You're Not Proper (19 page)

I wished Laila was here and not in Pakistan. I really, really wanted her now.

‘What shall I do, Laila?' I asked aloud.

I saw her face flash through my mind. She was smiling.

‘Yes, I'll call him, Laila,' I said to the smiling face in my mind and called Jake.

Waiting for Jake, I sat down on a chair in front of the box and didn't take my eyes off it, half wanting to throw it onto the ground and smash it into pieces and half in terror of what might jump out at me from inside it.

I lost track of time and came back out of my thoughts when I heard Jake talking outside my house.

Mum was back, I thought, who else could he be talking to?

I opened the door. Jake was alone, recording a message into his mobile, ‘I'm outside her house now. Bye Laila.'

Before I could ask what he was doing messaging Laila he said, ‘I was driving around and we were just chatting when you called.'

I was gob-smacked by the ‘we'. But what the hell.

‘I borrowed me Dad's car,' Jake said dangling a set of keys in front of me. ‘Bet you didn't know I could drive,' he said nervously.

Of course I know you can drive, jerk, I thought. I'd seen you nick cars.

For a moment, I forgot about the box. But only for a moment.

I went into the kitchen, Jake followed me.

‘That,' I said pointing to the box. ‘Whatever is in that box…' ‘It's just a box,' he said.

‘Mum kept it hidden under her bed.'

‘All Mums and Dads have something hidden under their bed. Mine's got Whiskey…'

‘It's serious, this, Jake.'

‘Sorry, Kiran, I didn't mean it like that.'

I looked at the box for one last time and quickly opened it. Inside the box was a dummy, a baby grower and a Hi8 camera tape. The dummy was white and the baby grower, a faded blue. I sniffed the baby suit. It smelt of mould. I took the tape out and looked at the word Hi8. I hadn't seen anything like it before. Jake looked at the contents of the box for a while and said, touching the baby grower, ‘Its blue. It's a boy's.'

I felt numb inside. I picked up the tape, and asked ‘What would play this?'

‘Let's get it transferred onto a disk,' Jake said. ‘Andy's Videos'll do it.'

No, I thought. I don't want to know. I don't want to see whatever was on it.

‘When's your Mum back?' Jake asked I shrugged my shoulders.

‘Come on,' Jake said. I followed him out of the door.

Andy's Videos was at the bottom of St. George's, a few minutes walk from home. I floated dreamlike to the shop. Jake gave the tape in and an eternity later, we walked out with the tape and a CD. Back home, Jake handed me the CD and the tape. I put the CD into the DVD player.

Holding the remote in my hand, I said, ‘I can't do this.' ‘Up to you, Kiran.'

I pressed play.

There was Mum showing off her bulging belly, smiling proudly, laughing. She was so beautiful with her golden hair flowing across her face. The screen went blank and there was Mum again. With a baby. Very small. Very pink. Dad was laughing.

After a few minutes of the baby in a basket, the screen went dead again.

When the picture came back, there was Dad with a can of beer in his hand. Mum was filming. He was standing close to the baby. The baby cried.

‘Pick the baby up,' Mum laughed, her voice booming loudly.

Dad took a swig. The screen went blank again and came back. The baby was sitting up on the ground. The screen went blank and remained blank.

‘She had a baby before me, Jake,' I said, taking the CD out of the player. My stomach knotted. I felt my chest caving in. My ears were burning. So I have a baby brother, I thought. Mum's face flashed through me mind. How dare you keep this from me! How dare you! Where is my brother? What happened to him?

My throat dried. I felt dizzy. Though I didn't want to admit it to myself, deep down I knew. I slumped into a settee.

No one said anything for what felt like an eternity. The front door opened and shut. Mum was back.

She walked into the kitchen. I heard the sound of breaking glass. She came into the living room a few moments later. Box in hand. She picked up the Hi8 off the coffee table, opened the lid of the box, put the tape into it, shut the lid and turned around to leave.

‘I know what's on the tape, Mum.'

Mum turned round and without saying anything started to walk out of the room.

As she was leaving I asked, ‘Is that it? You've got nothing to say to me? Nothing? You liar! I hope you die and go to hell!'

