Good For Nothing, page 14
‘Now, Maariyah, don’t be so disrespectful,’ Farida aunty had interrupted. ‘The police are only trying to look out for us. You’ve noticed them cracking down on the drugs around Friesly, haven’t you? Taking some of these boys off the street can’t be anything but a good thing. Leave them be.’
I remember Nani rubbing her chin. ‘What about Zayd Ali …? Hmm …? He lived near Mahmood’s Foods, didn’t he? The tall one? Who always did the shopping for his mum?’
‘You’re sure that he dealt drugs too, Farida?’ Balqis aunty had said.
‘That’s what the police said, didn’t they? Don’t ask silly questions!’ Farida aunty had snapped at her while folding a pair of children’s socks.
So we didn’t ask any more questions. Not me, or Nani, or the other aunties. And then the tinkling of the bell on the hinge brought a sudden burst of fresh conversation, meaning no one had any further time for the previous one.
I suddenly wished I’d asked though. More questions. Just like in English class, with that long Greek poem, and not understanding all of the lines: ‘Reckless one, my Hector – your own fiery courage will destroy you!’
Kemi fell into step with me on the walk home, our footsteps tracing the beaten path of the pavement together.
Families ahead of us chattered casually while fussing with sun hats and passing around forgotten sunscreen. And the quiet. That quiet was my pet. A stray cat, nestling up against both of our legs.
I glanced at Kemi. We crossed the road. I glanced at her again as the sun lit up her dark hair, her two fluffy buns.
‘About Amir –’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to –’
‘It’s OK.’
She was concentrating on something. Her eyes, wandering past the dropped leaves on the ground, the humming bees fallen from some height. Her Reeboks, with the double-knotted laces, jumping from slab to slab. Avoiding the cracks in the pavement.
‘Hey, do you have any brothers or sisters?’ she said, still focusing on her game.
I shook my head. ‘No.’
Kemi glanced up at me. Stopped jumping. ‘Oh.’
She started again. ‘I do. I have an older sister. Ada. She’s cool. But she was cooler when she didn’t go to a fancy university.’
Kemi pulled a leaf off a low-hanging branch. I wished I was tall enough to do that too. The quiet nestled up between us again. Too close. Too much.
‘I wish I did,’ I said. ‘Sometimes I wish I had a brother or sister.’
Kemi glanced at me. ‘Yeah?’
She avoided the cracks so easily. The rhythm was right there in front of me, so I copied it, jumping over a crack on the opposite side of her. ‘Yeah.’
‘What would you guys do together?’
I thought of Kemi’s older sister. I imagined a girl taller than me, there when me and Mum and Nani sat in the living room together, chiming in with confidence on what we’d just watched on TV. Then I thought of Amir’s older brother. I imagined a boy taller than me, there when I remembered it was my job to mop the hallway, standing over a soggy floor, daring me to come closer with my shoes still on.
‘Talk.’
‘Talk?’ Kemi repeated.
‘Yeah.’
It hadn’t occurred to me before that I could do that – talk without being spoken to first. And now it was all coming out. No hesitation.
‘We could talk about things, like school, and waiting for Mum to come home, and my green-field dream. And how I don’t understand the aunties sometimes. And missing Nani. And we could cook together.’
Kemi smiled. ‘And not burn anything.’
‘And not burn anything.’
The two of us jumped from slab to slab together. We walked wavy together.
‘And if I got stuck on something …’ I stopped, a little out of breath, looking for the words. ‘They could help me.’ I turned to her. ‘Does your sister help you? When you get stuck on something?’
Kemi chewed the inside of her lip. Above us, a flight of birds called to one another. An entire community in conversation.
‘Sometimes.’
Then she shoved me without even saying anything, with nothing but her dimpled smile. She sped off – quick quick quick – across the street. Her touch still warm, still lingering on my arm. I didn’t think about it. I laughed. I ran after her.
‘I told you I was going to make the saag aloo, Farida. You were supposed to fry the parathas.’
‘But, Balqis, I remembered Eman likes my saag aloo. I thought she’d like mine better.’
