Breach Page 11
Mr Dishman’s hands smooth over his wispy hair.
‘A glass of water?’
Alghali nods. ‘I’ll get it?’
Mr Dishman agrees. Alghali goes into the kitchen, which has not been changed since the house was built. It is small but everything is to hand, laid out by the carers who come to support Mr Dishman twice a day. He returns with both their glasses.
‘How old was he?’
‘Fourteen.’
Why he has come today he doesn’t know. They have each other’s numbers, so they can call if anything in their arrangement needs changing. They have never done so. It was the wrong day to break the habit that has become what holds them both in place these days.
‘He said he was nineteen when I met him but I knew it couldn’t be true. Still, I didn’t know he was that young. He was about to come here, lawfully. To be with his brother.’
Mr Dishman is quiet and puts the glass back on the side table. His eyes follow a squirrel in the garden.
‘Perhaps you could open the curtains for me after all.’
Alghali walks to the doors that open into the garden. The light changes the room; it immediately feels more spacious.
‘The law is changing. He would have been able to enter the country once his papers were confirmed.’ He sits back down. ‘Five months in the Jungle. Adnan couldn’t wait any longer, he climbed on top of a train.’
Mr Dishman’s reply is sudden, quicker than usual. ‘That boy? It was in the papers yesterday, a young man was electrocuted.’
‘Yes.’ Alghali puts his exercise book in his bag and rises. ‘It is the same boy.’
He thinks about the teenager’s nervous confidence. He had wondered why he was travelling by himself, at his age, without family. It wouldn’t have surprised him to learn he wanted to pioneer the journey for the rest of his family.
‘Would you excuse me, please?’
Mr Dishman walks Alghali to the door, a hand on his shoulder.
‘I’m very sorry.’
At the open door they hurry to get away, to leave the awkward moment between them: Alghali towards the street, Mr Dishman back inside the flat.
‘Thursday, as usual?’
‘I will see you then, thank you.’
The sun has no strength at this time of the year but it is still pleasing. The colours return after the muted lounge. Alghali shoulders his bag and walks in the opposite direction to his flat, which is at the other end of the road. He takes the short cut under the bridge and enters the park. A pool of rainwater that has collected in an unused fountain by his favourite bench reflects the setting sun. There are a few people scattered around, mostly dog owners taking their pets for an evening stroll. A couple of young men walk along the path. They look tired but happy to leave the working week behind.
‘As-salaam ‘alaykum.’ Alghali picks up after the first ring. ‘I have heard. From Nabil.’
They are silent, on both ends of the phone. Suleyman, his friend, is still in Calais. For five months there has been no luck, no making it through. Alghali thinks of Mr Dishman. He would be content about the lack of success of what he calls illegal activity. Yet he would be equally firm and reliable with Suleyman should he come and desire to learn the language, ‘but properly’.
Alghali gets up again and walks to the other exit, which leads out on to a small residential street. There are no people there until he gets to a little roundabout with an off-licence and a launderette.
‘Nabil found his brother. The number you gave him was right.’
The next street is a little bigger, with a pub at the next corner. The street lights have come on and with it the Friday evening activities have started.
Nabil told Alghali that Adnan had travelled with his whole family – five of them. The parents and three siblings. All drowned off the coast of Lampedusa; only the teenager made it ashore. They had teased him, Nabil, Suleyman and the others, because Adnan had always talked about his older brother in England. The strange obsession had annoyed them at times. ‘My brother this’, ‘my brother that’.
‘We will visit Adnan’s brother, Nabil and I,’ Alghali says.
It is completely dark now. Alghali promises to call again later.
He enjoys it most when he gets lost in the maze of residential streets, when he forgets how he got here, where he is supposed to go next. This type of nothingness is one of discovery, not impotence.
There is a bottle of water in his bag and an apple. He sits next to a woman watching a group of teenage girls.
‘They shouldn’t be out this late. Especially now.’
He agrees. It is dark. People are getting drunk. It is Friday, at the end of a long week.
‘I better be off myself.’ She disappears into the alley a few houses further down.
Alghali moves on as well. Back in his neighbourhood the supermarket is still busy and the two betting shops are just closing. The men from the park earlier are standing by the local pub but they are not drinking. Alghali half nods. There is no response. They look as if they haven’t seen him. His phone rings again. Nabil is calling more often than usual. Adnan was like his little brother. It isn’t easy for any of them, but Nabil will take it the hardest.
‘As-salaam ‘alaykum.’
A couple comes out of the pub to smoke. The man shields the flame, the woman bends and twists for the cigarette to catch.
Alghali stops and listens to Nabil’s rapid words.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow. Don’t worry, we will make it there, inshallah. Try and sleep.’
