Good For Nothing, page 15
Her voice followed my grumbling all the way down the hallway, past Dad’s smiling face, his eternal and everlasting joy. ‘And wear something nice to the Lord’s house!’
I don’t think God cares very much about whether His people wear running shorts, or denim shorts, or the dungaree dress I always pick out of mine and Ada’s wardrobe for church before she can.
The corduroy material comfortable. The dress part smart enough for my mum to be satisfied with, casual enough for me to think of as still somewhat cool.
But the Jacob Pentecostal Church had always had a reputation for being well attended by more than half of the Naija community. Its services were considered to be the perfect mix of devotion to the Lord – all ‘Praise Jesus’ and ‘Hallelujah’, stamping feet and wavering voices – while still being accessible to all. Rhythmic. Joyous.
Even – if you were really into it, if you actually liked God – fun.
That was why Emmanuel was so proud of it. That was why Mum and Aunty Sunbo and Aunty Ifeoma considered it their personal duty to have the pews filled, the high ceilings reverberating with our singing voices, our clapping hands.
When we were little, before 9 a.m. the block only ever smelled like hair wax, like coconut oil. The hiss of irons being switched on, kettles bubbling, voices yelling for Precious and Aron to get up and wash already, an expected rhythm. Then we’d all walk down together. Whole families. Parents and grandparents and children and uncles and aunties. A snaking line of well-washed, Vaseline-moisturized faces in our best clothes, with our greatest intentions.
When Dad was here, we went to a different church. One that didn’t have as much rhythm and shouting and joy in its pews. One that had more because he was still alive.
I’d let myself be carried by him. High on his shoulders.
The best view of Friesly’s backstreets in the world.
Mum always fussed that I’d fall, and he’d smile and insist that I wouldn’t, and she’d end up smiling back despite herself.
From that height, I usually saw the aunties helping Precious’s mum hunt for a spare hair tie along the low brick houses in the backstreets. Nathan and Ada jumping away from each other in fear of accidentally bumping hands. Aron earning more than a few questioning glances from the elders at the too-short tie around his yawning neck. And him sticking his tongue out at me when I teased him. Eventually, when we’d picked up Uncle Jafari too, there’d be a whole-group tussle to get him to wear it properly.
‘Let the boy have some style,’ Dad used to say when it got a little too heated, when Aunty Sunbo looked close to cursing out Aron completely and his parents were shaking their heads at him.
Dad once stopped by a peeling front gate, next to an alley that smelled like drainpipes and days-old cooked spices, to help Aron.
‘Here.’ His hands stopped holding on to my legs, his voice leaving the song we’d been singing together. ‘This is how Jafari and I wore them in the good old days.’
Soon enough, Aron’s tie hung long on his little-boy chest. But it looked smart somehow. Cool. Like there was magic in Dad’s hands, like something sweet twitched in his every move.
Aron’s dad and Uncle Jafari snapped their fingers approvingly, and spent the rest of the walk up to that quieter church showing us kids how to do it properly – how to hit your thumb against your third finger just right.
Just so we’d get given up-and-down looks, frowns and glares when we tried to do it in that quiet church later on. I did it quicker than Aron, than Precious, than Nathan, even than Ada. I looked at my dad. And then at my fingers. He looked at me. And then at my fingers. The organist paused, squinting over his half-moon glasses.
My dad hugged me to him, grinning despite the disapproving looks. The pastor cleared his throat. He began his sermon.
‘The Lord is my shepherd,’ I recited from the leather-bound Bible in my hand, the Jacob Pentecostal Church already alive with nods of approval at my words, already thundering with stamping feet. ‘I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams.
‘He renews my strength,’ I read, while Emmanuel mimed at me to open my mouth more, to quit mumbling my words. ‘He guides me along right paths, bringing honour to his name.’
I know that I should’ve been grateful that Mum had put me forward to recite when Emmanuel had needed a reader and was willing to pay for one, and Ada had reminded Mum that I needed the money.
But the sight of him in his church robes – his newly wiped glasses … his presence among the stained-glass windows, the lectern, and the pews so full of people – all of this frustrated me. I tried to focus on the faint song of pennies and pounds being dropped into the donation box as it was passed around the congregation. I tried to think only of how it would feel to be paid for this.
