‘Actually, I think that was my idea,’ says Jed. Then he says a word I don’t think I’ve ever heard him use before. ‘Sorry.’
‘No worries,’ says Priti lightly. ‘It was a stroke of genius – I just wish I’d come up with it myself.’ I glance at her and see that she is being quite serious. ‘I can’t even take credit for the honour-killing storyline because that was Zara’s idea. Still, I suppose we have to be careful not to let our imaginations run away with us in future,’ she says, in what I suppose is meant to be a Jane Austen voice, and I guess this is her way of saying she’s pleased he isn’t dying after all.
‘What is happening about Zara?’ I ask.
‘They’ve been pretty cool about it actually,’ says Priti brightly. ‘Turns out they don’t mind her having boyfriends, so long as she tells them what’s going on.’
‘Oh,’ I say.
‘More importantly, what about the police, Jed?’ says Priti, staring at him significantly. ‘What about Stevie Sanders?’
‘It’s sorted,’ says Jed.
My grandad still isn’t back from the police station when my mum calls. Granny talks to her first. She’s in the hall, sitting at the telephone table, and I’m in the kitchen, but I can still hear my mum’s voice coming through, tiny and tinny, on the receiver.
Granny is very polite to her, but she’s put on her smart visitors’ voice, so I can tell she doesn’t really know what to say. (I wonder if the two of them ever really got on or if they were just united in grief for my dad?)
‘How are you, dear? . . . He’s fine . . . All a bit upsetting, but we are OK here . . . How about you?’
Then I hear her say, ‘Do you want to talk to him? . . . Hang on, I’ll go and get him.’
And then there she is at the doorway, saying, ‘Ben, it’s your mum. She’d like to talk to you,’ like it’s the most ordinary thing in the world.
She hands me the receiver. It’s silent at the other end and, for a moment, I think Mum’s hung up.
But she hasn’t. ‘Hi, big man, how are you?’ she says.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Are you better?’
‘I’m on my way,’ she replies.
‘What did the doctors say?’
‘I need to keep going to see them for a bit.’
‘But you want to get better?’
‘Yes,’ she says. Then she asks if Stevie is a friend of mine.
‘No, we weren’t very nice to her.’
And Mum says, ‘Who’s we?’
And I say, ‘Me and Jed and Priti.’ And it’s weird to think that Mum doesn’t know who Priti is. (Although she probably knows what she looks like if she’s had the TV on at all during the last twenty-four hours!)
‘Sometimes we’re not as nice to people as we should be,’ says Mum. ‘Even to ourselves.’
I glance in the direction of the sitting room where Jed is sitting with Granny, neither of them talking.
And then she says, ‘Did you like the postcards?’
‘Did you send them all?’ I say.
‘Of course. You didn’t think I’d forgotten you, did you?’
I pause. ‘Mum,’ I say. ‘Why didn’t you ring?’
I think of birds sitting on telephone wires, mobiles held up to their beaks. I think of telephone numbers circling the air around them like clouds.
‘I didn’t want to put you through it,’ she says.
‘Through what?’
‘I’ve leaned on you too much in the last couple of years. It hasn’t been fair.’
‘But I wouldn’t have minded, Mum,’ I say.
‘I had to learn to do it on my own and to do that meant I had to let go of you for a bit.’
‘Just for a bit?’ I ask.
‘I could never let go of you forever!’ She laughs.
I imagine her hand, taking hold of mine, her fingers stroking the soft place between first finger and thumb. Just like she used to do.
‘So do you think you’d like to come home?’
‘Do you want me to?’ I ask.
‘Very much,’ she says.
‘Are you well enough?’
‘I can’t promise I won’t ever get ill again, but I’ll try not to,’ she says.
‘And you’re not mad at me? You don’t blame me?’
‘What have I got to blame you for?’
‘For letting you down.’
‘Oh, Ben! Don’t ever say that. You didn’t let me down. You are the one who kept me going for all these years.’
‘So why did you do it, Mum?’ I say. ‘Why did you stop eating?’
‘I’m not quite sure, Ben.’
‘Were you unhappy?’
‘No,’ she pauses. ‘I was very happy – happier than I’d been since your dad died.’
