by Sara Alexi
And he is back in the suitcase, his mother’s clothes all around him, her aroma masking the less welcome smells in the room he is not supposed to go in.
He did not plan to go in there. It was the puppy’s fault. All the previous day, the puppy whined and whimpered in the alley at the back of the flat.
‘Why do they have to abandon it outside our back door?’ his mother complained as she got ready to go out.
‘What does “abandon” mean?’
‘Left. No one wants it.’ She smeared colour around her mouth, pressing the metal case hard against her lips, which meant the lipstick was nearly all used up. Her intent gaze in the mirror did not look like her: the pupils large and black, the white parts yellowish, and her cheek muscles tight, as if in a panic. Not all her face showed at once in the little mirror, which hung above the light switch by the front door. The cream wall was black with fingermarks around the light switch and below it.
‘Someone’s left it?’
He understood being left. He cried sometimes when he was left, and now she was putting her coat on.
There was a tear under the arm and the grey lining showed. She had bought it from the shop on the corner that smelt funny and was full of other people’s clothes.
‘Right, I’ll only be half an hour, be good.’ She always said she would only be half an hour.
Halfway round the kitchen clock was half an hour, but it always went all the way round at least once, and often more than that. Now the battery had run out and she hadn’t put a new one in, and in a way this was better.
The puppy was crying again and he turned to see, and then the front door banged shut. The puppy seemed louder than before. All yesterday he had wanted to give it some scraps but his mother said they shouldn’t encourage it.
‘Encourage?’ It was a long word, but she hadn’t explained it, and the animal had cried all day and then, after she came home and he was in bed and she was in her room, it had cried all night.
And it cried again now, and he tried to ignore it. There was no radio in the house to drown the noise out, like they had in the chip shop. Nor was there anything to distract him. She had said that they would fashion a wheel for the one that snapped in two on his wooden car but that had never happened. His pot of Play Doh had long since dried out and his drawing book had been full for months; besides, his coloured pencils were down to nubs and they were hard to hold now. With nothing to do, the minutes passed slowly and the dog’s pitiful whines seem to grow more anxious.
To his joy, his mother did return sooner than he expected, and he ran to her and hung on her coat, breathing in her scent, seeking her hand, his heart beating a little faster.
‘Get off, I can hardly breathe. Look out, you’ll squash the cake.’
‘Cake? Really?’ He backed off and looked to see what she was carrying. He trailed after her into the kitchen and watched, wide-eyed, as she pulled a rather battered box out of her shopping bag and cut a slice of cake.
‘Right.’ She did not take off her coat. ‘I have to go out again. I might not be back for lunch so I suggest you save that right? Eat it later, then I’ll bring something in for tea.’ And she was gone, the door bouncing on the lock once as she pulled it shut behind her. Cyril’s attention was on the cake. He would do as he was told and leave it for later, but perhaps just taste it, try a tiny bit of icing. He knew if tasted it there was a chance he would eat the lot. His stomach growled. He didn’t realise you could eat first thing in the morning, or that these meals were called breakfast, until he went to the Home. As long as he didn’t think of food he was usually alright till lunchtime. But the cake sitting on the side drew his attention to his stomach.
Then the dog started crying again and it distracted him. He opened the back door a crack and could see the puppy sitting on a piece of wet cardboard. It was raining, as usual. Having nothing to offer it, he closed the door again and the cake pulled him towards it. He felt his will weakening so he opened the back door again. The rain was cold on his skin, but not unpleasant. He squatted over the dog, and looked at it, but didn’t stroke it yet.
‘You hungry?’ he asked the pup, who whimpered and shivered. ‘You cold?’ He tried to make his voice sound soothing. But the pup didn’t answer. Its eyes, large and black and reflective, looked at him sadly. ‘I’ll take you inside, but just for a bit, to get dry,’ he told it in a matter-of-fact voice. As he picked it up, with his hands around its little belly, it wriggled and squirmed and tried to lick his face, and he dropped it on the kitchen floor, unable to hold it any longer, where it immediately weed on the lino.
