Dishonour

by Helen Black

  The farmhouse was ablaze.

  Orange and red flames licked the windows and doors while plumes of poisonous black smoke swirled skywards. The fire greedily sucked in the surrounding air and belched out a roar in return.

  Lilly covered her mouth with her hand. ‘They’re inside.’

  Jack pitched open his door and ran towards the building. Lilly followed him, the feverish heat assaulting her.

  As they neared the front door it spat at them in anger.

  ‘I’m going in,’ said Jack, and pulled his leather jacket over his head. ‘Call the fire brigade.’

  ‘Don’t!’ Lilly screamed, but he was already on his way, face bowed by the heat.

  He kicked out at the door, which gave way easily under his boot. Inside, Lilly could see everything was clouded by smoke. Jack bent as low as he could and went in. In less than a second she could no longer even make out his outline.

  ‘Jack,’ she shouted, ‘this is madness.’

  If he called back she couldn’t hear him over the crash of the flames.

  He was fast, she told herself. Hadn’t he been training all these months? He’d find Taslima and Aasha and be out of there in seconds.

  She scrabbled for her mobile and dialled 999. Help would be here soon. Everything would be OK.

  No sooner had she held the thought than there was a throaty rumble from deep within the house, then a whoosh that she felt as well as heard. It knocked her off balance with its dizzying intensity. As she scrambled to her feet, she felt the heat scorch her skin and smelled her hair singe.

  A window exploded outwards in a spray of glass and wood, and the entire ground floor was engulfed in flames.

  ‘Jack!’ Lilly’s screams were like wire in her throat. ‘Jack, are you OK?’

  She stumbled back, her arms held protectively in front of her face. Tears poured down her cheeks. ‘Jack, where are you?’ She fell to her knees, weak from the blistering heat. ‘Jack,’ her words were no more than a scratch.

  Sobbing, she held her stomach. ‘Don’t leave me.’

  In the maelstrom of fog and flame a black shape catapulted towards Lilly. She turned her back, anticipating a flying piece of wood. She had to get away. There was nothing she could do for the others.

  She crawled on her hands and knees, her belly low to the ground. Her nails dug in the scorched earth. Behind, she felt something hurtling towards her. She curled into a ball, bracing herself. It landed at speed, glancing off her shoulder, rolling sidewards. She turned to look.

  ‘Jack?’

  He lay on the floor, his face black, his eyes streaming, gulping air.

  ‘The girls,’ he forced out the words, ‘they’re at the back. On the roof.’

  Lilly allowed herself a second to touch his arm before she raced around to the back of the house.

  She scanned the roof, her hand shielding her eyes. At this side of the building the fire had reached the first floor, and orange fingers clamoured out of every window. At the very top, above what looked like a small bathroom window, two figures were pulling themselves towards the apex.

  Lilly cupped her mouth. ‘Taslima.’

  Both figures looked in her direction. Through the charcoal clouds Lilly saw it was her. The other girl must be Aasha.

  ‘Hold on,’ Lilly shouted. ‘The fire crew will be here any second.’

  She checked behind her but there was still no sign of the engines.

  The roof groaned and shuddered, tiles sliding down and detonating on impact with the ground below. Then a crack began to appear, sucking away the very fabric of the building. A hole gaped. Lilly realised the roof was about to collapse.

  Taslima and Aasha clawed their way higher, flames hot on their heels.

  Lilly could hear sirens in the distance. Come on, come on, she willed them.

  ‘They’re here,’ she shouted, but her words were drowned out by an enormous rip, as if a giant sheet were being torn in two. The roof gave way, tumbling into the depths of the inferno. Only the very frame remained, like a fragile skeleton, the girls perched like terrified birds.

  Behind Lilly, the engines arrived, lights flashing, sirens blaring. A fireman put his hands on her shoulders.

  ‘Step back, love. It’s going to cave in.’

  Lilly shrugged him off. ‘My friend is up there, and another girl.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered.

  ‘Bring a ladder,’ Lilly shouted. ‘Get them down.’

