Ibrahim & Reenie (13 page)

‘Okay, then,' said Gemma. ‘What about eggs? Are eggs
okay?'

‘Eggs are fine. Thank you.'

‘Eggs it is. Scrambled or fried? I ain't doing poached. Poached is
far
too much fuss and bother.'

‘Scrambled, please.'

Gemma shot her husband another withering look, and went about finding the eggs and a loaf of bread.

‘I said he could use the bathroom, and all,' said Nigel. ‘To freshen up. The boy smells like a cowshed.'

‘Oh, right,' said Gemma. ‘D'you want me to give Michael and Lorraine a ring, too? See if he can use their swimming pool?'

‘Gem, love…'

‘Well, I'm just saying.'

Nigel turned to Ibrahim. ‘Come on,' he said. ‘I'll show you up to the bathroom, get you a towel.'

He took him upstairs, pointing out the way while walking behind him. The bathroom was in an older part of the house, with exposed and crooked wooden beams. It was as if they had designed these places, these old houses, for dwarves, and there was something about the lack of geometry – the uneven lines and bulging, misshapen walls – that Ibrahim found appealing. Impossible, just by looking at it, to say how old the house was; to calculate how many families could have lived in it; how many births and deaths its rooms had seen.

As he showered, Ibrahim heard the creak of floorboards from the other side of the bathroom door. Nigel was waiting for him there, not yet trusting enough to leave their guest alone upstairs in his house. Once he'd dried himself, Ibrahim put on his first change of clothes since leaving Cardiff, and though the fresh clothes were creased there was something instantly satisfying about the sensation of cold, clean fabric against his skin.

Back in the kitchen, a small flaxen-haired boy, maybe four years old, sat at the table, eating cereal. The boy was shoulder height with the table, his feet not touching the ground, and he looked up at Ibrahim as if this stranger had appeared in a monstrous puff of green smoke, like a pantomime genie erupting from his lamp.

‘This is our son, Josh,' said Nigel. ‘Josh, say hello to Ibrahim.'

Josh stared at him but said nothing.

‘Josh. Say
hello
,' said Gemma.

‘Hello,' said Josh, still frowning at the stranger, his small spoon hovering motionless above the plastic bowl.

‘Here you go,' said Gemma, placing a plate of eggs and toast in front of him. ‘Hope that's alright for you.'

Ibrahim attacked his breakfast – swallowing without chewing, drinking his tea in quick, near-scalding gulps – and all the while Josh stared at him.

‘Is your dad Doctor Bala?' he asked.

Frowning, Ibrahim turned to Nigel and Gemma.

‘Our GP,' said Nigel, blushing. ‘He's Indian.'

Ibrahim laughed with a mouthful of food, stopping a spray of crumbs and gobbets of egg with the back of his hand, and he caught the exact moment when Nigel closed his eyes, his already-ruddy cheeks turning a deeper shade of red.

‘No, son,' said Gemma. ‘Doctor Bala isn't Ibrahim's dad.'

Ibrahim looked at the boy, and tried to imagine what the stream of his thoughts might sound like. He recalled being that age, and the violence of each new emotion as it was felt. He remembered the disparities of scale, how vast his school seemed, how tall the grown-ups, how interminable the two-and-a-half hour drive from London to Birmingham. As a very young child there were only three places he was aware of: London, Sparkhill and Pakistan. If Sparkhill was two and a half hours from London, he reasoned that Pakistan must be another two and a half hours from Sparkhill. Maybe one day, if he was very good and ate all his dinner, his dad would drive him and his mum and his baby sister to Pakistan and not just his grandparents' and aunties and uncles' houses in Sparkhill.

It was strange how distant even Sparkhill and London had begun to feel in recent years, as cousins married and moved on, as his grandparents passed away. The family felt atomised, at least to Ibrahim; the ties that bound those places together fragmented, like desiccated vines. Perhaps it would have been different if he'd stayed in London, and if his uncles, aunts and cousins hadn't been there the night the police arrived on Harold Road. If anything had distanced them, or distanced him from them, it was that night. Suddenly the spaces between them all seemed so much greater than before.

