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162 pages

English

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It's the early 1990s. Vic is twenty, naive and drifting - grappling with his mixed Indian-Jewish heritage. When he meets Yvonne - activist, hedonist, social justice warrior - his life changes in ways he could never have imagined. They travel together from Leeds to London to New York. While Vic navigates fast-paced restaurant scenes, Yvonne ventures into the world of underground political music and tensions begin to rise. What begins as hedonistic travelling and young romance soon takes a darker turn as the racist underbelly of society is exposed with violent and fatal outcomes.For fans of Nick Hornby, David Nicholls and William Boyd, this vibrant and unforgettable 'coming-of-awareness'novel will fill you with nostalgia as you're transported back to the heady days of the nineties.

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Publié par	Distributed by eBookpartnership
Date de parution	01 août 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781913227173
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0150€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The Kosher Delhi
IVAN WAINEWRIGHT
Published by RedDoor www.reddoorpress.co.uk
© 2019 Ivan Wainewright
The right of Ivan Wainewright to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover design: Rawshock Design
Typesetting: Tutis Innovative E-Solutions Pte. Ltd
London
1992
It’s the height of a busy lunch serving at the restaurant. The kitchen is raucous, the volume turned up high, plates are flying out of the door.
I am at my station, preparing fish. I start to gut a sea bass. My fingers show a few knife scars from previous weeks’ work, but I ignore them.
The sweat is pouring off us all.
‘Cohen.’
I look up. The Head Chef is beckoning me with his finger. I put my knife down and wipe my hands on my whites.
‘Now, Cohen,’ Chef barks, and I hear him mutter under his breath, ‘stupid Paki.’
‘You’re for it now, Cohen,’ one of the other commis chefs says to me quietly.
I walk towards the Head Chef, who spins on his heels and leads me towards his office. I can hear Yvonne’s voice in my head telling me to stand up to whatever bigoted or abusive remarks I receive from him. ‘He’s just a racist prick,’ she’s saying, ‘Don’t give in to him, Vik. Tell him he’s a bully.’
She may be right, but she doesn’t understand my position here. It’s true I have been on the end of Chef’s castigation since I’ve been in the kitchen, but I’m not walking out. Not quitting. By not rising to his bait, by refusing to cower to him, that’s how I’m not giving in.
But I am starting to wonder if there is a limit. Is there a point where I should hold up my hands and say enough is enough? Walk away from the restaurant? I consider this as I follow the Head Chef.
No. Not yet. I’m not capitulating. I’ve worked too hard to get here. I can handle his vitriol.
After all, they’re just words.
Part 1
Leeds to Weston-Super-Mare
One
Weston-Super-Mare, February 1991
Considering all the things we did during our brief spell in Somerset that should have got us into trouble – smoking weed, pinching bottles of gin from the hotel, setting free the chickens from the farm – it’s ironic that the act which did cause the police to come looking for us was an accident.
We had finished our shifts at the hotel early that evening and Yvonne had nicked a half-full bottle of London Dry from the bar. It was a bitter February night, and we drank the gin huddled in our usual corner at the end of the pier. Unsurprisingly, we were both pissed in no time. I had a few coins in my pocket, and once we had finished the bottle, Yvonne suggested we go to the offie and buy another. But the cash was all I had until my next pay cheque, and I didn’t want to blow it on more alcohol. I tried to argue with her, but my protestations ended with Yvonne hugging me tightly and sliding her hand inside my jeans, and before I knew it she had grabbed the money out of my pocket and was running back up the pier towards the off-licence.
In the end, all we could afford were a couple of bottles of Holstein, and we slunk off towards a covered bus stop on the seafront to drink them. An old man was already hunched in the far corner of the shelter. Not that the dilapidated wooden structure provided much protection against the wind racing in off the channel.
I must have been more drunk than usual because I carried on arguing with Yvonne even as we were drinking the beer, something I would never normally have done because of my fear of upsetting her.
‘What’s your problem with me gaining experience in the hotel kitchen?’ I demanded.
Yvonne took a swig of beer. ‘You still dreaming of being a chef, Vik?’
‘Why not?’
‘There’s more chance of me becoming prime minister.’
‘There’s more chance of that than you becoming a singer,’ I yelled back.
Yvonne glared at me. ‘Youse saying I cannae sing?’
‘Margaret Thatcher can sing better than you.’
My words came out before I could stop them. Of course Yvonne could sing, she had a strong voice. I had heard her perform many times in Leeds pubs. But I was pissed off with her, wanted to get a reaction.
