Good For Nothing, page 24
Did it happen with cousins too?
Who were the same age? Who’d once dropped their cricket bats, and pushed off the edge of a kerb together, racing hard – with all their might – for the promise of summer fruit? I’d never thought about it before.
I watched the silhouette of Uzair’s face. The boy-band hair, the thick eyebrows, the straight lion-like nose.
‘You’re not that old,’ I joked.
Uzair’s lips curved into their cat-like smile. ‘Oh, I could beat you and Fiza in a race any day.’ He ignored me rolling my eyes as I scoffed to myself. ‘I’ve got game too, you know. Anyway, d’you want that little hijabi that came to Neelam’s wedding to fancy you back? I’ll tell you what you should do. Girls love me.’
I couldn’t help myself. ‘Yeah, that’s why Neelam married someone else, innit?’ I said.
Uzair gasped, pretending to lose control of the steering wheel. ‘You’ve only sprained one hand, haven’t ya? Give us the other one! Give us it!’
I fought him away, pretending I still hated him. But I knew – when we reached our street, and the bayji from all those years ago still stood sweeping her garden out front, and we exchanged knowing smiles – that I couldn’t. I didn’t.
‘Hello?’ Zakiya Bhatti had sounded younger than expected on the phone. ‘Is that Amir Ali? You know, I’ve been expecting your call.’
The two torn parts of the article written by Zakiya Bhatti – now Zakiya Akhtar – stared up at me, Mum and Fiza’s patient faces from the living-room table.
‘Your friend said you’ve been wanting to get in touch with me for a while. It’s about my first and last article, isn’t it? About Zayd Ali? And the eyewitness who saw his death?’
Zakiya told me that even if she did work in management now, she’d continue to want people to know there had always been an eyewitness who’d never wavered from his testimony. An eyewitness who’d uncovered a truth which I knew to be real no matter what others thought, or said, or did. That truth was:
Zayd Ali came into Mahmood’s Foods to buy breakfast groceries.
Zayd Ali left Mahmood’s Foods with nothing but breakfast groceries.
‘You better have the exact change for those,’ Qasim Mahmood grumbled, eyeing the group of little kids who stood indecisively around the ice-cream freezer with his usual irritation.
He didn’t say anything after those kids had paid for their ice creams. Calippo Shots and Cornettos, melting in the heat as soon as they stepped out of the shop and on to the tarmac.
But he recognized the grins on their faces when they saw Danny Dangar come sloping around the corner. The taunting thrust of their shoulders, the way they started walking a little too close to where he was walking.
Qasim Mahmood rapped angrily at the glass of the automatic doors. And the kids turned around. They knew to stop it, whatever they were doing. They knew to bin their wrappers in the right place, too, as soon as they saw Uncs’ watching face.
I let Fiza drag me around in the cool air conditioning, picking up more crisp packets, more Coca-Cola cans, and Mr. Bubble ice lollies from the freezer, while he muttered quietly to himself at the counter.
After all, I’d promised her she could have whatever she wanted.
And usually I would’ve said something about how heavy our basket was getting, already full of junk that was just going to rot her teeth. But Qasim Mahmood sat thumbing his prayer beads so close to us. He barely glanced at us as we dropped our basket in front of him, though. He didn’t seem even slightly concerned about me not shouting at my little sister about her sugar addiction, my silence – my strange nervousness – as I faced him.
Fiza took clear advantage of it though.
She added a few extra Snickers to the haul with a grin on her face. I thought I saw Qasim Mahmood smile, too. Watching her. Just for a second. But I must’ve imagined it, because pretty soon he was scanning our stuff with the usual dull glare pulling his eyebrows down, the usual grunt as he double-knotted our bag for us.
‘You know you have to eat all this stuff before we get home, right?’ I said, hauling the bag off the loading part of the till, exaggerating my groan as I did so. My sprained hand was pretty bad anyway.
Fiza rolled her eyes at me. ‘You say that like it’s gonna be hard.’
I teased her about her tiny mouth and her giant stomach, and she teased me about my giant mouth and my giant ego, and then we both saw Qasim Mahmood’s reflection in the sliding doors.
