- "Exterior Paint" (Kit de Waal) - Recently widowered Alfonse is repainting his front door red, selling his house. There's a flashback to 1965 when he arrived from St Kitts. White barmaids told blacks to go round the side, into the Smoke Room. One barmaid takes a shine to him. They have a secret affair - her mother and sisters are actively racist. After a few weeks she doesn't want to keep it secret but he does. A visit by Malcolm X gives him the nerve to openly ask her to marry him. The flashback ends. Alone, he has a shot of rum, toasting his wife and Malcolm.
- "Seep" (Sharon Guggal) - Bina (Indian) lives with 4 siblings and her parents in their 8-roomed house. There are 14 Indian tenants. She has a crush on Suresh, a new arrival. He starts having a political argument with her father at her father's birthday party. She's worried that he'd be asked to leave. But they diplomatically, impressively, agree to differ. End of story.
- "Amir Aziz" (Bobby Nayyar) - The narrator tells us about Amir, who bought up derelict houses and revamped then, working his way up the property ladder, tenants often being new immigrants. He doesn't have a happy family life. The narrator and Amir lose touch. The narrator and his grandson see Amir in a white Mercedes Benz. The grandson, impressed, asked "Who's that man?". The narrator replies "Amir Aziz. He's a friend of mine", which is a neat ending.
- "Taking Doreen out of the sky" (Alan Beard) - The narrator's coming home from work having been told that his metal-working firm's closing down. He, his wife and their 2 year-old live in high-rise flats. There's lots of observation and reflection, no despair. I rather like it.
- "1985" (Balvinder Banga) - After the Handsworth riots, asians are carrying weapons for self-defense. The main character is a Sikh with a liking for KFC and beer, and some tribal honour. His mate Ash is hospitalised because of drugs he got off Hector. Ash, drunk, attacks Hector and scrams. The narrator tries to help Ash. Did Hector die? Will he exact revenge? There's relief when they discover he's moved to London. On p.67 the passage "we synchronised our bravado, with all its feigned indifference" sounds over-elevated.
- "Kindling" (Jendella Benson) - Lauren, a black schoolgirl, met Zee, an asian, on a bus. She lies to her mum about where she's going when she goes to walk with him for the first time. The post-riot streets are nearly empty except for police. As they walk to the park a gang of blacks verbally abuse and threaten them. They walk on, inarticulately and briefly discussing the race issue. She doesn't care as long as he kisses her. Rather inconsequential.
- "Blind Circles" (Joel Lane) - The 1st person character is a policeman, seconded to a zone where "The trees fade away and the colour washes out of the skyline, leaving only a blank repeated motif of tarmac, breeze-block and concrete. It's a screensaver of a district". NF supporters are going blind. They gather at a meeting in a school hall to listen to newcomers - Albinos (ultra-blond Aryans). The persona infiltrates, watches the blind supporters being killed. The best story so far.
- "A game of chess" (Malachi McIntosh) - I like this too. A thirtysomething married guy, childless, ditches his job. Drifting around Birmingham he sees his father for the first time in decades. He's a street-cleaner. The persona thinks back to when he was 8 and he was taken by his mother to stay a while with his remarried father. They played chess. I'm puzzled by this aspect - there are section headings "Bishop's Pawn to F3", "Queen's Pawn to E5", Knight's Pawn to G4" and "Checkmate". It's a strange notation (usual is f3 e5; g4 Qh4) and anyway "Queen" should be "King". White's been suicidal. Maybe the persona's forgotten the details of chess, only recalling how to mess things up. He starts tracking the movements of his father (which gives his life direction again). One day he confronts his father. Here's the ending "He wasn't my father, couldn't be, but he said my name, and his voice was the voice that I knew, remembered, and I heard: Look again. You're not thinking about him. And if you move there - you see? I can take you". The final words refer to chess, but I don't quite get it.
- "The Call" (Sibyl Ruth) - Julie, who's volunteering on a help-line, sees a picture of Bridget, an ex-housemate, in the paper. On the way home she looks for the house which they shared, the house where Bridget's friend sexually assaulted her. She can't remember quite which house it was. She knows that victims often blame themselves.
- "Necessary Bandages" (C.D. Rose) - It's 1951. Emma climbs to Maddox's loft which is open to the elements. There are paintings, books, etc. Maddox (a quirky/surreal artist) puts things all over his walls to make surreal montages. There's a party of misfits, eccentrics and girls dressed by Maddox as nuns. 'The problem with the London lot was that they never lived in Birmingham,' says Maddox. 'Here, you have to work harder.'. The final page jumps to 2018. The narrator compares then and now, trying to find Maddox's house.
In a few stories it looks like the author has started with a historic event, added some period detail, and channelled it through a character in an attempt to bring the history to life. If possible, they've given the character a personal problem which interacts in some way with the event.
No comments:
Post a Comment