by A. D. Koboah
I turned away from him and walked to the coat hook in the hallway where I retrieved my mobile phone from my handbag.
“You must think I’m playing with you,” I said when I stepped back into the room. “Leave or I’m calling the police.”
He closed the space between us in two long strides and snatched the phone out of my hand.
“Mohamed...”
He deftly evaded my grasping hands and, to my annoyance, appeared to be enjoying himself.
“I can’t believe how different you look. It’s as if I’m looking at a completely different person,” he said when I gave up trying to retrieve my phone. The smile on his face grew as his eyes resumed their journey. “You’ve lost weight but have got curves in all the right places,” he added and tugged at the waistband of my skirt, pulling me closer to him. “It’s a shame you lost weight here though,” he added, and to my horror, grabbed hold of my bottom.
I pushed him roughly away from me.
“Have you lost your mind?”
His smile hovered uncertainly and then fled when I pushed at him again.
“Don’t ever touch me again. Do you understand?”
He looked as if he was about to say something, but the look he must have seen in my eyes stopped him.
“You need to remember that the girl you left behind five years ago isn’t here anymore. You’re looking at a completely different person now, so remember that and mind how you carry on around me.”
His smile had faded by now and he was looking at me in confusion, obviously unnerved by the response he was getting.
But he managed to pull himself together quickly and his face hardened as he stood facing me.
“I asked you a question. Where’s my son?”
It was then that I noticed he was holding the blue folder I kept my bills in and saw my signing-on book on the windowsill.
“What are you doing with that? Have you been going through my things?”
I angrily snatched the folder out of his hand. “You’re fucking out of order. Get out now!”
“I ain’t going nowhere and I’m warning you for the last time. Don’t talk to me like that.”
“Or what? What the fuck are you gonna do, Mohamed?”
I saw a cloud pass over his eyes, but when he spoke again he sounded calm.
“What’s going on? This is a one-bedroom flat, I don’t see no toys or baby clothes around, you’re only claiming benefits for one person and you don’t even have any pictures of the baby. Where is he and why ain’t he living with you?”
“If you’d stuck around for more than five minutes you would know exactly where he is. You’ve got no right to come barging into my life after all this time.”
“What’s wrong with you? Why are you carrying on like this?”
“I don’t think you need to be a brain surgeon to work that out, Mohamed.”
He sighed heavily, the last vestiges of his confidence seeming to seep out of him with that sigh. He retreated back to the window and stared at me with sad, dark eyes. I let the silence drag on.
“You know,” he began. “I knew you’d probably be vex still, but I never thought you’d be like this. I thought that coming here would make you happy. I thought you’d want me to step up and take care of our son. Don’t you want that?” he said with a hint of sadness that made me turn away from him.
I didn’t want to see the other Mohamed, the vulnerable little boy that was hidden beneath the arrogant man. A long silence stretched between us as well as memories of happier times.
“Of all the girls I’ve been with, you were the only one I could really talk to. You were the only one who was really there for me. Why are you turning on me now that I need you most?” he added.
I had never heard that pleading quality in his voice before and I was surprised at how good it felt to know that he still needed me. It seemed that where Mohamed was concerned, old habits were hard to let go of. But as much as it felt as if I were being pulled apart, I knew I couldn’t be weak with him.
“Yes, Mohamed. I was there for you but you let me down. You let your son down when we needed you most and I’ll never forgive you for that.”
“Don’t. Don’t do that. You can’t blame me for the way things turned out.”
“What?” I gasped.
“No, Peace!” He was shouting now. “You can’t keep holding that against me. You know. You know that there was nothing that I could’ve done in that situation.” He took a step forward. “You know what my dad would’ve done if I’d told him I’d got some girl pregnant—”
“Some girl—?”
“You know what he was like. You know I couldn’t have told him that I got some...that I got you pregnant, Peace. I couldn’t.”
“Do you think it was easy telling my family I was pregnant and that the dad didn’t wanna know? It wasn’t—but I did what I had to do. You should’ve done the same.”
“It was different for me and you know that.”
“How, Mohamed? How?”
“It just was.”
“So are you saying that if you had a chance to go back, you’d do exactly the same thing?”
“Yeah. Yeah I would ’cos I had to. I couldn’t help you or him back then but I’m here because I can now.”
He was only a few inches away from me now and looking into those dark eyes again after so many years, I wondered why I hadn’t noticed before that they were totally devoid of warmth. He was cold, cold and completely incapable of feeling anything for anyone other than himself. I felt defeated then. Totally and utterly defeated and all the anger I felt sank to the bottom of the pool of self-loathing I was always dipping in and out of. He still didn’t think he owed me, or most importantly, he didn’t think he owed his son an apology. I had already failed Dante in so many ways, and I was still failing him, by not being able to get the man who had fathered him to acknowledge that he had wronged him.
“Go, Mohamed. There’s nothing for you here,” I said sadly.
I started to move away but he grabbed my arm and tugged me back round to face him.
