Free Anita and Me by Meera Syal Page B

what exactly he was saying, and he smiled when her ears pricked up and she snorted, rolling her eyes, as if she now understood every word.
    And the next time I saw her was from my bedroom window, when she was lying on her side in the grass as Mr Ormerod and my papa and a few other men ran wildly around the field, dragging the driver from his steaming cab. Mrs Lowbridge and Mrs Worrall stood nearby in the requisite Tollington pose for witnesses at a disaster, one hand cradling the cheek, the other on the hip, and a slow, disbelieving rhythmic shake of the head. No one seemed to notice Misty flung in a corner of the field, her muzzle just visible above the clover stalks, emitting this terrible, haunting moan for help. And now I heard it again and I knew who was making it and I was afraid.
    ‘Can I have lemon curd in my one, Mrs Worrall?’ I jabbered, eager to distract her. She did not answer but wiped her hands on her pinafore and said, ‘Come and say hello to Mr Worrall.’ She opened the door leading into the sitting room and I blinked rapidly, trying to adjust my eyes to the gloom. The curtains were drawn, split by a bar of red sunset light where they did not quite meet, and the small black and white television set sitting on the dining table was on full volume. Opportunity Knocks was on, one of my very favourite programmes where ordinary people who felt they had a great untapped talent could try their luck at singing, impressions, unicycling whilst juggling hatchets, whatever, and if the great British public voted them the best of the acts, could return again and again every week, gathering more acclaim, accolades and possibly bookings at dizzying venues like the Wolverhampton Grand until they were finally knocked off first place by the newyoung pretender to the variety throne. The unicyclist is dead, long live the fat man from Barnet doing Harold Wilson impressions!
    From the first time I watched that show, I knew that this could be my most realistic escape route from Tollington, from ordinary girl to major personality in one easy step. But I’d never seen anyone who wasn’t white on the show, not so far, and was worried that might count against me. Hughie Green was doing his famous one-eye-open, one-eyebrow-cocked look right down the camera and he announced, ‘Let’s see how our musical muscle man, Tony Holland, does on our clapometer!’ An oiled, bulging bloke in micro swimming trunks appeared briefly and rippled his belly muscles into animal shapes as the audience whooped and hollered and the clapometer began at fifty and rose and rose, climbing slowly along until it nudged ninety and there were beads of sweat forming on Tony’s undulating diaphragm.
    Mrs Worrall suddenly switched the TV off and another wail of protest came from a far dark corner. ‘Later. Say hello to Mrs K’s littl’un first, eh?’ She pushed me forward and I suddenly became aware of the smell of the room which seemed to be at one with the gloom, the smell of a sick room, unaired and lonely, of damp pyjamas steaming, sticky-sided medicine bottles, spilled tinned soup and disinfectant under which there hovered the clinging tang of old, dried-in pee. A shape took form before me, thin useless legs in clean striped pyjamas, the toes curled and turned inwards, passive hands with fingers rigid and frozen as claws, a sunken chest making a bowed tent of the pyjama top, and finally Mr Worrall’s face, wide blue-blue staring eyes and a mouth permanently open, asking for something, wanting to talk, with the bewildered, demanding expression of an unjustly punished child.
    Mr Worrall moaned loudly again, nodding his head vigorously, a few drops of spit fell onto his chin which Mrs Worrall expertly wiped away with her pinafore hem. She took up his hand and placed it on mine, his fingers seemed to rustlelike dry twigs but, amazingly, I could feel the pump and surge of his heartbeat throbbing through his palm. I wanted to pull my hand away but I looked