by Ayisha Malik
Rukhsana did the only thing she had the power to do in such situations: pray. She sat on a chair (due to her bad back and knees), listening to the cows outside, and said her afternoon prayer, followed by a long supplication. It included asking that Sakeena be resting in jannat-al-Firdaus (despite Sakeena’s faults, Rukhsana believed her sister deserved the highest place in heaven), for money for the mosque, land, and more Muslims in Babbel’s End. Even she felt the improbability of it, but she believed in God’s miracles, and since He’d created the universe and mankind, He could surely send Bilal a bit of land.
‘Khala,’ came Haaris’s voice as he appeared through the door, plate in hand. ‘You like carrot cake? Icing’s a bit sweet, but it’s soooo good.’
He walked over and put the plate on her bedside table.
‘You look after me, beta.’
He shrugged.
‘Mum’s angry,’ he said.
Rukhsana shook her head. ‘Sometimes people just need time to get used to an idea, na.’
Haaris perched on the edge of the bed. ‘Do you think having a mosque will change things?’
‘Hmmm?’
Haaris scrunched up his face and managed to string the sentence in Urdu – his dad had always preferred it to Punjabi.
‘You will mind if things change?’ asked Rukhsana.
‘Like, yeah, and no.’
‘Haaris,’ called out Mariam. ‘Homework!’
He sighed as he got up, rolled his eyes at Rukhsana and left the room.
There’d been a lot of tension at lunchtime but Rukhsana was sure that this is what happened when people lost touch with God.
She thought about Margaret. Goray – white people – could be so kind. Of course they’d be angry about a mosque but see how she barged in and offered her support? Rukhsana’s heart lifted and she got up to rummage through some of the material she’d brought with her, wondering which pieces she’d use to sew Margaret a shalwar kameez. She felt the full shame here of not knowing proper English. She’d never needed it in Birmingham but here she was losing things in translation. She could learn, but by the time she’d manage to speak fluently she’d probably be dead.
Her bedroom window overlooked the expanse of Margaret’s green farm, where she noticed a woman’s figure in the distance, accompanied by a dog. These goray loved their animals – almost more than they liked people – probably more than they liked Bilal.
‘Holly!’ she heard her shout, before the dog raced back and licked the woman’s face.
‘Gandi,’ muttered Rukhsana, disgusted by all that dog’s saliva on the woman’s face.
Something about the scene, though, evoked a surprising impulse in Rukhsana to walk in the open air. Instead, she shuffled back to her bed, stretching out her plump legs. If only things didn’t weigh her down, she’d walk around the green; if only she had more time, she’d learn to speak English. If only, if only, if only. No matter how she looked at it, she was all alone. It only confirmed what she knew about love: that it was both fleeting and timeless; that it could break and sustain you; that it could be limiting in its infiniteness. She ate the slice of carrot cake before looking in the bedside drawer for a pen and paper. Without much thought, her hand drifted from right to left, writing lines of poetry.
She looked at the sky getting overcast, a spatter of rain, and for a moment realised this English weather suited her soul. Rukhsana hadn’t been back to Pakistan in thirty-seven years, but she remembered the smell of the soil after it had rained, Jahangir holding her hand, putting a shawl over her shoulders, and she wondered about the geography of love. Yes, she missed her country, re-imagining the steps she and Jahangir had taken, even though the English air settled something otherwise turbulent within her. If Pakistan was passion and love, then England was where its particles had scattered and settled, absorbed into its soil, becoming part of its earth. Her eyes filled with tears but she smiled at recognising and identifying a feeling. The last time she’d written anything was before Sakeena died. Why had she taken so long to pick up her pen?
She finished her sentence and shifted her weight off the bed again, feeling a twinge in her back. But she didn’t sit back down. She hobbled towards the window – the clouds greyer, the rain coming down harder – and opened it. Rukhsana breathed in the air, holding on to her necklace. Ya Allah. It was nothing like Pakistan. And it was nothing like Birmingham. This smell was something new altogether.
Every restoration process had its boundaries. For Richard it was Tom.
He closed his umbrella – the weather preparing for autumn – and knocked on the door, ready with a priest-like smile.
