Doing the right thing, I swear, is a bitch. Most of my life I’ve done the wrong thing and it’s served me well. Responsibility is over-hyped. The last year or two, my attitude changed pretty quickly and pretty fucking dramatically, and doing the right thing has done nothing but cause hurt.
I dropped the indicator and turned right onto the Great West Road, when I should have turned left towards home. There was something I thought I needed to do but I wouldn’t know for sure until I got there. If I couldn’t face this, how the fuck could I ever look Imy in the eye?
Five long minutes later I wheeled my car into the grounds of Osterley Park Hotel.
Ground fucking zero.
The car park was empty and I parked in the first spot I saw. I exhaled loudly and stepped out. A toxic smell hit me like a force field and I found myself breathing through my mouth. The entrance to the hotel was at the far end, to get to it I had to walk past the hotel pub and the hotel Indian restaurant. Both haunts that I’d often kicked in, lifting my glass in one and stuffing my face in the other. Both now closed for business. I hoped the community spirit Hounslow is known for would soon see both of these businesses thriving again. Then again, people have long memories.
I gritted my teeth and moved quickly past, the presence of rioters, looters and protesters apparent as my feet crunched through a sea of discarded leaflets, patronising placards, broken glass bottles and improvised missiles. All that crap that comes when people lose their fucking minds.
There are six wide steps leading up to the entrance. I stood at the bottom, and despite wanting to puke out my heart, I lifted my eyes to Osterley Park Hotel.
The double doors leading into reception were hanging by a thread. Somebody had attempted to board it up, but somebody else had ripped it off again. The board lay by my feet, and scrawled over it in thick black marker was Closed for Refurbishments. It sounded a fuck of a lot more respectable than Closed due to Terrorist Attack. A few windows were smashed, and there were patches of a rough paint job, no doubt covering probably offensive or righteous graffiti. If I made the effort and looked closely enough, I could make out the message under the paint, but what the fuck for? To be honest the damage was minimal; it could be fixed. It was the screams that would be trapped inside forever.
I turned my back to the hotel and sat on the bottom step. I slipped out a cigarette, sparked it and pulled hard.
The fuck had my life become?
I’d lived my life in a lullaby, without a care in the world. Juggling a little weed to the bods in Hounslow and cruising through life in my shiny black Beemer, so blissfully ignorant. I never even used to watch the news or read the papers, and suddenly there I was, making the fucking news. I’d seen first-hand the destruction that most people only read, and cast their judgement about.
Fuck, man, this wasn’t even the first bombsite that I’d had the misfortune to set eyes on. A hospital, located beside beautiful snow-topped limestone mountains in Afghanistan, was the first. It was built and funded by Ghurfat-al-Mudarris for the poor people of a poor village called Hisarak, and devastated by two US military drone strikes.
The result of a war – as was this, thousands of miles away in Hounslow.
The difference, and there was a fucking difference, was that the military action that destroyed the hospital was able to dodge the bad press. Sorry about all the innocent lives but target has been met. A round of applause and pats on the fucking back. Either way, the impact was felt, at the time and forever after. Points are scored as lives are lost. Shit escalates and then calms down for a beat, just before the next devastation. It’s just where we are.
I sighed and it sent a shiver through me as I tried to figure out who was the egg in this fucked-up equation, and who was the chicken.
I took a last pull of my cigarette and added it to the littered ground, and looked out at the Great West Road. Cars were slowing down with purpose, necks craned, phones out, pointing, snap-snap-snapping away like it was a fucking tourist attraction, taking pictures that would burn through their phonebook, tagged with the same insincere message; Look what I drove past today! It was harrowing. Followed by a string of suitable sad-face emojis.
I threw a firm middle finger up at the rubberneckers. Take a picture of that, you fuckers.
Tyres crunched on glass. I turned to see a black cab pull into the grounds. The back door opened and a blue Adidas Gazelle hit the ground. A head popped out. His woolly Raiders hat was pulled down and it took me a moment to recognise him.
He recognised me, though. With his hand gripped to the car door, he remained rooted to the spot. I expected him to fall back in and leave. I looked away. The car door closed. I nodded knowingly to myself and sparked up another cigarette.
A moment later I felt Shaz stand beside me.
I looked up at him, trying to figure the right way to acknowledge him, but he was transfixed on the hotel. I let him be, didn’t say a word. He’d had already made it clear that he didn’t want to talk to me.
Shaz had changed. Obviously he’d changed! Shit like this chews you up, spits you out and then tramples on you. He looked like he’d put on weight and lost weight at the same time. I was used to seeing him carrying a quizzical look on his round face, as though he was trying to work something out, and then beam stupidly as if he had just worked it out. Now he just looked gaunt and sad. Yeah, Shaz looked sad.
‘You alright, Jay?’ he said, after a time.
I nodded. ‘Yeah, you know.’
Shaz looked at the waiting cab before sitting down next to me on the bottom step.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I know.’
I pushed my cigarette deck towards him and he slipped one out. I sparked him up. He nodded his thanks and we smoked in silence for a bit as we both ran silent conversations in our head.
‘I had to see for myself,’ Shaz said.