He moves on and passes the pub. One of the young men walks into him. Alghali has not yet returned the phone to his jacket pocket and he finds himself face to face with this unfamiliar person. It is close, he can see the details of the man’s face, the clear eyes, the supple skin. The breath smells of chewing gum. Mint.
‘What do you have to say for yourself?’
Alghali stumbles, surprised. ‘I don’t understand.’
The couple have finished their cigarette and return to the bar inside.
‘What have your people done this time?’
The other two are closing in on his back. The one speaking comes even closer. Alghali shields his genitals in reflex. It is quick and sudden, without any flourish.
The one in front punches him in the stomach.
‘For Paris.’
They stroll away as quiet as before in the park. Alghali coughs, his knees give way and he hits the paving. There is no noise outside except for the occasional wisp of music, the occasional laughter or drunken cheer from the pub. The thin legs enter his view first; they stop, towering over his face. Alghali’s hands are flat on the ground, helping him to steady his breath.
‘It is too late for you to be walking in this neighbourhood.’
Mr Dishman leans his stick against the wall and extends a hand. Alghali shakes his head and pulls himself up.
‘Nothing happened.’
He doesn’t want another lecture. He doesn’t need to hear more about the dangers of Islam to British society. Or Mr Dishman’s forceful opinions. How people are rightfully scared, and how some, inevitably, will take matters into their own hands. Not tonight.
‘I was on my way to you.’
‘Why?’
‘You haven’t heard?’
They are now standing by Alghali’s door. He is unsure what to do. The old man has never come up here; they always meet at Mr Dishman’s house, at arranged times.
‘A terrorist attack in Paris.’
‘When?’
‘An hour ago. It seems a man coming through the refugee route was involved.’
He still doesn’t understand. Why is Mr Dishman here? What does he want? He is right, after all, now he has proof. He has always told him, ‘You can’t trust everyone. Not all are decent men like you, young chap. Many that are on their way don’t have good intentions.’
‘That’s very bad news. Thanks for letting me know. I will watch the news later. You should go back
home. It’s cold.’
‘It was a Syrian man.’
Alghali looks at him. Mr Dishman’s unsteadiness has given way to determination.
‘I’m not from Syria.’
‘People don’t make that distinction.’ Mr Dishman’s milky eyes look right at him. He is repeating what Alghali has told him. How he is mistaken, when need be, for anyone, to fit a description. ‘Be careful.’ He fetches his stick. ‘I will see you on Thursday?’
The old man is already moving towards the other end of the street. He is slow and deliberate.
‘Yes, Thursday, thank you.’
*
It is dark in his room. He lies on the bed without switching the light on, his eyes seeking out the ceiling. After a while he can make out the contours of the narrow wardrobe on the other side.
Everything has changed.
Suleyman is waiting for his call but Alghali doesn’t have the words to talk. He sends another text.
Our lives are this now. Never really home.
Suleyman’s reply comes in an instant.
Expect me. One way or another.
Acknowledgements
Many people helped to create this slim book. Warm thanks to those we can’t name, as well as to:
Tanya Abramsky, Mary Beattie and Elke, Tara Beattie, Julian Borger, Stephanie Brooks, Carolyn Dempster, Irene Garrow (English PEN), Emma Graham-Harrison, Sheila Hayman (Write to Life), Mazeda Hossain, Zimako Jones, Gabrielle Le Roux, Shaun Levin, Pontso Mafethe, Wakil Omar, Helen Simpson, Terence McGinity, Corinne Squire and – for everything from concept to completion – our publisher and editor, Meike Ziervogel.
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About the Author
Olumide Popoola is a Nigerian German writer of long and short fiction, based in London. Her publications include essays, poetry, short stories, the novella this is not about sadness and the play text Also by Mail. She lectures in creative writing, currently as associate lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London.
www.olumidepopoola.com
Born in Zambia and raised in Zimbabwe, Annie Holmes left southern Africa and filmmaking to enrol in a writing programme in California. Her short fiction has been published in Zimbabwe and the United States, and she has co-edited two collections of oral narratives in McSweeney’s Voice of Witness series: Hope Deferred and Underground America. She lives in the UK.
Twitter @AnnieHolmesLit
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by
Peirene Press Ltd
17 Cheverton Road
London N19 3BB
www.peirenepress.com
‘Counting Down’, ‘Extending a Hand’, ‘Lineage’, ‘Expect Me’
© Olumide Popoola, 2016
‘The Terrier’, ‘Paradise’, ‘Ghosts’, ‘Oranges in the River’
© Annie Holmes, 2016
The right of Olumide Popoola and Annie Holmes to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the express prior consent of the publisher.
ISBN 978–1–908670–32–8
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Designed by Sacha Davison Lunt
Photographic image by Jim Simpson CC by 2.0
Typeset by Tetragon, London
Printed and bound by T J International, Padstow, Cornwall