‘The good reverend,’ said Tom.
Tom’s eyes were red, his skin blotchy. Richard had expected Anne to answer and felt his smile falter.
‘Anne,’ Tom called out. ‘It’s the man of God. Doing his philanthropy.’
‘Miserable weather,’ said Richard, wiping his shoes at the door.
‘That old bitch Shelley’s got something new to worry about,’ said Tom as Richard followed him into the living room.
Richard flinched. ‘I wouldn’t be so harsh.’
‘Spare me the sermon. I don’t need to add nausea to my list of ailments.’
If there was one common denominator in the tragedies of Tom’s life, it was Shelley. Her presence during the time of Teddy’s death reminded him that she should’ve done more when she was his headteacher. That she’d been the reason Isabelle had left him and Anne. If he’d thought deeply enough about this, he’d have recognised he was being unfair. But he always had been fond of apportioning blame – without excluding himself, of course. He was egalitarian like that.
‘How’s the gout?’
‘Rotten,’ Tom replied.
‘And your heart?’
Tom raised his eyebrows. ‘Amazing that Arthur didn’t leave Shelley years ago. She couldn’t be worth a damn in bed.’
‘Yes, thanks, Dad.’ Anne emerged from the kitchen.
Richard paused when he saw Gerald sitting at the dining table with a glass of juice in his hand.
‘All right, old man?’ Gerald said.
‘Hello. This is a nice surprise.’
Gerald looked at his glass, a plate of half-eaten biscuits by his side.
‘What can we do for you?’ asked Anne.
‘I was just checking in,’ he said. He looked at Gerald’s downcast face. ‘Everything okay?’
There was a pause before Gerald held up a sweater to him. ‘It was Teddy’s.’
‘I thought Gerald might like to keep it,’ said Anne.
There was a long pause. After a while, Gerald said: ‘Is it true? About that Bill guy wanting to build a mosque?’
‘Yes,’ replied Richard, sitting next to him, laying a hand on the crocheted table cloth. ‘And it’s Mr Hasham to you.’
Gerald exhaled and shook his head. ‘Dan thinks it’s typical, isn’t it? That people fool you into thinking they’re something they’re not.’
Anne caught Richard’s eye. Teddy, Gerald and Dan had bonded in high school when a Year Eight had tried to push Gerald and Teddy on their first day. Dan, always having been big for his age, had intervened, and quite literally packed a punch. It was an unlikely trio – the butch, the clown and the dreamer – but each personality type seemed to cancel out the excesses of the others: Teddy being a soothing voice for Dan, Gerald lending humour to teenage angst, Dan looming over anyone who threatened his friends. Despite that, Anne would happily put an arm around Gerald, but never quite managed more than a handshake with Dan.
‘Well,’ said Tom. ‘We all know Dan’s a thieving little shit. Don’t know why you and Teddy gave him the time of day.’
‘He’s all right,’ said Gerald.
‘Bad influence all round,’ said Tom.
Gerald shrugged. ‘Teddy always liked talking sense into him. Dan’s dad says Bill’s—’
‘Mr Hasham …’ interjected Richard.
‘Mr Hasham’s a nice bloke, but says if you’ve
got money from working in this country then you should use it to help the English people who let you in, isn’t it?’
‘Dan’s dad,’ interrupted Tom, ‘is a fucking imbecile.’
‘Is that how you feel?’ Richard asked Gerald.
He shrugged. ‘Whatever. Don’t know why they need a mosque. Not as if there’s a god, anyway. Sorry, Rev.’
‘No,’ said Anne.
Anne’s lack of belief made Richard impatient with himself. Conjuring faith via prayer, after all, was a lengthy process.
‘In all honesty, Bill’s going to have problems with the funds and the space,’ said Richard.
‘You sound relieved,’ said Anne, watching him closely.
‘I thought you were a progressive,’ added Tom.
‘However things turn out, it’s God’s will.’
‘Always so damn proper. Almost makes me like you,’ said Tom. He stared at the tablecloth when he added: ‘You wouldn’t say that if you lost a son, though.’
