You're Not Proper (16 page)

I laughed falsely and waited for Mum to smile. She just looked through me and I said, ‘I wouldn't do anything to hurt you. Honest, Mum. I love you.'

Her face tightened. She looked at me with eyes that could have ripped me apart. Her grip tightened on the knife. Her lips quivered. The front door slammed shut. My Dad was back.

He came straight into the kitchen. ‘Hi, Dad,' I said.

He kissed me on the head and put his sandwich box on the table next to me. Mum and Dad didn't look at each other. Mum scraped the onions onto a plate and chopped up the garlic I'd peeled. Dad took a can of beer out of the fridge. He stirred the daal and stood there drinking his beer. I looked at him and tried to find where the lovely cuddly bear of a Dad of mine had gone.

‘Daal, again,' Dad said.

Mum dug the knife into the board, and said, ‘at least you can eat…' ‘Will you never let go?' Dad asked.

I ran upstairs and slumped on my bed. After a while, I got up and opened the window. A cold wind came rushing in. I stuck my head outside. It was a bright day. George's dog was sitting in its usual place, staring at a magpie, sitting on the dance mat. George was looking through some CDs.

Downstairs they were shouting at each other. I heard the muffled words.

Pakistan.

Why?

George put a CD in his ghetto blaster. The noise of the music drowned Mum and Dad out. I left my collapsing world downstairs and thought back. I could not remember a time they went out together, other than to the supermarket. Maybe I could give them some time together. They could go out for a bit. Mum was always wandering through the house, like a ghost, looking for something and Dad was always glued to the television, avoiding the ghost. Why hadn't I seen it before, I cursed myself. They were both spending all their time together running away from each other.

I lost track of time. I came back to my world with a jolt when George turned the music off.

Dad was walking out of the gate.

Just then, I saw Shamshad coming towards our house. There was a knock on our door. I ran down to tell her to get lost, but Mum got the door. Mum had a glass of juice in her hand.

‘I just wanted to tell you that that half-caste daughter of yours is going out with Jake Smith,' Shamshad said.

She sniggered and left.

‘She's lying, Mum. Lying. And that's gone now as well,' I said. And then I shouted after Shamshad, ‘I hope you die!'

Mum said in a strangely calm way, ‘You shouldn't say things like that about her…'

‘She's just evil,' I hissed. ‘Evil!'

Mum said coldly, ‘You should not wish evil things onto others. There is much you don't understand. You are young. What she did might be bad but she was not born bad. No one is…'

‘What you taking her side for?' I interrupted rudely. ‘Who do you think you are?'

‘I will not be spoken to like this,' Mum replied sternly. ‘Go to your room, right now and think about what you just did.' ‘What did I do?'

‘Go upstairs!'

‘You're on her side against me,' I said pointing to Shamshad, who was standing on the pavement enjoying every moment of my misery. ‘What is it Mum, didn't you want me? Did you want a Boy?'

My angry Mum became a ghost of a Mum. I slammed the door shut. I don't know what I had said that was so bad.
It
was back. She took deep slow breaths. The sides of her mouth were twitching like she was chewing on something. She began to sweat. She raised her hand to hit me and then she looked at her open palm. She had never hit me before. I screamed, ‘Mum, you're scaring me.'

Her hand froze in the air. She turned her head towards me, slowly, with a blank look in her eyes. She turned and walked up the stairs, mumbling something under her breath. I went after her. By the time I got to the top of the stairs, she had already shut the door and locked herself in her room.

Why do you have to say things that you know will hurt her, I cursed myself in my head.

I banged on the door, begging her to let me in. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was and that I would never do it again. What she did today, she had never done before and I knew it was no good knocking; she would never open the door when she was in one of her freaky silences. Not for me, not for my Dad, no one could enter into this world of hers. Sometimes she went into this world, leaving the door ajar. I would walk past her bedroom, as quietly as I could. She just sat there, on the floor, next to her bed, clutching her little box, which I had seen her hiding under the floorboards. Sometimes she would let out a scream. A terrifying scream that came from deep inside her, in a voice that did not sound like hers. She would scream and scream until she went hoarse. She would just as quickly stop screaming and start swaying to and fro with her box. Her face drained of colour. Her hair covering her face. Her eyes so empty. I always thought that if I ever witnessed an animal being killed, it would make a sound like my Mum, moments before its throat was slit.

