30

BFFs

The next morning was Saturday and Nad came round. Matt was going for a hair cut so he offered to drop us off at the street market.

I don’t think Nad had been to the market before.

‘Is wonderful!’ Her eyes lit up as she looked around the brightly covered stalls.

‘It’s not that good!’ I laughed.

But she just grinned and said, ‘Is like at home. We have market. I love market.’

Nadima literally dragged me over to look at some scarves. ‘Ooooh!’ she breathed, picking up a dark orange one. ‘Is beautiful! What is called?’

‘Scarf,’ I said.

‘Scarf. I have same like this,’ she told me. ‘But is lost.’

‘Oh,’ I said, then couldn’t think of anything more useful to say.

‘That’d look lovely on you,’ the woman on the stall was saying. ‘Go on, try it on.’

But Nadima put it back.

‘She doesn’t speak much English,’ I explained.

‘I do speak much English!’ cried Nadima, giving me a friendly shove. ‘I speak lot of English!’ which made me and the stallholder laugh.

Then Nad slid a midnight-blue scarf off the rack and held it up against my face.

‘Is good. Blue. Is like eyes!’ she declared. She showed me how to wrap it round my head the way she wore hers.

The stallholder smiled. ‘She’s right. It matches your eyes!’

Nadima turned to the woman. ‘Is how much?’

‘Eight pounds, love.’

‘Eight?’ Nad shrugged at me sadly. ‘Is too much. Sorry. I have five.’ She unwound it from my head and put it back on the stall.

There were some racks of jewellery on the back of the stall. But there was nothing for a fiver. Nadima picked up some long dangly dark blue earrings and held them up against my face. But they were for pierced ears and mine aren’t pierced.

‘No holes!’ I said, pulling at my earlobes.

‘Ahh!’ she laughed. ‘I make for you!?’ she joked, miming.

‘No way!’ I cried, grabbing my ears protectively.

Then I noticed a pack of two bracelets for £8. They were twisted threads with metal hearts hanging off them. One was pink and silver, the other blue and gold. The hearts had something engraved on them in curly letters. Too curly for me to read, but I thought I could guess. ‘Does that say “BFF”?’ I asked the stallholder. ‘I can’t read it from here.’

She nodded, handing them to me.

I held them up to show Nadima. ‘For us!’ I said. ‘Look,’ and, pointing at the hearts, I explained ‘“BFF” – it means “Best Friends Forever”!’

Her eyes lit up and her face broke into a huge grin. ‘I like!’

‘Only four pounds each!’ I said, holding up four fingers and pointing at her and then at me.

We bought them.

I gave Nadima first pick. She chose the blue and gold one (which was the nicest) and instantly gave it to me!

As we tied the bracelets onto each other’s wrists I asked her, ‘Did you have a best friend at home, in Syria?’

Her face did that tight thing it does when she’s upset.

‘Yes. She is called Jamal.’

I noticed she said ‘is called,’ not ‘was called’, so I asked, ‘Is she still there?’

She frowned and looked away.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, going to put my arm around her.

But she shrugged me off lightly.

‘Is OK. Maybe she OK. I hope she OK. I hope.’

‘What’s she like, Jamal?’

She smiled warmly as she remembered her. ‘She funny. She kind. She clever. Jamal like you!’ she said.