Out of Heart

by Irfan Master

  Adam sank down to his knees and clasped William’s hand. Leaning in close, William whispered into Adam’s ear. Just one word. One last word. And the heart that was his/wasn’t his, the heart that had lived two lives and that had started its steady beat so many years ago, slowed, and the heart that was a fist opened and closed and was finally allowed to rest.

  Closing his eyes, William was awed to see the ward was now the brilliant white of a blank page. Faintly to begin with, and then with more definition, he saw an image scratchily emerging. Farah, bent over her book, her small fist gripping that green pen and moving it forward, always forward. She would live. He could see that now. And where she lived, others would too. He saw Yasmin next, tightly wrapped in her layers of clothing. Standing upright, despite everything, she would see it through. She would always be there to straighten things out. Adam, all sharp angles and slashes, began to emerge next. The shadows still stuck to him, but less so now. They were muted and he saw wings unfurl from his shoulder-blades. And William knew then that Adam would fly, and if he fell he would just draw himself another pair and fly higher.

  Blinking, William saw that it was his own hand jotting numbers onto the page. He saw Farah’s hand following in his wake. They were all just points on a page. Daddima, Yasmin, Farah, Adam, the bed, the ward, Abdul-Aziz. Different points waiting to be connected. William watched as the picture began to take shape.

  Yasmin’s sense of order was restored as she stood in the middle of her bedroom. All the washing had been done, all the clothes had been ironed. Everything had been cleaned and squared away, making her feel she was still in control. This space at least she could shape. Here she could have perfection, and no matter what was going on outside, no matter how fierce the storm, it couldn’t destroy the sense of calm she felt in this place. Hearing a sound behind her, she turned to see Adam watching her. His face was hidden in the shadows as he stood at the threshold of her white room.

  ‘You straightening things out again?’ he asked.

  ‘I was just sorting a few things out. Making sure everything was where it should be.’

  ‘But it’s not, Mum. You can see that, right?’

  As Adam entered the room, Yasmin caught herself grimacing. And for the first time realised that he saw it too. Had seen it many times before and had stayed quiet. But she could see the anguish in his eyes now.

  ‘You see him, don’t you, when you look at me? Each month, each year, every birthday, every day I remind you of him.’ Adam looked down at his hands, spreading his fingers and holding them out in front of him as if in supplication of prayer. ‘And these hands, they are the same as his. You see me and my hands, and you see them hitting you, hurting you.’

  ‘No, Adam, it’s not like that …’

  ‘I am his son. But I’m not him.’

  ‘I know you’re not. You’re nothing like him.’

  ‘But in your eyes, I have become him. I can see it. And it reminds you.’

  Yasmin turned to a chest of drawers and began to take out a set of towels. And with care, began to fold them again.

  ‘Mum, what are you doing?’

  ‘Just folding these. I need to make some room in here …’

  ‘Just stop for a minute.’

  ‘I can still talk and do this at the same time …’

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t want you to.’

  ‘Look, keep talking, I’m listening—’

  ‘No. No, you’re not, you’re folding. You’re fixing up, straightening out, ironing out the creases …’

  ‘I’m just trying to get things sorted.’

  ‘Things can’t be sorted in that way!’ he shouted. Adam yanked the duvet off the bed and threw it to the ground. Grabbing a fistful of the bed-sheet, he yanked it off the mattress. He grabbed towel after towel from the drawers, flinging them to the floor. He kicked over the wash basket full of ironed clothes and threw the pillows from the bed. Breathing heavily now, he looked at the mess he had created. At the chaos. Yasmin stood in the middle of the room, a small leafless tree still standing after a brutal storm.

  Finally she spoke.

  ‘It’s a mess, Adam. I thought William could help us, but now he’s gone too. It’s all a mess,’ Yasmin whispered.

  Adam sat down and leaned against a wall, head tilted back.

  ‘You can’t iron out all the creases, Mum. You can’t create a perfectly ordered world in here and ignore the world out there. You just can’t.’

  ‘You look more like him each day. You’re a constant reminder of him and his need to inflict pain. But then I see you drawing with those hands, the same as his, and I know you’re not him. You don’t inflict pain on anyone, you create such beauty …’

  ‘So see that when you look at me! See that when you see my hands and fingers! Not fists, not fury. See what I can create, not what he destroyed! Please, Mum?’ Adam was pleading now.

