Rain drilled into bloated ground, rupturing the earth and splashing mud on his trainers. He scanned the headstones blighted by creeping fungus and tried to imagine what it was like to be buried. They were corpses, but he couldn’t help but imagine that they still felt the wet chill.
Ishaq shivered, waiting for the crowds to dissipate, not knowing what he would say. He felt a tremor down his spine as he saw, through steel bars, Shams exiting the cemetery. He saw how he clocked him. He saw how he quickly put his head down, in the pretence of not having seen him. Ishaq should have left this for another time but the action angered him more than if Shams had come up to him and chatted away as if nothing had happened.
He strode after Shams, brushing the mildewed railing with a hand, the metal spikes resonating to the impact of his fingers and dislodging raindrops that clung to his hand like glue. He put a hand on Shams, who tried to pull away, but Ishaq held his sopped jacket, forcing him to turn around.
‘Look, Shams, I’m sorry for your loss. To Allah we belong and to him we return,’ said Ishaq, knowing that he had to keep some calm and respect.
Shams finally acknowledged him but remained mute, and continued to walk away. Ishaq stepped after him and stopped him once again.
‘Is that it? You aren’t going to talk?’
‘Do you think this is the right time, bruv? Look what happened.’ Shams looked tired and fraught, the rain washing away any tears but not relieving the strain. His eyelids trembled and he could barely look Ishaq in the face.
‘One thing I’m learning, Shams, is that there is never a good time. I’m truly sorry for what’s happened, but you owe me.’
‘No salaams, you just go straight in?’
His hurt was obvious but Ishaq was hurting too. ‘According to your new friends people like me aren’t Muslim, so my salaams aren’t worth it. Anyway, not much peace about these days.’
‘Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t know he would do that,’ said Shams, his voice giving way to something approaching sympathy.
‘So you did hear?’
‘Seriously, by Allah, I did not mean it to happen.’
‘So it was just ‘one of those things’?’ Ishaq’s throat gripped in a hunter’s trap. ‘You never mean anything to happen but you’re still responsible. Don’t you understand that you told lies. You made stuff up, just to save yourself. Always looking after number one, even if it’s at other people’s expense.’
‘I didn’t know what to do. Please let me be. We can talk tomorrow.’ Shams moved but Ishaq had not loosened his grip. He made a feeble attempt to pull away but gave up all too easily, his papier-mâché arm flopping loosely, like it was unhinged.
Marwane walked up behind Ishaq, coming from the burial. He prised the two apart and gave Shams a hug and a kiss on the cheek, before holding his face in his palms.
‘I had to ask around. You told people that Ishaq was spying and reporting on them. Why didn’t you ask him to his face? Or ask me. You know I would have helped you.’
‘I should have. I’m sorry.’
Ishaq couldn’t understand what he was doing here. Marwane had elicited an apology but he could see there was no real understanding. What was he expecting to happen? His friend’s father had died, yet Shams’ shifting behaviour, his hiding, had caused this. Shams’ capitulation, the lack of even some pathetic denial, upset him to the point that he nearly forgot why Shams was here at this graveyard. Nobody was ever culpable. Shams did not understand that Ishaq had a chance to do something more, even in a little way that could take them all forward and not just stagnate in this little pond. He just brought him down. Ishaq could not go forward with Shams holding onto his coat-tails .
‘I’ll tell you why you didn’t do that,’ Ishaq said. ‘Because you’re a coward. You crapped yourself and just chucked whoever was nearest under the bus, to save your pathetic backside.’ The rain increased in volume, washing down their faces, battering them down into mulched mud. ‘Man, what happened to you?’
Marwane said, ‘Leave it out, Ishaq, he’s got your point. Just listen to him for once.’
Ishaq raised his voice to overcome the pounding of the rain. ‘No, I’m not leaving it. Shams, I’m tired of all of this crap. You have no clue how much discipline it takes to get as far as you like to keep talking-on about. You always need looking-after. Always need, and never give back. Maybe we’ve all been too soft on you; always being there for you has made you soft. How do we know that it isn’t you who’s been talking to the spooks and pigs about us?’
Shams thought about Mujahid. He didn’t want to make things worse. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’
‘I just don’t know, Shams, you’re flakey as hell. Don’t know what to make of you.’ Ishaq threw a dismissive hand and started to turn, but this time Shams stopped him.
‘You don’t understand. There’s so much against me. I’m never given a chance. Can’t you see that? You? Of all people?’
‘It’s the way it is. Just the way it is. And going on about it doesn’t change a damn thing.’ Shouting, Ishaq felt the dull pain on his upper arm reminding him. ‘Shams, this is what we’ve been born into. No escaping, no point complaining, no point moaning. How about just getting on with it? You’ve always got an excuse ready for your latest screw-up, always something that makes us forgive you, but there are no excuses this time.’ Ishaq only just managed to stop himself from saying, ‘Not even your dad dying.’
‘Please…I need help…I’m in trouble.’
Ishaq flung a hand through the air in Shams’ direction. ‘Don’t talk to me about trou…’
‘C’mon, let him speak,’ said Marwane.
