Take It Back

by Kia Abdullah

  Mo instinctively rejected this. ‘You can’t honestly believe that this one thing that happened to us at the age of sixteen is going to control our lives forever. People get accused of all sorts of things and they get cleared and carry on and enjoy their lives. Mate, some people are even found guilty and are given a second chance. You need to stop stressing.’

  ‘You think we’ll get that, do you?’ asked Farid. ‘A second chance?’

  Mo considered this. ‘Yes, I think we will.’ He had to believe it, or else what were they even fighting for? They might as well say that yes, we did it. Mo wanted to help Farid, but he would not follow him into this miasma. He was his family’s great white hope and he had to believe that things would get better and that all would be forgiven.

  Farid stood up. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ he said. He picked up the can of Coke. ‘Thanks for this.’ He did not meet Mo’s eyes nor ask him for his company. He simply drifted from the room and left the squat brown house that hummed with the sounds of a sewing machine.

  Zara watched Stuart read over her statement, his clear blue eyes zig-zagging left and right over the seven lines of text: ‘On Tuesday third December, a person unknown to me committed a gross invasion of my privacy. This private moment has since been used to drive an agenda of division and hate. It has been claimed that I have a vendetta against the Muslim community but nothing could be less true. I have taken an active role in fostering harmony between my community and the progressive values of the country we live in. Integration does not happen through entrenched views and harmful invective, rather through tolerance and change. I, along with my colleagues, am fighting hard for justice and I plead that you allow me to do this work. I will be making no further comment on this matter.’

  Stuart placed the sheet on his desk. ‘Zara, when that man called you a “stain”, did it hurt?’

  She faltered. ‘Yes, but I—’

  ‘Then say that.’ Stuart tapped a finger on the piece of paper. ‘This sounds like it was written by a lawyer. It’s impersonal, passive and vapid. What he said hurt you. Be honest about that. You are not a traitor and you are not a stain. You are doing your job and you’re doing it with the logic and objectivity of a first-class barrister. To be told otherwise is hurtful and unjust. You should tell the truth about that.’

  Zara opened her mouth to speak, then paused. She considered his words, then firmly shook her head. ‘I can’t do that, Stuart. I’m not letting them in. They can’t have that.’

  Stuart exhaled slowly then folded the statement in half and pushed it across the desk.

  Zara hovered above it. ‘Listen, Stuart—’

  He held up a hand. ‘Look, you don’t need to apologise. This case has become a circus but it’s not your fault.’

  ‘I know but I need to tell you that I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m not accepting an apology. Now go.’

  Zara lingered for a moment but then turned and left the room. She walked past the pit and took refuge in the Lincoln meeting room. She sat on the sofa and thought over the last twenty-four hours. Michael had called her and spoken words of sympathy, but beneath the sombre tone of his voice, was a note of amused incredulity, as if he really rather liked being known to have fucked her. He had made a polite attempt to keep seeing her, but they both knew it was over. What point was there in a diverting fling if it itself became a problem?

  Zara dispatched him with a cool expediency and Michael did not resist. I’ll miss you, he said, straining for sincerity. At another time, Zara may have laughed lightly and told him he needn’t spend those words on her. Instead, she said good luck and goodbye.

  It was strange. This man had meant so little but changed so much. The image of him – hands pressing into her body – would be linked to her indelibly. A stain, they had called her. A stain on our people. Would her family secretly think the same? She hadn’t heard from them, not even Lena or Salma. Her sisters forgave her indiscretions – first her refusal to marry, then the divorce, then her estrangement from family – but perhaps this latest was one too many. Her fling with a white man was spread across the papers and it wasn’t she in her ivory Greenwich tower that had to face the front line of shaming. It was them with their husbands and children and in-laws and neighbours that would shoulder the dishonour. Her sisters couldn’t escape judgement with a careless shrug or breezy bon mot for they were embedded in the community. The thought of them bearing her tarnish made Zara feel giddy with guilt. She did not welcome their silence but certainly understood it. She only wished it wouldn’t last too long. Silence in her family spun conversation into cobwebs; broad and shallow and fragile, easily broken when shaken too harshly, often beyond repair.

