Ibrahim & Reenie (3 page)

Or if she were fifty years younger, how would she look at him then? He was handsome, if a little weighty, but she had always been attracted to bigger, cuddlier men. And there was something exotic in his looks, his short hair and thick beard the darkest black, his skin the lightest shade of brown, but still dark enough to make his almost metallic blue eyes stand out like little coins. He reminded her of a waiter she'd met when in Venice with Jonathan. They were at a restaurant near San Marco, on the Calle Spadaria, and the waiter flirted with her, sparking a jealous row between husband and wife, not because Reenie had attracted the waiter's attention but because – and only because – she had enjoyed it.

Beneath his scruffy clothes and that shabby bird's nest of a beard, Ibrahim had something of the waiter's beauty; something almost feminine in his long eyelashes, his full lips, his smooth skin; but beyond that something soft and quiet, something gentle. Nothing like the young men she had seen on TV; waving placards and burning flags. Ibrahim was different. She saw no violence in him, no hint of a temper. A sadness, perhaps, but no violence.

As a girl she might have fallen for his looks, for his quietness, for that lack of violence. Liking him, though, was not the same as trusting him. Reenie trusted no one completely, having learnt and relearnt this lesson her whole life.

Ibrahim was not one of the bastards. He hadn't tried persuading her to turn back, or catch the train. He hadn't laughed at her plan, or talked to her as if she was mad. If he wanted to steal from her, he'd already had the opportunity. He was not one of the
bastards
, but still. He'd go soon enough. Get sick of her slowing him down. Hitch a ride or give in and catch the train. Everyone goes away, eventually.

For now, though, it was a relief having someone else push the trolley. It wasn't so much the weight that made it hard work – once you had the whole thing moving it seemed to push itself along with its own momentum. No, it wasn't the weight; it was the wheels that made it a challenge. They had minds of their own, all four of them pulling in different directions, and the whole thing jumping and shuddering with every bump and pothole. But Ibrahim was a young man, and stronger than her, and they made greater progress in the two hours after leaving the hotel than she had made in her first two days from Cardiff.

They entered Newport from the south-west, and all the way across the city centre they were gawped at. Nothing about them – little old woman in raincoat and wellies; stocky, dark young man with shaved head and beard – made sense, and people stared at them as if to say,
They're not a couple, they're not mother and son. What's their story?

Reenie felt safer outside the cities, where there were fewer people, fewer cars – where there were wide-open spaces and places to camp. The city was noise and commotion, and it was getting late. If they weren't on the other side of Newport by nightfall there would be nowhere to pitch her tent, and she'd have to sleep outdoors, in some cold, hard concrete corner of the city.

Unlike Ibrahim, Reenie hadn't planned her journey with maps. She knew some of the roads she would have to travel along from daytrips taken years ago. Then, she had been the navigator, an RAC road atlas open in her lap while Jonathan drove. She'd hoped some parts of the route would prove familiar, but very few had.

The bridge across the River Usk she remembered, but as a brand new landmark in the city. Now it looked weathered and worn, its concrete pillars the same muddy shade of brown as the river beneath it. The riverbanks were strewn with debris – the half-buried skeletons of shopping trolleys, a discarded bicycle, the rotting carcass of a rowing boat.

Ibrahim said little as they crossed the city. He was slowing, his face flushed and shining with sweat, and while at first he kept a steady pace, always a few yards ahead of her, now they walked side by side; Reenie talking as if to punctuate the prolonged silences between them.

‘Haven't been to Newport in years,' she said. ‘I remember when they was making that film,
Tiger Bay
. It had the girl in it. What's her name? Hayley Mills. That's her. John Mills's daughter. And it was set in Tiger Bay, down in Butetown, but they filmed some of it in Newport, by the Transporter Bridge. Must have been fifty years ago now.'

‘You've… lived in… Cardiff… fifty years?' asked Ibrahim, struggling to catch his breath.

‘Yeah. Must be that, at least.'

‘'Cause, you haven't… got the accent. You still sound… like you're from London.'

‘Yeah, well, some people lose their accents, some don't.'

She didn't tell him that as a child her accent, and even the language she'd spoken, were different again, that her accent
had
changed, but that having changed once, and so dramatically, it stayed fixed, as if that one change was enough to last a lifetime.

‘And why'd you move to Cardiff?' he asked.

She took a moment to answer him, and in that moment considered the raft of promises that brought her from London to Cardiff and the man – no, the
boy –
who made and broke them all. He'd made this other city, this place away from London, sound like the answer to all their problems, and she believed him. So long ago. She remembered his name, but his face was vague now. Did it happen to her? Wasn't it all just a film she had once seen?

‘Just fancied a change of scenery,' she said. ‘You know how it is. A change is as good as a rest. Why did
you
move to Cardiff?'

‘University.'

‘Oh. You're a brainy one, are you?'

He laughed and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. ‘No. Not really. Just wanted to go to uni. Got in to Cardiff.'

‘What were you studying?'

‘History.'

‘Did you get a degree?'

He shook his head. ‘Didn't finish the course.'

There was something in his expression – as if he was tired of answering that question – that stopped her from asking any more. They carried on in silence until reaching the eastern edge of the city, and by then it was beginning to get dark.

