White Teeth by Zadie Smith

vouchers like they were so many fifty-pound notes. Kelvin thought for a moment he saw tears of happiness in his eyes.
    â€œWell, I don’t know what to say. There’s a place I go to, pretty regular like. If they take these I’m made for life. Ta very much.”
    Kelvin took a handkerchief to his forehead. “Think nothing of it, Arch. Please.”
    â€œMr. Hero, could I . . .” Archie gestured toward the door. “It’s just that I’d like to phone some people, you know, give them the news about the baby . . . if we’ve finished here.”
    Kelvin nodded, relieved. Archie lifted himself out of his seat. He had just reached for the handle of the door when Kelvin snatched up his Parker pen once more and said, “Oh, Archie, one more thing . . . that dinner with the Sunderland team . . . I talked to Maureen and I think we need to cut down on the numbers . . . we put the names in a hat and yours came out. Still, I don’t suppose you’ll be missing much, eh? These things are always a bit of a bore.”
    â€œRight you are, Mr. Hero,” said Archie, mind elsewhere; praying to God that O’Connell’s was a “food outlet”; smiling to himself, imagining Samad’s reaction when he copped fifty quid’s worth of bloody Luncheon Vouchers.
    Partly because Mrs. Jones becomes pregnant so soon after Mrs. Iqbal and partly because of a daily proximity (by this point Clara is working part-time as a supervisor for a Kilburn youth group that looks like the fifteen-man lineup of a ska and roots band—six-inch Afros, Adidas tracksuits, brown ties, Velcro, sun-tinted shades—and Alsana attends an Asian Women’s Prenatal Class in Kilburn High Road round the corner), the two women begin to see more of each other. Hesitant in the beginning—a few lunch dates here and there, the occasional coffee—what begins as a rearguard action against their husbands’ friendship soon develops. They have resigned themselves to their husbands’ mutual appreciation society and the free time this leaves is not altogether unpleasant; there is time for picnics and outings, for discussion and personal study; for old French movies where Alsana screams and covers her eyes at the suggestion of nudity (“Put it away! We are not wanting to see the dangly bits!”) and Clara gets a glimpse of how the other half live: the half who live on romance, passion, and joie de vivre. The other half who have
sex.
The life that might have been hers had she not been at the top of some stairs one fine day as Archibald Jones waited at the bottom.
    Then, when their bumps become too large and cinema seats no longer accommodate them, the women begin to meet for lunch in Kilburn Park, often with the Niece-of-Shame, the three of them squeezed on a generous bench where Alsana presses a Thermos of rather awful tea into Clara’s hand, without milk, with lemon. Opens several layers of plastic wrap to reveal today’s peculiar delight: savory doughlike balls, crumbly Indian sweets shot through with the colors of the kaleidoscope, thin pastry with spiced beef inside, salad with onion; saying to Clara, “Eat up! Stuff yourself silly! It’s in there, wallowing around in your belly, waiting for the menu. Woman, don’t torture it! You want to starve the bump?” For, despite appearances, there are six people on that bench (three living, three coming); one girl for Clara, two boys for Alsana.
    Alsana says, “Nobody’s complaining, let’s get that straight. Children are a blessing, the more the merrier. But I tell you, when I turned my head and saw that fancy ultra-business thingummybob . . .”
    â€œUltra
sound,
” corrects Clara, through a mouthful of rice.
    â€œYes, I almost had the heart attack to finish me off! Two! Feeding one is enough!”
    Clara laughs and says she can imagine Samad’s face when he saw it.
    â€œNo, dearie.” Alsana is