‘Oh, you bad dog!’ he scolded. ‘What have you done?’ And he bristled and grew silent, giving the dog withering looks and tutting and sucking through his teeth to show his displeasure. The cloth on the side of the sink was grey and crispy and smelt bad, but he didn’t hesitate – she could be back at any moment. But in the time it took him to clean up the mess, the puppy had pushed over the bin and was eating the paper that last night’s fish and chips came wrapped in. It also ate a lump of mouldy bread and a rock-hard piece of cheese. Then it jumped up onto Cyril’s bed, turned a circle three times and promptly went to sleep. Cyril stared at the new mess on the floor.
‘What have you done now!’ he shouted, recognising his mother’s voice in his own mouth. ‘You wicked, wicked dog,’ he told the puppy, and he smacked it on its rump, making it whimper.
‘Sorry!’ he said then, as it cowered from him. ‘Oh, sorry, sorry, little dog.’ And he scooped the animal into his arms and kissed it and stroked it until it licked his face again. Its breath smelt of fish, but he didn’t mind.
Mum might be back soon, though, so he tried to clear up the mess from the bin as best he could. Apart from some bits of onion that stuck to the lino, he thought he had done a good job. Then he sat next to the puppy, which was asleep again, and stroked its ears. The softness was thrilling, the warmth comforting. He put his head on the puppy and listened to its heart beating, and felt his own heartbeat with his hand and it was almost as if they became one. He wrapped his arms around his furry brother and squeezed, pushing his nose into its fur, then released the animal that was now awake and kissed it ever so gently on top of its head and wondered, if he asked nicely, whether Mum would let him keep it. Then he remembered the cake.
It was still there and he took the plate off the sink side and sat with it on his knees on the bed. It was misshapen but the icing looked buttery. He sniffed it and just as he did so the puppy woke up and in a moment it was on its feet, its mouth open, begging for a piece. What a dilemma! How he wanted to feed that pup, watch its tail wag, accept its heartfelt licks of appreciation. But his own stomach growled loudly and this was not bread or chips – this was cake!
Cyril stood, considering the choice he had to make, with the plate in one hand. The puppy jumped to reach the tempting morsel and then sat and started whining again.
‘If you can’t behave and ask nicely, you won’t have any at all. Now sit still and wait your turn,’ he told it, but the animal continued to whine.
‘Be quiet, like a good boy,’ he said, but the words had no effect on the animal.
‘Just shut up and leave me alone!’ he shouted, and stormed into his mother’s room and shut the door. He hadn’t meant to go in, but once he was there he found he didn’t need to be angry at the puppy any more, and that felt better.
It was strange to be in her room with the door closed behind him. The air was stale and smelt of sweat that was not his mother’s, and a strange salty smell. He curled his upper lip and screwed up his eyes, trying to identify the source of the stench. There was nothing in the room but her unmade bed, a waste bin full of tissues, and her suitcase, which lay open on the dull lino floor by the bed, an assortment of muddled clothes filling both halves. There was nowhere else to keep them.
He could not resist. Putting the plate on the bed he took a handful of her clothes and brought them to his face. It smelt completely of her, like when she had hel
d him close when that woman had come round and asked lots of questions and wrote things in a book.
It was a big suitcase and before he knew it he was curled up in one half, nestling into a shiny blouse, with a flowery orange dress pulled over him. Silent tears squeezed from the corners of his eyes and he lay still, basking in her smell and the softness of her fabrics until his stomach growled and he remembered the cake. With excited energy he decided to sit in her clothes and eat his cake. What a treat that would be.
He carefully took the plate from the bed and then… Well, he wasn’t sure what happened, but suddenly all the cake was gone, he had chocolate icing all around his mouth, and to his horror the icing had also dripped onto Mum’s blouse and her orange flowery dress.
