Read Online Scenes From Early Life by Philip Hensher - Free Book Online

was unusual in any circumstance: when Great-grandmother was there, making demands and criticizing the household, calling for people to brush her hair and listen to her stories, we children were used to being ushered into a quiet corner and expected to remain silent. The attention I was getting was pleasing, but unnerving. I wondered whether I was about to get a present.
    ‘And he is studying at college now,’ Great-grandmother said at table. She was talking about the son of a neighbour of theirs, a neighbour in the country. ‘Studying to be an engineer. He has made a good success of his life. When you consider who his father is. There was constant trouble with his father. Running wild. And now he is going to Libya,’ she finished, hunching over her plate.
    ‘Fateh is going to Libya?’ Nana said, puzzled. He remembered the farmer, his youth, running wild.
    ‘Libya?’ Era said.
    ‘Not Fateh,’ Great-grandmother said, her brilliant white hair combed back now. ‘Fateh could never go to Libya. Fateh stays where he was born. His son, he is going to Libya. He is studying at college. Studying to be an engineer. And afterwards, he is going to Libya.’
    There was a satisfied pause. The dining-room door swung open, and in came a succession of dishes, steaming hot. All at once, the table broke into conversation.
    ‘Were you at your college today?’ Dahlia called across to Pultoo-uncle.
    ‘No, because—’
    ‘And Mahmood had a great success today,’ my mother called across to Nani, gesturing at my father who, in honour of a great-grandparent, had come, for once, to dinner on Friday.
    ‘I’m so pleased for him,’ Nani said. ‘Era, did you hear what your sister was saying?’
    ‘Yes, Mama,’ Era said. ‘A success, today . . . I was just about to say . . .’
    It was mystifying. The lids of the dishes were taken off, in a shining line down the long table; the richest of the dishes before Nana. ‘Good, good,’ he said, poking in it with the serving spoon in his usual way; it was as if he suspected the most delicious parts to be always hidden deep in the dish. ‘Good. Chicken.’
    Around the table, there was a nervous little spasm of conversation, and I had the sense of aunt turning to aunt, and smiling shamefully at me. ‘Do have some, Saadi,’ Mary-aunty said. ‘It’s especially for your great-grandmother, since she has come all this way to see us.’
    A horrible thought came to me. ‘Where did the chicken come from?’ I said to Nana. ‘Nana, what is this chicken?’
    But I had been shunted down a place by the arrival of my Great-grandmother, and he affected not to hear my shrill demand. ‘Nana,’ I said. ‘Nana.’
    ‘Quiet, Saadi,’ Bubbly-aunty said, next to me. ‘Don’t scream in people’s ears. It’s a chicken from the garden, as usual.’
    ‘Which one?’ I said. ‘Which chicken are we eating?’
    ‘I really don’t know,’ Bubbly said. ‘I really don’t know the difference between one chicken and another. They’d be very happy, I’m sure, if they knew they were going to make such a lovely dinner for all of us. Now, I’m sure you’re not going to be a bad little boy. I’m sure you’re going to be a good little boy, and eat your dinner, aren’t you?’
    In my family, we did not leap up and push our chairs over; we did not scream and denounce our relations; we did not punch and pummel the servants, even the ones who had seized our pet chickens and put them in the pot without a second thought. We did not run howling out into the garden in search of our lost chickens. What we did was push the dish away when it came to us, and say, with murder in our voices, ‘No, thank you. I don’t care to eat a friend of mine.’
    ‘What did he say?’ Great-grandmother said.
    ‘I didn’t hear,’ Nana said. ‘Pay no attention, and everything will be quite all right.’
    9.
    I sat in mutinous silence all through dinner. I would not look at or answer my great-grandmother, for whose sake Piklu