‘Then why?’
‘Perhaps I didn’t feel as if I should be,’ she says.
‘Because of Dad?’ I ask.
‘Yes. Because of Dad.’
‘But Dad would have wanted you to be happy,’ I say. And I don’t see a stick man falling out of a tower: I see a smiling man playing football with a little boy on his shoulders.
‘Would he?’ She half laughs as she says this.
‘Yes,’ I say and I feel sure that I’m right because I know a bit about my dad now, thanks to Priti and my memory box. ‘He would.’
‘Then come home because I can’t be happy without you.’
We’re sitting at the kitchen table – me, Granny and Jed – when we hear Grandad’s key turn in the lock. We’re playing a game of cards and, for once, Jed isn’t cheating. When we hear the sound of the front door opening, Jed is the first one on his feet.
Granny and I follow him into the hallway. Grandad is standing on the doormat. He closes the door quietly then turns and stands there hovering, looking as if he’s about to topple.
‘Where have you been?’ asks Granny. She’s holding her left wrist in her right hand and the bright little spots of colour are in her cheeks again.
Jed is staring at Grandad, his eyes fierce. I know he wants Grandad to say he got it wrong, that it was all a mistake.
But Grandad looks at him and nods. Then he turns to Granny and says, ‘It’s Ian.’
Granny is still motionless. ‘What about Ian?’ she says. ‘What’s happened to him?’
Grandad turns to her. ‘He . . . the police think he . . . they’re searching his house.’
I glance at Jed, who is staring at the ground now. His face is closed, like he’s not really there.
Granny lets out a little cry and seems to stumble.
Jed takes a step towards her, to stop her falling. I do the same.
Grandad stands on the mat and says, ‘I’m so sorry.’
Granny has gone for another lie-down. Jed and I are in our room. Jed is on his bed staring up at the stars my dad stuck on the ceiling – or perhaps it was Uncle Ian who put them up there. I’m sitting on the windowsill, trying to finish my Bomb-busters cartoon.
We hear my grandad’s heavy footfall on the stairs and the sound of china rattling as he pushes open the door to the bedroom opposite.
‘I’ve brought you some tea,’ I hear him say softly.
The teacup rattles again. My granny thinks mugs are too modern – along with mobile phones and the Internet and avocados.
Then we hear Granny say, ‘Why did he do it?’ Her voice sounds small and faraway.
Jed doesn’t stop staring at the ceiling, but I can tell he’s listening.
‘He’s been through a lot,’ Grandad says. ‘Losing his brother, losing Karen. It’s been hard for him.’
‘But to do something like this. To kidnap a child?’ There is a question in Granny’s voice. ‘Didn’t we teach him right from wrong?’
There’s a pause. Outside, on the street, I hear the sound of a car pulling into a driveway.
‘What happened to his brother, it changed him,’ says Grandad.
‘But he let the police arrest the Muhammed boy,’ says Granny, her voice high and breaking on the final word. �
��And it caused all that fighting. Riots. That’s what they said on the news. Dozens of people hurt. In hospital.’
From outside, we hear a car door slamming, excited voices.
‘Maybe that’s what he wanted,’ says Grandad quietly.
Granny says nothing for a moment. When she speaks, her voice sounds choked with tears. ‘I just don’t understand it, Barry,’ she says.
From across the hallway, we hear the bedframe creak. I wonder if Grandad is lying down next to Granny.
‘He was angry,’ says Grandad quietly. His voice is muffled as if he is curled up close to her. ‘It was like he blamed every Muslim in the world for what happened to his brother.’ He pauses, coughs. ‘For what happened to Andrew.’
There is another pause and I can hear Granny crying softly in low, rhythmic sobs.
‘I think perhaps he wanted revenge,’ says Grandad. ‘That’s the only reason I can think of for what he did.’
There is laughter from outside and loud cries of joy.
From my grandparents’ room there is only the steady rise and fall of Granny’s sobbing breaths. Then I hear her say, ‘I’m not sure I can forgive him, Barry.’
‘I know,’ says Grandad. ‘I know.’
There is a moment of quiet then I hear a low sound, something between a cough and a gasping exhalation of breath, and I wonder if my grandad is crying. And then the house is silent again.
