Summary
Meena goes to visit Anita for the first time in several weeks. On the street, she meets some of the other friends she used to play with, and Meena marvels at how young they seem. Meena knocks on Anita’s door, and is greeted by Tracey, Anita’s younger sister. Tracey says Anita is at Sherrie’s farm, and Meena invites Tracey to tag along as Meena visits the farm.
Tracey agrees to come, but, to Meena’s dismay, Tracey brings her black poodle, a dog named the N-word, with them. As they walk, Meena confesses to Tracey the discomfort she feels about Tracey’s dog and its derogatory name. Tracey is ashamed.
As Meena and Tracey reach Sherrie’s farm, Sherrie’s father passes in his car. He rolls down his window to greet them, and points to a construction site at the edge of his farm. Sherrie’s father explains that the city is tearing up his farm to build a slip road. But Sherrie’s father remains undisturbed, because he has won a sizable sum of money in court, and plans on moving his family into the countryside.
Meena and Tracey find Anita, Fat Sally, and Sherrie riding Sherrie’s horse, Trixie. The girls are initially standoffish—who invited Tracey? who invited Meena?—but Anita welcomes Meena and the group relaxes. Sherrie shouts that Tracey’s dog shouldn’t be allowed on the paddock, as the dog might fight the horse.
Anita tells Fat Sally to take off her scarf, so that Anita can leash the dog to a tree. Fat Sally initially protests, saying it's an expensive scarf, but Anita takes it anyway, claiming Fat Sally is rich enough to just buy another. Fat Sally denies being rich, despite the fact that she attends a “posh” Catholic school. Meena wonders if Fat Sally’s Catholic community is comparable to Meena’s Indian community. Meena imagines Fat Sally also having “an army of overpowering female relatives” to check her homework. Anita continues to tease Fat Sally’s privilege.
Fat Sally tackles Anita, and the two brawl on the ground. Tracey tries to break them up, but gets knocked to the ground, too. Meena is struck by the image of Anita fighting: while Fat Sally tears at Anita’s hair, Anita smiles wide. Meena runs to get Sherrie’s dad, but stops when she hears the howl of Tracey’s dog as the dog breaks free from its leash. The girls stop fighting, and Tracey runs to find her dog.
Not too long after, Meena and her friends hear a car horn. Tracey’s dog has been hit by a car. The girls run to the street and find the dog on the tarmac, dying. Hairy Neddy, a bystander, stops his car to help the girls. Anita hands Hairy Neddy a big rock, and tells Neddy to kill the dog, to end its suffering. Hairy Neddy cannot. Anita begins to lift the rock herself, but Neddy stops her. Meena heads home and reflects on the hatred she previously felt towards the dog, and realizes her anger had been misplaced: the dog had no responsibility for his offensive name.
Analysis
One of the shorter chapters in the novel, Chapter 9 offers Meena important character development, as Meena moves away from a black-and-white understanding of her relationships, finding instead nuance and ambiguity: she learns that friends can survive conflict, that bullies can also be victims. At the chapter’s beginning, Meena continues to differentiate herself from her previous playmates. As Meena passes some of her younger neighbors, former members of Meena and Anita’s “Wenches Brigade,” Meena wonders, “How did I ever think this motley collection of toddlers and bedwetters constituted a gang?” (p. 234). But, in spite of these perceived differences, or maybe because of them, Meena begins to extend olive branches to her former friends. Meena goes out of her way to invite Tracey Rutter along with her on a visit to Sherrie’s farm, even though Meena was initially visiting the Rutters’ house to look for Anita, and not Tracey (p. 234). Together, Meena and Tracey visit Anita, Sherrie, and Fat Sally; this is significant because it is the first time Meena has spent time with the girls since their falling-out at the Spring Fete. Meena describes her hope for a rekindled friendship with Anita, on new terms: “I would no longer be Anita’s shadow but her equal” (p. 237), she says.
