Jubilee Read Online Free PDF

him. He’d liked her, and he’d watched her, just as he watched the others, trying to understand how it worked between them, but they hadn’t been friends. Then one day he’d met her in Jennings’ Field, the bit of waste ground near the school that he’d cycle around on bored afternoons. She was alone too, which had surprised him, but he’d eased his bike down beside her, and they’d talked.
    Without Sarah she was more fun, more up for a laugh. She did impressions of some of the teachers in school, and told him about seeing Mr Tominey in the nude through his bedroom window one night. Satish imitated Mr McLennan, their headmaster, as he called the school to order before assembly – ‘and … sit !’ – which made Mandy giggle. Satish repeated his performance, hoping to hear her giggle again.
    They talked about their families. Her mum and dad were going out to a party that night, she said. Her mum had bought a new dress and was spending the afternoon at the hairdresser’s. He could see it: Mrs Hobbes, elegant in her long gown, her hair piled up high. He couldn’t picture Mr Hobbes in a jacket and bow tie though; in fact, he struggled to imagine him at a party at all. Satish had only ever heard Mr Hobbes say two things: ‘I’m warming her up,’ shouted into the house as he headed to the car in the morning, and ‘I was hoping for red, actually,’ after Satish’s dad complimented him on his new Granada. Unless the partygoers were keen to discuss motoring issues Mr Hobbes would be at a loss. Certainly, Mandy didn’t have much faith in him.
    ‘It’s not like he ever enjoys it,’ she said. ‘Mum says all he does is sit in a corner and eat cheese. Then he spends the next day complaining about the other guests. Do your parents go to parties?’
    He thought about it. ‘Not like that. We go to my Uncle Ranjeet’s place a lot, though. He lives in Bassetsbury.’
    ‘What do you do there?’
    He knew what she was asking now. She wanted to know what Asian people did, about how it might be different.
    ‘We talk and eat.’ There were things he couldn’t tell her about, things English people didn’t understand. He thought about Ranjeet’s family shrine, which took up the whole dining room. Auntie Manju washed and dressed the image of Vishnu every Sunday. Mandy wouldn’t understand that. He offered her something else, ‘sometimes they make me and my cousin play music’, and shot her a sideways glance as he said it, waiting for her derision.
    ‘They once made me do a ballet dance at my uncle’s house,’ Mandy told him. ‘They brought a butterfly costume and made me wear it.’
    Satish received this in silence. He picked up a stick and spun the back wheel of his bike. A few moments later they both got up and made their way through the field, onto the main road. Neither of them said anything, but when Mandy turned the corner into Cherry Gardens, Satish slowed down. He waited for a bit, leaning on his bike, to give her enough time to get home. When he heard the sound of a door slamming, he started moving again.
    After that they’d get together when no one else was around, each instinctively knowing that each was a liability for the other: she a girl, and a younger one at that, he the acknowledged outsider. She grew used to greeting his mum quickly at the door before slipping upstairs to his room, and he became used – gloriously, deliciously – to the treasure house of baked goods that was Mandy’s mum’s kitchen.
    Looking out of the window on that Jubilee morning, Satish followed Mandy’s slow gaze, taking in his neighbours’ homes, performing imaginary cross-sections to reveal the industry going on in each one.
    Fairy cakes at number one; Jubilee celebration cake at number three (Miss Bissett standing on a ladder, the better to reach the summit of her creation); no food at number five (Miss Walsh was providing the drinks); coronation chicken at number seven (huge platefuls of creamy-pale lumps. Satish