Ibrahim & Reenie (22 page)

‘Tried that,' said Ibrahim. ‘Years ago.'

‘And did it work?'

‘Not much. Took the edge off, but not completely. I didn't get the, you know, panic attacks, but in
here,
' he tapped his forehead. ‘In here it was still the same.'

‘Well, I could drive you as far as Bristol,' said Natalie. ‘And I've got Valium here. Don't ask me why, but I have.'

‘What… Are you suggesting I should…'

‘Pop a load of Valium and chill out on the back seat of my car while I do you a bloody great big favour? Yes. Christ. I could be struck off for doing this.'

‘Struck off?'

‘Yes. Struck off.'

‘So why are you…'

‘Because I must be mad. And because sometimes the
proper
thing to do and the
right
thing to do aren't the same thing. And maybe because I'm a bleeding heart liberal who doesn't want you thinking everyone in Gloucester is a racist thug. I don't know. You tell me.'

He could do it. Maybe not London; London was too far. No amount of pills would get him to London. But Bristol. He could get to Bristol. And then what? She, Reenie, could be anywhere. Perhaps that guy dropped her off and she stayed where she was. Perhaps she moved on, took the wrong road, got herself lost. She could be anywhere.

He thought back to Reenie's expression when he had lied to her, telling her he would leave her behind if she slowed him down. She hadn't seemed so feisty then. It was the first and only time she had seemed dependent on another human being.

Ibrahim had spent so long considering himself apart from the world, distant from other people, that to think someone might need him was unsettling, irritating, but beyond that there was a comfort in it.

‘Okay,' he said. ‘You can take me to Bristol.'

‘Right,' said Natalie. ‘And you're sure about that? You'll be okay?'

He shrugged, sure of nothing.

‘Okay,' said Natalie. ‘Well, I'll go and get the Valium. We can be out of here in ten, if that suits you.'

Ibrahim nodded and asked if he could use her phone, and Natalie took him through to the hallway where, at the foot of the stairs an orange Bakelite phone sat on a small wooden table.

‘Bit old fashioned, I know,' she said. ‘Takes ages to dial anything these days.'

With Natalie upstairs, Ibrahim sat on the bottom step, the telephone resting in his lap. It took an age to dial his sister's number – waiting for the dial to grind its way back from all eleven digits – but then he heard the dialling tone, and he waited.

‘Hello?' She sounded sleepy. It was still early.

‘Aish?'

A long silence, nothing but burbling dead air between them, until his sister spoke again.

‘Ib? Is that you?'

‘Yeah, it's me.'

‘Fucking hell. I mean…
Fucking hell
. Ib. Where are you?'

‘I'm in Gloucester.'

‘What are you doing in Gloucester?'

‘I'm coming to London.'

‘Via fucking Gloucester?'

‘Yeah.'

‘How? I mean… Gloucester? Are you getting the train or something? Has it been… I wrote to you a week ago. It's Friday.'

‘I know, Aish. Listen. I
am
coming. It's just. It's taking me a while. But I
am
coming.'

‘Cardiff's two hours away, Ib. What the fuck are you doing?'

‘Please, Aish. Just listen to me. I'm coming, okay?'

A sigh and the line grew quiet as she placed her hand over the mouthpiece, but swore loud enough for him to hear.

Taking her hand away again, she said, ‘Ib. I can't do this on my own. He's in there on his own, and I'm doing this on my own, and you're not here.'

‘How is he?'

‘How do you think? He's ill. Really ill. And he tries asking where you are, but what can I tell him?'

‘Tell him I'm coming, Aish. Tell him I'll be there soon.'

‘Really? And how soon is that? Next week? Next month?'

‘I'll be there soon.'

‘Please, Ib. Just hurry, okay?'

‘Okay.'

He said goodbye to her, and his sister muttered something too fast and angry for him to understand before hanging up. Ibrahim placed the phone back on its table just as Natalie came down the stairs, a blister pack of tablets in her hand. It wasn't clear whether she had been waiting at the top, listening to the call, and if she had what she could have gleaned from it.

‘Shall we?' she said.

Ten minutes later they were in her car, but Natalie took her time – fiddling with the rear-view mirror and her seatbelt, allowing him time to settle, to get used to it. He sat up front with her, back straight and hands cupping his knees to stop them from fidgeting. When she turned the key and the engine stirred into life he felt an icy sweat break out on his shoulders and he held his breath.

‘Relax,' said Natalie. ‘I won't drive fast, I promise.'

She turned on the radio and the car was filled with the latter half of a piece that had been playing in the kitchen, in the final moments before they left her house.

‘What is this?' asked Ibrahim.

‘This? Vaughan Williams. The ‘Tallis Fantasia'. Why? Do you like it?'

‘I don't know. I think so.'

He closed his eyes and focused on the music, allowing it to drown out the sounds of the car. What began so understatedly, something quiet and serene, the kind of music he had heard in countless TV adverts, built up, minute by minute, as if in layers, into something so incredibly rich it overwhelmed him. The strings breathed, loud then quiet, and swept into the air. With his eyes shut he saw wintry, leaf-bearing spirals, vast clouds of migrating starlings, like black smoke, the crashing silver foam of impossible waterfalls, great cobalt glaciers stretching out to the horizon, until the music reached a climax of almost unbearable poignancy; a moment of such emotion that it stole his breath, and this moment was sustained, so that each time he thought it might end it came back, like short, ecstatic gasps, or shallow waves at low tide, and these waves ebbed and flowed, and he felt the weight of every season that had passed, and as the climax began to fade and subside Ibrahim breathed out, and this breath was given voice by a sudden chord that came from nowhere, acting almost as an exclamation point before giving way to strings as delicate as cobwebs.