And how big was little Josh's world? Did it extend much further than the rambling fields out there? Living in a place like this, even the nearest small town must have felt to him like a metropolis.

‘Here, love,' said Nigel. ‘Guess what? Ibrahim's walking to London.'

‘He's what?' asked Gemma.

‘He's walking to London.'

‘London?' said Josh. ‘But London is miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and
miles
away.'

‘Is that for charity?' asked Gemma.

‘No. I just have to get to London.'

‘Why didn't you get the train?'

‘He can't,' said Nigel. ‘It's
com-plic-ated
, apparently.'

‘Why's that, then? Is it religious reasons?'

‘Gem…'

‘Well, I don't know, do I? Maybe they can't. It's like Jewish people. They can't do nothing on Saturdays. They can't even answer the phone. I remember learning that in RE.'

‘Love. It's Thursday.'

‘Well, maybe Thursdays is special to them.' She turned to Ibrahim. ‘Are Thursdays special?'

‘Not particularly,' said Ibrahim, trying not to laugh.

‘Oh.'

When he'd finished his breakfast Ibrahim insisted on doing the washing up.

‘If you must,' said Gemma, her tone pitched halfway between grateful and curt. ‘But I'll do the drying, mind. You don't know where everything goes.'

He nodded, and began scrubbing the frying pan.

‘I still think you're mad if you think you'll make it to London on foot,' said Nigel. ‘You're best off going
back
to Chepstow, getting a train to Newport, and then getting
another
train to London. You'll be there in a few hours.'

‘I can't,' said Ibrahim passing the pan to Gemma. ‘I can't go back. I've walked from Newport. I was
in
Newport on Tuesday.'

‘Well Gloucester, then. The trains are regular. There's one an hour goes straight to London, direct, no changes. Me and Gemma take the train if we're going down there, you know, to watch a show or something. Well, we used to.'

‘Yeah,' said Gemma, bent down with her head half inside a low cupboard as she put away the pan. ‘We went to see that
Blood Brothers
, didn't we, Nige?'

‘I can't take the train,' said Ibrahim. ‘I just can't.'

Nigel sighed. ‘You know, for someone who says he's in no trouble with the police, you don't half sound like somebody in trouble with the police.'

When it was time for him to leave, Ibrahim thanked them both three more times and crouching on his haunches gave Josh a high five. Their goodbyes, in the farmyard between the house and the cowshed, were muted and clumsy. He felt an almost inexplicable fondness for them, and a kind of sorrow that he would never see them again. There was no satisfying way he could repay them, but in those final moments before he left them, Gemma's attitude towards him seemed to change, to soften – perhaps glad that he was leaving, that this unusual morning was over, that nothing had happened while he was there – but her parting ‘Take care' sounded heartfelt.

Nigel climbed onto his tractor, and he drove down the lane while Ibrahim walked until they had reached a junction with the field of sugar beet. Nothing more was said, but he saw in Nigel's expression something like a fatherly, or perhaps brotherly concern. The man was too stoic for anything more; there would be no ‘take cares' this time, just a nod of the head, a sad kind of smile, and then he drove out across the field, waving once as he went.

Ibrahim carried on, past the barn where he had spent the night, and out onto the main road. There, he opened his bag and took out the map. Gloucester, the summit of his imaginary mountain, was a little over twenty miles away, and he would reach it by nightfall.

12

His mum might say they'd been ‘good as gold', but he could tell they'd been mischief. The living room was a mess of toys and his dad, as always, was half-buried in his own armchair, with that look of relief on his face, even when he was fixed on the football pages.

‘So, Jackie working late tonight?' his mum asked.

‘Not late, no. Only till seven.'