  He shook his head and pointed to the walls, which were fast beginning to disintegrate. ‘There’s nothing to lean it against.’

  Lilly put her hands in her hair, feeling the brittle ends where her curls were burned. ‘You have to do something.’

  He turned to his colleagues and shouted something to them. Within seconds they arrived with a net.

  ‘Who’s the one nearest to us, love?’

  ‘Aasha,’ said Lilly.

  The fireman held up a megaphone. ‘Aasha, can you hear us?’

  She nodded, her face illuminated a strange orange by the fire.

  ‘I want you to jump out as far as you can.’ He paused. ‘Do you understand that? Jump out.’

  Aasha looked towards Taslima. It was impossible to say if they spoke but Aasha steeled herself, then dived. She seemed to be suspended in the air, the burning building crashing around her, before she hurtled downwards and landed with a thump in the middle of the net.

  The fireman gave a tight smile then turned to Lilly. ‘What about the other one?’

  ‘Taslima,’ said Lilly.

  Again he lifted the megaphone. ‘Taslima, I need you to do the same for me.’

  Lilly waited for her to turn around, to push back with her hands and jump to safety. Instead, Taslima crawled further up the roof.

  ‘Taslima,’ the fireman shouted, ‘you need to stop climbing and jump.’

  Taslima didn’t respond but continued to make her way upwards until she was at the chimney. Then she clung to it.

  Aasha was brought to Lilly, wrapped in a silver blanket.

  ‘I don’t think she can understand you,’ she said. ‘She got a whack on the head and she doesn’t seem to have any idea what’s happening.’

  ‘Taslima,’ the fireman shouted. ‘There isn’t much time.’

  Taslima wrapped her arms even tighter around the chimney.

  There was another sickening heave and the walls began to crumble. Any moment now, Taslima would be propelled into the fire.

  Lilly snatched the megaphone. ‘Taslima, you listen to me right this second. Just stop buggering about and jump.’

  Bricks began raining down and Aasha screamed.

  ‘We can’t stay here,’ shouted the fireman.

  ‘Please,’ Lilly begged. ‘I can get through to her.’

  She looked up at Taslima. Without her hijab her hair streamed around her head like a wild waterfall.

  ‘Taslima, I know you’re very frightened but you have to do this.’

  Taslima didn’t move.

  ‘After everything you’ve done for me I will not let you die. I cannot do without you and neither can Rogon.’

  At her son’s name, Taslima looked up.

  ‘That’s right, Zahara, I know all about your beautiful little boy,’ Lilly’s voice caught, ‘and trust me, he needs you.’

  Taslima couldn’t breathe. The flames and the smoke and the noise swirled around her. She imagined that this was exactly like hell would be.

  It wouldn’t be long before the very face of evil himself came for her.

  She had been sure that getting out of the bathroom had been the right thing, that she wanted to escape, live to fight another day. Now up here on the blazing roof, the bricks of the chimney unbearably hot beneath her hands, she wasn’t certain of anything.

  She looked up at the sky. It looked so cool, stretching out into for ever.

  From down below a shout pierced her thoughts. The voice was a woman’s. Oddly familiar. She could scarcely make her out through the shrouds o
f smoke.

  ‘I will not let you die,’ the woman screamed.

  Taslima was sorry. The woman obviously cared but she just didn’t have the strength. Though she couldn’t recall the details, Taslima knew she’d been fighting for a very long time. She was sapped.

  ‘I can’t,’ she whispered, a single tear wetting her cheek.

  Then the word. The one word that Taslima did remember.

  Rogon.

  ‘I know all about your beautiful little boy,’ the woman shouted.

  The memory of him caught Taslima like a punch. She doubled over with the force of it.

  He was eighteen months old. His eyes were like midnight. He was the reason she got out of bed each day.

  The woman’s words filled the air. ‘…he needs you.’

  Once more, Taslima put her trust in Allah.

  And jumped.

  ‘You are so dead,’ Imran sneers into Aasha’s face as soon as she crosses the threshold.

  After everything that’s happened, she’s surprised that she still feels a stab of fear in her belly.

