‘You either believe or you don’t. Which is it?’ she asked.
‘From what I’ve seen, the believers are intoxicated with belief. They seem to have no responsibility beyond prayer and sacrifice. For them that is enough, but it is not enough for me.’
‘A true believer is not living for this life. Rather, the next.’
‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but for some believers the circumstances of this life are not so great, and while they’re preoccupied with the hereafter they’re not prepared to change the present. There is no honour in poverty.’
‘Things are so much better for you, are they?’
‘I used to believe that you create your own luck, but now I’m not so sure.’ I pulled my bad knee to my chest, kneading the knotty scar, and added gently, ‘Let’s not argue,’ my voice almost a whisper, ‘not on our wedding night.’
‘I believed that together with my husband we would each grow closer to our faith.’
‘If it’s my leg, I don’t blame you.’
‘No, really not your leg.’
‘Prove it.’
Turning away, she said, ‘I am sorry.’
I shrank back against the headboard, unable to think what to say next. There was a long silence. I reached across with one hand, feeling her firm thigh and upwards to where it joined her belly. I slid my hand past the drawstring, inside her trousers. She had shaved, it seemed, the tips of my fingers reaching deep into territory that was moist. Azra shuddered, her breathing heavy. Once, twice, she swayed, as though her body in its entirety was in rhythm with the movement of my fingers. I turned, clutching the back of her neck in my free hand, and pulled her towards me. She relented, her body going soft, and allowed herself to face me. Briefly, Azra’s eyes met mine, but then her hollow gaze dropped to her lap. She wriggled free of me and retreated until her body hung partly over the far edge of the bed.
‘It’s normal. It’s what we’re expected to do. We’re husband and wife,’ I pleaded.
‘You don’t understand.’ She clutched a pillow to her chest.
‘Didn’t anyone tell you what you’re supposed to do?’
‘Your mother, she said just close your eyes and let him do what he wants.’
‘I mean, it’s natural. It’s what we’re expected to do, and once we’ve got it over with it will all be okay.’
With her chin cupped in her fists, Azra stared at me. Gently, she began to cry. The tears ran like grey raindrops across both cheeks. Her mascara spread around her eyes like a blot of black ink. Finally, still sobbing, she spoke. ‘Together we will shame the sanctity of marriage as it has been written. Release me and marry an English woman.’
‘You love someone else?’ I had not thought of this before and suddenly I was gripped by certainty of its truth.
‘A real man must lead a family. A man of strength, and none is stronger than he who fears Allah.’
‘You do, don’t you? You love someone else?’
‘My father, he didn’t believe in free will.’ She turned to face the wall and sobbed. ‘All he could ever think of was England, but your England is cold and its heart is dark. What use is this land of infidels?’
I stretched across and touched her shoulder. ‘It’s okay.’
‘Okay?’ cried Azra, swinging abruptly around, tearing off her veil and throwing it to the floor behind her. ‘You are my husband but you’re ignorant.’ She lay down and shuffled on her back into the middle of the mattress. She undid the drawstring, pulled down her trousers and opened her legs, her foot grazing mine. A shudder of adrenaline passed through me, but I was unable even to look at her. She continued. ‘Okay, now do what your mother told you to do. My faith is strong and it’s only my body you despoil. Have your pleasure.’
My hand extended a little way towards her, shaking uncontrollably. I withdrew it, brushing against a glass bead that had fallen off her dress onto the mattress. I picked it up, turning it over in my fingers. Pulling the sheet over me, I turned around to face the wall and switched off the lamp. In the darkness I rolled the bead between a thumb and forefinger. It was poorly cut with sharp edges. I thought about my mother and what she would be expecting. It was silent now downstairs, but I had not heard my parents come up to bed. Perhaps they were listening out for us? The cry of a virgin’s pain mixed with the grunt of their son’s pleasure. I rubbed a sharp edge of the bead against the soft pad of my thumb. I dug it in deeper, my pain somehow amplified in the silence of the house, Allahu, and then again, Allahu, and again, Allahu, and again and again until it bled. It took all my effort not to cry out my prayer. I reached my hand back into the centre of the bed and smeared the blood across the sheets.
15
Grace drains the last of the whisky, contorting her face like a child fed medicine. Gradually her body relaxes, her eyes half close, but a scowl remains on her lips.
‘It went on for over a year. A health visitor replaced the midwife, and later I got assigned a social worker. It wasn’t wise to ask a lot of questions; plenty on the estate were having to deal with the same, and besides, they had a job to do. The last thing you wanted to do was rub them up the wrong way.
‘And then I got a letter inviting me to something called a child protection conference. The letter explained that we would be discussing Britney’s best interests, and that there was no need of a solicitor. I had never been to a conference before, and I expected there would be lots of people, all listening and learning. I bought a new folder and pens and paper.
‘I left Britney with Betts and Alfie and put on my Sunday best. I was told to wait in a waiting room. I was the only person there. It was obviously important, but where were the others? There was a sign on the wall — CCTV IN OPERATION — and leaflets advertising firms of solicitors.
‘I was shown into this room with a long polished table. There was a bottle of water and an empty glass in front of each seat, and a pad and pen branded with the council logo. The wooden chairs were proper old-fashioned and heavy, and the same logo was also on the padded backrests. The room was almost full. My social worker pulled out a chair and beckoned for me to sit next to her. The rest of them sat opposite us: the health visitor; the chief social worker; my GP, Dr Moxham; the chaperone woman I had met once. There was also another doctor with a long title and a short name, Dr Ali.
‘I began by writing down the names of all the people. I hadn’t finished when the chaperone, seeing what I was doing, started up. “For the benefit of everyone, I remind those here that this meeting is recorded.” She then thanked me for coming, saying it was a good sign that I was engaging.
‘The chaperone started reading from a report: “Miss Britney Booth has been taken to see her GP Dr Moxham twelve times in as many months, and has had the benefit of the opinion of the community paediatrician, Dr Ali.” I could see they each wanted to smile as their names were read out. “I have visited her on one occasion — sadly, professional time constraints limited me to that — and the combined visits made by other health professionals here present,” she looked around the room with a grave expression, “amount to thirteen.”
‘The chief social worker took a single piece of paper from the pad in front of her and began to fold it. I watched her fingers work.
‘Dr Ali was invited to speak next. “I’ll cut to the chase and try to use language that we can all understand,” he said. “I have reviewed Britney’s notes, kindly supplied by my colleague Dr Moxham and others. Britney is otherwise fit and well, but I have recorded bruising to her extremities consistent with NAI.”