George
Jennifer Marshall
21 June 2009, 17:13“Wake up man! Sheena has to get back to the babies.”
George squinted up at his wife looming over him. She surveyed his curled body under the mountainous duvet, her left eyebrow cocked in disapproval. If he ignored her for a moment, she would start pounding the bed until its airy cover no longer protected him from her insistent blows.
“Ok, Ok, give me a minute woman.”
He felt for his reading glasses, knocking a half-eaten bowl of aloo tikkis to the floor. He peeled a cold potato patty from the ball of his foot and rocked his body forward and up from the bed, his long legs heavy and hanging like a pendulum from his round frame. He peered, squinting, over his thick, half moon lenses. 2.45am. As his head cleared he recognised the familiar thud of the bass vibrating from the dance club down the street. The DJ’s muffled war cries punctuated the early morning air and distant shrieks of rapture exploded in response, rising above the tireless beat.
“Hurry up George, the twins are waking and Rishi is working the late shift tonight.”
His name hadn’t always been George. He and his brothers had arrived at their first job in London with the enthusiasm of school boys kitting up for gym class. They jostled and elbowed each other, clambering for position in front of the clocking on machine. The clock’s hand ticked towards 12 and they at last stood still, ready to punch their time cards exactly on the hour. The other workers hung back behind them, murmuring amongst themselves and watching curiously. They were divided into groups by task and the foreman asked each of them to identify themselves.
“Jagdesh, sir. My name is Jagdesh.
“Your name’s what? “
“Jag – “
“Everyone, this is George.”
Dressed in the same red flannelette shirt he’d worn that afternoon, George shuffled down the stairs, the cold seeping through the threadbare carpet. His wife already stood in the entrance to the shop below him. Neon yellow light flooded the shop from the bus depot outside and enveloped her like an aura, giving her skin a strange, sickly tint. She cradled one of his daughter’s twins, the child clawed desperately at her blouse and lurched at George’s nose as he paused to kiss his grandson on the forehead.
“There you are Papa!”
His daughter pecked him on the cheek and squeezed past him, her arms outstretched to receive her son. Her son looked at her longingly and wriggled to break free from his grandmother’s embrace.
“Morning Sheena. Take much last night?”
“Just the regulars. I sold a couple of bottles of booze.” She fumbled with the buttons of her blouse, cooing at the fussing child. The baby latched onto her breast and his writhing body relaxed in her arms.
“I need to get home and put the babies down before Rishi finishes his shift. Little Aditi is still asleep and I want to get out of here before those hooligans are let loose.”
The floodgates opened every night at 3am, releasing waves of partygoers into the street. The revelers trickled into the store, their sweaty, jittery bodies shivering, still suspended in chemical dreams. One by one their sense of perception would alter and their eyes, as wide as saucers, adjust from the burning lights of the club to the orange glow of the city. They hopped from one foot to the other, some blowing into their hands, others lighting up a fag and motioning for cruising mini-cabs to pull over to the curb.
“Thanks for coming in. It’s the last time, I promise. Your brother will be in next week, his last exam is tomorrow.”
“I know, Rishi spent all morning going through his notes with him. I suppose we’ll hear how it went soon enough. Good night Papa.”
His daughter and wife climbed up the stairs together, their heads bobbing in agreement over some secret scandal.
George took his post behind the counter. He sat hunched on an old bar stool he’d discovered one morning lying in a puddle of mud and shattered glass inside the shop. George’s feet rested on its lower rung, his legs bent at the knees and tucked beneath him. He stared out of the corner shop window, the flourescent light of the bus depot across the road buzzed and twitched like a vein pulsing through the street. A double decker bus sped through the waiting area, its passengers’ faces pressed against the glass like zombies, each expressionless, consumed by its own curious mission at an unearthly hour. The bus’ upper deck rocked precariously to one side as it turned the corner and disappeared out of sight.
