What Milo Saw

by Virginia MacGregor

  ‘It is like I said yesterday in the kitchen, I do not have a choice. If I did not do what she said, I knew I would be homeless.’

  Like I was, thought Tripi. He could understand that a man would do a great deal to keep a roof over his head.

  ‘But your daughter?’

  ‘She has not phoned in months.’ He looked up. ‘I did not look after her mother as I should have, in those days when she was sick. I couldn’t, Tripi. I couldn’t sit with her and watch her die.’

  ‘But your daughter must understand… if you need her help.’

  ‘I am a proud man, Tripi, I am not going to beg.’

  Tripi looked around the bare room. ‘But where will you go?’

  ‘It does not matter.’

  ‘Of course it matters. For a start, Old Mrs Moon loves you.’

  Petros gave Tripi a crooked smile. ‘You think? Well, maybe a little.’

  ‘I think maybe a lot.’ Tripi had heard a muddled message from Milo about a marriage proposal. He liked the idea of two old people getting together; it gave him hope that one day he would find someone too.

  ‘She will not want to know me any more, not when she finds out what I have done.’

  ‘Old Mrs Moon is very understanding, Petros. She has lived for a long time, longer than you. She knows that it is not easy.’ All that listening without saying a word. ‘She will not judge you, Petros.’

  Petros shook his head heavily. ‘Please, you cannot tell her. She trusted me.’

  A knock on the door.

  ‘Petros? Are you in there?’

  Petros and Tripi looked at each other.

  ‘Petros? It’s Sandy, Milo’s mum.’

  Tripi jumped up just in time to see the Lovely Sandy walking into the room.

  ‘Tripi?’ When she said his name, it was like a small bird flying out of her mouth.

  He looked from Sandy to Petros to his bags and boxes and the bare walls and knew what he had to do. An old man could not sleep on a park bench or by a canal.

  ‘Petros must stay with you,’ he said to Sandy.

  ‘But —’ Sandy started.

  ‘I do not mind, I have another place to go. Petros must come to Crescent Way.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Sandy.

  ‘Petros has been kicked out by Nurse Thornhill, he is homeless.’

  ‘Why? What have you done, Petros?’

  Petros’s eyes clouded over.

  Tripi stepped in. ‘Because of the marriage proposal.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘She said it is policy.’ Tripi had heard that word so often on Nurse Thornhill’s lips that he was certain Sandy would believe him. He tried to imitate Nurse Thornhill’s deep voice. ‘The policy is: “No couples at Forget Me Not”. Only single people. So you see, Sandy, he must come home with you.’

  ‘She really doesn’t like people being happy, does she?’

  Tripi looked at the Lovely Sandy and thought of how, in a different life, he would have liked to make her happy.

  Petros took off his cap and twisted it between his hands. ‘I am fine, thank you. I don’t need a place to stay.’

  ‘Do not listen to him, he must go. I willingly sacrifice my place.’

  ‘Your place?’

  ‘He must stay instead of me in your house in Crescent Way.’

  ‘And what about Lou? Milo’s gran? I can’t leave her here alone,’ said Sandy. ‘She needs you, Petros.’

  ‘I will look after her – until we have made the film and caught Nurse Thornhill, then everything will be fine. Then…’ His voice trailed off. Then I will find Ayishah.

  Last night, Tripi had stayed on his old bench by the canal.

  For hours he could not find sleep, the cold too sharp on a body that had got used to the warmth of a house. But he told himself that this was his life now. Not in a nice home marrying a nice English girl and having a job as a chef. As long as he had not found Ayishah, he did not deserve any of those things. When at last he fell asleep, he dreamt of that hot day in July when they left, the bombs falling on Damascus.

  ‘From the Four Seasons to Buckingham Palace: we are stylish tourists,’ Ayishah said.

  She laid out the papers: their new identities, a copy of the letter from their fictional uncle in England and the job recommendation from the chef.

  Tripi felt his heart swell under his ribcage. For Ayishah, this was a big adventure. Unlike him, she wasn’t worried that they were leaving in a hurry, two weeks earlier than planned, nor was she scared by the three days of bombardments that they’d just lived through or anxious when the driver they’d paid to take them across the border announced that this was their last chance to get out, that he would not be coming back to Damascus.

  ‘What will be, will be,’ she said, smiling at having slipped in an English saying.

  Gunshots through the night, the city lit up like a firework display. He looked at her shining eyes.

  ‘And this means we will get to England faster,’ Ayishah said. ‘That is a good thing.’

  The Toyota would take them to the Turkish border. And then onwards, through Europe: Greece, Italy, France. If all went well, they would reach England by the end of September.

  They sat together in the back of the open pick-up and held hands, Ayishah because she was excited, Tripi because he did not want to let go of his little sister, not with all these guns and strangers. Her small palm fitted perfectly into his. He remembered how, as a baby, she’d loved to clamp her fingers around his, how she cried when she was pulled away from him, her big brother.

