SOME PROSE
You can put tomato paste in lentil curry.
A few days ago I experienced a craving for red lentil curry – I needed the mellow aromatic comfort of it. I was driven to make art of it on my plate .
I always make it the same way and the ingredients are always in my cupboard. I pop cumin seeds in sizzling hot butter, followed closely by clove and cardamom. Then a cinnamon stick, garlic and chopped vegetables. After a minute I add the chopped vegetables and coat them with my favourite blend of curry powder – I add lentils and water, cover and leave to bubble.
Soon a fine nostalgic mist rises from the pan and permeates my kitchen.
I had been listening to a programme about the Anglicisation of Indian food that has elevated Chicken Korma to The Nation’s second favourite dish.
I remembered how hard my parents found it to get the right spices when they came here.
There was huge excitement, when, after weeks of anticipation the fragile cardboard boxes would arrive sent by my Aunt Gertrude who ‘stayed on’ A sticker on the outer wrapping said Pearl and Orient conjuring up mysterious and exotic images.
And inside, wrapped in tissue paper like secrets, would nestle pepper balls, fresh cardamoms, cumin seeds, chillies and fragrant coriander. My parents would fall upon the boxes like starving animals and the days that followed would be rich with colonial favourites. Mulligitawny, Aloo Ghosht , Rogan Josh
As we ate, the often stunted conversation would be enlivened by references to far away places – Calcutta, Yercaud, Bangalore - and to people whose names had become familiar but whom I had never met.
But after this relative jollity – would come – as inevitable as indigestion - an aftermath of tension and poorly disguised rage.
As the spices diminished the grim reality of post war Old Kent Road set in.
My mother grew up in orange groves, playing under Jacaranda trees. She painted watercolours and played the piano. When my sister was little there were two Ayahs to attend to her every whim. My mother and my father would be at their club, at the races or playing gin rummy on a veranda.
My sister and I agree that after I was born my mother took to her bed and was rarely seen out of it. I padded about -softly growing up around her and her pain.
She was often in a temper with my father. He had brought her here. To this. When she had anticipated the gentle Surrey slopes of Virginia Water. Tea on the lawn.
He was a dark man in a white family. A throwback -.proof of family skeletons and secret sins. Things of which we dared not speak but were left to fester under the surface.
A refugee in a prefab off the Old Kent Road.
And yet my sister says they still talk about the Dickins’s in Yercaud. They practically owned the town. Until Partition.
So our packages came with a secret depth charge of trauma, loss and humiliation.
I am staring at my curry. It is too pale,. It does not match my original vision – it needs something.
I reach for the tomato paste - then hesitate
There was no such thing as tomato paste in India as far as I am aware. Until the English came there was no such thing as curry. With this addition my dish, however delicious - will become even less authentic – fusion food – a cultural abomination.
But it seems apt. We were cultural abominations too – my family – by virtue of the illegitimate blood lurking in our veins.
My father – bullied mercilessly at boarding school, disinherited, passed over at work – and all because it was his skin that acknowledged the unthinkable –that made visible the elaborate family masquerade.
Treated like a cuckoo - pecked to death in his own nest.
Yet my family contained other histories – other heritages that we happily embraced. We were proudly Irish, English and French Canadian. It was only the unknown Indian that we shrank from. We scuttled away from our ‘true story’. Refused to let it unfold
I decide that my curry needs tomato paste. What harm can a squirt of Italian do?
Given my origins.
I stir in the bright alien puddle and the colour becomes as rich and as vibrant as my imagination.
Draining and rinsing white rice I spoon the mixtures on to my plate with relish. I chop the coriander and as I sprinkle it I feel a sense of both liberation and rapture.
Because you can put tomato paste in lentil curry. As long as you don’t use too much. You stir it in –it becomes obscured – No one need ever know – and it will turn out all right.
The Birkin Bag
(With acknowledgement to Guy de Maupassant)
Despite her humble upbringing on an East End council estate Cheryl had always had the sense that she was destined for better things. Although she failed to distinguish herself in any way she still considered herself superior to the class into which she had been born.
She was, however a beautiful woman whose face and figure had always turned heads. Men always described her as ‘classy’. She had always fully expected to be recruited by a scout from a model agency while out shopping at Bluewater. Failing that she imagined herself married to a Premier League footballer with a square chin, amazing thighs and his own brand of after shave.
Despite her aspirations by the time she was Twenty-two she was married to Derek, who did have a square chin but was only a minor civil servant in the department for Trade and Industry.
