‘No one’s home,’ he said disappointedly. ‘Let’s go back to mine.’
I could have simply agreed with him and we would have moved on, but we were now in an unshakeable pact. ‘He’s in, all right.’
‘Smash a window then, he’s bound to come out.’
‘What, like your old man Chav Hartley?’
‘What then, what are we going to do?’ Adrian hopped from one foot to the other in excitement.
Indicating for him to stand back against the wall where he couldn’t be seen, I knocked on the door. There was no movement inside. I pushed open the flap on the letterbox and spoke into it. ‘Assalamualaikum, brother, it’s Akram from Khan’s shop. My dad sent me round to deliver dates to the brothers ready for Ramadan.’ Conscious that my words were slurred, I spoke slowly, trying to focus on only one word at a time.
The hallway light came on and the door was unbolted from within several times.
‘You got good security here, bruv,’ I shouted to be heard through the door.
The door opened part way and on the other side stood Bobby, his eyes adjusting to the outside light.
I sneered. ‘You’re not fucking levitating now.’
A flash of panic crossed Bobby’s face and he took half a step back. As he did so the swish of his long velvet dressing gown swept up a cloud of dust.
I kicked the door fully open and it struck him in the face, knocking his glasses to the floor. I stepped into the hallway and felt the glasses crush beneath my shoe. Adrian leapt in after me, then bolted the door behind him.
Seeing Adrian, Bobby turned and shuffled away with no apparent urgency, along the hallway and into a darkened living room. We followed. In the background a radio was quietly playing a naath. A two-bar electric fire glowed orange, its illumination reaching only the surrounding mustard-coloured tiles on the hearth. Above the mantel was a stack of mouldy sliced white bread about ten deep. A single tatty chair sat in the centre of the room, a packet of cigarettes, a box of matches and a lighter resting on its padded arm.
Adrian and I stood guard by the door. Bobby fumbled about on the chair like a blind man. He found his cigarettes, took one out and rapped it against the thumbnail of his other hand. He put it between his lips and with a shaky fist nursed a head wound caused by the door.
‘It’s definitely him,’ I said to Adrian. I took the matches from the armrest and lit one. I could see the flame’s reflective flicker in Adrian’s eyes. Turning, I extended the match towards Bobby.
‘Let’s brand him,’ said Adrian, twitching like a greyhound, ‘just say you dare me.’
‘Brother Bobby.’ I placed my index finger on the centre of my forehead. ‘Brother Bobby, my friend here says you owe him a pound.’
*
It strikes me as a unique failure that I can climb out of the beds of two women in the course of the same night and remain a virgin. Slowly, and as silently as possible, I reach for my stick, negotiate the door to the landing, and descend the stairs one at a time.
In the kitchen, I shiver in the cold atmosphere. It smells synthetic, of disinfectant and lavender and cold steel. The English don’t warm their houses as much as we do. I note they use mugs, none of which appear to match, and have an ample supply of spoons and tea. They leave themselves small Post-it notes as mundane reminders: pay the milkman; cheese in the fridge (where else would it be?); call the social worker at 9; and, more curious for Grace, see dentist. Is that new since she met me? It is a self-indulgent idea that somehow, in the short space of time between my leaving and returning, she changed her mind about the missing tooth.
The English are not entirely private about their correspondence. Attached magnetically to the refrigerator are reminder bills for electricity and water, and a magistrate summons for monies owed to the Inland Revenue. A paragraph details her alleged crime and describes her work as Other Self-Employed. Do they really expect Grace to itemize expenses and keep receipts? It adds another layer to the complexity of the English: the sparse, neat, freezing kitchen and Her Majesty collecting from places like this earnings such as Other. What I find more interesting is her name, Miss Grace G. Booth, followed by her address. A discrete square of print in the top right-hand corner of the letter, a dense chunk of type making Grace official. She suddenly seems somehow more substantial, part of a larger world, in a way that elevates her to something greater than what she personally declares.
From the house next door I hear the tinny sound of the dawn azan, today’s first call to prayer, no doubt played, as it is in my parents’ house, from an alarm clock on the mantel. It is barely audible and not something Grace would hear, but at sunrise I am primed for it, often finding myself waking up seconds before it commences, and I hum softly along. Although it is after seven it is still dark outside, the sky heavily clouded.
A pile of papers is wedged between a microwave oven and the tall refrigerator. Guiltily, I flick through them: Court Summons, Family Proceedings, Adoption Notice, Variation to Contact Order. The earlier correspondence is addressed to a flat in Old Hill tower blocks, and the most recently dated letter states, if I am correct, that the last time she will see her daughter Britney is today, 11 November.
My eyes are drawn to a newspaper clipping among the stack. It is about six months old, dated in the late spring: Woman Kidnaps Daughter. I read quickly, the article describing how Grace Booth, self-employed, 31, locked herself and her daughter into a social worker’s office and was reported to have said, I’m going to put the lights out unless you give me back my Britney. It goes on: A spokeswoman for the police reported that the child was in grave danger. The newspaper does not mention any sort of weapon. I stop reading, my heart sinking coldly into my bowels.
Behind me, I hear a shuffle, and there stands Grace with a kitchen knife poised at her throat. Her eyes glare determinedly, the lower eyelids filling with tears, and her mouth is clenched so tightly that it appears as though her jaw will somehow break.
13
‘My people have a saying: A woman is born when she gives birth.’
Grace stares at me incredulously, the knife tip making a blanched indent in her skin. Soon it will pierce the surface and she will bleed.
I take slow steps towards her. ‘God love you, Grace, but the problem with you is that you were born with a face that could never quite solve the puzzle.’
Her mouth trembles and she glares at me silently as though trying to work out what I have just said.
‘I know you’ve thought about it. Putting the lights out. For good.’
A slow trickle of blood leaves the point of the knife, running down the blade.
‘But that sort of thing, it’s not for you.’
The trickle reaches her fingers clasping the knife.
‘Some escape, some take revenge, and others, well, they just take it. Sooner or later, they lower their expectations and reach some sort of compromise.’
‘I can’t do that.’ As she speaks, the knife slips to within an inch or so below her Adam’s apple. ‘You don’t understand. You can’t compensate for what they take away.’
‘No, my love. The compromise is with yourself.’
‘Whose side are you on?’ The knife returns to its earlier position.
‘You were asleep, weren’t you? I told you all that stuff and you slept right through it.’
The knife presses deeper, the trickle of blood growing, branching into two and then three. The blade is dangerously close to her carotid.