Meena does, in fact, begin to act as an equal to Anita. When Anita says, “What the hell’s she doing here?”, referring to Tracey, Meena responds, “I said she could come” (p. 237). For the first time, Meena has challenged Anita’s authority, standing up for Tracey. Moreover, this exchange parallels an earlier dialogue in Chapter 7, when Anita similarly stands up for Meena to Sherrie: when Sherrie invites Anita to her farm, but doesn’t invite Meena, Anita demands that Meena has “got to come too” (p. 188). This parallelism helps to reinforce Meena’s claim that she might finally be Anita’s “equal”—i.e. Meena now has the same self-assuredness that Anita has. Another example of Meena seeking friendship, without sacrificing her values, can be seen in Meena’s confrontation with Tracey regarding the racist name of Tracey’s dog; Meena frankly tells Tracey, “I hate that stupid name! It’s… it’s like a swear word” (p. 235). Tracey quickly apologizes, and Meena lets the matter drop. It seems Meena has learned that she can stand up for herself—even disagree with others—without ending a friendship. This is important character development for Meena, who has previously compared being an “individual” to being an “outsider” (p. 142).
As the chapter progresses, Meena grows increasingly sympathetic towards Anita and her friends, despite the hurt Anita has caused her. Watching Anita and Fat Sally wrestle, Meena says of Anita’s character, “What really troubled me was her quiet acceptance, her satisfaction at being pummelled. She seemed to be saying, I made you do this, I knew you would do it, and I have been proved right. I could not work out if this made her a bully or victim” (p. 241). Here emerges an important theme, a question that persists through the remainder of the novel: what are the boundaries between bully and victim? Meena's perspective shifts, as she begins to see different sides of Anita, beyond Anita’s mask of self-confidence and indifference. For example, Meena realizes the futility of Anita’s childhood dream of owning a pony; Anita’s mother “has no intention, ever, of buying” one (p. 242). Meena watches Anita on Sherrie’s horse, and thinks, “Anita, the same skinny harpy who had just narrowly missed gouging out another girl’s eyes, was now whispering lover’s endearments into a fat pony’s ears. She needed me maybe more than I needed her. There is a fine line between love and pity and I had just stepped over it” (p. 242). In Chapter 7, Meena’s formerly one-dimensional understandings of Anita—first as an idol, then as a traitor—become multi-dimensional: Meena can disagree with Anita, yet still be her friend; Anita can be a bully and also a victim herself.
Meena’s deepened understanding of Anita’s complex morality is mirrored in Meera Syal’s characterization of Anita and her movements—specifically, during the dying moments of Tracey’s dog, when Anita attempts to kill the dog, and put him out of his misery. First, Meera Syal portrays Anita as cold-hearted, strolling “calmly” towards the dog, and willing to kill him when Hairy Neddy is unable (p. 244). But, when Neddy stops Anita, Anita goes “limp as a rag doll and fell heavily against Hairy Neddy” (p. 244). Here, we see Anita lose her typical coolness and steadiness, falling to extreme vulnerability: fainting into Neddy’s arms, and being lifted into the car like a baby.
As Meena’s understanding of her friends grows more nuanced, Meena begins to empathize more broadly with those around her, even those she has formerly hated, identifying points of similarity between herself and others. For example, Meena listens to Fat Sally defend her Catholic school against Anita’s teasing, and Meena “wondered briefly if Catholics were anything like Hindus and that maybe Fat Sally also had an army of overpowering female relatives who made regular inspections of her homework books” (p. 239). Later, when Tracey’s dog dies, Meena realizes her anger towards the dog had been misplaced: “I had blamed him for what he was called, not what he was, had made him the focus of my resentment and hatred, knowing he was in no position but to accept it. Sam Lowbridge and I had that in common at least” (p. 245). Here, Meena sees herself in both her victim and her bully. She accepts her own fallibility, and in so doing she empathizes with the folly behind Sam Lowbridge’s racism, finding similarities between herself and him. Importantly, Meena concludes by telling herself, “It was not your fault” (p. 245). Meena accepts herself as multi-dimensional, just as she has accepted it for Anita, and later Sam.