Although they lived comfortably enough in small terraced house with a carefully tended garden, there was a clash of personality, taste and temperament that rendered them both miserable for much of the time.
When Derek exclaimed in innocent delight at a nicely browned shepherds pie Cheryl developed a deep longing for Fillet of venison with beetroot and elderberry sauce, terrine of vegetables and a nice glass of Cabernet Shiraz.
When Derek proudly unveiled the new IKEA pine kitchen he had fitted it made her long for the gleaming expanses of a top of the range Moben set up.
When Derek was passed over for promotion the second time she raged and stamped her feet while Derek merely counted his blessings.
After a while they both became a bit depressed and even Derek, who loved Cheryl dearly, was getting a bit sick of finding her sprawled in baggy leggings on the sofa surrounded by copies of OK, Hello, Country Living and Tattler.
One morning, a buff envelope with a gold crest landed on the door mat, addressed to both of them. They tore it open to find inside an invitation to a Buckingham Palace Garden Party. It seemed that the whole of Derek’s team and their wives had been invited. When Cheryl absorbed the news her reaction was not what Derek had expected. She burst into tears screaming that she had nothing to wear and would be a laughing stock. She let Derek know precisely how she felt about his inability to provide for her in the style to which she wanted to become accustomed.
Alarmed by her hysteria Derek handed over the 500 quid he was saving for a new fishing rod.
The next night he arrived home to find her in an equally terrible state. Although House of Fraser had been able to furnish her with a pair of six inch heels and a passable hat and frock, there had been no money left for a matching handbag. She could not - she gasped between sobs, attend the event without a designer handbag that fitted the occasion.
Eventually Derek came up with a solution. Cheryl was to go and see her old school mate Tiffany , who had in fact married a footballer, although he now only played for a minor league. She sat beside the pool at their house in Chigwell and explained her difficulty.
Without much ado Tiffany came up with the goods in the form of a black crocodile bag with a diamond encrusted clochette containing a set of small gold keys. It was a Birkin bag, Tiffany emphasized, as Cheryl left.
The afternoon at the palace was everything Cheryl had dreamed of, although she did not manage to meet the Queen. She felt all eyes had been upon her; some with envy but others with barely disguised lust. Heady with all the attention and three glasses of champagne she threw a paddy when Derek insisted on a mini cab rather than a taxi and sulked all the way home. On arriving home she rushed inside, slammed the bedroom door and went straight to bed. She felt that the ordinariness of her real life might literally suffocate her.
The next morning her distress was heightened when, despite searching high and low she could not find the Birkin bag. Eventually she rang Derek at the office who rushed off to search the streets outside the palace. In the mean time Cheryl rang the minicab firm and eventually the police. All was in vain and by the evening they had to admit that the bag was irretrievably lost.
Derek frantically searched for hours on e Bay and for a moment was elated when he came across an almost identical black crocodile bag. Relief turned to panic when he saw that the bidding was currently at £17,523.00.
He simply could not bear the sight of his wife in such distress. Despite great misgivings he found his index finger clicking the mouse.The bag arrived and was returned to Tiffany – who seemed not to notice any difference.
To cover the debt they took out a loan at an unfavourable rate and soon they found them selves sliding into penury. In order to help with the repayments Cheryl got a job with a local agency that cleaned offices.In addition when a job came up at the fish and chip shop across the road, she began to work weekend shifts.
Although she worked from dawn to dusk -she began at last to appreciate the small joys of life and even to get along with Derek.
It took nine years to pay off the debt. On her first day of freedom Cheryl caught sight of herself in the mirror. The long hours and anxiety had taken their toll. Her hair was permanently lank with chip fat. Her skin had become sallow and coarse. Her once tiny waist had thickened as had her slender ankles. Bunions had forced her into sensible shoes.
She decided to go to Bluewater to treat herself to a hair do and perhaps a new scarf. As she arrived at the bottom of the escalator she bumped straight into Tiffany who was pushing a buggy laden with a small child and up market plastic bags. Tiffany was secretly shocked at the appearance of friend who now looked at least ten years older than her actual age.
For old times sake they went for a coffee and catch up chat and as they exchanged their stories with increasing intimacy Cheryl decide to come clean about the bag. After all the debt was paid now. It was in the past. It shouldn’t matter any more.
When she got to the part about how they had cleverly found a replacement Tiffany gripped Cheryl hands a looked at her in absolute horror.
Oh my God, she said - I’m so sorry. I was just showing off. That wasn’t a genuine Birkin bag. It was a fake. It can’t have been worth more than £200.