  ‘Got nothing to say now?’ he growls.

  Aasha looks at the floor. The doctor had suggested that she stay in hospital overnight but Aasha had begged her mum to let her come home. Now she wondered if hospital would have been better.

  Imran’s eyes flash. ‘Or are you hoping your little boyfriend will come around to save you?’

  Her eyes fill with tears at the thought of Ryan.

  Imran grabs her chin and forces her to look at him. ‘Don’t you cry for him, you little slut.’

  ‘Enough.’

  It’s Mum in the doorway.

  Imran doesn’t let go. ‘She needs to know what she’s done.’

  His grip is so tight Aasha can hardly breathe.

  Mum moves towards them. ‘She knows what she has done, Imran.’

  ‘Does she?’ he snorts. ‘Does she know the shame she has brought us all? Do you?’

  Aasha feels her knees begin to give way. After everything she’s been through, will they send her away? She doesn’t know if she can bear that.

  ‘I know exactly what Aasha has done,’ Mum says. ‘And I know exactly what you have done.’

  Imran glares at her. ‘Someone has to keep this family in order.’

  Aasha expects Mum to crumple but instead she reaches over and pulls Imran’s hand from her face.

  ‘I am your mother,’ she says, ‘and don’t you ever speak to me like that again.’

  He stares at Mum with an intensity that makes Aasha shiver, but Mum doesn’t back down. She stares right back at him.

  Aasha holds her breath, waiting. At last Mum speaks.

  ‘Things are going to change around here,’ she says.

  Chapter Eleven

  5 May 2009

  I arrive the mosque as if in a dream. In the days since Fighting4Islam left us, life has seemed unreal.

  I have tried to focus on the forums, on my work, but everything seems so trivial. I know now that I want to make a difference. A real difference. I am just waiting for Allah to show me the way.

  I slip off my shoes and enter the meeting.

  The sister who spoke to the teacher the last time I was here is on her feet.

  ‘We must raise our voices,’ she is saying, ‘and show the world that Islam is not to be trifled with.’

  Something in her body language annoys me. Maybe it’s the way her chin tilts upwards. Or the way her hip thrusts to the side. Once again I notice the tendril of hair that escapes from her hijab.

  ‘How can we show we are serious in our intentions if sisters cannot obey the simple rules set down for them?’

  Everyone turns to me.

  ‘We must live completely in Islam.’ I take control of the crowd.

  The sister at least has the dignity to concede and sits down.

  I point my finger to the sky. ‘And make no mistake, we must be prepared to die that way.’

  Later, as I walk home, I begin to open my eyes. I begin to notice things around me.

  Women are everywhere, chatting, shopping and laughing. I have been so consumed with hatred for the kuffar that I have failed to notice my own people have taken a wrong turn.

  It takes my breath away. Bare heads. Lipstick. Painted toes.

  While my face has been turned towards Palestine I have failed to notice evil much closer to home.

  I make a dua. Allah has shown me my path.

  The nurse applied cream to the blisters on Lilly’s forehead. The pain made her wince.

  ‘Is it bad?’ Lilly asked.

  The nurse gave a half-smile. ‘I’ve seen sunburn worse than this.’ She reached behind her for a mirror and held it up.

  Lilly groaned. The blisters looked like the late onset of acne, or a nasty batch of chicken pox, but that was not the worst of it. It was her hair. What was often frizzy and out of control now resembled an old bird’s nest. She pulled at a tendril but there was no spring in it, like a dried-out clump of grass.

  ‘What in God’s name am I going to do with this?’

  The nurse laughed. ‘Get a bob?’

  Lilly sighed. She had had long hair since childhood. While all her school mates were getting Purdy cuts and perming their fringes, Lilly had retained Pre-Raphaelite curls to the base of her spine.

  ‘Like an angel,’ her dad used to say.

  Elsa had whinged about the time it took to wash and had raked a vicious wire comb through it each morning. But Lilly didn’t care. She had kept it long and luscious. Over the years she’d trimmed it to shoulder length but it had still been her crowning glory. Now look at it.