Fresh posters had been slapped amongst the torn remains of forgotten gigs dressing the grey brick wall. One poster stood out from the rest, its bold, black type splashed across a deep, orange sunset.
“Enchanted Evenings – learn to free your subconscious”
George sighed, remembering the swami yogi around the corner from his flat in Delhi. The old man’s brittle, white beard touched the ground where he sat cross-legged and draped in a faded, tangerine robe. George’s wife had visited him to have her fortune told and he had predicted the birth of their only son that same year, the year they had watched from the safe house high on the hill as the monsoon rains washed away their home. That year they had left India to join George’s aunt and start a new life. She had paid to bring them over and soon after their arrival, they moved into her house to look after her in her old age. George’s wife had spent 10 years of her life upstairs nursing his Aunt and, in the early days, schooling their children. His aunt had long since passed away. After her death, George had converted the shop out of an abandoned laundrette on the street level.
A dark figure hovered outside the shop window. The long-haired woman approached the shop window timidly, searching the mosaic of post-it notes taped to it – cleaners and nannies wanted, flats for rent. It was the Polish woman. She often came into the shop to buy a pint of milk or loaf of bread, stopping mid-route to the bus depot in the early hours of the morning. Recognising George, the woman gave him a half smile then sheepishly tore a phone number from one of the pages stuck to the window and hurried across the road, glancing at her watch and checking for the bus.
“She’ll be waiting a while for the next one”, George thought.
Footsteps echoed down the street accompanied by muffled girls’ voices alternately breaking into excited chatter and hushed giggles. As the voices grew louder, the doorbell tinkled and a young man entered the store. He wore a pilled, black woolen beanie and a fitted leather jacket. His hands were wedged inside each of the jacket pockets and he walked with his shoulders hunched and collar up. He hovered for a while amongst the rows of baked beans and sacks of rice, sheltering from the cold outside, and then approached the counter with a nonchalant air.
“I’ll just take these”, the stranger mumbled, tossing a bag of crisps on the counter and grabbing a handful of sweets, knocking over the ripped cardboard sign, “25p for 5”. George carefully re-positioned the sign so it stood upright. As George gave the young man his change, he noticed the group of girls loitering outside the store. Two of them leant casually against the glass window while the third pressed her mobile phone against the glass door, taking snapshots of the customer. The young man turned and glanced nervously out of the window and the girls bustled each other away from the window, chattering excitedly about their sighting. Perhaps he was a soap star or member of a boy band. George glanced over his shoulder at the magazine rack at the back of the shop and strained to make out the faces on the covers while the young man reached for his change.
“No! Please! Please just take it all!”
George felt a piercing heat shoot through his gut then the cool of leather against his cheek, the scent of the man’s jacket embraced him like an old friend. He grasped the counter, boiled sweets and lighters bouncing and scattering over the floor, then collapsed, his arms wrapped around his waist and hands gripping his shirt that clung, warm and wet, to his torso. Through his blurred vision he could see blood pooling at his side and a handful of notes that had fallen from the till. Sheena and his wife had left with the babies. Thank Goodness. Would he die here, alone?
“Not like this”, he thought.
Shadows slipped in and out of George’s sight. A large, red ink blot crept across his vision and his aunt appeared against it, dressed in a white sari, its folds caught in a whirlwind, circling and entrapping her in swathes of cloth. The red ink rose in a wave and enveloped the cocoon, sucking her back into the world that awaited George, a world existing in-between reality and the realm of the soul where his son and daughter would visit him in their dreams.
George felt swathes of the soft cotton sari brush his cheek. A pair of small hands cupped George’s face and a soft voice spoke to him calmly.
“It’s me. It’s Ola from outside. ”
George struggled to open his eyes and focus on the face peering over him. He sensed the shallow, sweet breath of a young woman.
“You missed the bus,” George replied, his temple reverberating with the sound of his voice.
“Yes. Please don’t worry, help is coming.”
Wow! This is brilliant. Amazing imagery!
— Vinod Joseph · Jun 22, 16:03 · #