You're Not Proper (8 page)

On the way home, I thought about the look on Shamshad's face when I said what I did to her before the start of the race. It was worth everything she was going to do to me. At last, for once, me, little miss goody two shoes, me, the little doormat, had slapped her in the face. Dad said something about what I wanted to do on Saturday. I ignored him. He started humming a Pakistani song. I was rummaging about in my bag looking for my mobile. I had a text from Mum:
How did you do?

I text her back:
Ask Dad.

A moment or so later, Dad's mobile buzzed. He got a text. Still humming, he looked at his mobile and stopped humming.

I was thinking about D and D when I got home. Dad had never said anything like that. I tried to work out why he'd said this. It wasn't just Dad, but Mum had also been different towards me ever since I wanted to be a Muslim. It certainly wasn't because of the race. Maybe they were trying to get me back on track, whatever that was. And the way Mum had sat with me, for Halloween, the way she'd stroked my hair and spoken, it wasn't like her usual, ‘Yes dear, fine dear, love you dear, blah, blah, blah.' No, for once I really felt she was there, for me, with me, just for me. And now, I had a special Saturday coming up with Dad…

I was taking a bag of rubbish out when Mum got back from work, but she didn't say anything to me. No hug. No, ‘Hello, I'm back!' No ‘Well done.' Nothing. She went straight into the living room, and yes, Dad was up to his usual, glued to the telly, beer in hand. She turned the television off. Dad didn't protest. They looked at each other, in a strange sort of way. Mum saw me standing by the door, walked past Dad and shut the door.

I did what I do, when
it
takes over our house and ran to my bedroom, jumped on the bed and said aloud, ‘Well, Saturday, you're just a hoax.'

But Saturday did come. And before it came, Mum and Dad talked to each other, in heavy, sad voices. Waiting for Saturday, I tried to catch their words, but they were just words, everyday words, about shopping, and work and just normal everyday chores, but wrapped in something dark, something unmentionable.

Saturday did come and by the time it came,
it
was gone. And on this Saturday, Mum came and woke me up with a kiss. And this Saturday, Mum was wearing a beautiful dress. At first, I thought I was waking up in a dream, but then I heard Dad calling me, ‘Breakfast ready in five.'

I looked at Mum. She looked at me. I touched my ear, waiting for the smoke alarm to go off. Me and my Mum burst out laughing.

And this Saturday brought a beautiful, sunny, blue sky. And Dad didn't watch the match. I floated about during the morning trying to work out the big secret that Dad had lined up for me.

All throughout the breakfast of burnt toast and greasy eggs, I kept trying to work out my surprise. Monday was a bank holiday and then we had a teacher-training day on Tuesday, so maybe D and D meant Dad was going to take me away on holiday, and if this was the case, we were off to Italy, I reckoned. After Man U, Dad loved A.C. Milan. Or maybe we would go to Bodrum, in Turkey. Dad's mates always went there. He often talked about going there, sitting on a beach, getting a boat and going out into the sea, fishing. Or maybe, just maybe, he would take me into town and get me a new laptop.

Finally, we finished our breakfast and Dad said to me, ‘I'm taking you somewhere really special.'

‘Where?' I asked.

‘Dad and his lovely daughter are going for a boat ride…'

‘Boat ride!' I said. I was filled with pride for having worked out he was going to take me to Turkey.

‘We are going rowing. I've booked a boat in Boarhead Park.' ‘Boarhead Park. Rowing,' I thought and said, ‘Great, Dad.'

And a-rowing we went, Dad and me, in the lake in the middle of Boarhead Park. I sat stiffly in the back of our car, while Dad went on about how wonderful it was for the two of us to spend time together, just me and him.

At one end of the lake, there is a small café and next to this is the office for hiring boats. Dad bought me an ice-cream and whilst I sat there stabbing it with a small white plastic spoon he went off to sort out the boat. There are two islands in the middle of the ‘s' shaped lake, one in each of the curves of the ‘s', where ducks and geese and other birds breed. Along the banks of the lake there are big oak trees, some bent towards the lake, others so big and tall their shadows fall across the waters like large monsters, moving over the ripples from the oars of passing boats and the swimming ducks and geese.

By the time Dad came out, my ice-cream had been reduced to a gooey mess.

‘Ready?' Dad asked. I nodded.

‘Like the ice-cream?' He asked.