And not just with good deeds, which my ever-Christian mum was careful to remind me about.
With cash.
Notes.
Pounds.
Something I could fill my pockets with.
Something that could go towards the Running Right residential in France next year. Maybe even in the winter months if there was still space on the training sessions in Yorkshire.
If I just kept reciting. If I could appease the old ladies with their reading glasses, the old men squinting hard at their Bibles, Mum, and Aunty Sunbo, and Aunty Ifeoma, and Aron, and Precious and Nathan, and … and … Where was she? Where was Ada? I squinted across the pews. Emmanuel urged me on, all thumbs-up and joyous at the very back of the church, his thin pencil moustache lifting on his face.
I sighed. Then I cleared my throat. I planted my Reeboks on the carpeted floor. Think of the money, Kemi. Let Jesus give you lots and lots of money.
‘HE renews my STRENGTH!’ I said, with my fist up, and all the rhythm that I’d seen Emmanuel himself use. Fresh energy. Freshest in the world.
‘He GUIDES me along RIGHT paths!’ I paused, nodding to myself, encouraged by bursts of agreement from the pews, louder humming, claps and whoops. ‘Bringing HONOUR to his NAME!’
It was almost fun, watching Mum and the aunties holler up at me, seeing Aron burst out laughing, and Precious and Nathan gape. The gum inside Precious’s mouth glinted pink and chewed-up. It showed like Uncle Jafari’s gold tooth did at the very back of the hall, his good humour exploding in applause, in ‘Praise Jesus’ and ‘Hallelujah’, which I knew he only half-meant, because Uncle Jafari wasn’t the biggest believer in God. Not Nigerian. Not wholly Christian. Not even our real uncle. That man attended our church to keep a promise to a best friend he’d never see again. Not in this life. Maybe not even the next, because Uncle Jafari didn’t completely believe in heaven and hell either.
What was the real reason then? Something that defies logic? Something like love?
I clambered down the front steps, closer to the pews, pausing along those enraptured young faces. ‘EVEN when I walk through the DARKEST VOLLEY!’
‘Valley!’ a voice corrected.
I pointed into the crowd. ‘Yes!’
A burst of laughter followed. It spread like the warmth of a hug. And I saw her. My sister, smiling at me in the front row. Half-covering her mouth with her hands, her face flushed with either pride or humiliation. It was difficult to tell.
I marched closer to her. Ignored the vocal recoil of the microphone.
‘EVEN when I walk through the DARKEST VALLEY, I will NOT be afraid, for HE is with me!’
Hands met hands. Skin touched skin. Applause fell, beautiful and bountiful, and heaped itself on my shoulders. My chest heaved up and down with the force of my own performance. And I watched as Ada stood up, just like everyone else did, all of our family. But it was different, too, because she wasn’t sat with them.
I wanted to ask her why.
We were bound by eye contact, two pairs of dark brown eyes. I wanted to ask her why she wasn’t sitting with her boyfriend, her old friends, her past.
‘Praise Jesus!’ My uncle Jafari grinned, emerging from the sea of faithful church attendees with his usual too-calm swagger. ‘Hallelujah, Amen! Who would’ve known our Kemi would be such a great Bible reader?!’
He was such a jumpy old man. Skinny, with that shiny gold tooth in his mouth, and a patterned shirt for every occasion. Whether it was buying me scratch cards to share with him at lunch or coming to church or trimming men’s hair with his colleagues at Clean Cutz.
There were even old snapshots of him and my dad when they’d first become friends in Friesly, and Jafari had first discovered patterned shirts and chains to match his teeth, and my dad, in football shorts and a simple T-shirt, had grinned at his sense of style.
They knew how to get along though.
They knew how to deal cards, and drink rum, and mock each other’s choice of shoe all the time.
They knew how to help Ada with her homework when Mum was out, and her introduction to her times tables called for their attention, too. And they knew to give me the simple task of collecting Ada’s pencil sharpenings so I could feel included, as well. I usually wore them – with pride – around my neck.
‘Don’t,’ I said, grinning despite my shyness at accepting Uncle Jafari’s compliments.
