moment, she continued to study herself in the mirror.

At twenty years old, Janet’s feminine charm was more striking now that it had been at seventeen, more striking than when she took up with Pete and then became the mother of their child Melanie. A slim young woman with a atractive figure, she dressed according to her simple tastes; jeans and a t-shirt usually. Peter adored and was jealous of her. Twenty-one, unqualified, unemployed, the tallish attractive young man often lashed out at her in fury, without reason.

Their flat, on the eighth floor of a tower block on the neglected estate were they both were born and grew up, was poorly furnished. Janet did her best to keep it clean and decent with the limited resource of state benefits. She felt she was too young to be caught in this life; a night of passion and a burst condom had led them both to this struggle. She hadn’t imagined this would happen to her. A never ending round of housework and looking after a lively toddler, no time for going out. Still, they had stuck together, that was something, even though each was unhappy, frustrated, disappointed, hopeless even.

Gazing at her, Peter thought of what his friend Darren had been saying.
“What’s your Janet doing, hanging around that Paki's shop half the day?”

His face habitually scowling and aggressive, Peter’s former school friend was a short tough guy; a wheeler and dealer, a prison recidivist, always coming back to ‘business as usual’.

Peter had avoided Darren’s gaze. He wasn’t an idiot. He saw how she was. Always smiling, just popping in, again…..a jar of baby food, washing powder, whatever, always in and out of that shop with that young guy grinning with his ‘Hello darling’.
It made his blood boil; Darren and he had him to lay off: ‘She’s not your darling, you little shit’; ‘Don’t speak to her like that, you bloody Paki’.

“Janet!”

“You’ve been flirting with that Paki from the shop, haven’t you? I know you have, don’t think I don’t know all about it”.

She often ignores him when he is like this, when his voice is venomous.

She ignores him now; calmly regarding herself in the mirror, after all, as she often says, an answer from her won’t change anything.

Peter waits. Repeating the accusation again, he draws a response from her.
“So you’re jealous? Jealous of that? Jealous of nothing? Are you a real man? A real man wouldn’t even think of it, a real man would be thinking about giving his woman and child a decent life. What do I get from you, big man? A crummy old council flat and no money for our little girl,” She doesn’t need many words.

She is looking at him, still calm as she speaks, looking at him as though he were a piece of dirt.

Peter feels himself losing his temper. That could see him end up in prison like Darren.
Fuming, he leaves the flat behind, escaping to an aimless day by means of the urine soaked lift that, today, is not smeared with excrement.
…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Dr Kathigamer, as a little boy in Sri Lanka, had dreamed of being a pop star or a famous actor in Indian cinema. The medical profession, so well respected, was what his family urged him to take up, and now, middle-aged and married, he was a GP in East London.

Rathiga -his wife is angry with him today

“You’re not a real man at all, are you?”

Before coming to London, the doctor had had a good, profitable position in a private hospital in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, where wealthy people paid him handsomely for his services; he was a ‘God-sent healer’ they said. Often he had attended important functions as one of the honourable guests.

The political situation there had led to him running for his life with his wife and two daughters. Here in London, everything was different. The impossible workload, the diseases of poverty, the clinical depressions, the homelessness, the refugees, the scarcity of resources, the ignorance he found, were a shock at first, now it was depressing; defeating him.

His wife Rathiga did not understand this about his work, indeed, she wanted to live here in the same way as they had done at home, with servants. They should be acquiring properties, accumulating wealth as the rest of her family did. He could never have matched up financially to her family and now she was embarrassed by him; she felt demeaned by their life and she was holding him responsible.
So, she was angry, and she nagged.

Rathiga, a demanding woman expected her husband, who came from a humble background, to prove himself. Dr Kathirgamer’s father was a farmer. On his few acres he cultivated long beans, melons, bitter gold, okra, aubergines and gram sticks. As a young man, the son had gone at dawn with his father to market with the vegetables. His memories of those mornings with their gentle breezes and the smell of the fresh vegetables were still strong. In the evenings after tuition he would water the garden or turn the soil. It was hard physical labour that enabled him to save up the money to go to further education. As one of the poorer students he struggled through university and got to the finals.