  ‘I try, Adam … It’s this house, this place, your Dadda dying, William …’ Yasmin’s voice broke, tears welling up in her trembling eyes as she did her best to palm them away.

  ‘Mum, this is our life. Imperfect, crumpled, creased and we can’t just fold it and put it away.’

  Yasmin came over to Adam and sat down. Putting her arm around him, she pulled him in close. Adam felt her wet cheek touch his.

  ‘I don’t want to see him when I look at you. I only want to see you and the man you will become. Only you.’

  Resting his head on Yasmin’s shoulder, Adam closed his eyes. ‘What a mess we’re in.’

  ‘Lucky I’m around then, isn’t it?’ replied Yasmin, and smiled properly for the first time in a very long time.

  Laila watched Adam pacing up and down, waiting for a break in his stride so that she could reach out to him. He had barely said a word, in a way that she was getting used to. The sun was high as Adam paced, and she saw him as a silhouette driven back and forth like a shade. And that’s what he was, a piece of shadow that refused to come into the light.

  ‘What will you do?’

  He stopped pacing and turned to face her. As if he’d forgotten that she had been sitting there.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘What will you do? About your dad?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Coming to sit beside her, he sat back and looked at the sky.

  ‘I have to go see the guy who holds the debt.’

  Laila stood up, blocking out the sun, her wild hair a jagged silhouette. ‘Are you crazy? After what they did to your hand?’

  ‘It’s the only way I can see to get them off our backs. They said that next time they’ll trash the house and hurt Mum. I didn’t believe them before, but I do now.’ Adam held up his cast.

  Laila’s face revealed the horror she felt. ‘But they’ll hurt him. Hurt him bad.’

  ‘Better than them hurting us,’ Adam replied, unwavering.

  It was an impossible choice, thought Laila.

  ‘When will you go see him?’

  ‘Now. I’m going now.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ she replied.

  ‘No way!’

  ‘They might hurt you again …’

  ‘They might hurt you too. I’m not having that.’

  ‘They’re less likely to do anything if I’m there.’

  ‘They don’t care about anything like that. It means nothing.’

  ‘I’m coming.’

  ‘Look, just wait here …’

  ‘I’m coming!’

  They were both standing now and shouting.

  ‘I’m not good at asking for help.’

  ‘I know. But sometimes you need it. Me too.’

  ‘Thank you. I mean it. Thank you for doing this. All of this.’

  Laila nodded and together they began to walk in the direction of the square.

  Adam knew where to find them. Everybody knew. His mates at school, teachers, parents, little kids, the police. Sometimes the police might arrest a couple of them, but the way it worked was: you don’t bother us and we
won’t bother you. And on the streets and in the estates, you accepted that and you carried on. The streets had an economy, a loan system, a currency, foot soldiers, its own army. That’s the way it was. You kept your mouth shut and followed the rules.

  He snuck a glance at Laila walking beside him. He knew she was worried about him. He felt the pressure of living up to the expectation in her eyes. He felt the same pressure from his mum and Farah. And now he would feel it from his dad, only in a different way. It would be the disappointment of betrayal.

  Brick and Block flanked the current leader of the streets, a man known as Khan. Brick had a strange look on his face as he took in Adam and his cast and the storm-eyed Laila standing at his side.

  Khan sat on a low wall, smoking. He took a pull on his cigarette with deliberate care. Block bent down and whispered a few words in his ear. Taking another long pull, Khan looked up, glancing at Adam’s damaged left hand.

  ‘I see you had an accident,’ said Khan.

  Before Adam could answer, Laila stepped in front of him.

  ‘If holding someone down and breaking most of the bones in their hand with a brick could be called an accident.’

  Adam turned to her, but she shoved him out of the way.

  ‘If you can call Prick and Cock here an accident of birth, we might be close to what an accident looks like …’

  For a moment nobody spoke. Then Khan, stubbing out his cigarette, broke the silence with a sharp snort.

  ‘Prick and Cock! That’s hilarious,’ he said, pointing at each one in turn. Brick and Block said nothing but they wore grim expressions.

  ‘Now that you’ve insulted my boys, what can I do for you?’

  Adam looked at Laila, imploring her to stay quiet.

  ‘I want our debt settled,’ he said.

  ‘That’s easy. Give me the cash and then it’s done.’

  ‘The debt’s not on us. It’s on someone else,’ replied Adam.

  ‘That’s what they all say …’ Khan lit another cigarette.