Balqis aunty’s larger frame eclipsed Farida aunty’s on our front doorstep. ‘Didn’t I tell you to plan this properly? Now Eman has my saag aloo, my pilau chaval, my raita, your samosas and pakoras, your daal and your saag aloo! Who even needs two boxes of saag aloo?’
The aunties squabbled in their usual Mirpuri language, a whirl of cream shalwar kameez, leather loafers and beige cardigans, blind to me unlatching the garden gate.
‘I organized this as best as I could, Balqis! Don’t you shout at me! You are far from perfect, Balqis! Your nephew doesn’t even know how to drive yet!’
‘He’s doing his best! And you can’t talk, Farida, your niece might as well be a nephew considering she doesn’t shave her beard!’
The aunties’ squabbling grew louder, fiercer, sharper even as I tried to interrupt, as I tried to give my salaams, force them to see me.
But without Nani’s calming influence the volume rose quickly, and the insults grew harsher – about relatives with no education, about sons marrying women who gave them no children, about stolen wealth, stolen wives, stolen homes, stolen language. It was like the middle of the room we’d stood in for so long had fallen away. And now we were just floating. Anchored by nothing. Holding on to no one.
‘We have lots of food still in our fridge, Balqis aunty, Farida aunty,’ I said in the face of this war, the constant jangle of their gold bangles. ‘Thank you so much. Really, it’s OK about the saag aloo –’
Balqis aunty jabbed a finger. ‘We all know the real reason why you’re so nosy, Farida! You were always such a busybody when we were young, and you still are now!’
‘Oh, enlighten us, Balqis,’ Farida aunty sneered, ‘since you had so many good grades at school. No, I’m misremembering. You had none! That’s what happens when you’re married off to the first person that comes knocking!’
‘Well!’ Balqis aunty said. And then – I felt it, too – that sharp intake of breath that comes before something that should never have been spoken, never uttered aloud. ‘At least someone married me!’
It came back to me again. The quiet. It got bigger, no longer a pet cat, but now a sprawling monster of a thing. I knew everyone felt it. Everyone saw it. The same joke Farida aunty had suffered her whole life, cutting her to pieces all over again. The quiet that followed made worse because Farida aunty no longer had the desire to interrupt it.
I reached out my hand to rest it on her shoulder. ‘Farida aunty –’
‘Make sure you put all of these Tupperware boxes in the fridge, Eman,’ Farida aunty said. ‘Your mother works hard. I’m sure she’ll be happy to see it all there for the both of you.’
She dipped her head low. She walked across the garden path, unlatched the gate and didn’t look back at Balqis aunty’s stubborn frown or at me struggling to hold all the Tupperware boxes I’d just been given.
My mum’s nursing shifts always finished late. Even on weekends. That was something I’d been used to ever since we moved to Friesly though.
When I was little, the sound of the car meeting the gravel in the driveway was magic to my ears. It got me out of bed on the nights Nani tucked me in and disappeared to make a cup of tea and drink it alone downstairs. I imagined my mum’s arrival. I fought off sleep, my eyes puffy and strained, always ready to see how she really looked when she dropped her keys on the hallway table and unpinned her hijab.
My mum always looked so tired. But happy. She looked happy, and safe, with no dad-shaped bruises on her face, no busted lips or blackening eyes. And she always turned around, caught my eye, then winked at Nani:
‘She still isn’t in bed yet?’
I loved that sentence. I loved how it was my cue to laugh when she said it.
Then I got older, and I slept past the sound of the car meeting the gravel in the driveway, and I only saw her on weekends. My mum and I slept in. Then we’d go shopping.
‘Let’s get you some new ones,’ Mum once said while guiding me and Nani to the jeans aisle. ‘Yours have so many rips and holes in them now.’
I remember I’d begged Nani to come with us with my eyes. I’d begged her to fill in the gaps – the things I desperately wanted to say but got stuck on, couldn’t utter aloud, to my mum and her no-nonsense tone in that clothes shop.
‘Fozia,’ Nani had said calmly, ‘I think Eman’s jeans have rips and holes in them on purpose. It’s the fashion now.’