At University parties he would sing Beatles songs, and there had been the chance to act in the student productions; a small way of fulfilling his boyhood dreams.

After qualifying, he was considered a good catch and there were many proposals of marriage. His family chose Rathiga for him; she was from a wealthy family and the dowry would be substantial. Kathir did not like to be bartered like this, and he knew he would become a slave to his socially superior wife’s demands. He did very well in Colombo; the private practice brought plenty of money and they had a prosperous lifestyle.

Rathiga had nothing to complain of then, rather she was proud and boastful.
Now, in London, their two lovely daughters were growing into young women, taking classes in Indian Classical dance and playing the Veena.

“Oh God only knows how much we will have to pay for the Veena and Bharatha Natiyam debuts,” she sighed.

“It is expensive to get this extra education in London” muttered Kathir, “ But it is not the girls who asked for these lessons. It was you who wanted to show off to your family and friends, and it is I who must work overtime to pay for them.” His voice is subdued; she is capable of screaming at him for taking such an attitude to having to pay for these things.

“As far as I can remember, art is a gift, and those who have the gift for dancing and music will learn with love and passion – not by going to expensive lessons so that they can call themselves ‘classical dancers’,” he continued.

Rathiga is hardly interested in Kathir’s opinion. She is interested in having the money to pay for the things that are essential to her self-importance; the dancing lessons, the properties abroad.

Today Dr Kathrigamer is working overtime as a locum, doing home visits. He walks slowly to the car where the driver is waiting. He has a number of visits to do and the driver is there to make sure there is no trouble; Kathir doesn’t feel safe in some areas of East London.

He really isn’t feeling too great today. He suffers from diabetic mellitus, high blood pressure and angina; he is aware of these, Rathiga is not, why worry her?
Still, he feels uneasy today. He wants to make his wife and daughters happy and he works too hard. To him his daughters are like Saraswathy and Luxmy, powerful Hindu goddesses of wisdom and wealth. His daughters should have the best education, the brightest future. They are beautiful, kind, intelligent girls.

The day was windy and chilly, rain lightly coming and going. He sat in the car and took a deep breath. The air he inhaled was cold but he felt hot and sweaty. “I must check my blood pressure,” he mused. He thought of going to Yoga classes, but where would he find the time? “I am only fifty; I will have many more good years of life,” he assured himself.

“Good evening, Doctor,” the driver said. Kathir mumbled his response, preoccupied with his thoughts.

“Are you OK, Doctor?” the driver asked, noticing the doctor’s laboured breathing.
“Yes, I’m fine” the doctor responded firmly.

He looked at the driver as he started the engine; Jacob is a West Indian driver with old fashioned manners. “He has more kind feeling toward me than my own wife does,” he thought.
………………………………………………………………………………………..

Janet was calling Peter’s mobile phone once again, angry and anxious that he didn’t answer. It’s about six-thirty in the evening now and she hasn’t seen him since the morning. Their little girl is not well, she has a fever and the liquid paracetamol has done no good. Suddenly she had vomited and screamed as though she was being stabbed. Right now she is sleeping, she has not eaten or drunk anything or shown any interest in playing her usual lively games.

She looked at Melanie, wondering at this small carbon copy of herself. She even had the same mannerisms, the same way of hunching up her little shoulders when she laughed, the same way of biting at her lower lip in concentration. “It’s probably just a cold making her fretful,” she thought. But her usually bright eyes had become dull.

“Sod Peter, I bet he’s with Dodgy Darren, chasing after schoolgirls or something to smoke – why can’t he ever be here to do something for us.

Perhaps she should call Mum; but she probably wouldn’t be home yet. Janet had two brothers and one sister – until her brother Mark died in a car accident. He’d been fifteen and in the wrong place….so now there was only an older brother, always in trouble with the police; they never seemed to leave him alone; and Lisa, a dancer of sorts.

Their parents, a quiet ordinary couple, had been glad when Janet had fallen pregnant and Peter had stayed with her, they were happy that she had settled with someone.
Peter’s family was large; Irish Catholic, and Pete sometimes said they would have a big family, too. Janet wondered what that would be like. Would she drown in kids while he disappeared to the pub? She could see him being just like the Dads in some of the families on the estate. They stuck by their families, certainly– coming home on a Friday night with empty pockets and raising hell. Maybe it would be different. Maybe not. Peter’s family was large and it looked as thought they managed okay, but Pete wasn’t getting anywhere despite his parent’s regard for education and family responsibility. He took more notice of Darren’s opinions than anyone else’s, always had done.