‘Seven's late. I never finished work any later than five when you and Stacey was little.'

‘Yeah, but sometimes they're open till seven, so she has to work a late shift. But she's home by quarter past.'

‘So who'll be cooking the kids' tea?'

‘I will.'

His mum laughed. ‘You? Cooking? That'll be the day. Hear that, Bri? Our Simon's cooking the kids' tea.'

Simon's dad huffed. ‘Him? Cooking? He'd burn soup, he would.'

‘If you'd said you was cooking the kids' tea I'd have done them something here,' said his mum.

‘No, Mum. Honest. It's fine. I've cooked their tea loads of times.'

‘Well, what're they having?'

‘Fish fingers, beans and chips.'

‘Is that enough for them?'

‘Yeah. They'll have bread and butter, and all. Listen, Mum. I've got to go.'

‘Well, do you want to take some cakes with you, for afters? I've got some Mr Kipling almond slices here, or…'

‘No. Mum. Really. It's fine.'

‘Fair enough. Just thought I'd offer.'

‘I know. And thanks. But we've got ice cream and stuff back at the house. And I've really got to go. Thanks for having them, though, Mum. Bye, Dad.'

His dad nodded and huffed from behind his newspaper.

In the car the kids began playing up again. Chelsea had the Nintendo DS, and Kyle wanted it. On Eastern Avenue they got stuck in traffic, and Simon wished his mum
had
cooked their tea. Then Jackie could have picked them up at half seven. No bombing around town like a blue-arsed fly at rush hour. Last thing he needed. Half seven, Robbo and the boys said they'd be around. By the time he got home, cooked the kids' tea, had a shower, got dressed…

‘Oh, come on…' he said, drumming his hands on the steering wheel. ‘Where's this bloody idiot going?'

‘Daddy did a swear,' said Kyle.

‘That's right,' said Simon, glancing up at his son in the rear-view mirror. ‘And that's a naughty word, so don't let me hear you saying it, right?'

At the junction with Barnwood Road another car cut him up. The driver looked at him, saw him, but didn't hold up his hand to say thank you or nothing. Just looked at him, then carried on cutting him up. Wife next to him; headscarf and face covered, so you could only just make out her eyes.

Bloody ridiculous. Him there in a beige coat, her dressed like they were living in Iran or something. Where did they think they were?

Different if it was the other way around. If him and Jackie went over to wherever this bloke and his missus were from, they wouldn't let Jackie go around dressing how she wanted to. She'd have to cover up, like they do. When in Rome and all the rest of it. And typical of them to just cut him up like that.

Bloody Bombay rules when they're on the road.

Simon could make out three kids in the back of the car, but there were probably another two down in the foot well, another two in the boot. Knowing them. What was that joke? How many Indians can you fit in a car? Two in the front, six in the back, and Gandhi in the ashtray. He hadn't heard that joke in ages.

Probably wouldn't now, though, would you? They'd say it was racist.

On getting home he made the kids' tea and ironed his favourite Ben Sherman shirt and he tried to imagine his dad cooking a meal or ironing a shirt. Never would have happened. When Simon's little sister was born and his mum stayed in the hospital, Simon had to go stay with his nan and grancha. No chance of his dad looking after him. Wouldn't have had a clue.

Kyle ate all his food except the crusts on his bread. Chelsea ate a half of each fish finger, all her chips, and all but three of her baked beans, but finished the meal with a clown's grin of ketchup and bean sauce around her mouth.

The washing up finished and the plates dried and put away, Simon left the kids watching
Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom
on Nick Jr. while he showered and shaved. After showering, and before getting dressed, he took a moment to look at himself in the bedroom mirror. Twenty-seven years old, and he was getting a belly. Not a patch on the old man's, but give it another twenty years. He remembered having a washboard stomach, abs hard as ping pong balls. He remembered Jackie running her hand up and down his stomach, giggling breathlessly as she did. She hadn't done that in ages.