  ‘It’s not on us. If I can prove it, will we be square?’

  ‘The debt’s on the guy who took the bets and didn’t pay. The address is yours. It’s a large sum. We’ll be square when I get my money.’

  ‘The debt’s not on us. We’ve been caught up in it. The name you were given was my grandfather’s. He’s dead, but it wasn’t him who borrowed the money.’

  ‘No? Who was it then?’

  Glancing at Laila, Adam hesitated. Eyes gentle now, she nodded encouragement.

  ‘My dad. He’s the one who borrowed the money and gave you a fake address. He doesn’t live with us. Hasn’t for over three years. He’s the one that kept borrowing, not us. He’s nothing to do with us.’

  Blowing smoke through his nose, Khan laughed.

  ‘You’ve come here, to see me, to give your dad up! Are you for real, bruv?’

  ‘The debt’s not on us.’

  ‘He’s your dad,’ said Khan.

  ‘We have nothing to do with him,’ countered Adam.

  ‘You know what we’ll do to him?’

  ‘Yeah. I know.’

  ‘Do you know where he is?’

  Adam faltered. Could he give up his own dad? Knowing what they’d do to him if he couldn’t pay? Knowing that his dad wouldn’t be able to pay.

  ‘Yes.’

  Adam could see Khan weighing up the options as he stubbed out yet another cigarette.

  ‘OK. Write down where we can find him and we’ll look into it. Until we find him, the debt’s still on you.’

  Adam nodded and wrote down the address.

  ‘How does it feel to grass your old man up, kid?’ asked Khan.

  ‘It feels like nothing. Absolutely nothing,’ replied Adam, and turning to take Laila’s hand they walked from the square and out into the space beyond.

  On Marrow, long street Marrow, the shadows stretched as the sun pulsed in the cobalt sky. Farah sat on the top step, her big book resting open on her lap. Her bandage had been removed and she was finally sprouting fine tufts of hair on the top of her scalp. The doctors felt that maybe one day, with speech therapy and if she wanted, she would be able to speak. When Adam had told Farah this, she had shrugged and signed what William had said – that there wasn’t always a lot worth saying. Adam nodded and smiled at the thought. It was a very William thing to say. Adam leaned against the russet brickwork, looking up at the sun, head tilted back. Laila sat on the bottom step, legs pulled up, looking at her hands. Seeing the silhouettes that flickered on the pavement, she shaped her hands into butterfly wings that played on the light grey stone. On the threshold, just behind Farah, stood Yasmin, looking out over the disorderly maze of streets. Adam smiled at her, ink-black eyes dancing. She no longer saw him. Now she only saw her son. She thought of William then, a memory that triggered a question.

  ‘At the end, when William was talking to you, he whispered something in your ear …?’

  ‘Yeah. He kept it brief, as usual.’

  Farah looked up at him then, and Laila broke the butterfly wings and looked up too. The sun dipped and dappled shadows fell on long street Marrow.

  ‘What was it? What did he say?’ asked Yasmin.

  Adam looked up, right into the heart of the sun. Closing his eyes, Adam traced in his mind the top of the hill where Icarus stood, wings unfurled, body coiled and ready.

  ‘Jump,’ Adam replied. ‘Just, jump.’

  The Little Boy Found

  The little boy lost in the lonely fen,

  Led by the wand'ring light,

  Began to cry, but God ever nigh,

  Appeared like his father in white.

  He kissed the child & by the hand led

  And to his mother brought,

  Who in sorrow pale, thro' the lonely dale,

  Her little boy weeping sought.

  William Blake

  Irfan Master

  Irfan Master’s first novel, A Beautiful Lie, was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2011 and nominated for the Branford Boase Award 2012, as well as slew of regional awards including the North East Book Award, the We Read Award, the Essex Book Award, the Redbridge Book Award and the Amazing Book Award, all in 2012. It also featured on the 2013 USBBY Outstanding International Book Honor List. Irfan has been a librarian and was project manager of Reading the Game at the National Literacy Trust before becoming a full-time writer. Visit Irfan online at irfanmaster.com and follow @Irfan_Master on Twitter

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  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

  HOT KEY BOOKS

  80–81 Wimpole St, London W1G 9RE

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  Copyright © Irfan Master, 2017

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The right of Irfan Master to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-4714-0536-5

  This eBook was produced using Atomik ePublisher

  Hot Key Books is an imprint of Bonnier Zaffre Ltd,

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