‘Burger, please,’ he said.
The man – perhaps Bob himself – shrugged apologetically. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said. ‘Just sold my last burger. I’ve still got hot dogs, if you want an hot dog.’
Nazir looked down at his son. ‘Sorry, son,’ he said. ‘We’ll get something later.’
‘But I’m hungry…’
‘Prakash. The man only has sausages…’
‘Please, Dad. Please.’ As if ‘please’ really was a magic word.
‘Okay. Listen. You can have a hotdog. But don’t tell your mother!’
He could still remember that hotdog; the sausage black on the outside but juicy in the middle, the ketchup cheap and tangy with too much vinegar, the cheap bread sticking to the roof of his mouth and in the gaps between his teeth in doughy clumps. Ibrahim loved every bite of it, and he loved even more that his father and he had a secret that neither his mother nor Aisha would ever know about. They left the auction late, later than planned, and Ibrahim sat in the back of his dad’s car, watching the shadows slide down the driver’s seat with every streetlight they drove past. By the time they reached their home in Harold Road he was fast asleep, and though seven years old and a big boy had to be carried from the car to his bed.
‘So anyway,’ said Ibrahim. ‘That was only once. I’ve never had one since.’
Reenie smiled. ‘Yeah. I’m a bugger for those hot dogs you get at fairgrounds and that. Used to drive my husband, Jonathan, up the wall. He was always better at keeping things kosher than me. Strict upbringing as a kid, see? His mum wouldn’t even mix meat and dairy. Even my foster mother wasn’t that strict. And my dad, well. He wasn’t all that bothered about that sort of thing.’ She sighed, looking not at him but the fire. ‘You got any kids?’
‘Kids?’ he said, wondering how they could have come this far without her knowing. ‘No. No kids.’
‘Do you want them?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not so good with other people. I’ve been on my own a long time. So maybe not.’
‘Not good with other people?’ said Reenie. ‘What does that make me, if I’m not “other people”?’
‘No, I just mean generally. Generally I’m not good with other people. Most of the time.’
‘So you never married? Never had a girlfriend?’
‘I had a girlfriend.’
‘And what happened?’
‘Me,’ said Ibrahim. ‘I happened. But this was years ago.’
‘And you’ve not seen her since?’
‘No.’
‘Well,’ said Reenie. ‘It wouldn’t be too hard to find her. I mean, if you wanted to.’
‘It’s too late for that.’
‘No it’s not. Not with the internet and the, what’s it called? That Face thing everyone’s always going on about.’
‘Facebook?’
‘That’s the one. You can find anyone on there, they reckon. I heard them talking about it on the wireless. Anyway. How about that girl? The one who brought you here. Natalie. She seemed nice.’
‘What about her?’ Asked Ibrahim.
‘Well. Did the two of you…?’
‘Did we what?’
‘You know.’
‘No. I don’t. What?’
‘Get up to any hanky panky?’
‘She’s a lesbian.’
‘She’s a what, love? You’ll have to speak up. I’m a bit mutton in this ear.’
‘She’s a lesbian.’
‘Lebanese? She didn’t look it. I’d have said Spanish, maybe, but never…’
‘Lesbian,’ said Ibrahim. ‘She’s a lesbian. A lesbian.’
‘No need to shout, love,’ said Reenie. ‘I heard you the first time.’ And she winked at him, and took a bite from a slice of toast coated liberally with marmalade. ‘So, I was thinking,’ she said. ‘This plan of yours…’
‘Yes?’
‘I think you’re probably right. I think we should go to the motorway and try our luck there.’
‘Good,’ said Ibrahim. ‘That’s good. Thank you.’
He studied her from his side of the fire, wondering how someone her age could even begin to agree to a plan like his. He had no idea if it would work, he knew only that in the time they had spent looking for Reenie, Natalie could have driven him to London. There must have been a reason he came here instead. A part of him, still quiet of voice and hidden in shadows, knew precisely what that reason was. When Reenie looked at him again, still smiling softly, he avoided her gaze, and instead stoked the fire, watching the last fragments of wood begin to blacken and crumble.