Old man with his rolled-up sleeves. Pen in his kameez pocket. Old man with his always-watching eyes and his prayer beads held tight in his grip.
‘Amir,’ he said, before the sunlight outside swallowed me and Fiza whole.
I turned back to face him.
Qasim Mahmood hesitated, lips smacking over nothing. ‘You’re doing alright, aren’t you? After your accident?’
He spoke into his large wrinkled hands. But then he lifted his head. Slowly. Until we were both looking at each other. Our eyes, different shades of the same brown.
‘Yeah,’ I said, over the lump in my throat.
I hesitated as I faced the retired champion boxer. A southpaw. One of the best of his time. Then I stepped forward. I threw my arms around him.
‘Hmm!’ Qasim Mahmood said from the force of the hug.
He stiffened even more when Fiza’s arms joined in too.
But I saw his hand move to pat the chain of our joined limbs. I saw it in the reflection of the sliding doors. Three pieces of a puzzle locked together.
Four, if you count Zayd. I do. I did. I always will.
CHAPTER 24
Eman
Friesly Metropolitan Police insisted on having a celebration for the participants and the perceived success of the Volunteering4Friesly programme.
After all, we had reached the very end of the summer schedule with nothing but pride for our own efforts, hadn’t we?
The youth of this town reformed, renewed, even rescued from the pitfalls of anti-social behaviour. The graffiti. The disrespect.
PC Phillips considered it a success.
So PC Chris had to as well. Even if, to him, that success didn’t include an injured arm, mild concussion, a sprained hand, or the destruction of his favourite six-seater. Or far too many people – locals, tourists, police officers – climbing up the twenty stone steps of the town-hall building in search of the largest conference room.
It was just our luck to have to suffer through this, he’d said, with a roll of his eyes, to Kemi, Amir and me in a small spare room in Friesly General Infirmary. We’d agreed with him about that.
Also, to participate because he’d admitted to the injustices involved in his job, and his own stupid views, too.
‘I’m sorry,’ PC Chris had muttered slowly, while we all ached with our injuries, and with the force of something new. ‘I’ve never been as brave as I’ve wanted. I’ve never been brave enough to disagree with others. Even when I know they’re wrong.’ He’d looked at us like he was seeing us for the first time. ‘But I’d like to be.’
My head still ached from the force of the accident. But I believed that he meant that. I don’t know why. There was just something about the look on his face.
‘I expect you’ve all practised for the presentation?’ said PC Phillips, interrupting our chattering in the town hall’s largest conference room.
Kemi feigned ignorance, like we hadn’t already discussed exactly what we could say we’d learnt from our volunteering. ‘Presentation …?’
PC Phillips’ face turned three different shades of red. ‘You –’
‘Relax, Katie!’ PC Chris came up from behind us. ‘They’re just joking with you.’
His haircut didn’t look so bad in this light. The dot-to-dot acne on his face fading, less red than it had been when we’d first seen him.
Kemi, Amir and I fought the urge to laugh as PC Chris gave us a warning look, and PC Phillips headed off towards the north Friesly kids on the other side of the room.
It suddenly occurred to me that I’d never learnt their names.
But the girl with the ginger hair, the blond boy with the glasses and the taller girl who often wore a pair of blue denim dungarees were all scanning revision cards. The cards were small, rectangular and white, but even from across the room, I could see they were covered with tiny neat handwriting.
The front-facing chairs filled quickly with our neighbours, and with shop owners, and with their families and friends.
Howard Li from the pharmacy, his wife and his children in the front row.
Marta Varga at the very back, her dandelion hair so easy to see.
Kemi’s mum, who worked at the flower shop. Her sisters, Aunty Sunbo and Aunty Ifeoma, crossing their arms on the chairs beside her. Ada in the front row.
Qasim Mahmood.