‘Yeh, Dad.'

He went so confidently towards the boat, like he had been rowing all his life and stepped into the boat with such force that it almost capsized. A boat assistant ran up and held the boat whilst Dad got his balance back.

The boat had two places to sit. One next to the oars and the other in front of that. I sat in front of Dad. The oars were placed on either side of the boat. Dad picked them up, put them into the metal holders and rowed. As he did this, he stood up, took some keys out of his back pocket and sat down again. The boat shook from side to side.

‘Careful, Dad.' I laughed. ‘Mum says you swim like a brick.' ‘Less of that!' Dad said rowing, ‘there'll be no need for that.'

I was surprised. He was so good at rowing! He used both oars together as we pulled out and then used one to turn and the other to move forward and make sure we missed another boat, full of loud-mouthed teenage boys, which was coming at us with full speed. As we went into one of the turns, Dad's rowing became smooth and methodical, the oars going into the water, pushing the boat through it, coming out, dripping, and dropping back again, sounding almost musical.

‘He's not such a clumsy oaf,' your Dad, I thought, looking at his big smile on his big, beautiful, fat face. His big, beautiful belly was popping out of his shirt as some of the buttons had become undone. He closed his eyes for a moment and started singing in his own language, a song I had heard him hum many times but never heard him sing.

I wished I could understand, but even without this, it felt so good, listening to him singing.

‘What does it mean, Dad?'

He smiled and said, ‘Do you remember when I went to Pakistan, when my friend Aziz died.'

I tried to think. I remembered him going, but not much more than that. I put my hands between my knees and nodded.

‘I used to go to the same school as him when I was young. We were like brothers, we were. He was a poor man, who worked in the hills behind my village, for a stone contractor. He used to load trucks with rocks. One day, when he was loading a truck, there was a landslide and he was crushed to death.'

Dad went silent like he was back there. Letting out a deep sigh, he continued, ‘It took them two days to move the rocks and get his body out. I got to Pakistan as his body was brought to his house and helped to give him his final
ghusal
, his final wash. When the time came to carry him to the graveyard for his funeral, his wife came and insisted on helping to lift his body out of her house. That stupid old Imam Butta said women weren't allowed to do this, but she ignored him. I let her hold her husband's bed and she helped to lift it up and placed it on my shoulder. She started walking with the men and Imam Butta told her to stop. Women aren't allowed to do this. She ignored him and walked with us. I thought she would stop where the other women stop, just where the last house of the village is and then they come and stand outside the graveyard until the men finish reading the funeral. But she didn't stop. She kept walking. When everyone recited religious chants, she kept quiet. Not crying. But silent. Along the way a woman tried to hold her hand to stop her going, she snatched it free and kept on walking with us.

‘Just as we got past the last house, she sang in a voice so loud and so clear it tore right through me.'

Dad looked at me with sad, sad eyes and sang:
‘Baghe ander hik bulbul alarnaan paee see banandhi Ajay na charya toor Mohammed, ud gaee ay kurlandhi.'

My Dad sang these lines so beautifully, in a voice I didn't recognise, a voice that came out from some depth within him, a place where he didn't go very often.

Before I could ask him what it meant, he translated: ‘A nightingale was building her nest in the garden, Oh Mohammed, it had yet to be finished and she flew away screaming.'

Dad looked behind and rowed away from some branches that were hanging into the lake. Pulling out into a sunny bit of the lake, he looked at me and said, ‘I love you, Kiran.'

‘Love you too, Dad, now, can you sing it again?' He did.

And then I asked him to sing it again and he did.

I hadn't noticed we had done a full round of the lake and were going round again.

As we went past the first curve, I saw Shamshad standing close to the bank, near some bushes. She bent down, picked something up and held her hand out as though to lob it at us. Just then I saw a startled bird fly, screaming out of a tree above her.

On the way back home from the park, each time I saw a bird, I thought I saw the one that had screamed out from above me, and each time I heard it, it was as though it was the first time I'd heard it. Had I not heard such a frightful cry of a bird above me, a cry that cut deep into me, I would've lobbed the stone at Karen.

That night I kept falling in and out of sleep, waking up all sweaty. In my dreams, I kept seeing a thick, rolling cloud, changing into faces, mocking faces, faces I should know, but to which I could put no name.