  ‘We are squashed like sardines,’ she whispered and then leant in closer. ‘With smelly sardines.’ She giggled and held her nose.

  One of these smelly strangers stood up in the back of the pick-up and yelled at the driver. ‘Hey, why are we going to Aleppo? The plan was to go straight to the border.’

  ‘We have more people to collect,’ the driver called back

  Anything for a few Syrian pounds, thought Tripi. For some, business was more lucrative in times of war than in times of peace.

  Another man pulled a mobile from his ear and yelled. ‘Things are not good in Aleppo. I have a friend there, he says not to enter the city.’

  ‘Just following orders,’ said the driver.

  ‘I’ve never seen Aleppo,’ said Ayishah, her eyes wide at all these new things. ‘And it’s good, isn’t it? To be helping more people?’

  Tripi nodded and kissed her forehead. Ayishah had a way of chasing away his selfish thoughts. Picking up more people felt like an unnecessary delay, an extra danger, but as ever, his little sister pricked his conscience. Perhaps there were more people like them, brothers and sisters, parents and children, who needed to leave the city, to start a new life.

  The Toyota coughed its way into the streets of the second largest city in Syria, and then screeched to a halt. A rush of air, the car tilting to one side under its heavy cargo, a flat tyre.

  ‘Everyone off,’ said the driver. ‘Everyone off.’

  Gunshots bounced off the buildings. The two men who had shouted at the driver were right: they should not be here.

  For the first time, Ayishah’s eyes darkened.

  ‘It’s okay, Ayishah,’ Tripi said. ‘We won’t be stopping for long.’

  Three hours of waiting and still the driver had not returned with a spare tyre. Tripi and Ayishah played the game where they wrote long English words on each other’s arms and the other had to guess what they were. They’d used up just about every word they knew and Ayishah, tired from all the excitement, was beginning to get sleepy. He drew her close and felt her weight lean into him.

  Darkness fell on the city. Troops poured into the streets. Some shot at the sides of the Toyota, just for the pleasure of it.

  Murmurings rippled between the passengers. Ayishah looked up and rubbed her eyes. They listened to people’s ideas for what to do next:

  Shall we leave on foot?

  Yes, we must get out of Aleppo
before we get blown to pieces.

  No, we should wait for the driver, we have paid so much.

  How far is it to the border?

  Are the roads safe?

  Some left. Others sat on the road and waited for the driver.

  Tripi wished he could turn back time to those days when he worked long hours in the kitchen, when Ayishah came back from school, full of English words and stories.

  ‘What do you want to do, Ayishah?’ Tripi asked.

  He watched his little sister open her mouth, always more decisive than him, and then, out of nowhere, a cloud of noise and dust tore up between them.

  Tripi got up off the pavement, his head pounding, shards of glass lodged in the palms of his hands. His head thumped so hard and the smoke was so thick and acrid that he found it hard to keep his eyes open. He hardly knew where he was. A burnt-out car. The Toyota too had caught fire.

  ‘Ayishah?’ He called. ‘Ayishah?’

  He staggered up and down the road. A few of the passengers from the Toyota had been injured and thrown to the ground like Tripi; others had left already. How long had it been since the explosion?

  On the side of the road, a sheet covered a small body: a flower of blood seeped into the white cotton.

  ‘Ayishah?’

  He lurched forward and then saw that a mother was sitting by the body, crying.

  ‘Halim… My Halim…’ she said, over and over.

  ‘Ayishah!’ he called out, his voice raw.

  Dark now, the street silent. The fighting had moved on. And no Ayishah.

  When Tripi woke up by the canal, he knew he had to go back and find her, that he should never have left Syria. So he took to the road, hoping for a free ride to London. He would find a job, pay for a flight home. Or if that did not work, he would hand himself in to the police.

  But then Milo had called and persuaded him to come back. He had said that Al had seen Ayishah on the news and that, after the awards ceremony, they would find her together.

  ‘Tripi? Tripi?’ Sandy touched Tripi’s arm. ‘Did you hear me? I said okay, Petros can come with me. If you help him with his things, I’ll bring the car round to the front door.’

  Tripi gave Sandy a small bow. ‘You have a very fit heart.’ Sometimes he liked making up phrases of his own. He wanted to let her know that she was kind to take Petros in.

  She smiled at him, but she frowned at the same time so he was not sure that he had said the right thing.

  54

  MILO

  Milo had been sitting in the garden for what felt like hours, waiting for Big Mike and Lalana to get out of the way. Clouds was being his lookout on the pavement at the front of the house. Milo had had to persuade Clouds to come with him. It’s undercover work, he’d said, which made Clouds happy, though Clouds said they had to be quick. Mum had asked him to babysit Milo until she got back from Forget Me Not and he wasn’t sure that breaking into someone’s house was the kind of babysitting she had in mind.