Baasim’s mum and dad, Iqra’s mum and dad, Awais’ dad, Juveria and Noor’s mum and dad …
The aunties, only arguing about small things, and beaming when they saw me. They threw their thumbs up. I beamed back. And I was glad when the chair at the end of their row was left empty. Just by coincidence. But someone else had usually sat there, hadn’t they? With their walking stick nestled under their wrinkled hands, their googly glasses picking up on all of the errors at our town’s council meeting?
Meet me at the hospital after your meeting, Mum had texted that morning. The result of Nani’s operation – the doctors’ desperate attempts to fix the bleeding in her brain – would be known very soon.
OK, I’d texted back.
It shocked me, the extra vibration of my phone afterwards. A kiss. I smiled. I sent one back.
I really hoped Nani would be able to take her place in that chair again soon.
The very front row was left empty. For the local MP, and the mayor, and the council members. I pictured the mayor, and the thick red robe she wore for these sorts of occasions, and the heavy gold chain that glinted expensively around her throat.
‘I can do this, can’t I?’ I said. I watched Kemi’s eyes go big at the size of our audience. Amir used the hem of his hoodie to waft a breeze over himself. ‘I can talk in front of all of these people, can’t I?’
‘Well,’ PC Chris said uncertainly, like he wasn’t sure if it was appropriate for him to say this or not, ‘you’ve survived a lot worse.’
‘It has always been incredibly important to us that those that share our hometown know exactly how much we appreciate their community, whether they live in the rural and tame north of Friesly or the industrial and wild south of Friesly.’
The girl in the dungarees paused for laughter here.
She got a little bit of it, too. From her peers – the blond boy in the glasses and the girl with ginger hair, who smiled their tame north Friesly smiles towards the very front row. And from the front row itself, whose members seemed to carry themselves in the same tame way, ears pricking confidently and calmly while the volunteers from north Friesly carried on.
‘It has been a privilege to participate in the Volunteering4Friesly scheme. We have learnt exactly what it means to be a part of this community – in words and in actions.’
But hadn’t Nani always told me and Mum about the people in the front row? How they sat so comfortably while the lines at the Job Centre grew longer and the youth centre shut down?
Then there was the metallic taste in our water supply.
The empty buildings on our side of town.
The state of the falling-apart cemetery by the river.
While the north hosted the Barker Summer Festival. While the north invested in tourism and grew stable within the sight of guided tours and the green of the moors.
Nani’s wallet was a welcome weight in my pocket, the receipt with all the confirmed donations sweet as the peach pits I used to carry in my dress after Nani had halved the fruits for me.
‘Friesly deserves to have people who care. Friesly deserves to have people who will do the hard work of picking up litter on the streets, not speeding down them. Cleaning the graffiti off the glass of a bus shelter, not doing the graffiti in the first place …’
Kemi, Amir and I glanced at each other, fast as a sleep twitch. Then we turned to PC Chris. He shook his head, waving his hand dismissively. Leave it. Leave it alone.
I pictured Nani sitting down in our kitchen, exhausted from the walk home from these meetings, after already being exhausted from waiting for a gap to speak in. She had a plan for a collaboration with Friesly Grand Mosque, an idea to share, a way to prove there was a sense of community in this town. If someone would listen, that is. I could make sure they would. I planned to.
Outside, rain began to fall. It felt so strange to hear. New and needed after so many months of wishing for it. An August downpour.
It was the only sound that was louder than the girl in the dungarees, the murmuring agreement of the front row in the town hall’s biggest conference room.
But then there was another noise.
A tinkling sound, like bric-a-brac rattling around in boxes.
And then, the sound of skin meeting wood, of hands pushing easily against the weight of those doors, a surge of faces wandering in with cardboard boxes stacked high with toothpaste and toothbrushes, tuna cans and soup, socks, jumpers, gloves, leave-in conditioner, shampoo …
‘This is the place to leave the donations for the homeless, isn’t it?’ a woman I’d spoken to on the phone earlier that day said. ‘I’m not getting that wrong, am I?’
I didn’t notice the uncomfortable silence in the room until I was the one breaking it.
‘This is the place!’ I said, ignoring the way PC Phillips was glaring at me. ‘You can leave them at the back of the room. We’ll figure out a way to make the care packages from all of your donations later. Thank you!’