After she went upstairs, I said to Jake, ‘Let's go.'

‘Where?' he asked. ‘Away from here,' I said.

We went out of the house and walked silently, but quickly. We got into Jake's car. He drove us to the willow tree. He broke a branch off the tree and hit its trunk with it all the while looking at me. Maybe this tree and this graveyard, with its broken outer wall and its decaying walkways is where I belonged. At least the dead didn't lie. Then I randomly began to think about my grandparents on my Mum's side who I don't know. They were buried round here, Henry and Ada, but I never went to their graves. Why didn't you tell me anything more about them than their names, Mum? I asked inside.

We stood around for a while, and then I said, ‘I'm going home. I want to be alone.' Jake didn't say anything to me and walked with me to the gate of the graveyard.

‘Are you alright, Kiran?'

I just kept walking. When we got to the gate, I started running. ‘Let me drive you back, Kiran,' He shouted after me, ‘please.'

I ignored him and kept running, oblivious to the traffic. I was hungry all of a sudden. I searched my pockets, found a five-pound note and went to the chippy to get some food. Standing in the queue, I ignored someone asking me to let them see what I had under my hijab, and got myself some fish and chips and a drink and left the shop. I sat on a bench on the way home and ate, and as I ate, I sent a text to Dad:
I know the secret under the bed.
And shoving chips into my mouth I sent a text to Laila in Pakistan:
My Dad in Pakistan, got another woman
.

I shoved more chips into my mouth, thinking about how I knew nothing about my Dad. How that smiling lump of hairy flab was a cold-hearted monster, going off to Pakistan just like that and marrying another woman. And then I hated Mum, for not telling me anything all my life. What happened to that baby, Mum? I thought, And why didn't you tell me? If you had told me what had happened, what difference would it have made, Mum? Where is that baby now, Mum? Was he told a lie as well? Is that why I was invisible to you sometimes, or was it you didn't want me, or was it because I didn't turn out white?'

I suddenly began to feel really, really sorry for Mum. ‘Everything's out now, Mum,' I thought aloud, wrapping up what was left my food, everything was out now. I made up my mind. I was going to go home and give Mum a great big hug, tell her I loved her, and tell her I understood, and give her all my love and make her come back to me. She was still my Mum and she was all I had left.

By the time I got home, it was dark. As I stepped through the front gate, I got a text from Dad:
Back today.

A moment later, I got one from Laila:
On the plane with your Dad!
The front door was slightly open. ‘I must have forgotten to shut it,' I thought. The kitchen light was on, so I went into the kitchen. There was an empty bottle of vodka on the kitchen table. I didn't care if she was drunk; she was going to answer my questions. I called her as loudly as I could. She didn't answer.

Walking out of the kitchen, I saw a blood stain on the floor. I called her again and followed the bloodstains. I rushed into the living room. She was lying on the sofa, her hand over the side of the arm. A knife on the floor covered in blood.

I screamed. I touched her head. She opened her eyes for a moment. I ran to the telephone and dialled 999. And then I called Jake. I held her bleeding arm up. I pressed on her cut. That's what she'd always said, press on the cut. Stop it bleeding, but it didn't. I held her arm up above her head, like she had told me; hold your nose up if it bleeds, press on it. I pressed on her cut. She opened her eyes again. She turned her head towards the coffee table and closed her eyes again. There was a letter with my name on it.

The ambulance arrived before Jake. An ambulance woman took Mum's arm out of my hand, saying, ‘Good girl.'

‘Will she die?' I asked the ambulance woman.

I don't know what the ambulance woman said in reply as just then old George, my neighbour, came into the room. The ambulance woman said something to George. He went out again and came back with a wet cloth from the kitchen.

‘It's in God's hands, love,' George said, wiping my hands clean with the towel.

Mum was picked up, put on a stretcher and taken out of the house. I grabbed the letter Mum had written to me and followed her out.

‘I'll lock up, love,' George said, following me out of the house. His dog sitting in the yard stared at me, wagging its tail as I went past. The Browns looked out of their window and then drew their curtains. I got into the ambulance with Mum. We wailed off under the gaze of the eyes of our street. As we were leaving, I saw Jake running towards our house.