There was a soul to this music, something inside it, something between the notes, greater than the man who wrote them down or the musicians playing them. This wasn't music; this was something else, like a voice communicating something, telling him something that couldn't be said in words. No, not telling him something; quite the opposite. This music had found something in him, something he could never describe, and translated it into the only medium that made sense. Anyone could hear this, listen to this, and know what it meant to be him, what it had always meant to be him.

‘Don't look now,' said Natalie. ‘But you're in a moving car.'

He opened his eyes and stared out through the windscreen at the road ahead, and yes, she was right; he was in a moving car. Ibrahim took another deep breath and held it. He stretched out his arms and braced himself against the dashboard, his fingers digging a little into its soft, foamy plastic.

‘You okay?' asked Natalie.

‘I think so,' he said, honestly. Perhaps it was the Valium. Perhaps all this was the Valium; from the slight pleasure of feeling the dashboard submit to his touch to the waves of emotion the music stirred in him. Perhaps without the Valium he'd feel none of this.

‘If you want me to stop and turn around at any point, just say.'

Hadn't Amanda said something like that, once? Towards the end. He had, by that point, told her about his panic attacks, and they were driving somewhere, some party, and she had used those very words. They were driving and she told him if he wanted her to stop and turn the car around she would, and minutes later he did just that and realised she was only being nice, that she'd had no intention of turning the car around, not when they'd come this far, and it ended in an argument, because by this point he'd scorched away all her patience and sympathy with his silences and his inattention and, yes, his lack of libido, and in that argument he reminded her again that she hadn't been there, in the car, that she couldn't understand, but as usual he felt a fraud, because for him the most terrifying thing of all was that he remembered nothing of the crash.

He remembered everything before it, with a clarity that was almost disturbingly banal. There was a house party in Cathays, and the hosts borrowed lighting gels so that each room was lit a different colour – the kitchen a sub-aquatic blue, the hallway and stairs a coniferous green, the lounge a promiscuous shade of red – and the furniture in this last room had been pushed up against the walls, and people were dancing to Northern Soul.

They ran out of ice. That was it. The clock hadn't yet turned ten, and they had run out of ice. The big Tesco on Western Avenue would still be open, but it was miles away. They needed someone sober, who could drive, and that was when Aleem stepped in and volunteered his services; Aleem Saïd, with his practically-new VW Golf.

A rich kid from what he called West London but what everyone else called Middlesex, Aleem was the nearest thing Ibrahim had to a best friend in those days. More swaggeringly confident than Ibrahim, and always dressed more like a
gora
, with his rock band tour t-shirts, skater jeans, and his wallet on a chain. The first time he ever visited Ibrahim in halls, he took one look at the volumes of Sufi poetry on his bookshelf and laughed, saying, ‘From one extreme to the other'. It was one of the only conversations they ever had about religion, their friendship based instead upon a mutual love of hip-hop – Aleem introducing Ibrahim to all the tracks and albums he'd missed these last two years – and afternoons spent playing
Grand Theft Auto
.

With Aleem driving, it was inevitable Caitlin Corby would tag along; the pair of them had been caught in a maddening routine of flirtation and mutual rejection practically since Freshers' Week. Rhys ap Hywel, meanwhile, was of a type found in every university; the small town boy from somewhere rural, remote – in Rhys's case, Anglesey – who, let loose in the city, had smoked, downed and snorted every drug available, usually on the same night. To Rhys the very idea of ‘going shopping' this late was hilarious, and he was quick to volunteer.

Then there was Ibrahim. He'd spent much of the night out in the garden, smoking weed – there were no
Surahs
or
Hadiths
against cannabis, so it had become his only real vice – but this in turn made him paranoid, and it was this paranoia that took him from the party to the back seat of Aleem Saïd's car.

Stupid, really. Amanda was talking to an exchange student from Baltimore. Tall black kid. One of those black American names, like Tyrone or Tyrese. They were both studying English and Philosophy. She'd introduced them, Ibrahim and Tyrone-or-Tyrese-or-Whatever, but Ibrahim slipped away from them and stood out in the garden with the other smokers, and looked in through the kitchen window at Amanda and Tyrone-Tyrese-Whatever, and simmered as he analysed each smile, each blink, each reciprocal laugh.

Out in the garden, Aleem Saïd said, ‘Me and Caitlin are going to Tesco. Anyone else want to come?'

Caitlin – big-boned Caitlin with the streak of purple in her hair and her raggedy dress and Dr Martin boots – looked devastated. Why did anyone else have to join them?

‘Fuck it,' said Rhys ap Hywel. ‘I'll come. Might be a laugh.'

‘Yeah, I'll come,' said Ibrahim, waiting for Amanda to look at him, as if she was psychic and knew he was about to leave, but she didn't.

The journey to the supermarket took them past crowds all dressed up for a Friday night, staggering in and out of pubs and clubs through a cacophony of police sirens and dance music. The whole world was a carnival that night. Spring was giving way to summer, and even at this hour there were still the last watery traces of sunlight in the west.

‘We should do this more often,' said Rhys ap Hywel.

‘Do what?' asked Caitlin Corby.

‘Go out. I don't mean clubs or anything. I mean just go
out
. Go for night drives. I mean, think about it, while we've been getting stoned and, you know, dancing and stuff, there were people doing their shopping. How mad is that?'

Shopping for ice cubes and beer became a field trip that night, the four of them stumbling and laughing helplessly down each aisle in the supermarket's harsh fluorescent light. They created elaborate, often cruel backstories for the other customers – loners and serial killers, most of them – and took detours through the aisles filled with toys for no other reason than to play with things they had no intention of buying. Away from the party, away from that dark mood, Ibrahim laughed until tears streamed from his eyes and he could hardly breathe.