Our donating neighbours moved quickly, depositing box after box, taking up so much of the room within the town hall’s largest conference room that after a little while, PC Chris had to take the girl with the dungarees’ microphone from her and ask everyone to stand up and move their chairs forward.
‘I’m sorry, but what on earth is going on here?’ the MP said, circling in on PC Phillips’ rigid back, her stuttering, stammering mouth.
‘Yes,’ a councilwoman chimed in. ‘This is supposed to be a celebration of the Volunteering4Friesly scheme, isn’t it?’
Their frowns, together with the murmuring conversations that broke out in the front-facing rows, only worsened PC Phillips’ state of anxiety.
I didn’t pay attention to any of it though.
There were still a lot of people coming up the town hall’s twenty stone steps with their donations. There were a lot of faces who needed confirmation from me, Kemi, Amir and the aunties that this was indeed the right place to leave them.
‘I … They … Chris!’ PC Phillips flushed ten different shades of red this time. She grabbed on to PC Chris’s shoulder with real vigour, ignoring the gasps coming from the audience.
‘Didn’t I tell you to control your kids? Look at them! Look at this chaos! I know they’re responsible –’
The mayor of Friesly rose from her seat with all the charm and poise that Nani had always rolled her eyes at.
‘They are, are they?’ she said softly. ‘Those three individuals are responsible for this?’ The mayor of Friesly clapped her hands together. ‘How wonderful! A true example of community spirit organized by …’ The mayor rested a quizzical finger on her bottom lip. ‘By?’
‘Eman Malik,’ PC Chris said, smiling at my reddening face.
‘And my grandma!’ I said. ‘Maariyah Malik.’
Then I looked around, to where the aunties sat asking one another if they’d heard what the mayor said, and to where Kemi and Amir were trying not to laugh, and to where PC Chris was trying to avoid PC Phillips’ deadly gaze.
‘And my friends. Kemi and Amir.’
‘That’s all very nice, Eman,’ PC Phillips said, cutting across the floor to nudge the girl in the dungarees towards the microphone stand, ‘but I believe we were in the middle of something very important.’
I wanted to say this was important too. I was about to. But a series of noises at the big oak doors forced all of our attention away again. A faint rap-rap-rap sound coming from outside. A knock-knock-knocking.
Like someone had been left out in the rain, and was desperate to come inside, and couldn’t open those heavy oak doors all by themselves.
Well, everyone who’d confirmed they’d donate to Nani’s homelessness project had already shown up, hadn’t they?
Kemi, Amir and I glanced at each other.
Behind us, PC Chris looked just as confused as the shifting back row did, his eyebrows furrowed, his mouth a little open.
‘Just ignore it,’ PC Phillips said, the lines around her mouth deepening in displeasure. ‘Carry on with your speech.’
‘Um …’ The girl faltered, clearly flustered by PC Phillips’ impatient tone. She rifled through her notes. ‘W-where was I?’
But the rap-rap-rap continued. And then I heard it: the quietest ‘Please … Please …’
‘It’s Danny Dangar,’ I said to Kemi and Amir, thinking of his slippers all sodden with the downpour, his carrier bags, his tired loping legs. ‘It’s Danny, out on his own in the rain. We can’t just leave him out in the rain, can we?’
Then I realized I must’ve spoken louder than I’d intended to, because suddenly the girl in the dungarees, and PC Phillips, and the mayor, and everyone was looking at me.
‘The local drug addict,’ someone in the front row murmured, and the communal ‘Ah’ in response resulted only in the mayor urging the girl in the dungarees to carry on. She nodded, hesitant, still fussing with her notes.
But the rap-rap-rap kept going. The ‘please … please …’ continued as Danny Dangar paced back and forth at the very top of the twenty stone steps.
Suddenly, all of the people in the front-facing rows were turning around. The people sitting on the floor, the ones leaning back, with their ankles crossed over one another, were too. The itch to move, to do something to help, spread far and wide within the town hall’s largest conference room.