Water formed creeks and crows-feet tributaries on Shams’ cheeks. He poured out the story of the deal with Mujahid and the dog trainer, and how it had all gone wrong. He pleaded with them, asking them if they could they get Ayub to talk to Mujahid, or lend him some cash to pay-off the white guy.
Ishaq said, ‘Is that everything? Are you telling me everything?’
Shams’ eyes shot upward in thought but, after a pause, he said, ‘Yes, that’s all there is…please…help me.’
Ishaq looked back and forth between Marwane and Shams and shook his head in a slow arc, as if his head was tied by invisible restraints. He did not have the strength to break free.
‘No, not this time…You know, Shams, I’ve got a chance to do something more with my life. Something small that can take our people forward, but we’re always held back, held back by people like you. Hotheads. Shams, you bring me down, you bring us all down. One by one everyone gets involved, because you can’t control your tongue or hand, and then you expect everyone else to bale you out.’ Shams looked like an admonished child, his face sullen and red, droplets of rain and tears indistinguishable.
‘I’m your brother and you won’t help? You live in your head.’
Ishaq couldn’t but laugh at Shams’ audacity. ‘Brother this, brother that – it’s only ‘brother’ when it’s convenient. You don’t believe me, but I’ve always had your back. So I’ve got a bit of ice in my veins. Maybe it’s the best way to be…selfish. Maybe what you call selfish is actually looking after yourself, and not being a burden on others.’
‘And that’s why no one likes you, Ishaq. You’re just like them, all of them. That’s why you have no friends. You’re becoming a loner. Even Marwane thinks so, ain’t that right?’ Shams looked to Marwane who refused to corroborate his claim.
Ishaq looked at the boy before him, surrounded by the whipping of rain and crackle of leaves. ‘That’s right, I finally agree with you. Because everyone prefers a fuck-up. He’s interesting. He makes them feel better about their own crap lives. He doesn’t challenge people to raise their standards, or think. You’re like a loveable pet that poops all over the place, except this time you’ve taken one dump too many.’
Bare trees bowed in the wind. Leaves slapped against their trousers. Some, green and lush, were nailed into the ground by rain, forced into a sludgy compost. A watchful bird on a gravestone took flight and sailed through the boys, the irregular flapping of its wings interrupting them.
‘You know what I was thinking, just before I was lying there thinking I was dying?’ said Ishaq. ‘You know what was going through my mind? What is bravery? If I fought, and killed, and died, is that brave? If I just accept it, and hope he lets us off, is that wiser? What is wisdom, or bravery, or cowardice? Maybe surviving is the ultimate bravery? But then, I thought, you know it isn’t the answer that’s difficult, it’s the whole bloody question. The question is always out of order, it’s loaded, and there’s never a right answer. It’s the question that should never be posed.’
Shams looked at Ishaq, dumbed.
‘Just go. I’ve got nothing more to say. We’re done. Ask him for help for once,’ Ishaq said, nodding towards Marwane.
Ishaq walked away, his silhouette disappearing into the storm. Shams looked to Marwane who said, ‘Leave it a couple of days, Shams, let him calm down. I’ll have a word with him.’
‘I don’t have a couple of days.’
‘You’re my brother. Always. But you do know you’ve done wrong? This is heavy stuff – you could have wrecked his life.’
‘How about you? Just a little bit of cash.’
Marwane shook his head. ‘I’ve gotta go. See what he’s about. Keep your head down.’
Shams stared as the two left, not sure whether he was feeling too much or too little. His sister was at the Mosque, amongst the competing moans and wails of grieving women doing their part, playing the act. He walked there, refusing a lift, feet dragging a trail. Dirt stuck to his foot, in the grooves of his sole; unable to shake it off, he tried wiping it, yet only succeeding in muddying his already marked hand.
He met his sister and they went home together. She had been their father’s favourite, even if she had refused to acknowledge it. Their own Ishaq. Once, she had gone out with their father to buy groceries. As he examined some purple aubergines, for the first time she saw rows of unyielding wrinkles collapsing on his once flawless neck. She came back in tears and was never the same again, and then she left. For years. Maybe she had known something that Shams didn’t, that it was best to give up on sapping lost causes. No point having another’s inevitability take you with them.
She had some posh office job somewhere and didn’t come back often. Her partner and friends were all white. He sat on the stairs while they talked in the kitchen. Shams could see that he was fearful of what might happen, her white knight. But the guy had never talked to him, so what was his fear? Shams did not know; the guy did not know.
He listened as his sister talked and talked. As if this was a daytrip to real life. At the end, he asked, ‘So when you’re at some posh dinner table and they think you’re some brave Muslim woman who escaped from oppressive men…do you ever defend us? Do you look at things through our eyes or do you just let them feel good, damning us through ignorance? Do you let them know how it really was?’
Uncertain, she paused, and then said, ‘I wanted a different life. I wanted at a chance at something different.’ Shams thought, So did I. He didn’t bother pressing further or asking for help, and watched his sister leave.
Now Shams was alone.