  After dropping a note through Mrs Hairy’s letterbox (an apology for stepping in front of her Mercedes and an invitation to the awards ceremony – when she saw the film they’d made, she’d have to believe him), Milo and Clouds sellotaped posters of Hamlet along the high street, Clouds had printed them off his computer and made them look like WANTED signs to catch people’s attention. Then they went to Big Mike’s house.

  Milo watched Big Mike kiss Lalana with his fat lips.

  He watched Big Mike pull off Lalana’s jumper and squeeze her small titties with his plump, white fingers.

  After that, Milo watched Mike lift Lalana off the ground – she was tiny compared to Big Mike, as small as Milo, nearly.

  And then he watched Big Mike swing her round and round like on Strictly Come Dancing, except not as well.

  At last, with his face frozen numb and his eyes fuzzy from staring, Milo watched Big Mike carry Lalana upstairs to the bedroom. He knew what would happen next: Big Mike would get on top of Lalana and they’d rub their bodies against each other and make grunting noises, like Hamlet when he needed a poo. Milo was a bit worried about Lalana getting squashed under Big Mike, but he didn’t allow himself to think of that for long. He had to concentrate on getting in and out of the house without Big Mike noticing.

  Now that Tripi was coming to live at home, Milo wanted him to have all his things, like the photo of the Queen that Ayishah liked and his pocket dictionary and Mum’s yoga mat that he needed for praying.

  Milo planned to set everything up in his room as a surprise for when Tripi came home after his shift. It was his way of saying thank you to Tripi for coming back from London to help him catch Nurse Thornhill.

  He eased his hand through the broken glass, turned the handle and walked into the lounge.

  Big Mike’s house was a mess, not like when Tripi lived there. Swimming trunks and bottles of sun lotion and straw hats and towels lay scattered around the lounge. Cereal and crumbs and puddles of milk sat on the kitchen counter. In the hall Big Mike’s suitcases lay snapped open, spilling out more clothes. And then, thrown in a pile under the stairs, Tripi’s things. Milo breathed a sigh of relief that they hadn’t been taken by the police.

  Maybe, once Big Mike saw how nicely his house had been kept, he’d decided not to press charges. Anyway, he was probably too busy squeezing Lalana’s titties to worry about anything else. Milo thought it would be nice to have something that made you so happy that you forgot about all the things that weren’t right in your life.

  Milo put Ayishah’s backpack on his shoulders and Tripi’s backpack on his front, slotted Mum’s yoga mat under one arm and Tripi’s sleeping bag under the other and headed for the front door.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  Milo jumped and shifted his head around the hallway. It took him a second to locate where the voice was coming from.

  Heavy footsteps came down the stairs.

  ‘What are you doing in my house?’ Big Mike stood at the bottom of the stairs in his boxer shorts. His shirt hung open over his hairy belly, his face red and sweaty.

  Milo yanked at the front door.

  ‘Hey! Don’t I know you? You’re the kid —’

  Please, please don’t recognise me, thought Milo. He’d only just got Mum on board with The Plan; he couldn’t afford to get in any more trouble.

  Milo flung open the front door and felt a heavy hand pull on Ayishah’s backpack.

  If he wanted to get away, Milo knew there was only one option.

  He eased his small shoulders from under the straps, dropped the sleeping bag and Mum’s yoga mat, pushed through the front door and clattered down the front steps onto the High Street.

  Clouds and Milo speed-walked all the way home.

  ‘You did the right thing,’ said Clouds. ‘You couldn’t risk him catching hold of you.’

  Milo shook his head. ‘I failed the mission. I didn’t get Tripi’s things and now I bet we’ll never get them back.’

  ‘You did the best you could, Milo. Tripi will be grateful for that.’

  Milo wasn’t sure.

  When they turned into Crescent Way, Milo heard Mr Overend whistling and saw him lean out of his window and stare at Milo’s house like on the day Clouds moved in.

  Milo had an idea. He went to stand on the pavement under Mr Overend’s window.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Clouds.

  ‘You know what you said, about Mr Overend making a good undercover reporter? Well, let’s see how good he really is.’

  Milo tilted his head and looked up through the pinhole.

  ‘Mr Overend?’

  Mr Overend stopped whistling.

  ‘Have you seen my pig, Hamlet?’

  Mr Overend didn’t say anything, he just stood there looking out at Milo’s bedroom window.

  ‘Well, seeing as you look out onto the street so much, could you keep an eye out for him? He might try to find his way home.’

  Mr Overend gave Milo a wink and started whistling again.r />
  What a loon.

  Milo and Clouds came through the front door and stood in the hallway to catch their breath. And then Milo smelt something funny, a smell that definitely shouldn’t be in his home.

  He looked around. Brown cases and boxes cluttered the hallway, and paintings. It was the paintings that made Milo recognise the smell: the smell that had hung around Gran ever since she’d moved into Forget Me Not. Plasticky lemons.