“You can’t do this!” His hand tightened on my arm. “I won’t let you do this. There’s no way I’m gonna go back to my dad and tell him I still don’t know where my son is.” I was starting to see desperation in his eyes.
“Oh, so that’s what all this is about. Your family, or more accurately, your dad found out that you messed up, cussed you out and told you to go and sort it out. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
His startled expression told me I had guessed correctly.
“You make me sick. You’re weak. Weak and pathetic. You always have been. I was just too stupid to see it.”
“Shut up!” His face became a dark cloud. It seemed as if the Mohamed that had confronted me in the rain five years ago was back.
“Shut the fuck up! You think you can sit here in your run-down little council flat and tell me about myself? I tried to do you a favour by coming to you first to try and sort this out. But I don’t need you. I found you and I’ll find my son even if it means taking you to court.”
I laughed at him then. It was hard to believe that I had once looked up to this man. My voice was dripping with bitterness when I spoke again.
“You’ll never find him so go back home and tell your dad that you’ve fucked up—again. And that neither of you will ever lay your eyes on him.”
His eyes became thin slits and his hand felt like a metal vice around my upper arm.
“You can feel sweet for now, Peace, but by the time I’m done with you, you won’t have anything to feel sweet about. You’ll be even more messed up than when I left you standing outside my front door crying.”
He swung me out of his way and tossed my mobile phone onto the sofa before he swept out of the room.
Maybe it was the reference he had made to that day in the rain, but I decided I wasn’t going to let him go. I could have easily put him out of his misery, told him exactly where Dante was and never have to see him again. B
ut remembering how broken I had felt standing beneath that tree whilst the world rained down on me made my anger rise up out of the sludge of self-pity, along with an idea that would give me an opportunity to see him fall as low as I had done. He had possessed the power back then to dismiss me like I was a piece of trash, but I had the power now. I had the power to wield his sudden interest in his son, his obvious attraction to me, and his unwavering arrogance like a weapon to cut him down. So I spoke before the sound of his footsteps could reach the front door.
“He’s sick.”
The footsteps stalled. I was wondering whether or not the bait was large enough to catch him when I heard them retreat. He reappeared in the doorway, the anger he had displayed a moment ago still playing across his features.
“Sick?”
“Really sick.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
The disdain I could see lurking around his eyes and mouth at the thought of having a son that was less than perfect made me hate him even more and I flew headlong into my lie.
“It’s hard to talk about.”
I sat down and thought fast as he moved to stand over me.
“Well, I came back to help the two of you, so let me help. Tell me what’s gone on since I’ve been gone. Well? Where is he?”
“He...he lives with my mum now and he’s got some kinda rare illness that...that’s...messing up his immune system,” I said slowly while my brain raced ahead. “The doctors over here don’t have a name for it but we found a doctor over in...Switzerland who’s some expert and Dante was supposed to go over there next week but the money my mum was relying on fell through, so he won’t be able to—”
“How much do you need?”
I paused wondering how much I could get out of him and decided to try my luck with the wildest figure that came to mind.
“Ten grand.”
“Ten grand! I don’t have—”
“I’m not asking you for ten grand!” I spat at him. “We only need about five hundred pounds for the first set of tests.”
“Ten grand is a helluva lot of money. Who is this doctor? Why do you have to go to Switzerland?”
“You’re not listening, Mohamed! I told you the doctors over here don’t know what they’re dealing with but this man does.”
“I don’t like the sound of this. It sounds like a scam.”
My eyes widened considerably and I thought that he had caught onto my little plan.
“Give me the doctor’s name and the name of this hospital in Switzerland, so I can check him out.”
I stood up abruptly and walked over to the window, keeping my back to him.
I was so close.
“What are you saying, Mohamed?” I asked coldly. “Are you saying that you don’t trust me? That my family don’t know what they’re doing? We’re not stupid! Of course we’ve done our research. We know what we’re—”
“Calm down, man. I didn’t say that.”
“This is the first time I’ve ever asked you for anything,” I said. “It’s only five hundred pounds. If you’d had to pay child support over the last five years it would’ve cost you a lot more than five-measly-hundred pounds.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t gonna give you the money. All I want to do is check out this doctor for myself and make sure he’s what he says he is.”
“I ain’t giving you shit. If you don’t trust me then just go. You can tell your dad that you still can’t be asked when it comes to your son.”
He stared long and hard at me, obviously resenting the fact that I was the one in control of this situation, not him, and there wasn’t much he could do about it.
“I’ll go to the bank and get the money.”
He left the room. Seconds later, I heard the front door slam shut behind him.
I smiled.
I had him now.
***
An hour later, the elation I felt at fooling Mohamed had been replaced with fear which hummed like a live wire. I sank onto the sofa, gnawing a fingernail. The other hand was clutching a white envelope that contained five hundred pounds. Mohamed had made a trip to the bank and returned with the money, even though I could see he wasn’t happy about the fact that I wasn’t going to give him any more details about the fictitious doctor in Switzerland. I had also led him to believe he would see Dante next weekend, something which was in fact impossible for me to arrange, even if I wanted to. It didn’t even enter his mind that what I told him was anything other than the truth and he was far too arrogant to even consider the fact that I hated him.
