Ibrahim & Reenie (30 page)

He searched the few days he and Reenie had spent together for evidence of her duplicity, and a quiet voice beneath this reminded him that she wasn't just any old woman. She was a Jew. Duplicitous. Money-grubbing. Interested only in her gold, she probably cared more about the birdcage than the bird. Was she walking for any other reason than to save her precious pounds and pennies? Graham and his friends, driving all the way to Hebron in a shitty, rusting minibus, and when they got there they'd be working, picking grapes, and for what? For nothing. Slave labour. Because that's what they were like, Jews. Crafty. Very crafty. Good at calling in favours that weren't owed. Look at how she'd got him to do all her hard work for her. Pushing that trolley. Building the fire. And her sleeping in a nice warm tent while he was outside, in the cold. Her inside a nice, warm tent, laughing at him. Stupid Muslim. Stupid Paki. Doing all the hard work for her and getting nothing in return. Because that's what they're like.

He sat back in his chair so violently its feet shrieked against the tiled floor, and he gasped. If he'd said any of that aloud, in front of friends – his university friends, say – he would have blamed his injury, or the time before Cardiff, before his mother got ill, before
everything
, but those thoughts remained unspoken, and they were his. Not Jamal's, not Yusuf's, not Ismail's. Not the Imam's, nor the Sheikh's, nor the authors of the books they read together after prayers.

At the time of the court case, he'd heard a friend of his father's say, ‘But they were just reading books. What kind of a country is it where you can be arrested for the books you read, or the
thoughts
you have? Are we living in a police state now?' And his father had mumbled something about them ‘knowing better' and being responsible for their actions, but those words stayed with Ibrahim. Were his friends arrested simply for the books they read and the thoughts they had? Were they
only
books and thoughts? For a long time he had selectively forgotten some things, and convinced himself there was nothing more to their crime, that theirs was indeed a ‘bedroom
Jihad
', that they'd never once put those thoughts into action, but they had.

And now he remembered what Graham had said.

‘The father of us all.'

And those words echoed, and the echo grew louder, and he saw a name he had known for seven years, a name he had never forgotten, and he marvelled at the unlikelihood – no, the
impossibility –
of it all, and he understood what had to be done.

24

An angel staggered towards her through a haze of drizzle and artificial light, and Reenie squinted at it through the glimmer of dusk, her tired thoughts racing to catch up with what she saw. The angel was in stark silhouette, its body the exaggerated outline of a toddler – oversized head and podgy limbs – but framed by translucent pink wings that shimmered with the lights from the service station. She moved with a stumbling lack of grace, tiny feet splatting down into the puddles, and as the angel got nearer, Reenie heard her sobbing.

A little girl, no older than three. Precocious blonde ringlets, lips pursed in an indignant pout, chubby arms flexed as if she had rolled up imaginary sleeves and was raring for a fight.

Reenie looked around, scanning the car park for anxious parents. With a huff and a groan she eased up onto her feet – her sore, blistered, ruined feet – and edged her way down the embankment. A car was coming across the car park, and the tantruming angel was in its path.

‘Oy, love,' said Reenie, her voice hard. She'd never quite known how to speak to children, hadn't the time nor the inclination to start improvising maternal, or grand-maternal baby talk. ‘Oy. Love. What's the matter?'

The angel scowled at her, hairless eyebrows knotted above tearful eyes.

‘Have you lost your mum and dad?' asked Reenie. She was on the tarmac now, the ground cold and wet beneath her bare feet. She couldn't remember what the protocol was these days. Were you even allowed to talk to other people's kids? And all the time the car was getting closer.

Reenie sighed and shuffled towards the angel, feeling every shard of gravel dig into her soles, and picked her up from the ground. The child was heavier than she had expected, but she wheeled around until they were both out of the car's way. Then, as if she'd lifted something hot or dirty, Reenie put the little girl back down again.

‘Where's your mum and dad?' She said, looking not at the child but scanning the car park for her parents. ‘Your mummy and daddy?'

Still no answer.

This was ridiculous. She couldn't leave the trolley; someone might nick it. And who leaves their kid to go wandering off at a service station? What kind of parents…

She should have stopped that car, as it passed by. Stopped them and asked them to get help. Every second she stood there, with that frowning little mute, was as good as proof of guilt, of wrongdoing. Doing nothing was as good as kidnap, surely. That's how the law would see it. She was too tired to even think, too tired for this to be real, and that unreality washed over her in waves. Where were all the people? The car park was empty again, the lights of the service station distant. A lorry pulled in on the far side of the tarmac, but too far away for her to get the driver's attention. And the angel was crying again.

‘No, it's okay,' said Reenie. ‘We'll find your mum and dad.'

But how? Helpless. That was the word. Helpless. And the two of them were quite alone, in the cold and empty car park. But now she saw two people, running toward them from the service station, and Reenie heard a woman's voice shout, ‘Tilly! Tilly!'

Reenie's throat was dry, her voice a rasp. If she tried shouting, they wouldn't hear her, so she waved.

The girl's parents reached them seconds later, and the child ran back to them, her arms reaching up in anticipation of a relieved father's embrace. Hoisted into the air and held against his shoulder she began wailing. The parents – mid-thirties, smartly dressed, as if they'd come from a wedding – looked at Reenie with undisguised apprehension.

‘She was wandering out here,' said Reenie. ‘She was on her own.'

The parents said nothing to her, turning and walking back to the service station, the father muttering a tender telling off, the mother sighing and gasping half-sentences, until Reenie could no longer hear them. No thank you, nothing. Didn't say a word to her. Not so much as a by your leave. Maybe thanking her would have meant admitting a mistake, admitting they just weren't paying attention when the little girl came tottering out here in the first place.

