Читать книгу She Wore Red Trainers - Na'ima B. Robert - Страница 7

2

I woke up to the sound of Mum crying. It wasn’t loud or anything, but my ears had grown used to detecting the sound of her sobbing through the thin wall that divided our rooms. So that was how I knew that my brother Malik’s dad, my mother’s fourth husband, had left the night before, after their row.

I felt my insides contract, just a little. Must have been anxiety. Or the thought that I might actually get a peaceful night’s sleep again, a night where my body wasn’t on high alert. Abu Malik leaving may have pushed Mum to tears, but it brought me relief.

Some stepfathers are more toxic than others. Let me leave it at that.

Here we go again, I thought as I pushed my little sister’s sleeping body off my arm and towards the wall. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, the mattress creaking beneath me. ‘I wonder how long it will last this time.’ It wasn’t the first time one of their arguments had ended in a walkout.

I knocked on Mum’s door, knowing she wouldn’t want me in there, wouldn’t want me to see her crying. ‘Mum,’ I called softly. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

I didn’t wait to hear her muffled response. I didn’t need to. I knew she needed a cup of tea. Soon, she would need me to give her her pills, too. Just to take the edge off the pain.

As I made my way down the stairs, stepping over piles of clothes, both clean and dirty, toys and books, I found myself growing irritated by the damp spots on the wall of the bathroom and the dust that had gathered in the corners. What with me spending so much time studying for my A levels, I could see that things had slipped around the house. I would need to whip everyone back into shape.

I put the kettle on and padded towards the back of the house, towards Zayd’s room. I knocked and waited briefly before sticking my head in. As usual, he was all tied up in his duvet, just the top of his head and his hairy feet sticking out, like an overgrown hot dog. I stepped in, narrowly avoiding the crusty glass and plate by the side of the bed.

‘Zee,’ I called out, giving him a nudge with my foot. He mumbled and groaned in reply. ‘Abu Malik’s gone, yeah. Just thought you should know.’

Zayd didn’t come out of his duvet sandwich. ‘Yeah, I know. I saw him last night, innit.’

‘Did you say anything to him?’

‘What’s to say, Ams? It’s the second talaq, innit, their second divorce. One more chance.’

I kissed my teeth and walked out of the door, disgusted. ‘Men,’ I thought to myself as I banged Mum’s favourite teacup on the chipped enamel counter. ‘They’re all the same.’

So, that morning, it was up to me to get my little brothers and sister – Abdullah, Malik and Taymeeyah – ready for madrasah at the mosque.

‘Taymeeyah, give me that hair grease… we’re going to have to take your hair out soon, those plaits are looking kinda tired.’

As Taymeeyah ran upstairs to find the hair grease in the bomb site of our room, I rolled Malik’s sleeves up. His eczema was getting bad again. I grabbed the pot of aqueous cream from the counter and began to rub it into the rough, reddened skin on the inside of his elbows. ‘You haven’t been using that soap with the bubbles, have you, Malik?’

He just nodded, his finger in his mouth.

I sighed and shook my head. ‘You know you can’t, babe. Not until your skin gets better. And no more milk, OK? You have to drink the soya, you know that…’

Malik made a face. ‘But I hate it, Ammie,’ he whined. ‘It’s yucky!’

Taymeeyah had reappeared. ‘It’s true, Ams,’ she said. ‘It is yucky.’

I poked her in the belly. ‘And how would you know, young lady?’

She grinned at me, a guilty look in her eye.

‘You drank the last bottle, didn’t you? Admit it, Tay.’

She nodded sheepishly and I gave her a look.

‘That’s not right, is it, Tay? Malik’s milk is expensive, y’know. And he can’t drink the regular stuff. Promise me you won’t touch the soya milk again.’

Taymeeyah nodded. ‘I promise.’

‘Muslim’s word is bond, remember?’

‘Yeah, I remember, Ammie.’

I felt a tugging on my nightshirt and turned to see Abdullah looking up at me.

‘Where’s Uncle?’ he asked, using his podgy fingers to sign out the words.

I faltered. What should I tell him? What could I tell him? That his brother’s dad had just walked out on his kid in the middle of the night? That I had no idea where he was or when and if he would be back, either to see us, to drop some money for Mum, or to stay? No, I couldn’t say that, so I gave him a quick hug and flashed him a smile.

‘I’m not sure, babe,’ I signed back, ‘but if we don’t hurry, you’ll be late for madrasah. Come on, you guys, hurry up!’ And I made a big show of getting the value pack of cornflakes down from the shelf and filling up their little bowls.

As I watched them eat, I felt the knot in my stomach tighten. They would all be depending on me again – me and Zayd.

OK, so now of course the question was, where was the human hot dog in all of this? Well, Zayd, my older brother, and I had a strict division of labour in the house: he did the weekday school run and I took the weekend mornings.

‘What with work during the week, it’s the only chance I get to sleep in, Ams,’ was his reasoning. ‘Now that you’ve finished school, you’ll get to join all the other sisters, living the easy life at home, while we brothers sweat it out at work every day. Subhanallah, you sisters have got it easy, man!’

I had given him my most superior look. ‘Anyway, who said I’ll be sitting at home? Uni is only a couple of months away, remember? And then there’s the fat job afterwards, inshallah. You do know that I’ll be working after I graduate, don’t you? No signing on or benefits for me. And no waiting for some useless man to take care of me.’

Zayd groaned. ‘What’s with all this women’s lib stuff? Is that what they taught you in that school of yours? A woman’s place…’

I put up my hand and started shouting over him. ‘OK, OK, Zee, give it a rest! Let’s just agree to disagree, yeah? Because, if you think I’m going to be one of those deadbeat sisters on the dole, popping kids out every year, you’ve got another thing coming.’

I could have slapped that look of pity off his face. ‘You have much to learn, young grasshopper,’ he said, smiling. ‘For now, though, you can do the kids on Saturday mornings while I sleep in, all right?’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ I growled. ‘I guess that’s fair enough.’

Zayd knew just how to wind me up. Most girls who had been brought up in a strict, conservative Muslim family like mine, praying, wearing hijab since the age of seven, with a stay-at-home mum who never finished school herself, would have had no problem with my brother’s jibes. What he was teasing me about was the reality for most of the girls I grew up with: finish as much school as you can (GCSEs, if possible) and then hurry up and get married. Getting married was the biggest milestone, the one piece of news a girl’s parents would make sure they shared with the whole community. Once you’re married, you’re safe: you’re off the streets, you’re not a fitnah, a trial, you’ve got someone to take care of you. This was my background, these were the ideas I grew up hearing. But I was never like the other girls. You could say I was cut from a different cloth.

***

I looked in on Mum just before I left with the kids. I wanted to remind her that I was planning to go to the park to do some sketching after I had dropped the kids. I knew that she probably wouldn’t remember and would start worrying if I didn’t come straight back after the masjid.

The curtains were drawn and the room felt hot and stuffy. Mum was curled up in bed still, her hair spread over the pillow, a frown line between her eyebrows. I stroked her hair, tucking it behind her ear, and kissed her cheek. Her skin felt hot and damp.

‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’

As we left the house and walked down the close to catch the bus on the main road, I looked up at Mum’s window. The left side of the curtain was sagging badly, right where the broken glass had been sealed with masking tape, months before. Abu Malik was meant to have had the glass replaced but, obviously, he’d never got round to it.

O Allah, I prayed silently, take me away from all of this.