33

‘D’ Means ‘Died’

I’d promised to help Nadima with her family tree, so on Thursday evening I went round to her house after I’d made supper. (Chicken in barbecue sauce – with chips and salad. Impressive or what!) Nadima’s mum was carrying Sami upstairs.

He flung his arms out at me. ‘Jaz! Jaz!’ he demanded.

Nadima’s mum shot me a questioning look. ‘Is OK?’ she asked.

I grinned and took Sami and plonked him on my hip.

‘Is bathtime,’ said Nad, so we went up to the bathroom.

The sides of the bath, and the tiled wall above it, were covered with those coloured foam letters – all spelling out the English word for things like ‘tap’, ‘soap’, ‘sink’ and ‘toilet’.

Nadima ran a bath and put Sami in it. Then I made soapy bubbles and let him pop them. Every time his little finger burst a bubble I went, ‘POP!’ and he’d collapse into a huge belly laugh.

‘Sami, say, “Pop!”’ I said. He looked at Nadima and then back at me and then he screwed up his podgy little mouth, and went, ‘Pop!’ It was sooo cute! Then, after we’d dried him, we bundled him into a nappy and his night onesie. It was only the sweetest thing ever, with floppy-eared baby bunny rabbits all over it.

‘Bunnies!’ I said to Sami, pointing at them.

‘No, Jaz, is rabbits!’ Nadima frowned.

Seriously!? Her English is getting so good she’s even correcting me now!

After Sami was in bed, Nad and I started on our homework. We sat round the table in the living room while Nadima’s mum put Rasha to bed. I thought if I did my family tree first, then Nad could copy it.

I started with my mum. ‘Kate Watson. My mum.’ I said, writing her name down in the middle of the paper. I added her date of birth next to it. ‘Her birthday,’ I said.

Nadima nodded.

Then I put a little “m” next to Mum’s name and wrote “Tom Watson”. My dad. I didn’t put his date of birth – I didn’t know when it was. ‘The “m” means they’re married,’ I explained.

‘Yes. Married.’ Nadima nodded. ‘Kate Watson married Tom Watson,’ she said, pointing to the words to show she understood.

‘Yes. No! Wait! Hang on a minute!’ I said. I realised I’d made a mistake. I crossed out ‘Watson’ after ‘Kate’ and wrote ‘Cooper’ instead. ‘My mum was called “Cooper”,’ I explained. ‘Before she married my dad.’

Then I drew a line down from the ‘m’ and another line across the bottom of that line and wrote my brother’s names on it, and then mine.

‘See? This means we are their children,’ I explained.

‘Yes, OK.’ Then she pointed at my dad’s name. ‘Tom Watson – he is your dad?’ she asked slowly.

‘Yes,’ I replied.

She looked at me expectantly. ‘He not here?’ she asked gently.

‘No,’ I said. ‘He left us. He went away.’

‘Oh,’ she said, and then gave a huge sigh of relief. ‘I think maybe he dead.’

‘No!’ I cried. ‘They’re divorced. Not married any more.’

‘Is sad,’ said Nadima, and her dark eyes filled with sympathy.

‘It was ages ago,’ I shrugged. ‘We never see him.’

Her face fell and she said, ‘Oh, Jaz. Is more sad,’ and she put her arm round me.

It’s a funny thing, but it hadn’t really hit me before. It was sad, I realised. He left just after I was born and we haven’t seen him since. He can’t even be bothered to send us a Christmas card or remember our birthdays. He doesn’t even know what I look like. We could have all died for all he cares. I suddenly wished I hadn’t put him on my family tree. Partly because I don’t actually want to have to talk about him, but mostly because he doesn’t deserve to be there. He’s not part of my family, is he?

I decided that when I got home I would rip the page out of my book and do the family tree all over again – and leave him off entirely.

I quickly drew in the lines above my mum and added my granny and grampa’s names. I had absolutely no idea what their dates of birth were – I’d have to ask Mum. But I did know when Grampa died. It was two years ago. So I wrote ‘d’ and added the year.

Nadima pointed at the ‘d’. ‘What is mean?’ she asked.

‘“D” for died. Dead,’ I explained.

‘Oh,’ she said quietly.

I closed my book and we did Nadima’s family tree. She started off fine. She quickly wrote in her parents’ names, and then added Sami, Rasha and herself. Then she drew lines from both her parents and started adding the names of her uncles and aunties.

‘My Uncle Tarek. Uncle Nizar. Aunt Amena. Here my Aunt Zada and my Uncle Sayid. And here my Uncle Karam and my Aunt Ranim.’