I was about to leave when I heard her walking around in her bedroom. I heard her unlock the door. I stopped. The door creaked open. I heard her walking in the room again. I turned around and she was sitting exactly where she always did when she went into one of these moods. She took a deep breath, and said without looking at me, ‘I have cooked for you.'

‘I'm not hungry, Mum.' ‘I have cooked for you.'

‘I told you, I'm not hungry.' ‘I have cooked for you.'

The front door slammed shut. Dad was back.

‘Dad, come upstairs now. It's Mum!' I called out to him. He didn't answer.

‘Mum, please, you're frightening me.'

I went into the room. She turned towards me. I brushed the hair off her face. Her eyes were bloodshot.

I ran downstairs. Dad was flicking through the TV channels. ‘There's something wrong with Mum, Dad.' He pursed his lips and nodded. ‘Dad!' I shouted.

He turned away from me, clenched his fist, cracking his fingers. There was a strange wall between us. His mobile phone buzzed into life. ‘Answer me, Dad,' I said, grabbing the phone off the sideboard. Switching the mobile off, I asked, ‘What's wrong with Mum?'

‘Nothing,' he sighed.

‘I am not a child any more, Dad. Tell me now.'

‘Come upstairs and look at her, and then tell me there's nothing wrong with her.'

Dad kept quiet.

‘There's nothing proper about this house, is there?' I waited for him to answer. He sat down. I cried, ‘Please Dad, call a doctor or something. Mum needs help.'

‘She'll be alright, sweetheart.' His voice was heavy. ‘Come upstairs with me, please Dad.'

He looked blankly out of the window.

He never did go to Mum when she was like this. It was like they didn't know each other. I ran back upstairs to Mum. She was hiding the box.

I waited for her to finish hiding it before going in. ‘Mum, I'm really, really scared.'

‘It will have gone cold now,' she said, tying her hair.

I went into my room and thought aloud, ‘Well Kiran, you're going to find out what's in that little box.'

They were arguing again. This time they were not shouting. They were in the living room. I went in. They were sitting in front of each other, across the coffee table: the television was off, the curtains shut. They looked at me as I walked in and it was a look I didn't want.

‘Sit down, Kiran,' Dad said.

I stood there, looking at them. Their eyes were bloodshot, their faces sunken. Mum's hair was all curled up and the tip of her nose was red. Dad sat on the edge of the settee, elbows on the table, hands locked together, chin on his hands, eyes fixed on me.

‘We need to talk to you, Kiran,' Dad said.

‘I don't want to hear what you're about to say to me,' I replied. A shiver ran down my neck. He went quiet. I looked at Mum, and asked, ‘Mum?'

A tear fell out of her eye. It landed on the back of her bony hand. She rubbed it into her hand with her other hand.

‘You love each other, right, Dad?' I asked, ‘Right, Mum?'

‘Sometimes things are just not meant to be, Kiran,' Dad said. ‘Even when two people love each other, they can lose what they had.'

My legs were giving way. I sat on a chair at the edge of the coffee table, ‘I just want my family,' I said.

‘Is it because I put this on?' I said, ripping off my hijab. I threw it towards the television.

Mum stood up, picked up my hijab and put it back on my head with shaking hands.

‘At least tell me why?' I pleaded.

No one spoke for what seemed like an eternity. And then Dad said, ‘Some things can't be explained, Kiran.'

‘Are you really breaking up? My family? You two? Really, really breaking it all up?' I stood up and went into the kitchen. Two suitcases were packed and a few boxes were stacked on top of each other. I kicked the suitcases, went back into the living room, and shouted at Dad, ‘You're really, really leaving, aren't you?'

‘It's for the best, Kiran,' Mum said. ‘And what's going to happen to me?'

‘You're coming with me,' Dad said. ‘We'll live at your granddad's for a while and then get our own place. Everything will work out just fine. You'll see.'