Reenie shook her head and went back to the embankment. Some people. No, not some. Most. You hold a door open; they barge through without saying a word. Give them back their daughter, and they look at you like you were the one who took her in the first place. Like no one can be bothered any more. Everyone walking down the street with those little headphones in. Sitting on the bus, music buzzing away like a swarm of bees. She could remember when strangers said ‘good morning' to one another. Wouldn't happen these days. Say good morning to a stranger nowadays and they'd look at you like you were mad. They just didn't want to know. Everyone living in their own little world. And if you dropped down dead right there in the street they'd walk past you, step over you, like you were rubbish. Leave you there for days, most likely. There was only one person you could ever depend upon, and that was yourself. Everyone else goes away, sooner or later. Take Ibrahim. He would probably find himself a lift, while he was in there. Someone with a car, driving to London. He'd slip off when she wasn't looking, she'd never see him again, and that would be the end of it.

She looked to the service station, and sure enough the table where he'd sat a little earlier was now empty; Ibrahim was gone. Halfway to London by now, most likely. Silly of her ever to think he'd do otherwise. Reenie returned to the embankment and sat back down, taking the weight off her aching feet and letting out a very long sigh.

Minutes later she saw him, Ibrahim, leaving the service station. For a moment she expected him to come over, head hung low, a muted, well-rehearsed apology on his lips, but he didn't. Instead he crossed the car park toward the far side, where the articulated lorries were lined up.

She watched as, one by one, he approached the lorries, tapping at their windows, or stopping the drivers as they came down from their cabs. He spoke to each one briefly, and each time the driver shook his head or held up his hands in apology. Ibrahim was growing more desperate, more anxious with each rejection – she could see that, even from this distance – but he kept going, and there were dozens of lorries.

Still, Reenie was sure that as soon as a driver said yes, agreed to drive him, he'd leave and she would never see him again.

Another driver, another rejection, and just as it looked as if he might give up altogether, Ibrahim spotted someone returning to one of the lorries; a tall lad, with short hair, pale skin, a crooked, rugby player's nose. Ibrahim said something and the driver pulled a face, almost a frown, scratched his head and casually lit a cigarette. Awkwardly, and with some difficulty, Ibrahim went down on his knees and clasped his hands together – unbelievable… he was
actually
begging – and Reenie heard their voices, though not their words. It sounded as if the driver was telling Ibrahim to stand up, and as Ibrahim stood the driver nodded, and Ibrahim punched the air and shouted – ‘Yes!' – before hobbling across the car park, towards her, the driver following close behind.

‘Reenie,' said Ibrahim, short of breath. ‘Meet Vincent.'

Reenie rose to her feet a little cautiously, frowning at the driver, and shook his hand.

‘Pleased to meet you.'

‘Vincent's gonna drive us to London,' said Ibrahim.

‘Well, Hammersmith,' Vincent corrected him, pronouncing it
Ammersmeeth.
He sounded French.

‘What,
really
?' said Reenie.

‘Really,' said Ibrahim.

‘I am driving to London anyway,' said Vincent. ‘And your friend tells me you are walking, and London, er…
c'est bien loin d'ici
. It is quite far. So I will drive you as far as Hammersmith.'

‘You don't want anything for it?' asked Reenie.

‘No. Nothing.'

Reenie turned to Ibrahim, still expecting the catch, the clause. Vincent would drive her, but not the trolley, not her things. The framed photographs and her
ketubah
and Solomon's old cage and her books she'd have to leave right here, on the embankment. He wasn't insured. Health and safety. Something like that. But Ibrahim just smiled at her. No catch. And she remembered the way Jonathan had looked at her when he first saw that jagged little scar on her right shoulder, the way he rested his forehead against hers and said, ‘I won't let anyone hurt you again', and how, for the first time in years, she had believed the world and all the people in it to be made of something more than cruelty.

‘So,' said Ibrahim. ‘What do you think?'

‘You're on,' said Reenie.

Within minutes Vincent and Ibrahim had loaded her trolley onto the back of the truck, parking it between crates bound for Hammersmith, and as they were about to climb up into the cabin Ibrahim stepped to one side, and Reenie saw him knock back two small, blue pills with a swig of water.

‘What was that?' She asked, regretting at once how hard, how much an accusation, it sounded.

‘What?'

‘Those pills. What were they?'

‘Just Valium,' said Ibrahim.

Now everything made sense. Why he was walking. Why, back in Newport, he had turned down the offer of a lift. The way Ibrahim looked at Vincent's lorry, with a weary apprehension, told her everything.

‘Can we just wait five minutes?' he said, wiping the water from his lips with his sleeve.

Reenie looked at Vincent, who simply shrugged.

‘Makes no difference to me,' said the driver. ‘No hurry.'

Ibrahim paced back and fore, his hands shoved into his pockets, walking first in straight lines, then in ever decreasing circles around his backpack. He stood beside Vincent's lorry and rested his forehead against the passenger side door, taking in deep breaths and letting them out slowly.

‘Okay,' he said, at last. ‘I'm ready.'

Once they were in the cabin, they buckled their seatbelts, and Ibrahim clasped his hands on his knees and closed his eyes. The lorry rumbled to life, the whole thing shuddering around them, and they pulled out from the parking bay and headed for the exit.

‘We have lift-off!' Vincent roared, triumphantly, slamming his hand twice on the horn.

Reenie placed her hand over Ibrahim's.

‘It's alright, love,' she said. ‘We'll get there. We're on our way now.'

Then they were on the motorway, and the lorry's wheels hissed against the wet tarmac, and the broken, dotted lines marking the lanes streamed beneath them, and the motorway lights and the tail-lights of the cars ahead were refracted and amplified by drizzling rain. Reenie rested drowsily against Ibrahim, and he put his arm around her, and they were barely a mile into their journey when she fell asleep.