Ya Allah
, how could you let us sit there looking through each other for a couple of eternities. That is what we did. Just looked through each other. The wall clock hammered inside my head, in between the words of what Mum had just said.
I wish I was.
That's what she said. She wished she was my mother.

‘Shamshad,' Mum said, ‘It's not easy to say this.'

And you think it is easy to listen to what you have to say to me, I thought. I tried to blot out the ticking of the clock. I searched inside my head for a prayer to take the pain away. But what prayer was I going to find for the pain of my mother telling me she wished she was my mother?

I waited for Mum to tell me, whatever it was, but I really, really didn't want to know and yet still wanted her to quickly tell me, everything. She broke a piece of roti, dipped it in the daal and stirred it round and round and round, making a little whirlpool in her bowl.

After a lifetime, she dropped the roti into the daal and nodded up towards Dad's bedroom. She opened her mouth to speak. I put my hands on my ears. The clock ticked louder and her words slashed into me. I could hear them clearly but they made no sense.

I went cold inside. I put my hands under the table, locked my fingers and bit my lower lip until it hurt.

‘And you didn't want me,' I thought cracking my fingers, I'm not stupid.

She put her face in her hands and looked down at the table. Her
dupatta
slid off her head, went down the parting of her greying hair and fell onto her shoulders.

She said, looking up, ‘He was once a very close friend of Liaqat, Kiran's Dad, Ghanzanfer's son. A long time ago, we went to Pakistan together. Me,' she nodded up towards Dad's bedroom, ‘and him and Liaqat and his white wife. She had a baby with her, about a year old. A boy.' I put my hands on the table. Flat, palms down.

I was left on my own in the hospital's reception room, whilst Mum was whisked into the emergency room. I texted Dad:
Mum in hospital. Tried to kill herself. Nearly dead. Hope you have a nice life with your new wife.

I sent it.

I texted Laila:
Mum's tried to kill herself. Slashed her wrist. Nearly dead. In hospital…

I sent it.

I wrote a text to Allah:
Give me back my Mum, Almighty. You have so many souls. You don't need a Mum. I need her
.

I searched for His name in my address book and kept looking for it until a policeman tapped me on the shoulder and asked me some questions about who I was and what had happened. He was still asking me questions when Jake came in. I moved away from the policeman.

‘She's going to die,' I cried on Jake's shoulders.

He held me tightly. I felt his tears falling on my shoulders.

The ambulance woman who had brought us here came back from the emergency room. ‘Will she die?' I asked her.

‘Everything's being done that can be done for her, love,' the ambulance woman said, walking past me.

‘Did she leave a letter?' The policeman asked.

I pulled it out of my jacket pocket. He put his hand forward to take it from me.

‘I haven't read it yet,' I said.

I sat down on a cold plastic chair with Jake next to me and opened Mum's letter. Jake leaned over and read it with me. It said, in her beautifully neat handwriting:
My beloved Kiran. Don't hate me. I love you. I have always loved you and whatever else I have done, I have never stopped loving you. I am not angry with you for opening my box. You had to know some day. But the pain, the pain, I can't keep it down any more Don't ever feel guilty. It's not your fault.

‘Yes, I had a baby before you. I guess you know that anyway. His name was Ajmal. I had two miscarriages before I had him. When I was carrying him, I didn't tell anyone, not even Lucky, until it was obvious.

‘And don't hate Liaqat. He has raised you as a father should. He loves you. Always call him Dad. Always.

‘We went to Pakistan when Ajmal was just one years old. We were in the city near your Dad's village. He wanted to sit on a tanga, a horse carriage. We were going to his uncle's village. I said we should take a taxi. But he wouldn't listen. We sat in the back, with Ajmal in my lap. I don't know why it happened, maybe it was the road, it was all broken and full of holes. I don't know how but one of the wheels of the carriage came off. I was thrown off. Ajmal slipped out of my hands and fell onto the road on his head. He never woke up. He never cried. He just died. Right there. In my hands. The funeral was so fast, too fast. I wanted to bring him back with me but couldn't cope with the idea of him coming home, dead.