21
The view was unremarkable – the six lanes of motorway a grey strip vanishing distantly between a low hill and a dark cluster of trees – and between them and the horizon lay nothing but greenery and pylons. Nothing exceptional about the view – no landmarks, no natural features worth noting – but all the same it overwhelmed him.
Perhaps, now that they were standing over the motorway, he had, in some small, illogical way, expected to see London in the distance, like a mirage; the faint grey silhouettes of the BT Tower, the Gherkin, or St Paul’s.
‘What are you looking at?’ asked Reenie.
‘Just looking at the motorway,’ he said.
‘Daunting, ain’t it?’
He nodded without taking his eyes off the road.
‘But we’re getting there,’ she added, placing her hand on his shoulder. ‘So come on, slowcoach. Stop dawdling and start pushing.’
He laughed, out of relief as much as anything else. She still had a sense of humour, at least. They had already trekked four miles that morning, and crossed one busy slip road, narrowly dodging an articulated truck as they did. He thought for a moment she might pack it all in, there and then, tell him to turn her trolley around and head back to the country lanes, but she didn’t.
He pushed on to the far side of the bridge, where the tarmac came to an abrupt end against another elbow of grass, and the eastbound slip road.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Last one, and we’re there.’
‘There?’
‘Well. The other side of the road.’
On the far side, a short way down the slip road, lay a stretch of hard shoulder. This meant crossing diagonally, a longer route, but one that should see them safe when they got to the other side. Taking a deep breath and holding it, Ibrahim nudged the trolley forward so its front wheels left the kerb. Traffic streamed down onto the slip road from the dizzy chaos of the junction, and Ibrahim watched each passing car, wishing the traffic would just stop. Just for a minute. Not even that. Ten seconds. If it could stop for just ten seconds.
He looked to the other side of the junction, where the traffic came up from the opposite slip road. There was a moment’s pause as a truck slowed to allow through the next wave of traffic.
‘Now!’ shouted Ibrahim, giving the trolley a forceful shove; pushing it off the kerb and out into the road. He cursed under his breath, the same one word over and over, increasing in time with his pace. No time to say or think anything else. Everything was action and movement without thought. Time didn’t slow down; it imploded, dragging into itself anything and everything outside that moment.
The trolley veered right, causing its back end to drift, and Reenie almost lost her footing, only keeping herself upright by clinging to the side of the trolley and for a moment taking both feet off the ground and allowing herself to be carried. Without her help the front end twisted sharply another degree to the right, and Ibrahim felt himself being pulled along by its weight and its momentum, so that they were now rushing down the slip road’s inside lane. He yanked the trolley’s handlebar to the right, hoping this would bring it across to the hard shoulder, but it was no use. Laden with shopping bags, the trolley acted of its own accord; its clumsy caster wheels twisting in every direction, searching for the path of least resistance. Solomon’s cage tipped over onto its side, and the bird started fluttering crazily in every direction, waiting for the world to st
op shaking.
Ibrahim heard the sharp blare of a horn, and glancing back saw a car bearing down on them, the driver’s face scrunched up in rage. He tugged at the trolley again, bringing its back end off the road, and Reenie followed his lead so that they were now on the hard shoulder, out of the path of the cars and lorries, but still moving and with no sign of slowing. The trolley clattered percussively, the birdcage tumbling from the child’s seat and down into a gap between their luggage, and Ibrahim dug his heels into the gravel. The trolley slowed, the hiss of gravel faded to a crunch, and they stopped.
‘Fucking hell,’ said Ibrahim.
‘You’re telling me,’ said Reenie, breathlessly. ‘And mind your language.’
She leaned against the front end of the trolley – half for support, half to stop it running away – and peering into it saw the upturned birdcage.
‘Solomon,’ she gasped.