I glance out of the window. The close is still full of journalists. There’s a police car in Priti’s driveway, and a couple of policemen are carrying boxes back into Priti’s house, under Shakeel’s direction. His radio stuff, I suppose.
‘What happens at the end?’ asks Jed.
I look down. He’s not staring at the ceiling any more. He’s looking at me.
‘What?’
‘In your cartoon,’ he says. ‘What happens at the end?’
‘Oh,’ I say, because I haven’t totally figured out myself how it ends yet. ‘Well, I thought maybe Jedeye and Lil’ Priti and Ben-D discover that they’d got it all wrong: that Stee-V was never in danger of being blown up, but had just gone to the funfair with her grandma.’
‘That could work,’ says Jed.
‘And then Da Hona Killaz and Da Bikaz turn out to be undercover police units, so they make up and become best of friends,’ I add, glancing at him quickly before going on. ‘And the Pub Men turn out to be the real baddies, so they get arrested for perverting the course of justice.’
‘Cool,’ says Jed. He once teased me for using the word ‘cool’. He told me it was dead old-fashioned and that I should say ‘Rad!’ or ‘Insane!’ instead. But I don’t remind him of that now. ‘What happens then?’
‘Um, well, Jed-eye, Ben-D and Lil’ Priti eat garibaldi biscuits and then set up their own pirate radio station.’
‘And become millionaires?’ says Jed, glancing up at the stars again.
I think of Shakeel, unpacking all his radio equipment. I wonder if any of it’s been damaged, and if he’ll be able to make his radios work again. Maybe he’ll let me and Jed and Priti help him if we ask.
I can feel Jed looking at me again, waiting for an answer.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘They become millionaires.’
Stevie Sanders’ baby sister is born about the same time that they find Stevie. A little girl, Billie Maud Sanders, weighing just 5 lbs 10 oz. (‘What on earth else did she have in that bump?’ says Grandad.) She was born at 3.45 p.m. and shortly after her birth, Mr and Mrs Sanders received the news that Stevie had been found safe and well. Both sisters arrive back in the cul-de-sac within half an hour of each other the very same day.
We watch it all happen in duplicate – live outside the window and, just a second later, on TV. Mr and Mrs Sanders give an interview at the door of their house. They are holding their new baby daughter and saying how happy they are to know their elder daughter is safe. They thank the police and everyone who helped with the enquiry. They do not offer an apology to the Asian community.
Half an hour later, a police car draws up and a little girl with her face covered by a towel is carried inside by two female police officers. The door shuts behind them and the curtains are closed, so we don’t see the reunion.
TV commentators discuss the ordeal Stevie has been through and the help she will need to recover from it. They talk of the loving family around her and they stress that police have no reason to believe that she was harmed in any way, although they will continue to question her and to search the premises where she was found. The motivation for her abduction is still unclear.
Then they start to talk about the man they have in custody, who is helping the police with their enquiries, and Granny turns off the TV. She doesn’t look at Grandad.
She makes us ham sandwiches as we watch another family reunion going on across the road. Mik – who has been released without charge – is dropped off by a police car.
‘I expect all the reporters will be gone in a few days,’ says Granny quietly, coming in with the plate of sandwiches.
Grandad doesn’t say anything. The police haven’t yet released the name of the man they now have in custody. But as soon as they do, the press will be knocking on our door – even I know that. And then Granny will have lost two sons.
My mum’s coming later. She won’t take me home with her right away – I said I want to stay here with Jed for a few days, until they know what’s happening with him. Jed asked Granny to call his mum – Granny Brenda gave her the number – but I don’t know what’s going to happen there. Granny says that Jed can stay here as long as he likes, so who knows?
For now, Granny, Grandad, Jed and I sit in the front room and eat our ham sandwiches. Grandad looks at us both and says, ‘My two boys.’
Things that happen afterwards
1. I end up staying on at Granny’s for the rest of the summer. Mum and Gary come to visit lots – Mum is wearing see-through lipgloss, her hair is shiny and she looks happy. She asks if I want to come home right away, but I decide to stay on a bit longer because of Jed.