3

Kirsty's phone buzzed its way, sideways, across her desk, nudging itself closer to the edge; the last name she expected to see lit up on its screen. They hadn't spoken in almost a year. Not out of animosity or resentment, rather their clumsy and abortive attempt at dating, an attempt that came close to being ‘a relationship' before stalling, had left them with too little to talk about, and nothing in common except the very brief time they shared. So why should he call now?

She picked up her phone and answered it. ‘Steve?'

‘Hi, Kirsty. You okay to speak?'

‘Sure.'

A quick glance around the newsroom. Another researcher thumbing idly at his phone. Rhodri, her producer, soundproofed and pacing in his glass box of an office, talking to someone distant through the speakerphone. Most of the other researchers and production team elsewhere, as the office reached the end of a Tuesday afternoon.

‘So. How are you?' asked Steve.

Christ. Where was this heading? Had a year of single life reduced him to rekindling former flames, flicking through the well-thumbed pages of his Little Black Book? That was assuming men even had Little Black Books these days, or that they ever had, outside of films and dodgy sitcoms. Assuming, too, that he had spent the last twelve months single, unable to move on, or frozen in the very last moment she had seen him, in that same way that it's impossible to imagine rivers flowing if you're not around to watch them.

‘I'm good, thanks,' said Kirsty. ‘How are you?'

‘Great. Great. You still with the BBC?'

‘Yes.'

‘Oh, that's good. That's kind of why I called you, actually.'

She frowned for the benefit of no one. ‘Right. Well. Yes. I'm still here.'

‘Still working on the news?'

‘Yes.'

‘Okay. Well, as it happens, I might have a story for you.'

‘Really.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Are you sure? I mean, is that even, you know,
allowed
?'

‘Well. Not really. But, you know, as long as I'm not mentioned by name or anything. I mean, anyone could have given you this story. And it's not like we're… you know. And anyway…'

‘So what's the story?'

A long pause. Steve was a policeman, at least he had been when they dated, but this was the first time he'd ever called with a story. She leaned back in her chair, waiting for his explanation.

‘This old woman and this Asian guy are walking to London,' he said.

She scowled. It sounded like the opening line of a joke.

‘They're walking to London?'

‘Yeah. We got a call from this hotel, just off the M4. They were complaining about the old woman camping next to their car park, so we went to check it out. Turns out she and this Asian guy are walking to London.'

‘What? For charity?'

‘No. That's the thing. They're just walking to London. It's not for charity.'

‘Right. And… I mean… who are they?'

‘Don't know. They weren't breaking any laws or anything. We moved them on. But I just thought… It's
weird
, isn't it? Apparently, they'd only just met.'

‘So they don't know each other?'

‘Don't think so.'

‘But they're walking to London
together
?'

‘Yeah.'

‘So you thought you'd call me?'

‘Well. Yeah. It's the kind of thing you report on the local news, isn't it?'

True. It was September. The last dreary days of Silly Season. Unless war broke out (and even a war was unlikely to impact much on
local
news) or some major crime or accident occurred, they were in the slow news doldrums between party conferences. Paradoxically, a ‘slow news' month meant a busy month for researchers, whose job it then became to comb through acres of minor events in the search for something newsworthy.

‘So where are they?' she asked.

‘Just off the M4. You know the junction with the hotel and the business park?'

‘I think so.'

‘Well, there. But we moved them on, so they'll be heading towards Newport.'

‘Right.'

Another silence that became pointed.

‘So, anyway,' said Steve. ‘Just thought I'd let you know. You know. In case it was something you could use.'

‘Yeah. Well, thanks for that, Steve.'

‘Don't mention it. You know. Just thought, we haven't spoken in
ages
, and then this happened, and I thought, “Kirsty might be able to, you know, use this,” so I called you.'

‘Yeah. That's great, Steve. Thanks.'

‘Cool. Well. Maybe see you around, yeah?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Great.'

‘Take care, Steve.'

‘Right. Yeah. You too, Kirst.'

‘Bye, Steve.'

‘Bye.'

She ended the near-interminable call with her thumb, got up from her desk, crossed the office to Rhodri's glass box, and rapped her knuckles three times on the door. Rhodri was still talking at the grey plastic triangle in the centre of his desk, but he gestured for her to come in, and she entered, closing the door quietly behind her. He was talking to somebody in Welsh, a language Kirsty had never spoken. Even after eighteen months of working there she still felt a twinge of resentment in those moments when colleagues jabbered away in this familiar yet foreign tongue as if they were doing it on purpose to exclude the handful of people, a minority, who couldn't.

‘Iawn iawn, byddain siarad i chi'n fuan! Wel dwi'n credu bod e di bod yn Barcelona penythnos yma. Yeah… Mae'n alright i some! Iawn, hwyl hwyl.'

Finished, Rhodri clapped his hands together and grinned at her. Or rather, he gave her tits a cursory glance and then grinned at her.

‘Kirsty,' he said. ‘What can I do you for?'

She smiled falsely, more a grimace than a smile. ‘Erm, I think I might have a story. Filler, really. Nothing major. Too late for tonight, obviously, but maybe we could get it done for tomorrow morning.'

‘Okay. What's the story?'

‘Old woman and some Asian guy walking from Cardiff to London.'

‘For charity?'

‘Not for charity.'

‘Gandhi Asian, or Jackie Chan Asian?'

‘I didn't ask.'

‘And where'd you get this?'

‘A friend. He works for the police.'

‘They've been arrested?'

‘No. Nothing like that. He just called me, because he's seen them, and…'