His mouth dropped open. She would know he had been in her room. Worse than that, he had ruined her clothes. His heart, banging against the inside of his chest, felt as if might explode, and his legs started twitching and he rocked himself backward and forward, staring down at the mess he had made. The remains of the cake caught in his throat and he thought he might cry. He had to do something.
Grabbing the spoilt items, he opened the door to the main room. The puppy was asleep again on his bed but he did not pay it any attention. He must try to fix what he had done before she came back.
The tap ran cold and he pushed the first stain into its stream. The blouse cleaned easily and his pulse slowed. Soon all traces of the chocolate were gone, and he began on the orange dress; it was heavy and the weight of it made it difficult to keep the sticky area under the tap. The chocolate did not want to be removed and he rubbed it with his finger, but this just spread the mess over a larger area.
For once he hoped that his mum would not come home soon.
He kept rubbing at the mark; it took a long time to get the dress reasonably clean, and when he had finished most of it was wet. Mum dried the clothes in a big machine at the launderette where it was warm and she pretended to be nice to him because they were out and other people could see. But he couldn’t go there now, so he returned the blouse and dress to the suitcase and hoped they would dry by the time she wanted to change her clothes.
As he closed the bedroom door he could hear the key turn in the lock.
‘Chips,’ she said, handing him a half portion of cold greasy potatoes wrapped in newspaper. ‘No money for fish.’ She sat on his bed to take off her shoes and rub her feet. Then Cyril remembered the puppy in amongst his tangle of sheets. His mouth went dry and the chips stuck to his mouth like the cake had earlier.
‘I’m knackered,’ she said and walked towards her bedroom door pointing at her back. This was his cue to pull down the zip of her dress far enough so she could reach it by herself. The door closed and Cyril wondered if he could chase the puppy outside before she came out again. But he had not even processed his thoughts before he heard her scream, ‘You dirty little bugger!’ and her bedroom door flew open. She had her orange dress in her hand. He frowned. Food spills were usually ‘messy’, not ‘dirty’.
The puppy woke up at the noise and whined. The movement distracted her and she screamed again.
‘What the heck? Ahh, no! I don’t know if that’s better or worse. Have you let that little bugger in while I’ve been out?’
Cyril’s mouth hung open and he struggled to make sense of what she was saying. In two strides she was across the room, grasping the puppy by the back of its neck. It whined and wriggled as she threw it out of the front door into the road, shouting after it, ‘Out! You pissy little runt!’ She slammed the door shut to the sound of screeching brakes outside in the road. The look she gave Cyril made him step backward and his arms lost strength, his cold chips sliding from the newspaper wrapping to the floor.
She didn’t come out of her room for the rest of that evening, and as he got hungry he collected the chips off the floor, and then curled up in the bottom of the wardrobe to go to sleep.
He is grateful that sleep takes him now as his neighbours quieten on the other side of the wall and are no longer a distraction.
He is not woken by Zaza licking his face the next morning, as he usually is. His legs are pinned down as normal by Coco, but what has roused him is the sound of laughter through the walls from next door.
It disturbs him but entices at the same time. He wants to bang on the wall and shout at them to stop and but he wants to listen too, laugh with them. The merry sounds grow fainter and move downstairs. Cyril throws on his dressing gown and follows. In the darkness of his sitting room he pushes aside a folding table, a wooden chair with a missing leg and an old suitcase with no handle, to clear an area of the adjoining wall. He finds a glass in the kitchen and puts it against the wall, just as he once saw in a film he watched with Matron Jan.
He cannot make out the words, but every sentence is interspersed with the tinkle of her laugh and the chortle of his agreement.
Normally on Sundays he spends the day walking on the moors – basking in the sun in the summer, ploughing through the snow in the winter, pulling his hood up when it rains or his scarf around his ears against the wind. No matter what the weather out on the moors, he is free, away from people, just him and the dogs and the wonder and power of nature, and the world seems beautiful.