2. Jed is a mess after his dad is arrested. He cries all the time and no one can cheer him up except Grandad – and sometimes me. For the first time ever, it’s kind of useful that I’ve lost my dad too. 3 Granny calls Auntie Karen, but then Jed changes his mind and says he doesn’t want to see her. He doesn’t even want to see Granny Brenda. Grandad says we need to give him time.
4. Jed is going to stay with Granny and Grandad ‘for the time being’ and go to the school Zara goes to, and where Priti is starting in September, which I say will be really cool although Jed doesn’t look so sure suddenly.
5. Priti’s latest scheme is to set up a Muslim matchmaking business to ‘put the spark back into arranged marriages’. Zara obviously isn’t on her books because she starts dating a boy from school who Priti says ‘is hardly the person she – or her parents – would have chosen for her’.
6. Mik stops wearing jeans and Converse trainers and starts wearing Muslim robes and the little Muslim hat thing all the time. I don’t know if he’s still mad at us, but we don’t see him much any more and Priti says he spends all his time at the mosque.
7. Tyreese gets arrested for stabbing Said, although Shakeel reckons he’ll wriggle his way out of being charged.
8. The Sanders won’t let Stevie play with me or Jed or Priti. They won’t even let her play out on her own in the road any more, so the rest of the summer she’s stuck in the hot house with her new baby sister who screams all the time. Sometimes we see her looking out of the window, her face pale now that her tan has faded. We wave, but she doesn’t wave back.
9. The Sanders decide to sell their house, which contains ‘too many unhappy memories’, they say. They throw a farewell party and invite all the neighbours except Granny and Grandad. To everyone’s surprise, the Muhammeds are invited, but they don’t go either.
10. At the end of the summer, when I finally do go home, Priti writes me letters on Twilight notepaper, with swirly ha
ndwriting in pink ink. I send her postcards (which Mum helps me choose) with short messages and cartoons on the back. Priti and Jed are going to come and visit us at half-term.
11. I start a new comic strip about three kids who think they’re hotshot teen-spies, but always get things wrong. Gary shows me how to make my own website to post the strips on and pretty soon I’m getting hundreds of hits.
12. And Priti gets her wheelies back at the end of the summer, but loses them again a week later after ‘reckless wheelying on school grounds’. Some things never change!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With grateful thanks to everyone at Tuesday’s Children, especially Brielle Saricini, Erik Abrahamson and Bridget Fisher; to Peaceful Tomorrows, Families of September 11th, Voices of September 11th, the Child Bereavement Trust; Mothers Apart from Their Children (MATCH). Thanks to Dr Cynthia Pfeffer of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dr Claude Chemtob of the Trauma Recovery Program at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, the late Dr Richard A Gardiner and the BBC Newsround website for their invaluable research. Also to Martin Hart, Patricia Bingley, Marian Fontana, Alissa Torres; and to Elizabeth Turner and William who I hope will like the book.
Many thanks also to all the amazing children I have the pleasure to know and to teach: to my uber-cool nephew, Nye; to Joshua Butler, Skye Lawrence and the wonderful Sawyerr kids; to the Year 6s at Otjikondo; my U4As from Habs (1996/7); to Paulinas each and every one; to the KES Manga boys of Years 7 and 9 (2009/10), to Max Lury, Hannah Gibs and Adam Dudley Fryer; and my ‘insane’ KES Year 11s (2011), particularly Ollie Chadwick who, ‘used to draw cartoons of aeroplanes flying into towers’.
Thanks to the following people for support and inspiration: Naomi Rich, Joanna Nadin, Kit Watson, Claire Baguley, Paula Trybuchowska, my lovely book group, the Freshford playground gang and the English department at King Edward’s School, Bath.
Massive thanks to both Caroline Montgomery and Ali Dougal for loving my little book and making it better than I ever could; to Stella Paskins and to everyone at Egmont for general loveliness, Mr Gum and chocolate cake.
Especial thanks to my family – in and outlaws included – for their love and support. To Granny’s table; Graham Avenue and Wellington Grove; to my much-missed dad, lovely mum and bonkers brother and sister; and to Jonny, Joe-Joe and Elsie Maudie whom I love up to the moon and back again.
We Can Be Heroes Page 26