Darren was different, he’d never really gone to school, except to cause trouble; since being expelled at the age of seven for aggressive behaviour it had held no attraction for him - and his family, composed of mother and sister, either couldn’t cope or didn’t care. No one knew where the father was, and no one had ever asked. At the age of twenty he had spent more time at ‘Her Majesty’s Pleasure’ than anywhere else; if anything, that was his most stable environment.

Janet gazed down from her eighth floor window. A cold English drizzling summer evening, still light for a few hours yet. She felt interminably lonely, as though she would be here alone forever, while the rest of the world carried on better, brighter, cleverer and more impressive lives. “Everyone in the world is enjoying life except me, the fool stuck with a child in this prison block,” she thought.

Melanie woke up and cried feebly. Janet, feeling her hot forehead and body experienced prickles of alarm and fear – this didn’t seem at all right. The fever had not gone away, it was worse than before. She wished Peter would walk through the front door, even if he was drunk or angry, it would be better than being on her own and not knowing what to do. The local doctor's surgery would be near closing now, and she knew it would be a miserable wait if she were to go there – they might even refuse to see her. Casualty would be no good either. Today was Friday and even this early in the evening it would be like a madhouse. “Oh, where’s Peter,” she cried. Then she dialled the number for the doctor on call.

………………………………………………………………………………………

Peter had cruised around for a while and then headed for the street corner where he knew Darren was likely to be, near their local pub. He was there, and in a good mood.
“Business is looking up,” he grinned, his bald misshapen head bare. Even in a good mood his air was one of readiness – for a scuffle or an opportunity. His motivations in life centred around his cash-flow and his neighbourhood; particularly around the imposition, as he saw it, of the foreigners who he saw as his duty to harass and intimidate whenever possible. His opinions were well known in the area, and they were shared by many other young white men. He felt hate toward anyone who was not English and was in England. Peter never thought about it; Darren was a good and generous mate, often pressing, as he did now, a couple of pills into the palm of his hand.

In the near empty pub, Darren ordered lager. The place would gradually fill throughout the afternoon, and by early evening it would be packed.

Seating himself in a corner with a good view of the place, staring at Peter’s dejected face across the table, Darren said; “What’s the matter?”

Peter’s eyes strayed around the pub, avoiding his questioner’s eyes.
“What, did you lose something?”

Pete sighed and gazed into his glass, as though it might make a reply for him.
“Listen, Peter,” said Darren, leaning forward, keeping his eyes fixed intently, “I hate seeing your Janet sucking up to those filthy Pakis, why do you let her do it? She ought to know better, the mother of your own little girl!”

Peter felt himself sinking into a slightly woozy emotional acquiescence to whatever his good friend was getting at, and a sullen, dull, moody ire at the world that allowed his girlfriend to look at him as though he were dirt, after giving her smiles to that
slimy, grinning shop boy.

“I love Janet…,” was all he could muster

“Well, of course you bloody do, I know that, you don’t need to tell me, mate – after all, how long have I known you two? Forever!”

A poster in luminous paper on the wall at the bar advertised the evening’s entertainment; striptease from nine o’clock, DJ’s till late.

A couple of young Asian men came in, immediately joined by two pretty white girls that looked as though they’d been waiting for them; the greetings were light-hearted and flirtatious.

“What’s going on with our girls, what makes them want to go after that lot of shifty bastards,” Darren’s fist clenched in anger. “Even the Princess of Wales Diana, look at her! An Englishman of royal blood isn’t good enough for her, she prefers that short-arse greasy A-rab Dodi. That Dodi Fayed – his family runs a bloody grocer’s as well, don’t they! Why do our girls go with them?” He glared meaningfully at Peter.

“Well, I guess they have all the money, with their businesses and all that.” Suddenly the boy at the corner shop appeared to be part of a conspiracy of ruthless, shady foreign businessmen who were anxious to pick out the best of Englishwomen and corrupt them into their strange practices, and make them bear their own children – not English kids like Peter’s.