Richard noticed Gerald wipe something off his face as Anne looked at the ground. Tom’s expression changed to something bitter, then he said: ‘You know, the only good thing about that damned Shelley is her dog. Cracking animal.’
His voice sounded thick so Richard decided not to call him up on the ‘damned’. Even though Richard sometimes felt that everything was damned.
‘Dad,’ said Anne, seating herself next to Gerald. ‘You know our guest hates that word.’
‘It’s your house, Anne. Your rules,’ replied Richard.
‘Don’t you think we are all damned?’ she asked.
Richard shook his head, despite himself. What was the point if he couldn’t at least offer some hope? ‘No.’
‘What about my son? If he took his own life, isn’t he damned?’
She crossed her arms and Gerald looked up at him, vulnerable, as if he’d been waiting for the answer to this question.
‘Anne,’ muttered Tom.
‘We prefer to focus on salvation,’ said Richard, softening his voice.
‘He once laughed, saying he’d do it,’ said Gerald, lowering his voice. ‘Like it was only a joke. I pushed him and laughed too. Dan told him he was a being a dick. We didn’t know he might actually …’
‘We still don’t know,’ said Richard.
They all went silent as he watched Anne’s chest rise and fall faster.
‘No-one here cared,’ said Tom. ‘Living in their fairyland, thinking nothing’s more important than a fete or a stolen ceramic pot; in the meantime, to hell with what anyone’s going through.’
‘A lot of people cared about Teddy,’ said Richard.
‘Where were they then?’ said Tom. ‘Oh, yes they came over with their watery sympathy and watery stews, but what about when he was actually alive?’
‘Mariam was the only one who stopped to talk to him like a normal person,’ said Anne, her voice low. ‘Everyone else made him feel awkward, as if they couldn’t wait to get away from him. Just because he was unwell.’
Tom looked at Gerald. ‘I swear if you carry or take that filth again I’ll be banging at your nan’s door so fast you won’t even see my fist coming for your face.’
‘I wish you’d see that you aren’t alone,’ said Richard.
‘Of course we’re alone,’ said Tom. ‘And don’t think, just because you have your god, that you aren’t either.’
FUCKING MUSLIMS, GO HOME.
Bilal stared at the letters sprayed in red on his office door, heart pounding, face hot, feelings displaced.
As he’d walked down the hall, he’d noticed his secretary, Kelly, scrubbing furiously away. She’d looked up at him with a green scourer in hand and a wild panic in her eyes.
‘I was trying to get rid of it before you got in.’ She pushed herself up, the water from the scourer dripping. ‘I’m so sorry.’
What disconcerted Bilal most was the tears that prickled his eyes.
‘Don’t look at it,’ she said. ‘I’ve made some fresh coffee.’ She paused, biting her bottom lip. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t scrub it off? Oh, God, I should’ve called the police.’
‘Oh, no. Let’s not worry them about it,’ mumbled Bilal, straightening his Hugo Boss tie, the only thing about him in that moment that felt dignified.
‘Of course we have to worry them,’ said Kelly, taking off her yellow rubber gloves. ‘There was no sign of a break-in from the main door. I asked. No-one’s sure how they got in.’
Kelly’s words weren’t quite penetrating Bilal’s brain.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
Bilal tried to smile. ‘Yes, it’s fine. It’s just …’ He looked at the door again. ‘Someone was having a bad day, I suppose.’
Kelly paused again and lowered her voice: ‘I think it’s more than that.’
He looked at her earnest face, curly brown hair and the anxious look in her eyes. ‘Has anyone else seen it?’
She nodded. ‘I told them to carry on with work as normal.’
Bilal smiled and patted her on the arm. ‘Thank you.’
As the boss of his own accountancy firm, it was the first time that Bilal had walked into the mid-sized office as if he was the new guy. Five cubicles sat parallel to one another, the fluorescent light giving everyone a ghost-like hue, the walls painted cream, apart from the one on the right, which Mariam insisted he painted red to bring a bit of character to the place. A large oil painting of an eighteenth-century English village landscape hung in the middle. Even now, years later, it looked out of place. Some things never would blend in.