  How are you feeling? It was the question she always asked her charges. How are you feeling? This is a safe place to talk. This is where you can bare your soul without judgment. Numb? Empty? Angry? Her answer came to her in a single word: lonely. It felt like cold liver slipping down her throat – lonely. She had been lonely for years now.

  A light knock on the door splintered her thoughts. Zara glanced up and saw Jodie waiting at the threshold. She beckoned her inside. The girl came in and pulled off her gloves. Her dark blue duffel coat was too big on her shrinking frame; not nearly snug enough to keep in the warm. She shrugged it off and hung it on a rack, then placed her hands on a heater.

  ‘I saw you on the news,’ she said softly.

  Zara nodded plaintively.

  ‘Do you think it will affect the case?’

  Zara didn’t want to lie to her. ‘Possibly. People may think that I’m on your side not because it’s the right side, but because I have a vendetta against my own people. My motivations have been called into question and that may affect the narrative of the case.’

  Jodie sat down and thought this over. After a while, she glanced up. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you’re on my side.’

  Zara smiled faintly. ‘I am too.’ After a beat, she reached for a folder. ‘So tell me, Jodie. How are you feeling?’

  Farid sat at the top of the hill, ripping strands of grass from their roots. He wondered if pulling grass was human instinct. It figures, he thought. We like destroying life. He watched the small figures below running around the field, shouting obscenities whenever outside the referee’s earshot. He should be down there. It was the only place that gave him true peace. He thought about his family and his home, its air heavy with words unsaid. His father had always warned him about Amir. Somehow, he saw through the perfect looks, all the sasijis and sasajis he employed to beguile the elder generation.

  ‘This son of a gangster is no good for you,’ his father would say, speaking in broken English as if that would connect where his Urdu could not. Farid had defended his friend with the vigour of an acolyte. Sure, he made him smoke the odd joint but who didn’t do that? And, yes, Amir had a thing for the ladies but didn’t all the boys their age? Their parents were of a different generation. Their fears belonged to a different time.

  Farid’s eyes welled with tears as he thought of his father coming home at eleven every night after packing up the stall and then doing a shift at the cash and carry. His mother always waited up and made sure there was a warm meal to greet him. They were good people. They worked hard to give him the life he had. They didn’t deserve this public shame. He didn’t deserve to be sitting here like an outcast instead of down there, playing with his friends.

  He lay back on the grass and slung an elbow across his face to block the watery sun. He heard footsteps behind him, crunchy on the cold grass. He sprang up, always alert, and squinted at the approaching figure.

  ‘I know you,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, we met a couple of months ago down there.’ Erin nodded at the football field.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘To talk.’ She sat next to him but said nothing, instead watching the figures below.

  ‘That guy there in the red, his name is Muamar,’ said Farid. ‘You know, like Gadaffi.
We take the piss out of him. There’s an Osama too but he calls himself Sam. We used to joke that all we needed was a Saddam and we’d have our very own axis of evil.’

  Erin smiled. ‘Do you think it will affect them later on in life?’

  Farid shrugged. ‘Probably.’

  Erin pulled at a blade of grass. ‘Way back before I was in this job, I worked at this big corporate place. They once asked me to recruit a junior investigator and I remember having a whole bunch of CVs. There were lots of foreign names and I consciously decided to interview a few. There was Susa Garrido and then a Cuban guy whose name I can’t remember and another one called Venkatesh Rao. And all three of them couldn’t really understand me properly. I mean, they understood me but they couldn’t really express themselves or answer the questions properly. The other interviewer said, “I hate to say it but there’s a British premium, isn’t there?”

  ‘I hated that he said that but I also understood it. From then on, I chose either people with British names or people who went to a British school because then I’d know they had been here for a while. I didn’t want to waste my time.’ She paused. ‘Is that wrong?’