Ibrahim reached into the trolley and lifted out the cage. Lying at the bottom, among the droppings and the empty shells of birdseed, was Solomon, his beak wide open but his grey eyes puckered shut.
‘Is he okay?’ asked Reenie.
Ibrahim lowered the cage back into the trolley and shook his head.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
Reenie let out a long shuddering sigh, more one of resignation than grief, and her eyes became glazed and red.
‘My stuff,’ she said, a little angrily, and she began rummaging through the rest of the trolley.
‘What are you looking for?’ asked Ibrahim.
‘If it’s broken,’ she said, glowering up at him and shaking her head.
‘If what’s broken?’
She opened one of the bags and produced what looked like a framed certificate, colourfully illustrated and written out in Hebrew script.
‘Thank God,’ she said. ‘Thank God.’ Then, looking down at Solomon’s cage again, she sighed. ‘We need to bury him.’
It took ten minutes for Ibrahim to dig a small hole, perhaps eight inches deep and four wide, using one of Reenie’s spoons. Reenie wrapped the bird in sheets of kitchen towel, and after she’d placed him in the tiny pit, Ibrahim filled it in and patted down the fresh earth with his hands.
When they’d first met, only a few days ago, Ibrahim had wondered what, if anything, Reenie could have that was worth so much she couldn’t leave it behind. He could think of nothing he owned that would be worth carrying this distance – nothing that didn’t serve a practical purpose – but Reenie, he now understood, had her whole life in those boxes and bags; everything she cared about, everything she loved. The pieces of a life, proof that she had been here. What did he have that wasn’t disposable? What permanent mementos did he have but scars?
‘You packed it down tight?’ said Reenie.
He nodded. ‘Yeah. Really tight.’
‘So nothing’ll get to him?’
‘Nothing,’ said Ibrahim.
They began moving again, down the sloping hard shoulder of the slip road. At the bottom of this incline the road fed into the motorway’s eastbound side, and here the land became flat and the horizons distant; the sky opening out into an immense blue canopy, mostly cloudless but scratched through by a white grid of contrails. The traffic was loud, and they were shaken by the rush of wind from each passing truck and car, but finally it felt as if they were making progress. This was the road that would take them to London.
They were ill-prepared for a whole day of walking. Ibrahim spent much of the time glancing back for approaching vans and trucks, anything that could carry a trolley and two passengers, and when anything large came their way he stuck out his thumb, but no one stopped for them.
If it was foolish of them to come here, they had little choice now but to keep walking. The motorway offered nowhere to stop and rest. Its purpose was relentless. It served only as a sluiceway to an endless flow of traffic, carving the country in two, from one side to the other. The few living creatures that had attempted to cross it now formed dark patches on the tarmac. The entrails of a fox – pink, grey and glistening – stretched out from a smear of red and black, and further along an orange claw clutched at the air from a cake of blood and feathers.
The dead creatures on the road made dangerous pickings for the scavengers that flew above the motorway. A buzzard swooped down, its large expressive eyes given a look of intense concentration by a permanent, dark scowl, but the bird was buffeted back by the turbulence from cars and trucks. It found and rode a spiralling current of warm air, and with every sense it searched for the next, and allowed itself to glide and descend. It headed west, away from the two shambolic figures shuffling along the roadside, and scanned this way and that for signs of movement in the fields and bushes either side of this great river of coloured metal. Further back, one side of the river had stopped flowing altogether, and as it came down from another current the buzzard saw glinting blue lights, and heard human voices crackling and distant. Several blocks of colour were screwed together in a field of broken glass, and clouds of steam rose from the damage. There was blood on the black ground, but not an animal’s blood. There was nothing to be scavenged here.
Oblivious to the crash, Ibrahim and Reenie walked on along the motorway, and no one stopped them. Every police car in ten miles was at the scene, so even though they were spotted, in a room full of monitors many, many miles away, there was nobody to move them on or take them back the way they had come.