Yvonne didn’t pause, and with a furious shriek, she hurled her bottle of Holstein at me. I saw it coming and ducked, but as I swerved out of the way, I watched the flight of its trajectory as it sailed through the air and hit the old man square on the forehead. It knocked him sideways and he fell, his head bouncing off the shelter and then against the concrete floor as he crumpled to the ground.
We stared in horror at his prone figure, expecting him to moan and try to get up, before I realised it was more serious. I edged up to where he lay and peered at his face. He wasn’t moving. I leaned over him – his eyes were closed but he was still breathing.
‘Jesus, Yvonne.’
‘Wha’?’ She looked at me uncertainly.
‘You could have killed him. Look.’
‘Ye must be joking. Stop pissing me aboot.’
Yvonne’s Scottish accent always became more pronounced when she was angry. Or scared.
‘I don’t know –’
‘Vik, he’s not unconscious. The guy was already drunk.’
‘Are you sure? Look at him. Maybe he’s in a coma.’ I hesitated. ‘Christ, what are we going to do?’
‘Well, feel for his pulse or something. ‘
‘What do you think I am, a medic? I don’t know how to do that.’
I looked around to see if anyone had witnessed us. Luckily there was nobody else on the windswept front, it was just a typical, dismal Wesson scene: all the shops had their shutters pulled down, the pier was dark and uninviting, damp fag-ends littered the floor of our bus shelter.
I knelt beside the old man, my fingers hovering above his face. I noticed what could have been the first shades of a bruise colouring the side of his head.
Yvonne reached down to grab my hand.
‘Come on, Vik. Let’s get out of here. Now.’
‘But -’ I looked up again. On the other side of the road was a man walking a dog, but apart from him there were only one or two people hurrying along with their scarves wrapped tight against the wind, and they didn’t seem to have noticed us. The old man wasn’t visible from that side of the street. ‘We can’t just leave him. Shouldn’t we do something?’
Yvonne snatched her woollen hat from her pocket and pulled it down tightly over her short hair.
‘He’ll be fine. He’s probably just fainted. I’m sure someone else will come along in a minute and check on him.’
‘You think?’
‘Look, let’s just go, all right?’
We abandoned him. We ran back towards the hotel, praying noone would see us fleeing the scene, not even daring to pause at a phone box to call an ambulance, my fear outweighing my guilt. By the time the Hotel Neptune’s façade loomed up ahead, I was having second thoughts: I should have called for an ambulance. Why hadn’t I? But at least we had got away with it. As we reached the back entrance of the hotel, Yvonne turned and winked at me. We hadn’t really killed some poor old duffer, we couldn’t have. That sort of thing didn’t happen to us.
When we were lying in bed that night, Yvonne was uncharacteristically quiet. I assumed she was thinking about what might have happened. She lay in my arms and occasionally rubbed her cheek against my chest, but barely said a word. I didn’t know if I should break the silence or let her lie undisturbed; all that happened was that I got increasingly more tense. Pins and needles kicked in. Eventually, I heard Yvonne’s breathing change and I knew she was falling asleep. I started to ease her body off my arm, but as I did so, she stirred and looked up at me sleepily.
‘Still thinking about that old man, Vik?’
‘I can’t help it. We should have called an ambulance.’
‘And then we’d have been questioned by the police and both lost our jobs here. He’ll be fine, don’t worry.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘We didn’t kill him, Vik. Trust me.’
We didn’t… Not I, we. Even though Yvonne had thrown the bottle.
‘Vik, I have to ask you something.’ Yvonne shifted her weight.
‘OK…’
‘I can…rely on you, can’t I? If it comes down to it?’
‘What do you mean?’
For a few seconds, Yvonne’s eyes fluttered shut again, but then she turned her face towards me. ‘Would you kill someone for me, Vik?’
‘Are you serious?!’ I let go of her for an instant. ‘Right now?’
‘No, not now,’ Yvonne murmured. ‘Not at this moment. But sometime in the future, if I asked.’
‘Um…’
‘I’m deadly serious, Vik. I need to know if you would do that for me. If I can rely on you.’
‘Well, I…’
I didn’t say anything. Was she serious?
Yvonne waited for a moment. ‘Well, Vik, would you?’
I squeezed her more tightly. ‘I would never let anyone hurt you, Yvonne. I promise.’
We lapsed back into silence. After a few minutes, I heard a gentle snore, and I let out a long breath as Yvonne drifted back to sleep.
Her question remained unanswered.
But I had thought about it. I had thought about it for over thirty seconds, and for all that time I wondered whether I could say no. It took me that long to come to a conclusion. Yvonne had that kind of power over me.
‘I would do anything else for you,’ I whispered in the dark.
I forgot all about her question for three and a half years.
Leeds, March 1990
I met Yvonne at an Original Landlords’ gig in The Fox and Firkin, a short walk from my shared-house in Burley. I was waiting for one of my house-mates to get me a beer, half-thinking that Dave would come back any second and tell me they wouldn’t serve him because he looked under-age, even wearing his faded Wedding Present T-shirt. We were both twenty, but whereas I never got challenged about my legal status, Dave still had to carry his ID.
The last thing I expected was for a mesmeric young woman to chat me up. In fact, whe