Mum had glanced back at me, her eyebrows raised. She’d looked like she’d wanted to say something to me.
But then Nani had led us out of the shop, one hand directing us on where to go, the other resting happily on her stick. I would’ve followed her anywhere. I really would have.
Back in the kitchen, I stacked the new Tupperware boxes full of food on top of the old ones. I wanted to text Mum about the aunties and all they were doing for us. And when I heard cars come crunching into our gravel driveway, I thought one of them was my mum’s. Until I opened the door and realized it wasn’t. None of them were.
‘Eman!’ An aunty I hadn’t seen since I was a baby – and who hadn’t bothered to keep in touch – hugged me to her. ‘Eman, you look just like your mama! Where is she? We heard about Maariyah. Aren’t you going to invite us in? Is she at work? Can we come in and wait?’
‘Eman.’ An uncle whose name I could’ve sworn I’d heard Nani curse before – because he’d called my mum stupid for leaving my dad – rested his hand on the crown of my head. ‘Assalamu alaykum, Eman. We’re sorry to hear about your nani. She was always such a loud – um – passionate woman.’
‘Eman,’ more aunties and uncles and distant cousins and friends chorused. They shrugged their shoes off and left them in the hallway, and hugged me to them again, and again, and again. ‘We heard about Maariyah. We’re so sorry about Maariyah.’
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. Our house was suddenly warm with our relatives, all of them having made trips from faraway towns to greet me with teary eyes, with sloppy kisses on my cheeks, and with well wishes for my nani’s health. Her upcoming operation, her leg, her brain. She was going to survive, wasn’t she? Or did we know better? Had we been told any news? Was there to be a funeral to attend in a few weeks’ time?
‘Please,’ I said, with fear rising in my throat, and the knowledge that there were definitely not enough Tupperware boxes of food for the dozens of people flooding into our hallway, and a text being hastily sent to my mum. ‘Come in.’
CHAPTER 12
Kemi
My dad told me something really important when I was little. It always comes back to me when I’m running.
My feet pound the pavement. The early-morning sun always makes the back of my neck feel as warm as the colour yellow. It’s like I bring it to Friesly. It’s like I move and morning opens up, fresh like the centre of a daisy or birdsong at dawn. It spreads slowly, over concrete yards, over unmown grass. Electric gates. Stone walls. The wooden benches outside Mahmood’s Foods and the stone smile on Sir William Barker’s face.
Running brings it all back.
What he said before he had his heart attack.
How I felt the day Mum took the bus on her own for the first time just to come into school, just to wait awkwardly in the reception and tell us that his colleagues had found him all still and not moving on the cold factory floor.
I had art that morning. I remember because me, Michael and Jasmin had been putting PVA glue all over our hands and peeling it off. But as soon as Mum told us what had happened, my fingers felt heavy. Irritated. They felt colder than they should have. Ada sat next to me on the bus back to our house afterwards, sniffling as she peeled the white flakes from my fingers, and Mum smoothed down the back of her school jumper. She made sure her collar was clean and white. Like that mattered somehow. I don’t know. Maybe to Mum it did.
Heel, toe. Heel, toe. Breathe in. Breathe out. My dad’s words are unforgettable. I carry them with me like I carry the morning, like I bring the sun. I remember them like I remember he taught me to double-knot my laces in the mornings.
‘Not too tight –’ his voice always that warm rumble in his throat – ‘but not too loose you fall over.’
I remember how it felt that one Sports Day when I’d spotted him in the crowd of parents. My dad, who could never make any school events because of work. My dad, who insisted he’d try. And now he had. I’d adjusted my competing bib and decided I’d win the hundred-metre sprint especially for him. I also remember how much it had made my heart ache when I was so close to winning – the fastest kid in reception, the fastest kid in all of Friesly – and someone pulled at my back and sent me hurtling on to the ground.
Standing back up, grass stains all over my knees, had felt … wrong. That was all I felt. The wrongness of it. I saw everyone else who’d been shoved down like I had. Five-year-olds with fresh bruises, with pulled-on ponytails, with bibs too loose around their necks. Some of us crying. Some of us confused and looking around.
