Read Online White Teeth by Zadie Smith - Free Book Online Page B

such a manner, both spiritually and mentally, and found her not lacking in any particular, and so what else can I offer but the hearty congratulations of your earnest competitor,
    Â Â Horst Ibelgaufts
    Â 
    What other memories of that day could make it unique and lift it out of the other 364 that made up 1975? Clara remembered a young black man stood atop an apple crate, sweating in a black suit, who began pleading to his brothers and sisters; an old bag lady retrieving a carnation from the bin to put in her hair. But then it was all over: the plastic-wrapped sandwiches Clara had made had been forgotten and sat suffering at the bottom of a bag, the sky had clouded over, and when they walked up the hill to the King Ludd Pub, past the jeering Fleet Street lads with their Saturday pints, it was discovered that Archie had been given a parking ticket.
    So it was that Clara spent the first three hours of married life in Cheapside Police Station, her shoes in her hands, watching her savior argue relentlessly with a traffic inspector who failed to understand Archie’s subtle interpretation of the Sunday parking laws.
    â€œClara, Clara, love—”
    It was Archie, struggling past her to the front door, partly obscured by a coffee table.
    â€œWe’ve got the Ick-Balls coming round tonight, and I want to get this house in some kind of order—so mind out the way.”
    â€œYou wan’ help?” asked Clara patiently, though still half in daydream. “I can lift someting if—”
    â€œNo, no, no, no—I’ll manage.”
    Clara reached out to take one side of the table. “Let me jus’—”
    Archie battled to push through the narrow frame, trying to hold both the legs and the table’s large removable glass top.
    â€œIt’s man’s work, love.”
    â€œBut—” Clara lifted a large armchair with enviable ease and brought it over to where Archie had collapsed, gasping for breath on the hall steps. “’Sno prob-lem. If you wan’ help: jus’ arks farrit.” She brushed her hand softly across his forehead.
    â€œYes, yes, yes.” He shook her off in irritation, as if batting a fly. “I’m quite capable, you know—”
    â€œI know dat—”
    â€œIt’s
man’s
work.”
    â€œYes, yes, I see—I didn’t mean—”
    â€œLook, Clara, love, just get out of my way and I’ll get on with it, OK?”
    Clara watched him roll up his sleeves with some determination, and tackle the coffee table once more.
    â€œIf you really want to be of some help, love, you can start bringing in some of your clothes. God knows there’s enough of ’em to sink a bloody battleship. How we’re going to fit them in what little space we have I’m sure I don’t know.”
    â€œI say before—we can trow some dem out, if you tink it best.”
    â€œNot up to me now, not up to me, is it? I mean, is it? And what about the coatrack?”
    This was the man: never able to make a decision, never able to state a position.
    â€œI alreddy say: if ya nah like it, den send da damn ting back. I bought it ’cos I taut you like it.”
    â€œWell, love,” said Archie, cautious now that she had raised her voice, “it
was
my money—it would have been nice at least to
ask
my opinion.”
    â€œMan! It a coatrack. It jus’ red. An’ red is red is red. What’s wrong wid red all of a sudden?”
    â€œI’m just trying,” said Archie, lowering his voice to a hoarse, forced whisper (a favorite voice-weapon in the marital arsenal:
not in front of the neighbors/children
), “to lift the
tone
in the house a bit. This is a nice neighborhood, new life, you know. Look, let’s not argue. Let’s flip a coin; heads it stays, tails . . .”
    True lovers row, then fall the next second back into each other’s arms; more seasoned lovers will walk up the