‘No, you were great,’ Uncle Jafari insisted. ‘You really volleyed us into a new understanding of God’s work.’
Then he threw his head back like a hyena, dying over his own joke.
I rolled my eyes. ‘You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?’
Uncle Jafari insisted he was only joking as he ruffled my hair, his hand warm and open on the crown of my head. ‘Aw, don’t be sad, Kemi girl. Here, I’ve bought you a present.’
He dropped a new scratch card into my open hand and howled when it showed up used and lost against my palm. I just shook my head, the ghost of a smile on my lips as I watched him go, me insisting on a dinner invitation which he casually waved off.
Then I scanned the people making their way out, the gaggle of coats and shoes, searching for Emmanuel. I’d seen the many notes and pennies the donation box had been stuffed full with as it had made its way around the plastic chairs that filled the church. It looked like it was at least £300. I could handle Uncle Jafari’s teasing if that was what I was getting in return. And Emmanuel’s beaming grin, too, his rapturous applause along with everyone else’s.
So I was already smiling when I heard the shuffle of his leather shoes from behind me.
‘See this, Kemi?’ Emmanuel sifted through the notes and pennies and pounds. He handed me a single five-pound note. ‘This is what your godly hard work has given you!’
I tried not to let the smile die as he went on and on about blessings, and good intentions, and how this was enough money for me to go down to the supermarket and buy a big bottle of Fanta for my family to enjoy with their dinner. I really did. But it was no use.
One moment I was the best Bible reader in Friesly, celebrated for minutes which felt like an eternity – and should have – and the next I was standing in an aisle in Mahmood’s Foods, shopping despite Qasim Mahmood’s eagle-eyed gaze from the checkout. And the weight of Precious, Aron and Nathan’s request to get them some pick ’n’ mix. And the dull hurt of being smiled at only by Ada as she fell into step – outside the churchyard – with Mum.
‘Stupid Emmanuel,’ I muttered to no one in particular.
I dropped the paper bag of strawberry laces, cola bottles, white mice and tangy rainbow stripes into my basket. It was heavy enough anyway with the big Fanta bottle in it.
I felt for the creased note in my pocket. ‘What am I supposed to do with only five pounds?’
Well, I knew I could save it. I could see how many scratch cards Uncle Jafari could buy for me. Maybe we’d win on one and that would be enough for me to get a personal trainer for the Olympics. If I didn’t bomb my GCSEs, of course. Because then I wouldn’t be able to study sports science at A level. I grimaced, all caught up in worry about my future, and about my sister, and about the weight of the basket in my hands.
The note looked like it could rip in my hands, it was so worn and well-folded. Some strange pen marks defaced the paper. Uncles and their notes. Their money always looked like that. Not new and shiny, like the money in the quiz shows, catching in the light and disappearing down a cylindrical funnel, far away from grabby hands, a stranger’s, or mine.
‘Oof!’ The sound filled the supermarket aisle as I collided into someone.
‘Sorry!’ came the hurried response.
I was all ready to argue with whoever it was, I was in that sort of mood. But then I realized Eman Malik was standing in front of me. A bit shakier looking than usual, but still just Eman from volunteering. She was carrying two cartons of juice in her arms. No basket. An orange carton and an apple carton, and a carrier bag in her back pocket.
‘Hey, it’s alright,’ I joked. ‘Party in the drinks aisle in Mahmood’s Foods, huh? Wait, what’s up? Why are you crying? What’s wrong?’
She tried to use the end of one of her shirt sleeves to wipe her eyes, but it was hard when her arms were full. ‘Nothing. I’m O-OK. I’m f-fine.’
‘You don’t look fine,’ I said. ‘You’re not still upset about Amir, are you? Look, he’ll get over it. No one really knows what happened to Zayd, and people say stuff like that to him all the time –’
‘No, it’s … it’s –’ Eman was puffy-eyed and biting the inside of her cheek. Then she took a deep breath and all these words came tumbling out of her mouth.
‘Kemi? What drink would you get for all the people visiting your house because your grandma had an accident outside Nishaan and now she’s in the hospital in a coma with bleeding in her brain and no one knows if she’s going to survive or not?’
