Array Girl A: Girl A: My Story

Tasty Bites was an Indian takeaway in the middle of town. It was on the usual circuit my friends and I would take on our walks around the centre: past the Edwin Waugh pub on Market Street, on towards the Balti House, then cut right by Dunne’s store and Morrison’s, and rejoin Market Street for a second time, near the barber’s where Dad used to have his hair cut for £3.50.

I suppose ending up in Tasty Bites was a natural progression for us, not least because if we were hungry, which was most times, we could pop in late and buy something like chips and curry sauce or a £1 pizza sandwich to share.

And there was another reason to go. By now Milly, more forward and older-looking than the rest of us had started going out with a guy from the takeaway. Saj, she told us in a whisper at school one day, was in his thirties. His thirties! When she told us that we were horrified, though it clearly didn’t seem to bother her.

I remember turning to Elouise as we headed off to Art and asking, ‘How can she do that? I could never go out with anyone that old. And they can’t even talk to each other because he doesn’t even speak English.’

Saj used to ring Milly while she was still at school, and there were lots of times she’d wag lessons so she could go off with him. The rest of us would giggle about it at the back of the class or in the playground. It did seem weird, but by the time it got to evening we were happy enough to call at Tasty Bites as we made our late-night tours of Heywood’s dull, forgotten streets.

I remember as clear as day the first time we met Daddy. It was Milly who introduced us one night, having seen him around the back when she was hooking up with Saj who she was sleeping with. We’d all piled into Tasty Bites – me, Courtney, Elouise, Shauna, Milly and Hayley – and were hanging around by the counter when Milly peeled away and returned a few minutes later with a beaming Asian guy in tow.

‘This is Daddy,’ she said, all serious, trying to ignore the sniggers from the rest of us as we took in his name. Daddy worked with Saj and was a friend of his. It seemed such a daft nickname for the guy standing in front of us: a cheery old man in his fifties with a faint moustache, wearing blue jeans and a black, round-necked jacket.

To me, Daddy looked a bit like Father Christmas, but Asian: round and jolly, with a face that lit up when he smiled. He shook each of our hands in turn, smiling broadly and saying, ‘Pleased to meet you’ to each of us. In my case he winked, and placed his left hand on my wrist as we shook hands. Milly obviously liked him, and in those few moments I think the rest of us took to him, too. It just seemed we could instantly trust him. He looked like a friendly, safe man to be around.

He was also really generous. ‘Come, come,’ he said. ‘Let me show Milly’s friends upstairs. Would you like doner? A drink? Come upstairs, you can chill.’

So up we trooped, him leading the way, a little breathless, up the narrow staircase. He took us into what seemed to be a spare bedroom – almost bare, with only a double mattress on the floor.

‘Sit,’ he said. ‘Please sit, and I’ll bring you food and Pepsi.’

While he was gone, Milly filled us in about him. She had no idea why he was called Daddy, she said, but maybe it was because he was such a lovely guy. Anyway, he lived with his family in Oldham and was the takeaway’s delivery driver – he had a little blue car that he’d pile up with orders and deliver around the local council estates.

There was a radio in the room that first night. It was set to an Asian station, but we quickly changed the channel to Capital FM so we could listen to all the chart stuff.

A few minutes later, we were all tucking into doner kebabs, naan bread and a big tub of garlic mayonnaise.

‘This is heaven,’ swooned Hayley, and we all laughed.

Being upstairs at Tasty Bites felt wonderful: like a brilliant new adventure that we had all to ourselves. Other people just came in, went to the counter, waited for their order and then left again. We, on the other hand, were treated as honoured guests. I think it made all of us feel a little bit special.

It was late September 2007 by then and, at that age, skint, bored and rebellious, upstairs at Tasty Bites became our favourite place to end up on a night out. In a town with no cinema, no ice rink and no hope – and with no money, anyway – this was as glitzy as it could get for fourteen-year-olds like us. We came to look forward to all the free food and drinks: the doners, the chicken tikkas, the Pepsi. It was always Daddy who’d bring it, huffing and puffing up the stairs, laden with takeaway trays and cans of pop.

‘Here you are, my lovely girls,’ he’d say. ‘Food on the house from Tasty Bites!’ He would bring the food up to us in those foil packs, like he was delivering to a house. There wouldn’t be any cutlery; we just used the naan bread to wrap things up in. It was always either chicken tikka or doner kebab, and it would always come with garlic mayonnaise.

I can’t eat that now. Just the smell of it makes me feel sick.

We’d generally end up there a few nights a week, chatting, smoking and drinking for hours before eventually drifting away to go home.

After a while, Daddy started to bring us free cigarettes and free beer, too. Actually, I don’t mean beer; I mean alcohol. Around Rochdale we tend to call everything ‘beer’, even when it’s not. To start with, the ‘beer’ Daddy brought was Lambrini cider, but one night he came up with some glasses and a bottle of vodka, Glen’s Vodka. I hadn’t had it before because it was too expensive for us to buy.

I hated the taste but I drank it because it was strong. It was easier to drink with cola. Daddy would leave the bottle, a litre one. To start with, we only drank a bit, but the next night we were there he brought more and so we ended up drinking more and more. It felt wicked.

All through the autumn, and on towards Christmas, we’d sit upstairs with the drinks, chatting, chilling, and gradually, inevitably, getting drunk. It felt so cool . For weeks we’d go along to Tasty Bites to chill, and these gullible old men, and Daddy in particular, would give us all this free stuff. We loved it.

The first time or two, I have to admit I’d thought it a bit weird that they’d let us chill there, but I quickly got used to it and saw it as normal. If they were daft enough to give us all this free stuff, why turn it down? We thought we were the luckiest kids in town.

Daddy spoke English fluently because his parents had brought him to Britain as a kid. Sometimes he would sit on the mattress with us and stay for five or ten minutes, chatting with us about normal things like school, and where we lived, and our families. He’d ask about our teachers, our exams, what we wanted to do, that sort of thing. He was always laughing and joking, as if he was trying to act like one of us.

He seemed to like me the most. He’d always speak to me and say, ‘You’re special’ or ‘You’re beautiful’ and things like that. It was nice to hear, even if it made me blush.

Daddy didn’t say much about himself, apart from that he had four children he didn’t see much of any more. He never drank with us because of being a Muslim, but he thought it was funny when we were all drunk. He’d get a bit touchy-feely then, too: he’d hug us and kiss us on the cheek. Nothing sexual, just friendly, like he was your long-lost uncle.

We all thought we were the clever ones and Daddy was just a harmless old man. We all felt completely happy and in control – the feeling was that we were taking advantage of him, but he seemed to enjoy it, so what was the problem? It was a bit bad sometimes, because we’d get Daddy to bring us more and more stuff. We’d be sitting there and one of us would say to the others, ‘Go and ask him to get us some more of that chicken tikka,’ or ‘How about another doner?’ – things like that. Then one of us would lean out of the door and shout down to him: ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ and up he would come again. He’d even drive us home!