Zadie Smith - White Teeth

Samad groaned.

‘Oi. No. None of that. You know me. I’m the sympathetic side of the service industry, I’m service with a fucking smile, I’d wear a little red tie and a little red hat like them fuckwits in Mr Burger if my fuckin’ head weren’t so big.’

This was not a metaphor. Mickey had a very large head, almost as if his acne had demanded more room and received planning permission.

‘What’s the problem?’

Samad looked up at Mickey’s big red head.

‘I am just waiting for Archibald, Mickey. Please, do not concern yourself. I will be fine.’

‘ ’Sbit early, innit?’

‘Pardon?’

Mickey checked the clock behind him, the one with the palaeolithic piece of encrusted egg on the dial. ‘I say ’Sbit early, innit? For you and the Archie-boy. Six is when I expect you. One chips, beans, egg and mushroom. And one omelette and mushrooms. With seasonal variations, naturally.’

Samad sighed. ‘We have much to discuss.’

Mickey rolled his eyes. ‘You ain’t starting on that Mangy Pandy whateverthefuckitis again, are you? Who shot who, and who hung who, my grandad ruled the Pakis or whateverthefuckitwas, as if any poor fucker gives a flying fuck. You’re driving the custom away. You’re creating – ’ Mickey flicked through his new bible, Food for Thought: A Guideline for Employers and Employees Working in the Food Service Industry – Customer Strategy and Consumer Relations . ‘You’re creating a repetitive syndrome that puts all these buggers off their culinary experience .’

‘No, no. My great -grandfather is not up for discussion today. We have other business.’

‘Well, thank fuck . Repetitive syndrome is what it is.’ Mickey patted his book, affectionately. ‘ ’Sall in ’ere, mate. Best four ninety-five I ever spent. Talking of moolah, you ’aving a flutter today?’ asked Mickey, signalling downstairs.

‘I am a Muslim, Mickey, I don’t indulge any more.’

‘Well, obviously, yeah, we’re all Brothers – but a man’s gotta live, now. Hasn’t he? I mean, hasn’t he?’

‘I don’t know, Mickey, does he?’

Mickey slapped Samad firmly on the back. ‘ ’Course he does! I was saying to my brother Abdul-’

‘Which Abdul?’

It was a tradition, both in Mickey’s wider and nuclear family, to name all sons Abdul to teach them the vanity of assuming higher status than any other man, which was all very well and good but tended to cause confusion in the formative years. However, children are creative, and all the many Abduls added an English name as a kind of buffer to the first.

‘Abdul-Colin.’

‘Right.’

‘So, you know Abdul-Colin went a bit fundamental – EGGS, BEANS, CHIPS, TOAST – big fucking beard, no pig, no drink, no pussy, the fuckin’ works, mate – there you are, guvnor.’

Abdul-Mickey pushed a plate of festering carbohydrate to a sunken old man whose trousers were so high up his body they were gradually swallowing him whole.

‘Well, where do you think I slap eyes on Abdul-Colin last week? Only in the Mickey Finn, down Harrow Road way, and I says, “Oi, Abdul-Colin, this is a fucking turn-up for the fucking books” and he says, all solemn, you know, all fully bearded, he says-’

‘Mickey, Mickey – do you mind very much if we leave the story for later… it is just that…’

‘No, fine, fine. Wish I knew why the fuck I bother.’

‘If you could possibly tell Archibald I am sitting in the booth behind the pinball when he comes in. Oh, and my usual.’

‘No problemo, mate.’

About ten minutes later the door went and Mickey looked up from Chapter 6, ‘There’s a Fly in My Soup: Dealing with Frameworks of Hostility Regarding Health Issues’, to see Archibald Jones, cheap suitcase in hand, approaching the counter.

‘All right, Arch. How’s the folding business?’

‘Oh, you know. Comme si, comme sar. Samad about?’

‘Is he about ? Is he about ? He’s been hanging round like a bad fucking smell for half a fucking hour. Face as long as shit. Someone wants to get a Poop-a-Scoop and clean him up.’

Archie put his suitcase on the counter and furrowed his brow. ‘In a bad way, is he? Between you and me, Mickey, I’m really worried about him.’

‘Go tell it to the fucking mountain,’ said Mickey, who had been aggravated by Chapter 6’s assertion that you should rinse plates in piping hot water. ‘Or, alternatively, go to the booth behind the pinball.’

‘Thanks, Mickey. Oh, omelette and-’

‘I know. Mushrooms.’

Archie walked down the lino aisles of O’Connell’s.

‘Hello, Denzel, evening, Clarence.’

Denzel and Clarence were two uniquely rude, foul-mouthed octogenarian Jamaicans. Denzel was impossibly fat, Clarence was horribly thin, their families had both died, they both wore trilbies, and they sat in the corner playing dominoes all the hours that were left to them.

‘What dat bambaclaat say?’

‘ ’Im say evenin’ .’

‘Can’t ’im see me playin’ domino?’

‘No man! ’Im ’ave a pussy for a face. How you expec’ ’im to see any little ting?’

Archie took it on the chin as it was meant and slipped into the booth, opposite Samad. ‘I don’t understand,’ said Archie, picking up immediately where their phone conversation had terminated. ‘Are you saying you’re seeing them there in your imagination or you’re seeing them there in real life?’

‘It is really very simple. The first time, the very first time, they were there. But since then Archie, these past few weeks, I see the twins whenever I am with her – like apparitions! Even when we are… I see them there. Smiling at me.’

‘Are you sure you’re not just overworked.’

‘Listen to me, Archie: I see them. It is a sign.’

‘Sam, let’s try and deal with the facts. When they really saw you – what did you do?’

‘What could I do? I said, “Hello, sons. Say hello to Miss Burt-Jones.’

‘And what did they say?’

‘They said hello.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘Archibald, do you think I could simply tell you what occurred without this constant inane interjection?’

‘CHIPS, BEANS, EGG, TOMATO AND MUSHROOM!’

‘Sam, that’s yours.’

‘I resent that accusation. It is not mine. I never order tomato. I do not want some poor peeled tomato boiled to death, then fried to death.’

‘Well, it’s not mine. I asked for omelette.’

‘Well, it is not mine. Now: may I continue?’

‘With pleasure.’

‘I looked at my boys, Archie… I looked at my beautiful boys… and my heart cracked – no, more than this – it shattered. It shattered into so many pieces and each piece stabbed me like a mortal wound. I kept thinking: how can I teach my boys anything, how can I show them the straight road when I have lost my own bearings?’

‘I thought,’ began Archie haltingly, ‘that the problem was the woman. If you really don’t know what to do about her, well… we could flip this coin, heads you stay, tails you go – at least you’d have made a-’

Samad slammed his good fist on the table. ‘I don’t want to flip a bloody coin! Besides, it is too late for that. Can’t you see? What is done is done. I am hell-bound, I see that now. So I must concentrate on saving my sons. I have a choice to make, a choice of morality .’ Samad lowered his voice, and even before he spoke Archie knew to what he was about to refer. ‘You have made hard choices yourself, Archie, many years ago. You hide it well, but I know you have not forgotten what it is like. You have a bit of bullet in the leg to prove it. You struggled with him. You won out. I have not forgotten. I have always admired you because of it, Archibald.’