But the thing that had left me shaken occurred as he was leaving. He had stood at the door and stared at me with a frown.
“What?” I had asked impatiently, wanting him gone now that the money was in my hands.
He hadn’t replied straight away, but looked at the ground for a few seconds, suddenly as humble as he had been that day at the train station when he had surprised me with the second drawing. When he looked up again, his eyebrows were no longer drawn and he was staring at me with an intensity that made me want to look away.
“You were my best friend back then. Did you know that?” he said sadly.
I didn’t say anything but those memories were still hanging between us, making it impossible for me not to be affected by the sadness I could hear in his voice.
“You don’t think these last few years have been hard for me, but they have. And...I’ve missed you.”
He had stared at me tenderly for a few moments and then leant over and kissed me on the lips. He quickly walked away, leaving me with one hand on the open door, staring dumbly into thin air.
The kiss had made me want to return to that time and place when my life had been simple and easy, when everything had been clear and bright instead of shadowy as it was now. I was thankful he hadn’t done more than that peck on the lips as I honestly can’t say I know what I would have done and how far I would have let things go.
And then of course there was the thought of Dante.
Dante.
How could I use Dante like that? Especially after what I had done to him.
No. I couldn’t let myself think about that.
I had spent the better part of two years trying to bury the past and now it seemed as if it was bearing down on me like a juggernaut.
I shouldn’t have done what I did. I needed the money but I should have told Mohamed where Dante was and have him gone from my life. I shouldn’t have lied to him, I shouldn’t...
I stood up abruptly, trying to halt the spiralling flow of torturous thoughts. I grabbed my bag and sped to the bedroom, pulling out the soft plastic package that was hidden there. Placing it on my bed, I dipped my hand into my bag again, searching around until my fingers closed around a smooth, pencil-like object and I pulled out one of the hypodermic needles Daniel had given me along with my brown that morning. I had planned to throw the needles away, but I now remembered him saying that injecting would give me a quicker, more intense rush and that was exactly what I needed after seeing Mohamed. So I got myself a spoon, lighter and a bottle of Jif lemon juice and returned to the bedroom. I stood staring at the needle and heroin I had placed on the bed, unsure whether or not I should take that next step.
Sensing the juggernaut bearing down on me, I found myself a belt and a small piece of cotton wool. I then clumsily began preparing to inject heroin for the first time. But even as I went through the motions of dissolving the heroin in the lemon juice, placing a small piece of cotton wool in it and sucking the liquid into the needle through the cotton wool to filter out the impurities, my heart hammered painfully against my chest. I also found that my mind was filled with images of the times I had done this for other people and the scorn I felt for them along with the smug assurance that I would never let myself sink this low. The only time I was actually able to relax was when I finally sank the needle into my arm and drew the plunger back to the welcome sight of a small amount of blood flow from my arm to join the brown liquid. It w
as a sign that the needle was where it was supposed to be, inside a vein and not under the skin. Then I pushed the plunger down, emptying the liquid into my arm. I quickly withdrew the needle, feeling sickened and alarmed at the thin stream of blood that was released once the needle left my skin. Disgusted suddenly by the whole filthy process of injecting, I told myself I was never going to do this again.
But that was all about to change.
In one moment I was looking for something I could use to stem the flow of blood, the next moment I was soaring, being lifted higher and higher than I had imagined possible in a liquid rush that carried me so far up with so much intensity that I thought I would burst into a million glittery pieces and rain liquid gold back down onto the Earth. It took me high enough to touch the sky before it let me float down to Earth. I came to rest on waves of warm nebulous water that not only licked at my flesh, but went rushing through my veins, sending me drifting in undulating waves of warmth and joy. I nodded, dipping in and out of the soothing water until I was completely numb and everything around me ceased to exist. Glancing at the needle in my hand when it eventually started to fade away bringing me slowly back to Earth, I knew there was no turning back.
***
That evening I was lying in bed in the dark when I heard the front door open and close and then the dull sweeping sounds of Eva’s footsteps as she walked into the kitchen. I heard the thud of cupboard doors and after a few minutes, the sound of her footsteps in the corridor. She entered the bedroom and switched on the light, making me blink furiously until my eyes recovered from the offending burst of light. I glared at her as she stood in the doorway and stared at me.
“I had to throw away the meat and the frozen food you bought,” she said casually, and I remembered the shopping I had discarded on the kitchen floor earlier that day.
She came to sit on the end of the bed.
“You stupid, little bitch,” I said calmly.
She stared blankly at me. “So did you two talk?”
“I don’t know what you thought you were doing letting Mohamed into my flat, but if you ever fuck around like that again I’ll make you wish you’d got it right and died on New Year’s Eve.”