But today he does not feel like striding over the moors and it is only the insistence of the hounds that makes him pull on his jacket. Today he is not out for long, and as soon as he is back inside he takes up his vigil with his ear against the glass.
Chapter 6
The house seems very empty after Aaman has left for work, and it crosses Saabira’s mind that hers is arguably the harder job. He will have so much to talk about with his boss, his distant cousin Tariq whom he hasn’t seen since they were boys. Tariq’s mother, whom Aaman addresses as ‘Auntie’, has given him many photos of new nephews and nieces Tariq hasn’t yet seen. Last night she and Aaman tried to remember his last visit to Pakistan, but neither of them could.
Also, Aaman will make friends with all his colleagues. How can he fail when he will be working with them every day? But she must create a whole new life from nothing.
It is a thought that brings the village near Sialkot to mind and with it all the people she has left behind. Saabira scrapes baby food from around Jay’s mouth with a plastic spoon. Jay has almost eaten the whole pot. She looks at the label on the jar. The baby on the label has smooth blonde hair and blue eyes, and it is smiling, with puffed-up, overly rosy cheeks. Saabira smiles.
Yesterday she bought many jars of baby food in a shop on a corner in the next village, Greather Lotherton. Once she is more settled she will make her own food for Jay but for the moment it makes life so much easier.
The walk to the next village was very pleasant yesterday, in the sunshine. Aaman carried Jay, laughing and joking all the way, and teased Saabira gently. The shop was laid out with shelf after shelf of food in packages, and a small and rather sad-looking selection of fruits and vegetables. The boy behind the counter was from Pakistan, but he did not speak Urdu, or any language other than English, and he kept apologising for the small selection he had to offer.
‘But I will expand into next door next year!’ His accent was strange. It was a relief to Saabira when his father came out from the back of the shop and greeted them in Urdu. He explained that his grandson’s accent was Yorkshire and they spoke about Pakistan for a long time.
Then Saabira inspected the shelves full of jars and packets: jars of ready-made curry, packets of ready-made chapattis, and rice in brightly coloured cardboard boxes, with a photograph of a dark-skinned man smiling out at her, who was neither Pakistani nor Indian.
‘Nine’y seconds tha’,’ the grandson said with a smile as she picked up a box of rice to inspect it more closely. ‘Bung i’ int’ microwave, nine’y seconds ’n’ boom! Ya dun.’
Saabira doubted herself, listening to the boy. After four years at university, and with a string of letters after her name, she still could not understand a word this young man was talk
ing about.
Jay pushes aside the last spoonful of food and takes to playing with a toy Aaman bought her in the corner shop. It is a ring of fabric, and makes a crinkling sound if you squeeze one side and squeaks if you grab the other. Jay bites on one side and squeezes the other, and manages to produce both sounds at once.
It’s too early to start cooking and she has already swept the floor, made the bed and washed yesterday’s clothes, and hung them on the rack over the Aga, which is what the big metal stove is called. She looks up at the clock, calculating how many hours Aaman has left at work. There are no eggs to collect, no buffalo to feed, no vegetable plot to tend, and no neighbours to pass the time with. Perhaps she should introduce herself to the neighbours here. That would be the real start to her new life.
Jay is fighting sleep but Saabira wraps a shawl around her; her long eyelashes flutter and her face takes rest. With the baby asleep this would be a good time to find out who is living either side of them.
With Jay nestled in the crook of her arm Saabira pulls her heavy shawl over them both.
The house below theirs has a grey front door and the front is freshly painted a bright white. Containers of flowers sit on the lower windowsill and there is a tree in a wooden bucket either side of the gate. These details make it look more inviting than any of the other houses in the street.
The metal knocker echoes a little inside but as she waits there is no sound of footfall. Perhaps they are at work.
The house on the other side of hers is darker than all the rest, the windows dull, with no signs of life, and her heart sinks a little. Saabira examines the makeshift wooden porch and wonders where or how to knock. Should she open this outer door and tap on the inner one, or should she rap with her nails on the thin wood veneer?