‘Me too,’ I replied. ‘I’m sorry. It must have been—’
‘I didn’t go.’ Shaz cut me off. ‘To the wedding, I didn’t go… I went to the funeral.’
I could have addressed it, asked why he hadn’t attended his best friend’s wedding. I was curious enough, but it wasn’t any of my business.
I changed the subject. ‘Where you off to?’ I said, nodding at the cab.
‘Terminal 3. From there I’m catching a coach home.’
‘You’ve moved. How comes?’
He replied with the smallest of shrugs. ‘Just… I had to get away.’
I didn’t push him, sensing that whatever Imy had gone through, Shaz, in his own way was going through, too. I didn’t blame him for moving. He didn’t ask for any of this shit. The person who he considered his closest friend had carried secrets that had devastated those around him. I know a little something about that. The secrets and the life I’d kept from Idris had strained our friendship, at times threatened to break it. I realised then that I couldn’t allow what happened to Shaz and Imy to happen to me and Idris.
We sat in silence, looking across at the Great West Road through a cloud of cigarette smoke.
‘I got to see him,’ I said, before I could stop myself.
‘What?’ he said, his face scrunched up tight.
I didn’t repeat it. He’d heard me. I waited for him to get his head around it. He did so by bouncing to his feet. ‘What is it?’ he said, standing over me. ‘You wanna pay your condolences? Fuck, Jay! Take my advice, stay as far as fuck away from him. He’s… He’s not right. He ain’t thinking right!’
‘I know he’s not.’
‘You don’t know shit! And you don’t know him!’ His outburst had caused his Raiders hat to shift and I clocked the tail end of a deep scar. ‘Fuck!’ he hissed and pulled down his hat and stared at me in defiance, daring me to say something.
I didn’t.
I watched a fat teardrop roll down his cheek followed by another. I stood up and clumsily rubbed his arm.
‘Sorry.’ Shaz apologised when he had no need to.
‘Don’t be.’
‘You and Imy, did you fall out?’
Shaz touched his two fists together. ‘He was my boy, yeah. But he’s got problems, he’s got problems that I can’t even begin to get my head around. I should have stepped up, but no. What do I do? I run. I up and move as far as fuck, don’t even tell him. And now… This! His family! Like that they’ve gone! And here I go again, looking the other way, walking in the opposite fucking direction.’
Shaz closed his eyes tightly and bopped his head a few times as though he was struggling to find his go-to-tune and instead finding nails down a blackboard.
‘He’s got a shooter, Jay.’
Yeah, I knew he had a gun, I knew because he once threatened to put one between my eyes. I nodded my head without committing to anything. ‘Tell me where I can find him.’
Shaz shook his head, and looked at the cabbie. I thought I’d lost him, but really I’d fucking broken him. He met my gaze, held it in his, and slowly he slipped off his beanie hat.
I stared when I wanted to close my eyes. I stared at the word Kafir carved into his forehead.
He placed the hat back on his head. ‘You still wanna see him?’
Chapter 13
Imy
I returned Kumar’s company Mondeo in the early hours of the morning and I was back home before the day had begun. I gave my phone a cursory glance. Numerous missed calls, texts and voicemails from well-wishers, same words, words of commiseration and finding strength. I deleted them all without regard as I climbed heavily up the stairs.
I stood outside Jack’s room and looked in from a distance. His single bed still carried the small indentation of his small body. Dear Zoo, neatly sitting on the side table, by the lamp, never to be read again. A Buzz Lightyear poster peeling from the top corner, calling to be pressed back against the wall in line with the rest of his Toy Story posters. I still hadn’t stepped into Jack’s room since he was taken from me. And I wasn’t ready yet. I closed the door.
I stripped off in the bathroom, peeling away my suit, which had stuck to me from the rain and the snow and the sweat. Placing the Glock on the edge of the sink I took a shower and scrubbed myself hard, cleansing the murder from me. I picked out an old grey tracksuit from the wash basket, put it on and headed downstairs to the kitchen. From the worktop I swiped a bottle of vodka by the throat and picked up a dirty glass tumbler from the sink.
I stepped into the living room and walked past the sofa that the three of us had spent so much time squeezed together on, and sat down heavily on the armchair that we hardly used. I poured myself the first shot of the day and waited for the police to knock on my door.
The Kabirs and I had one thing in common: we had paid dearly the consequences of siding with Ghurfat-al-Mudarris. For worshipping a man who I had never seen, yet I had betrayed. Abdul Bin Jabbar, known affectionately as Al-Mudarris by his thousands of followers, and known by the world’s authorities as The Teacher. Such was his magnetism, he was able to make each one of his followers feel not like followers but like equals. Those who would lay down their lives for him, even though it would never have been asked of them. It was his teachings that had led me here, put me here. Given me everything and then ripped it away from me. All for a Cause that tried to change the world, but rocked mine.
I had once fantasised about meeting him, embracing him, but that fantasy had shifted. Now when I close my eyes I picture myself looking at him over the barrel of a gun. It would always remain a fantasy. A man who was worshipped by many, had many enemies. And he was killed before I could kill him.