After putting on my bedside lamp, I opened the bottom draw of my chest of draws, carefully so as not to wake anyone else. It is a deep draw, with a secret section, which I made myself by placing a bit of matching plywood at the bottom. In this, I keep my secret, secret things, especially my drawings.

On a blank A4 piece of paper, I sketched the outer lines of the cloud.

The lines got thicker and deeper, as though my hand had a mind of its own. A face began to form, a disfigured, horrible face, with accusing eyes, fiery eyes, sorrowful eyes and then just a dark smudge.

I felt cleansed after I finished this drawing. I took out my notebooks from the bottom drawer, lifted the plywood false bottom, placed the drawing on top of the others and went back to sleep: a deep, peaceful sleep.

I woke up late the next morning, glad I wasn't going to see
her
ugly face for a few days. I didn't know she would end up taking my best friend from me.

Our central mosque is in the middle of Boarhead East. Surrounded by boarded up mills and pubs that have long since closed, their yards full of discarded furniture and rusty fridges. Our mosque used to be a church.
Alhamdulillah
, praise be to God, it is a mosque now. To get inside, you have to climb many old steps and walk in through tall, wooden doors. A balcony runs around the main hall. On the sides of the balcony are smaller rooms in which we have lessons. There is a smaller hall for women at the back of the main hall.

It was a bright, sunny day and I went to the mosque early to help clean up after Friday prayers. Laila was with me. She didn't usually come here on Fridays. She went somewhere else, a small place near the college where Muslim students prayed and discussed things. We were waiting for the caretaker to come and open up the study rooms, so we sat on a bench on the balcony, looking out as the mosque began to fill up. It was the wrong time of month for me and Laila, so we weren't going to pray anyway. I didn't notice her at first. She was sitting on her own not far from us. Her face was turned away, so I couldn't tell who it was. There was something oddly familiar about her. The strange thing was that she was wearing the same green-coloured hijab as me and a long-sleeved, white shirt, exactly the same as mine; even her black trousers were the same as mine. I prodded Laila and nodded towards her. Laila shrugged her shoulders. I coughed loudly, hoping to get her to turn this way, but she sat stiffly, looking down into the main prayer hall. I coughed again. This time loudly. A few men looked up at me from the hall. I pulled back out of their sight.

‘Stop it,' Laila whispered.

The girl didn't move. I stood up.

‘What you doing?' Laila asked.

I nodded for her to follow me towards the girl. She did. I took a few steps towards the girl. She took her hands off the balcony and pressed them together.

‘It's her,' I whispered to Laila. ‘Karen the flashing
hijaban
.'

Laila didn't reply. I sat down next to Karen. Laila next to me.

I pressed my elbow into Karen's ribs and asked her, ‘What's it with you, Karen? What do you want from us?'

‘Please Shamshad, I just want to start again and be friends,' she said.

‘You don't belong here,' I said. Even the sound of her voice made me go into a rage. ‘And what's with you dressing up like, eh?'

‘I wasn't, I swear, I wasn't…'

Laila interrupted, ‘Leave her alone, Shami.' Turning to me, Laila said, ‘Everyone is welcome in the house of Allah.'

‘I'm with my Dad, and I am going to come here and I'm going to learn, and my name is Kiran.' Karen said.

Just then the prayers started. It was just as well. I was so vexed with Karen, or Kiran, as she wants to call herself for now, I could have smacked her right there. What did she think it was? A fashion item! You are Karen one day and Kiran the next? You sneer at us, call us scarfies one day, and become one the next? You go to church one day, claiming God had a son, and the next you come here and you can say, ‘No, God was not a man, he had no son.' You hang around with your big, ugly gang, you neck them, and they rip our hijabs off our heads, but now you come here all innocent, like?

I looked down into the hall and recognised her father. He came to our street once a week, every Thursday without fail. He was called Lucky Saab on our street. He was in the fourth row down from the front, towards my end of the balcony. It was hard not to miss him, with his long arms and his big stomach. He was doing his
sajda
, touching the floor with his forehead. His shirt had rolled out of his trousers, exposing his builder's bottom. Like daughter, like father, I thought. Shameless! As Mr Lucky Saab raised his head out of the
sajda,
he touched the side of his trouser leg and then raised his fist in the air, looked around, then quickly went down into the
sajda
again with the rest of the line. ‘How dare your father do this in the mosque,' I hissed into Karen's ear. ‘Disgusting, all of you!'