  ‘Nah, it’s just the way it is.’

  Erin looked at him. ‘I’m sorry for the shit you’re going through.’ She paused for another moment. ‘I feel like you’ve been dragged into this when you didn’t do anything wrong – I know the prosecution also feels that way.’

  Farid looked out to the horizon. ‘I’m not going to turn on my friends.’

  ‘But you didn’t do anything wrong, Farid. Why go down with them? If you testify to what actually happened that night, we can get immunity for you. You didn’t do anything.’

  ‘I’m glad you came here.’ He cracked a humourless smile. ‘It proves you think you’ll lose.’

  ‘We’re just trying to get to the truth.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’

  Erin blinked. After a beat, she turned back to the game. Together, they watched the sun set in a dusky purple sky.

  Luka’s voice was gruffer than usual. ‘Zara, I’m flying to Chile for the Vinson climb and won’t be back ’til January. I wanted to talk to you before I left, but I know that you’re not interested. I know I screwed up but so did you. We could have had something and now we have nothing.’ He paused. ‘What I do know is that I can’t have you in my head on this climb, so this is me letting you go – finally. I hope you find some peace, Zara. I really do.’ A beat. ‘Goodbye.’ A click.

  Zara listened to the message again. She could have loved Luka back – a part of her almost did – but she knew it would not be fair. He would have always been the chaser, the soother, the crutch on which she leaned. To let him go was kinder.

  She reached out and erased the message. ‘Goodbye, Luka.’ She ran her fingers through her hair, from crown to nape as if shaking something free, then sat for a moment, feeling strangely untethered beneath a dark melancholy. To stem the unease, she swallowed two Diazepam with an icy glass of water. As they took effect, she glanced at her watch. She was meeting Safran and hated to be late. She pulled on a coat over a chunky white jumper and jeans, then gathered up her suit bag for the twenty-four-hour laundrette. The egg stain had dried into the suit shoulder, marking it a whitish grey. She grabbed her keys and made the five-minute walk to the corner of Baffin Way. When she handed over her bag, she noted the recognition on the young clerk’s face. I guess he reads the tabloids. She exchanged cash for a ticket and exited the tiny shop. Just as she left, she bumped into Najim Rashid, an old university friend who lived in the area.

  She stopped and smiled in surprise, glad for a familiar face. ‘Hey, stranger. It’s been a long time.’

  He paused in confusion, as if trying to place her.

  ‘How are you?’ She reached forward to greet him.

  He baulked. ‘Are you serious?’

  She stopped and stepped back. ‘Najim?’ she asked, unsure what else to say.

  ‘Are you serious?’ he repeated slowly and loudly.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  He scoffed. ‘I mean you.’ He plastered on a fake smile and mimicked her, his voice unnaturally high: ‘“Hey, long time, no see! How are you!”’ He shook his head. ‘Are you being fucking serious?’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘You know, at first I thought you were just doing a job that you were assigned, like you had to do it – helping that girl accuse four Muslim boys of such kachra things. And then, the truth comes out about your gora fuck buddy. So why are you doing this? Some sort of rebellion against our community?’

  ‘Najim, are you fucking with me?’ She half expected him to break into laughter.

  ‘No, but apparently everyone else is.’

  Her jaw fell slack. She was truly speechless. Najim had been the ultimate playboy at university. Fresh from the constraints of his private single-sex college, he had fucked his way through first-year law class as if approaching Armageddon. He had spent three years trying to convince Zara to drink, back when she was still teetotal. He had accosted her in the library once, begging her to convince his girlfriend to have an abortion. And here he was, snarling at her with a hate that was shockingly genuine.

  He took an irate step towards her. ‘I know those boys. Have you seen what the papers have been saying about them? Have you seen what’s happening to our community because of that white girl? Do you know they set fire to Leyton mosque?’

  ‘I—’ Zara faltered briefly. ‘Listen, my case is about a young girl who was raped by four boys. What happens outside it has nothing to do with her.’