I poured myself a second, heavier shot, and brought it to my lips. Over the rim of the glass, something caught my attention. I knocked the second shot back and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand as I watched his movement through the front window. If I applied even a fraction more pressure the glass would smash in my hands. The face that had fuelled my thoughts had dared to turn up outside my home. I breathed heavily and quickly through my nose as my heart slammed against my chest. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, I couldn’t blink. I watched him standing at the top of the drive, his mouth moving as though he was trying to convince himself that this was a good idea.
It wasn’t.
I tracked him down the driveway as he moved past my Prius, past Stephanie’s Golf, before losing sight of him as he approached the front door. I braced myself for the doorbell but instead the loud clang of the letterbox reverberated in my ears. I gritted my teeth and willed for him to leave and never think of making the same mistake again. Instead, he moved on from the letterbox and pressed the doorbell. Once, and then again: a short sharp burst and my heartbeat raced and my fingers gripped the arms of the armchair as he pressed it a third time. I pictured my Glock in the upstairs bathroom resting on the edge of the sink. It was just as well that it was out of reach.
Then a beat of silence. He’d left. I closed my eyes tightly before letting my eyelids relax as I concentrated on my breathing. I took a breath and another, as I tried to lose his face, stop it from playing on my mind. When I opened my eyes he had his nose pressed against the window.
Chapter 14
Jay
I walked across Imy’s driveway and looked back at my Beemer, hoping that I would be getting back into it in one piece. I’d just had it washed, and my car had already seen too much of my blood shed. I walked past a Prius, which I knew belonged to Imy, and then past a Golf with a child’s car seat in the back. That alone nearly made me spin on my Jordans and drive for the hills.
I took a breath and tried to clear the vision of when we’d last met. A gun planted between my eyes. Hands shaking, unable to pull the trigger. A decision that would irrevocably change his life.
I glanced through the bay window as I approached the front door, and wondered if his eyes were on me. I pushed the letterbox and it clanged loudly in my ears and I realised that I should have pressed the doorbell. So, I pressed the doorbell, too. I don’t know why I did that.
I waited for the clanging and the ringing to die down before I jabbed at the bell short and sharp, but I wasn’t sure if it had rung that time, so I pressed it again, just in case, and then jammed my hands in my pocket, so I wouldn’t be tempted to do it again. He surely would have heard. I tried to work out his movements; the funeral had been the day before, I doubted that he’d be out. Chances were, Imy was curled up in bed, mourning his loss, with a pillow over his head, pissed off at the idiot insensitively jabbing at his doorbell like it’s a musical instrument. But I was here now, and I had to see this through. I side-stepped off the porch and pressed my forehead against the bay window and peeked through the small holes of the nets into the living room. It took a second or two for my eyes to adjust.
On the other side of the window Imy was sitting in an armchair with a glass in his hand. He was looking right at me with dead eyes. I swallowed and pointed at the front door as though to gently guide him through the door-opening process. Fuck, I was on form! I watched him for a moment through the nets, as he tried his utmost to ignore my existence. I could have and should have come back another time, but would it have changed anything? I was never going to be welcome there. I side-stepped back onto the porch and got down on my knees and pushed open the letterbox and spoke through it.
‘Imy,’ was as good a start as any. ‘It’s me, Jay,’ wasn’t the best follow-up. ‘Look, I… I… I wanted to chat to you… I heard… you know, I heard what happened… Can we talk… please?’
I let the flap drop and rested my forehead against the cold steel of the letterbox and sighed. He didn’t want to see me and I couldn’t blame him. I’d thought maybe the dark history that we shared would count for something, we’d both lost a big part of our lives to
this. But I had to remind myself that my loss could not be in the same league as his. It was time to give the man some space. I pushed the letterbox and put my mouth to it.
‘Listen, Imy. I’m gonna go. I’ll try again later. Tomorrow maybe. Hopefully you’ll—’
The door flung open and from my position on my knees I lifted my eyes up to him. He wrapped his fists around the collars of my mac, hoisted me to my feet and dragged me over the threshold. He kicked the door shut behind him and then spun me around in a waltz before pinning me to the wall with force.
He gritted his teeth in my face. No words, just a feral growl coming from somewhere deep inside him. I smelt booze on his breath as he shook me. I allowed my body to slacken and let him just fucking get on with it, which he did. He repeatedly bounced my head hard against the wall. I took it. I’d take it all. He dropped his hands and balled them into fists, his forehead scrunched tight over his face as he breathed heavily through his nose.
I did what I went there to do: I looked into his eyes and said, ‘I’m sorry.’
His fist connected against my ribs, and again, two rapid jabs, painful as fuck. I slid slowly down the wall and crumpled to the floor. I lay on my side and held my stomach.
Imy leaned down, his breath in my ear, his tears on my face. ‘You ever, ever come to my home again, I’ll fucking kill you.’ He left me there on the floor, and through heavy eyes I watched him walk away.
I should have, too.
Chapter 15
Imy
Jay was nothing to me but a reminder of a destination that I would never reach. I could not stand to look at his face. He had his eyes, his face, all I could see was his father in him. And I reacted. If I’d had a gun in my hand, I think I would have pulled the trigger without thought or hesitation.
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