The company was small – two senior accountants, one junior, a trainee and a secretary – but that was still four sets of eyes, excluding Kelly’s, on him as he nodded in greeting. These eyes were attached to four heads, which were no doubt having their own thoughts on the matter of the unfortunate graffiti, which had appeared, presumably, on account of the unfortunate mosque.
‘Morning, everyone’ said Bilal, falsely bright, as he walked into his personal office, wishing that it wasn’t made of glass.
His gaze rested on Bruce, Bilal’s most senior accountant, who seemed to look determinedly at his screen. Since seeing him at the meeting in The Pig and the Ox, Bilal had been struggling with his sense of professionalism, power and intense self-pity. Conversations between them had become stilted, since Bilal wasn’t sure if he wanted to admonish Bruce, or try to win him over. There was a time when he’d offer Bruce a lift to work but it would be declined, until Bilal had stopped asking. He had the feeling that Bruce didn’t like his then-BMW pulling up next to his Nissan Micra. But perhaps it had been something else altogether.
Now Bilal’s heart thumped so hard he had to take several deep breaths. He opened his drawer and took an Ativan before knocking back some Gaviscon, letting out a protracted burp. There was a knock on the door as John, who’d only joined the company a year ago but seemed to act as if he’d been there the longest, came in.
‘Now, Bill. Don’t worry about that stupid … incident. There’ll be CCTV cameras and I’ve already asked security to check the tapes.’
Bilal found himself rushing past John and out into the building’s lift to the fifth floor. He knocked on security’s door.
‘Oh, yeah. You’re the guy with the sign.’
The only sign Bilal felt he now had was ‘Muslim’ written on his forehead. The security guard sighed and shook his head.
‘Graffiti,’ Bilal corrected, albeit mumbling.
‘Hooligans, mate.’
The guard was already forwarding the camera tape for their part of the building. Bilal watched, his nerves sprawling to the ends of his fingertips.
‘So what? You really building a mosque?’
‘Sorry?’ asked Bilal.
‘I asked your staff member who rang up to report it, “Who’d graffiti an accountant’s door?” No offence,’ he added to Bilal. ‘And your colleague mentioned it.’
‘And what did they say?’
The security guard’s respon
se was to exhale deeply. ‘I mean, no need for graffiti, if you ask me.’
‘Look, there,’ said Bilal, pointing to the screen as a figure approached the office door.
‘Typical. Covered his face, hasn’t he?’
‘Can’t we check the other cameras? He can’t have walked into the building like that.’
The security guard scratched the back of his head. ‘Afraid that’s broken. Meant to have got it fixed last week but the company sent a bloke who didn’t know what he was doing …’
Bilal had stopped listening. He couldn’t believe his eyes as he looked at the figure shake the can and spray the door as if performing a work of art.
‘Sorry, mate. Bad luck,’ said the guard.
‘The graffiti or being a Muslim?’ he mumbled.
‘Both, I guess.’
Bilal took a deep breath. He supposed he couldn’t be offended. Being one, after all, had led to the other. They made several attempts to catch the figure on the other cameras but he (or she, because Bilal wasn’t gender-biased) had dodged them rather skilfully. Did they know the building? Of course. They had to know where Bilal worked so did this mean they knew where he and his family lived too? Were they dangerous? Suddenly, Mariam’s reservations all made sense – what if someone decided to harm her? Or Haaris? A plethora of questions began to tumble around his aching head as he returned to the office.
‘Well?’ asked Kelly, wringing her hands.
All his employees had turned towards him.
‘They were wearing a mask. None of the cameras caught anything,’ he replied.
‘We all think it’s a bastard thing to have done,’ said John.
‘Oh, yes, awful,’ another colleague added.
‘No matter what,’ said John.
‘No matter about what?’ asked Bilal.
‘Well, you know … the circumstances,’ replied John.
They all glanced at each other and Bilal wondered whether they were saying what they were thinking, or what they thought they should say to their boss. Bruce gave him a nod as he turned back to his spreadsheet on the computer.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to call the police?’ asked Kelly.
‘No,’ Bilal replied. ‘I don’t want a fuss. Let’s just get someone to paint over it.’