‘Just fine,' I thought. Yep. I'll be just fine. All my dreams destroyed.

Everything shattered. Just fine! That's what you call it. Yep.

‘Do you think I'm going to just leave Mum on her own?' I cried. ‘Do you?'

Mum stood up and hugged me. She was trembling. She whispered into my ear, with a faded voice, ‘You're staying with me, love, always staying with me.'

‘Your Mum's going to be off work for a while,' Dad said, standing up, ‘I'll send you some money every week and don't worry about any of the bills…'

I stepped forward and tried to punch Dad in the chest, saying, ‘How can you be so calm? How can you?' He held my wrists in his strong, rough hands, hugged me and cried. He pulled away from me, kissed me on the cheeks and stepped out of the living room.

At first, I didn't believe Mum and Dad would really break up. Even when he had left, I thought he was going to come back and slobber in front of the television. I thought Mum would just snap out of her silences. But Dad didn't come back and Mum went more and more silent. Dad came round each Friday evening and handed me an envelope, standing on the front doorstep. We talked about things that didn't matter, and he left for a week. When he came round, Mum hid somewhere in the house. When he left, Mum didn't really come out, she just changed rooms. Most of the time, she was in her room, mumbling to herself, words that I didn't understand, in a broken family, whose reasons for breaking up didn't make sense.

I gave the envelopes with the money to Mum. She put them on top of each other in a cupboard in the kitchen.

Dad took care of the bills, and I did the shopping, cooking, and cleaning. Mum withered away.

I spent endless hours walking around the house trying to work out why my family had broken up. Thinking about ways I could get it back together again. I thought back over all the arguments I had heard Mum and Dad having. I cursed myself for not listening to what they were saying to each other. I recalled the fragments of the loaded words that shattered my family:
Pakistan

Whatever it was, it had to do with me. That much was clear. I was born in Pakistan, in my Dad's village, when Mum and Dad went out there in 1996. That much I knew. I came to England when I was just a few months old. That much I knew. But I never went back again. Maybe we just couldn't afford it? I don't know. Maybe I was just an accident, not what they wanted. Maybe, they wanted a boy and I turned up and I was horrible. But Mum and Dad loved me. I never felt unwanted in this family. The day of the breakup had been the first birthday Dad forgot about. He never forgot my birthday even though he usually forgot his own.

What was there to move on from? Was this what they meant all along?

Break up the family. And those terrible cries of Mum? Calling out to God. The screams that pierced through the house when they argued. I thought back to when they argued, it was always close to Christmas. They shouted at each other until Mum hid in her room. Dad drank and watched football. I used to put my headphones on and blot them out. That's what grown-ups do, I thought. It was all normal. A happy family arguing with itself.

I cursed myself over and over again. Why didn't I see there was something terribly wrong with my family? Maybe Mum or Dad was having an affair with someone else? I couldn't believe this. They never went out other than for shopping. And in all their arguments, I didn't once hear a word that might have meant this could possibly be the end of my family. One thing I was certain about though, whatever it was, it involved me. And if it involved me, I was going to find out what it was and get Mum and Dad back together again.

I had to find out what it was that Mum kept hidden under the floorboards. Whatever it might be, I would find an answer in there. Mum might kill me, I didn't care. I had to know. But Mum never left the house when I was in.

At school, I avoided everyone but Laila. Jake came up to me a few times, looking all apologetic and wanting to talk. I gave him the cold shoulder and he kept his distance, but always looked at me in a way that he wanted to say something to me. It was difficult avoiding Shamshad, though. She often blocked my path after school, and said, ‘Half-caste families, they're not proper. They always break up.' She didn't frighten me any more, though. She just hurt me. I always kept my head high and walked past her, and then forgot her. I needed to be home. To make sure Mum was OK.

Time went by so quickly. I did the shopping, cooking and cleaning. Laila came round at the weekends. Mum would come out of her bedroom when Laila was around, nod to her, and then go back into her room again.

When she came round, she not only helped me to clean up but also helped me to read the Quran. I looked forward to Laila's visits. In my new mad world, she made me feel I belonged to something. We prayed together and then chatted about her new favourite subjects: The
X Factor
and boys.