This was the limit of their luck that afternoon. No van or truck stopped for them, and they walked ten miles along the hard shoulder, on top of the four already walked from the lanes to the motorway. By mid-afternoon the sky had clouded over, and it rained; the rain falling as a fine mist, almost unnoticeable at first but drenching them all the same. It was early evening when they reached the service station, and they were soaked. The sky had darkened to become the kind you only ever see after rain – heavy lilac clouds brushed orange and gold where they faced the sun; the scimitar of a rainbow half-buried in a mess of sunlight and gloom. To the west, splinters of sunlight broke through the clouds, drawing long shadows across the damp, grey car park.
Neither of them had said much in the last two hours, and Reenie breathed in short heavy gasps, and walked with slow, plodding steps, her expression like that of someone grieving. Ibrahim could barely bring himself to look at her, but when he did he felt a wave of guilt and shame at having done this to her. She would have been better off where he left her, however long it would have taken her. At least back in the lanes there were places for her to camp. What did the motorway have but concrete, tarmac and danger?
The service station was hidden from the motorway by a grassy bank, and it was here that Reenie settled, kicking off her boots and letting out a long sigh. Her feet were red raw and blistered in places; the varicose veins on her legs more pronounced. She seemed to have aged ten years in a single afternoon.
‘I’ll get us some food,’ said Ibrahim. ‘And something to drink.’
‘We’ve got food,’ Reenie snapped, scowling up at him.
‘I mean something warm. A proper meal.’
‘You said we’d be able to hitchhike.’
He looked away, helpless with remorse, and held his breath. Yes, it was a long walk, too long for a seventy-five year old, or however old she was, and yes her bird had died, but she had agreed to it, hadn’t she? And what about the state she was in when they’d found her? Hardly a thing to eat, almost nothing left to drink. She would have starved there if they hadn’t turned up. She’d still be there now, resting and starving.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘And okay, it’s not exactly going to plan. But we can stay here for the night. How does that sound? We’ll get some sleep, and then in the morning we’ll try again. There’ll be dozens of lorries and vans coming through here. It might be easier than trying on the motorway.’
‘And what other choice have we got?’ said Reenie. ‘I mean, yes, we can stay here and sleep, or what? Keep walking? I’m knackered, love. My feet a
re in bits. And Solomon…’ Her lip trembled and she shook her head. ‘What other choices have we got?’
Ibrahim sighed. ‘I’m sorry, okay? Really, I’m sorry. I thought this would work, and it hasn’t, and I really hoped it would, and it hasn’t. I wanted to make things right…’
‘What do you mean, “make things right”?’
He paused, avoiding her gaze.
‘When I left you, in Newport,’ he said, without conviction.
‘I left you in Newport. What do you mean, make things right? What does that mean?’
‘It means…’
This was his chance. If he wanted to tell her everything, this was his opportunity.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It means nothing. I wanted to help you, and it didn’t work. But I didn’t know what else we could do.’
‘We could have kept going the way we was going.’
‘And we would still have had to walk. We’d still have been a hundred miles from London, maybe more. I mean, you are actually going to London, aren’t you? You weren’t just saying that to wind me up?’
‘Did you think I was doing this for fun?’
‘Well, I don’t know, do I? I mean, I don’t even know why you’re walking to London.’
‘And I don’t know why you’re walking to London.’
He said nothing. They’d discussed everything, almost everything, but this. If anything, perhaps their progress so far had been fuelled by not knowing each other’s reasons. That made it simpler, somehow. To ask the question would have meant taking a scalpel to something small and delicate, something that wouldn’t survive dissection.
‘You never asked,’ said Ibrahim.
‘And you never asked me.’
They looked at one another with narrowing eyes, locked in a stand-off that could end only with the question being asked or by one of them walking away, and after a long and wordless moment of unease, Ibrahim turned around and made his way silently toward the service station.
Ibrahim & Reenie Page 19