‘Baby,’ my dad had said afterwards, hugging me to him. ‘You did so good. Don’t cry. You did so good.’
I remember sniffling into his jacket. It smelled like Old Spice and soap. ‘But I didn’t win,’ I said.
‘Listen to me.’ My dad’s smile was the brightest smile in the world. ‘You only lose in life if you give up on yourself. Huh? Like that kid. The one who cheated. You only lose if you stop being who you truly are.’ He held my hand just right. Not too tight. Not too loose. ‘And who you are is incredible.’
‘Even if I lost?’
He scooped me up into his arms. ‘Oh, I don’t know if you really lost.’ His laugh rumbled in his throat. ‘I don’t know about that.’ He kissed my cheek. ‘My little girl, my shining star.’
There’s a quiz show that Ada and my mum watch together on Saturdays. It’s not anything special really. It’s just one of those usual quiz shows, with a host that asks general knowledge questions, and guests that guess answers, and a cash prize which has confetti and streamers come falling down from the ceiling if anyone’s lucky enough to win it.
One particularly muggy morning, I saw the two of them sat on the sofa in the living room together. They sipped tea. They dipped biscuits into the lukewarm beige, only barely aware of the soggy halves falling in.
Ada answered the history questions before they’d even been fully read out. She got them right. The lady playing for the money on the screen didn’t.
My mum squinted at the TV, drawing the trunks of her legs forward to analyse the lady’s defeated face. ‘Was that for five hundred pounds?’
The cash came out of a chute in the ceiling, fell in a circular whirl, disappeared into the middle of the quiz-show set. Gone. A wrong answer and it was all gone.
What if you never had the right answer though? What if your whole life was a series of questions you’d never been prepared to have the right answer to?
‘Ada, why don’t you just sign up and win us some money?’ I said, all sweaty from a morning run, and watching her get three in a row right, and my mum started smirking over her mug, which was her way of bragging about Ada’s big brain, and Ada smirked too.
She never looked away from the TV. ‘Why don’t you? Kemi, you know all the same answers I do.’
I bit my lip. Then I looked at her, sweeping up biscuit crumbs into the palm of her hand and putting them on to the centre of a plate that had held sliced-up apples and pears yesterday.
I thought of how Ada pressed down so hard with her pen in all of her exams that the backs of all the papers went bumpy with her handwriting. My pens were always leaky no matter how much I practised with them. I thought of how she could read a book and finish it in a day. I only read books for school and always needed her to help me understand them. I thought of the walls of our bedroom, all covered with revision posters during her exams, and how Mum beamed when our family in Nigeria mentioned Ada’s name, and how Nathan bought Ada a bookmark with her name on it, and how she showed it to me once, with a secret smile, while we got ready for bed. The medals and cups I’d won for running hung limply on the corner of a wardrobe door, the shine of the cheap plastic never brighter than the shine of Ada’s golden glow.
The host of this quiz show had really slicked-back hair. He smiled all the time, even when people said they needed the cash for their daughter’s life-changing operation, or so that they didn’t have to remortgage their house, or to save for a new car after theirs was in an accident.
He asked a question about sports. I thought hard. The name for running at full speed over a short distance.
‘Sprints!’ I yelled at the very same time as Ada.
Mum let out a big belly laugh as the contestant answered incorrectly. ‘Was that for a thousand pounds?’
‘See?’ Ada smiled at me, warm as the weather. ‘You know these, too.’
‘Yeah.’ I smiled back, surprised to find I did.
The money poured down the chute again and vanished. Ada cleared the table and set the tap going in the kitchen, humming to herself over her own simple pleasures, her own personal victories. I watched the rise and fall of a university sweatshirt Mum had forced Ada to buy. How well it fit her. But how much was it exactly? How many borrowed notes? Copper-smelling coins? And did she love it as much as she had loved Nathan’s black fleece?
‘Hey, Trouble,’ Mum said to the dramatic curve of my neck. ‘Church is in half an hour. Don’t forget you volunteer for life with Jesus Christ. This is no choice, Oluwakemi. It’s a blessing.’