  She thanked the nurse and went to find Taslima. She still couldn’t think of her as Zahara. She needed to ask her so many things. Find out why she had lied.

  But when she arrived at the ward Lilly swallowed her questions. There would be time for answers, but not now.

  Taslima lay very still, her head no longer swathed by her hijab but a thick cap of white bandages. Her right hand had also disappeared under a white dressing.

  ‘Hi.’ Lilly dropped gently into a chair at the side of Taslima’s bed.

  Taslima tried to speak, but her voice was little more than a choke that erupted into a coughing fit.

  Lilly poured a glass of water from a plastic jug and held it to Taslima’s lips. She watched her trachea move as she swallowed.

  ‘Thanks,’ Taslima whispered.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ Lilly asked.

  Taslima smiled. ‘Things come and go, but not you.’

  ‘And not Rogon.’

  ‘Definitely not him.’

  Lilly bit her lip and reminded herself that now was not the time.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about him?’ she asked.

  Taslima gave a small shrug that made her wince. Lilly wondered if the wound to her head hurt or the reason for all the lies.

  ‘I had to leave home,’ she said. ‘Start again.’

  ‘And that’s why you changed your name?’

  Taslima nodded. ‘My husband is not a good person.’

  Lilly gulped back her tears. Taslima was not the first woman to leave everything behind to escape domestic violence. And she wouldn’t be the last.

  ‘But why keep Rogon a secret?’ Lilly asked.

  ‘If my husband found us he’d take him,’ said Taslima.

  ‘You could get custody.’

  Taslima shook her head against the pillow. ‘A piece of paper wouldn’t make any difference to a man like him. If he finds Rogon he’ll take him back home and I’ll never see him again.’

  Lilly did understand. Wouldn’t she do anything to protect Sam? To keep him with her?

  She stroked Taslima’s hand, the bandages rough to the touch.

  ‘Everyone’s getting hurt. You, Raffy, everyone. Sometimes I think I’m cursed.’

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ said Taslima. ‘I knew what I was doing was dangerous and the attack on Raffy had absolutely nothing to do with you.’


  ‘Sometimes it feels like I make matters worse.’

  Taslima’s eyes flashed. ‘Without you I wouldn’t have a job and Raffy would have no one on his side. I’m proud that we tried to help Aasha.’

  Lilly couldn’t help a smile. ‘We did, didn’t we? And she’s safe.’

  ‘And so are lots of other girls that the butcher and his nasty gang would have set their sights on,’ said Taslima. ‘Justice has prevailed.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that.’ Lilly held up the glass of water. ‘Justice for Aahsa and Yasmeen.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Taslima.

  Lilly frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘They didn’t kill Yasmeen.’

  Lilly slumped back in her chair, water sloshing over the rim of the glass onto her trousers.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Taslima. ‘Jalil had never heard of her.’

  Lilly rubbed the water with her other hand, succeeding only in spreading the stain so she looked like she’d wet herself. She gave a weak smile.

  ‘Let’s not worry about that now.’

  Lilly sat with Taslima until she fell asleep, then made her way back to A and E. It had always been a long shot that the PTF had been responsible for Yasmeen’s death, but she couldn’t hide her disappointment. Raffy’s case was back at square one.

  She needed to find Jack; remind herself that his case at least was a complete success.

  She searched for ten minutes until the nurse who had laughed at her hair informed her he’d gone up to visit Ryan.

  Wasn’t that just like Jack? Any other copper would have gone straight back to the nick to celebrate. Instead, Jack was visiting the victim. She smiled. He was a good man.

  When she arrived at Ryan’s room her smile faded.

  Jack was by Ryan’s side, but another woman was in the room. She was a tall blonde. Slim. Her bleached hair was expertly blown dry, fake tan just the right side of golden. She put a hand on Jack’s and whispered something in his ear with glossy lips. He whispered something back, their intimacy palpable.

  Lilly felt the room tilt. It had to be her. The woman in Jack’s secret texts. And the way they were together told Lilly all she needed to know.

  She turned on her heel and fled.

  Jack smiled at Mara.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.