And Janet hardly let Peter touch her nowadays.

“Bloody Janet,” he muttered.

The small group of youngsters before them were excitable and happy; their laughter could almost have been timed to mock Darren’s speech.

“Just look at the foreign idiots , they were allowed into this country to clean our toilets – see what’s happened now, with all that tolerance shit? They can take anything they fancy! A nice house? Certainly, you black bastard, here, have a swanky job, and hey, why not a white girl too, you like them, don’t you?” The hate-filled words spill easily from Darren’s mouth; they are words he repeats frequently at the National Front Party meetings he attends with a punctuality and dedication that would astonish the would-be teachers of his youth.

“Dogs, they are… dirty low-down mutts, they don’t deserve to be here…...they shouldn’t be here at all,” mumbles Peter, discontent and unrest fermenting in his head.
“It’s up to people like us you know – who else is there to be strong and stand up to them? Do you think the government is going to do anything but roll over for the bloody whining social workers that just want to eat in stupid ‘ethnic’ restaurants,
and get paid fat money for figuring out how to make our dark friends feel more at home? No chance! They’re all mates together! It’s only people like you and me that see what’s really going on, Pete, and I’ll tell you something, those Pakis are spineless… they go running for their poor little lives if you so much as say ‘boo’ to them, you’ll see!”

Darren’s expression is one of deep emotion; his love for his country, for the land of his forefathers is deep. He imagines a country peopled only by his white kinsmen; this fatherless man’s only real sense of family comes from the warm, accepting camaraderie of the men he meets in the National Front, with their air of confidence, strength and solidity. There is little else Darren encounters that seems solid – except the force of the establishment that incarcerates him and is always disapproving and opposed to him. The family of his white kinsmen embraces him and encourages his pride; to them he is worth something.

The two friends leave, slightly unsteady, but filled with pride and determination.
Peter thinks; “Janet has to stop showing me up like that. She has to. I’ve got to tell her that she’s going to be more respectful of our family, of me…’not a real man?’ I’m more of a man than that snivelling Paki thief! She’s being fooled like the others, stupid bitch.”

Peter gets hold of his mobile to call Janet, to put her straight.

………………………………………………………………………………..................

Jecob, the driver parks the car at the entrance to the estate. On this overcast evening it seems to be getting dark too early and the ground is shining wet as he watches Dr Kathir making his way along a concrete-walled walkway toward the entrance to the third block, and turning out of sight.

The two men, Peter and Darren ahead of the doctor have turned and are scrutinising him fixedly.
“Hey! You! Old Paki bastard! What do you want here? Do you think you’ll get yourself a white piece around here? ’Is that what you’re after, you dirty old bugger?”
The men’s faces are taut with rage, rage against the foreigner on their territory.
“Did your Paki friend from the shop tell you to come here, did he?”

Their fists and feet give the doctor no chance to speak, kicking and punching with animal ferocity, blood pours from the doctors nose, they kick him in the back as he slumps and curls up in agony.

Peter’s phone is ringing as he steps back from the bloody mess on the floor. Staring at the old man, he answers the phone, breathless.

Janet is wailing at him, crying hysterically. “I’ve been waiting and waiting and the doctor doesn’t come, the lazy black bastard. Mel’s really ill, Pete…do something, for god’s sake do something! Please! Oh, she won’t die, will she?”

Peter, irritated by Janet overreacting as usual, shuts off the phone.

He feels relieved, powerful. An injured old man - Dr Kathir is on the floor with bleeding.

Darren is excited. There is no-one around; no need to escape quickly. They look at each other, judging that they may as well get what they can out of this. The man is wearing a good suit, he probably has money in his pocket, and the case he was carrying could be a laptop. The old man is disgusting, filthy, pathetic. And he owes them. All people like him have stolen from them, well - time to take some back.
Peter turns his attention to the case, lying on the floor near the inert body. He bends down and opens it. There is no laptop.

There are bits of equipment such as a stethoscope, and a notepad on top, some kind of form.

It says; visiting: child with high fever, the name: Melanie Peter Williams!

THE END
- Sri Lanka Guardian