‘You’ve got a lot of uncles and aunties!’ I joked.

‘Yes. Also lots of children!’ she said.

‘Children! You have children?’ I teased, deliberately misunderstanding her.

‘NO! Aunt and uncle children,’ she laughed.

‘Cousins,’ I said.

‘Cousins,’ she repeated, and then she added all her cousins’ names.

‘You have a HUGE family!’ I said. ‘Have you got any photos of them?’

She paused, just for a beat, and then she said, ‘Yes,’ and opened up their laptop.

With such a big family I was expecting hundreds of pictures. But there weren’t. There were only a few. She clicked through them quickly – some kids playing football, a couple of women in a cafe cuddling toddlers on their laps, a pile of children all crammed together on a sofa, laughing at something, her mum and dad in a garden with a baby.

I pointed at the baby. ‘Sami?’ I asked.

‘Yes. At my home.’

The last photo was of lots of people having a meal together. Everyone was laughing and smiling.

‘This is Eid,’ she said. ‘Is big party.’

‘Is big family!’ I joked, and she smiled.

I pointed at a little girl who looked a bit like Nadima. ‘Is that you, when you were little?’

‘No. Is Ishtar. Cousin. And this her baby sister Amira. No photo of little me.’

‘What? No photos of you as a baby or anything?’

‘No. We lose photos. These on phone when we come here.’

‘Nadima! That’s really sad!’ I said.

She shrugged, turned away and went back to doing her family tree.

Very slowly and carefully, and very neatly, she started putting little ‘d’s against the names of some of her aunts and uncles.

‘Nadima, the “d” means “dead”,’ I reminded her awkwardly. ‘Is that right? Are these people … dead?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. Is right.’

Then something splashed onto the paper, smudging the ink. She was crying – but totally silently. Tears streamed down her face, but she kept on writing.

‘Nadima, stop! You don’t have to do this,’ I said, putting my arm around her.

But she shrugged me off and started adding in more little ‘d’s – this time next to some of her cousins’ names. By now she was sobbing. A horrible, gasping sort of sob.

‘Nadima! Stop! Please stop!’ I begged, and I tried to take the pen off her. But she snatched it away and carried on writing – but she couldn’t see for crying. It was like a floodgate had opened. She was shaking and sobbing and I couldn’t do anything to stop her.

I ran upstairs two at a time to get her mum. She was curled around Rasha on the bottom bunk, singing to her softly. They jumped as I burst into the room. I grabbed her arm and pulled at her.

‘Come, please come!’ I said urgently. They both leaped up, panic-stricken. Rasha looked terrified.

‘It’s Nadima. She’s crying!’ I said.

I tried to signal to Rasha to stay in bed, but she clung on to her mother’s hand and they raced downstairs.

Nadima was slumped over her homework with her head on her arms, sobbing and gasping. Rasha’s eyes were huge with fear and she started crying too. Gently, Nadima’s mum pulled Nadima into a hug and spoke to her in Kurdish. Nadima sobbed some words back. Her mum looked at the homework and at the photo still open on the laptop, then slowly, as if the reality of what she was seeing was sinking in, her whole face crumpled in agony. Clutching Nadima and Rasha to her, she started sobbing too … sobbing and rocking, sobbing and rocking.

It was horrible. I didn’t know what to do. There didn’t seem to be anything I could do. I went upstairs to make sure Sami was all right. I was worried they might have woken him. But he was fast asleep, with a little fluffy blue teddy under one arm, breathing softly through his little mouth. Mum always says that when we were little kids we could sleep anywhere – and through any amount of noise. ‘Bombproof,’ she used to joke.

But little kids aren’t bombproof.

People aren’t bombproof.

Nadima’s aunts and uncles and cousins were not bombproof.

I left Sami sleeping safe and sound and went back downstairs.

I stood in the doorway, watching Nadima’s family. Her mum had wrapped both girls tightly in her arms. She was still sobbing and rocking her big bundle of sadness.

I was just in the way, so I let myself out the front door. I closed it very quietly so I didn’t disturb them, but I listened to make sure it shut properly, with them safe inside. Then I walked home.

I’ve seen lots of people cry. And not just little kids. I’ve seen Lily cry, and some of my other friends, and I’ve seen all of The Brothers cry. I’ve even seen grown-ups cry – not very often, but I have. Mum cried at Grampa’s funeral.

But I’d never seen anyone cry like that. I’d never seen anyone hurting so much.