  Najim held up his hands in mock defeat. ‘Ah, I see. The media is just this siloed thing that has no effect on the case, on the boys, or on us, right?’

  ‘What the hell happened to you?’ snapped Zara. ‘When did you become a crusader for the brotherhood?’

  ‘This isn’t about crusading,’ he snapped back. ‘This is about our community, about our honour. Can’t you see the damage this is doing?’

  Zara’s voice grew cold. ‘Would you suggest we discharge these boys on merit of their religion?’

  ‘I’m saying you don’t need to be a part of this.’

  ‘Well, I am.’

  He shook his head. ‘And that’s all you have to say about this?’

  ‘Yes. That’s all there is to say.’

  ‘Fine. Well, we all know just how honourable you are.’ Backing away from her, he spat on the ground near her boot. Then, he turned and stalked away.

  Zara watched in astonishment, choking back angry words in his wake. Then, she spun and marched to the station. Twenty minutes later, she was in Hirsch’s Bar on Old Street, scanning the room for Safran. She spotted him in a booth in a corner. She wished they had chosen a bigger bar, somewhere that offered the comfort of anonymity. She asked for a glass of wine and took a seat opposite him.

  ‘So …’ said Safran. ‘I’m so miffed.’

  ‘Why?’ Zara pulled off her coat.

  ‘I’ve been in chambers for what? Thirteen years now and not once have I got a headline case. You go and become a rape counsellor and you’re in all the papers.’

  She scoffed. ‘We can trade places if you want. They’re calling me a traitor, a bitch, a whore.’

  ‘Yes, but are they saying anything bad?’

  She sighed. ‘I hope my family will feel the same way.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Have you heard from them?’

  ‘No.’ Zara felt a kick of anxiety. ‘I think it’s best to give them some space. I hope that when the case is over, they’ll understand that it doesn’t matter what the papers say, I’m doing a job that matters.’ She paused. ‘At this stage, I don’t know what will be worse: a not-guilty verdict that makes me look stupid, or a guilty one that brands me a traitor forever.’

  Safran took a long drink of whisky. ‘It doesn’t matter what you say or do, Zar. They were always going to call you that.’

  She grimaced. ‘I knew this case would get bad but …’ She se
arched for words to describe her frustration. ‘I have to admit I’ve been blindsided by the sheer tribalism.’ She thought of Najim’s rage. ‘I expected the fury and hyperbole from the ADL and the right-wing media, but I didn’t think the Muslim community would so wholly, so unthinkingly band together in support of these boys. Do they really think that because they share a skin colour or belief system with them, that they’re incapable of evil? Or that I, for the same reasons, should suspend a pursuit for justice?’

  Safran shook his head. ‘I think a bit of tribalism is to be expected, no? When Muslims are so gleefully targeted, don’t you think a de-facto support system is important?’

  Zara scowled. ‘I don’t buy that. That feeds into the idea that Muslims are all one big, featureless mass – and that those who aren’t are traitors or Uncle Toms.’ She winced. ‘God, I fucking hate that phrase.’

  Safran offered a doleful smile. ‘Do you think you should sit the rest out?’

  She baulked. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because then it will look like I have something to be ashamed of.’ She straightened in defiance. ‘I’m not ashamed of what I’m doing.’

  Safran studied her for a moment, noting the dark circles beneath her eyes. ‘Zar, have you been sleeping?’

  She shrugged ruefully. ‘No, I’m too busy fucking white guys.’

  He laughed a delighted laugh and drained his whisky in praise. ‘Seriously though – have you been sleeping?’

  ‘Some nights.’

  ‘What are you worried about? The case?’

  Again, she shrugged. ‘The case. My family. Jodie.’ Her gaze turned upward, staving sudden tears. ‘I’m just so tired.’

  Safran leaned forward. ‘Zar, listen, why don’t you come and stay with me for a while? I know your cooking is awful – I can fatten you up again.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I want to be somewhere familiar.’

  He nodded. ‘Okay, but the offer’s always there.’