I looked at Eman. I looked at her tear-stained face, the cartons of orange juice and apple juice she was hugging so tightly, the bits of change resting dully in the palm of her hand. Then I took the five-pound note out from my pocket. And the carton of orange juice, so her arms were freer.
‘Both.’
‘Both?’ Eman hiccupped as I steered us towards the checkout.
‘Both.’
PART THREE: FRIENDS
featuring:
a wall of banned customers – proof – Zakiya Bhatti’s press profile – guests – a get-together – shadow-boxing – a puddle of mango juice – shisha pipes – boys – unwelcome cousins – another aloo gobi sandwich – snow-white shalwar kameez – Neelam Jalani’s wedding – the third haiku – the wrong Elvis – a poorly Maximus – the second accident – justice for Zayd – PC Chris’s story – the death of clown number three – a roll-up cigarette – a chopped-off tulip head – the rain – and Nani
CHAPTER 13
Amir
‘Amir?’ Fiza crossed over the threshold of mine and Zayd’s room, ignoring the KEEP OUT sign like it wasn’t there. ‘What are you looking for?’
I didn’t say anything. I just pulled out the entire wooden drawer, letting clean boxers, blankets and bedsheets fall on to the vacuumed floor. Then the newspaper article I’d so carefully cut out dropped down, flimsy, feather-like.
Fiza’s socks padded across to me softly. Hesitantly.
Like, somehow, Zayd’s bedhead would lift from the upstairs bunk and he’d ask us, with bleary eyes and a dry throat, exactly what we were doing. The sheets remained still. He slept on. But his school photograph showed up black and white in my hands. Strong jaw, big smile, short tie, white collar. All teeth and thick eyebrows.
‘Huh?’ Fiza read the headline over my shoulder. ‘“Fatal traffic accident leaves local boy, 16, dead”.’ Her brown eyes were paler than mine. In the sunlight, they looked golden. Warm like honey. ‘Is this … Is this about …’
‘Zayd,’ I finished for her. ‘Yeah.’
Zakiya Bhatti’s block of black-and-white ink seemed softer when my sister read it. It became easier. A pool of words she dived into slowly but carefully. She stumbled a little though. Fought over the lump in her throat. Looked at me.
‘D’you want me to?’ I said.
Fiza nodded. She dropped down next to me. I took a deep breath:
An anonymous eyewitness reports: ‘Zayd was often seen leaving the supermarket with the weekly shop for his mother. Few in our tight-knit community heard a bad word about him. This is a devastating loss for the Ali family and for Friesly itself. An innocent young man was accused of a crime which he did not commit. Zayd was not given the respect of being known for more than his unfortunate death. He was and is much more than this tragedy.
I let Fiza lean her head on my shoulder. I felt the wet warmth of her tears on my shirt sleeve and couldn’t be bothered cussing her out for that.
I had no answer when she asked me who had said all of that about Zayd, either.
My sister’s homework tasks were always giant projects that needed an expert’s eye on them.
‘Amir,’ my mum said when Fiza needed to complete the construction of a motte-and-bailey castle over half-term. ‘Remember when you made a castle? Yours was pretty good, wasn’t it?’
She repeated my name and the stilted compliments I’d received for the effects of Coca-Cola and vinegar on hard-boiled eggs, for multiplication challenges, and for a historically accurate Roman shield.
And then there was the short story about someone who inspired Fiza … Well, that was the easiest challenge in the world. Even though it required a snack trip to Mahmood’s Foods first.
That place was always so well polished, so busy, and glowing with the fluorescent ceiling lights that showed up everyone’s faces in detail on the CCTV footage.
I mean, old Qasim Mahmood took that place seriously. He’d built it from the ground up. Uncs had used all the money he got from winning boxing competitions in his youth to stock up the shelves, clean up the aisles, find a place that could sell everything from twenty types of spice mixes, to rotisserie chicken on the side, slush drinks, ice cream, halal meat, frozen samosas, frozen pakoras, frozen parathas, frozen burger meat, to metal and clay bowls, pots, pans, spatulas, graters, cups, mugs, jugs, knives, forks and spoons … Basically, everything. Everything you could possibly want. Anything anyone could possibly need. Including more chocolate and fizzy drinks than were really necessary for writing a short story.
