Chapter 9
“Shall we go to the vigil tonight?” asked Sukhi as we walked home from school down a quiet street lined with townhouses.
“Umm … I don’t know. I feel anxious just thinking about going to crowded places full of strangers,” I said, watching my school shoes hit the cracked pavement slabs one after the other.
“Yeah, me too. Wow.” She sounded surprised. “I thought it was only me.”
“I guess that’s why Mrs. Owen told us to talk about it. Maybe everyone’s feeling like that?” I said.
“And there’s no way to get away from it. It’s always on the news. It’s all anyone’s talking about online. It feels as if it’s been a week when it’s only Monday.”
“I know. I’ve been avoiding all my apps and ignoring notifications. I reread a whole Mortal Engines book in ONE day so I wouldn’t have to think about it,” I said, my brows raised.
“Well, at least you were doing something useful, you nerd,” said Sukhi. “I’ve just been playing on the PlayStation.” She laughed as if she was nervous. “Mum’s not even hassled me to do any homework.”
“Did you hear any more about Jo?” I asked. Mrs. Alcock had told us that she was in intensive care after having her leg amputated. My stomach dipped thinking about her lying in a hospital bed.
Sukhi stopped walking. I froze mid-step.
“We should go and see her at the hospital, you know. My mum was saying we should take some ‘food.’ ” She did speech marks with her fingers to show me she meant the multiple tubs of food our families usually sent to sick people.
“But what if she doesn’t want to see us? She might not want visitors yet — I wouldn’t.” I could imagine how I’d feel if I’d lost a part of my leg and my school friends gathered around my bed to gawk at me. I’d hate it. I wasn’t even sure if I could go into a hospital anymore, let alone think about becoming a doctor. Since the bombing, I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing anyone suffer. I didn’t think I could handle it.
“True,” Sukhi said, linking arms again to get us moving.
“I want to do something to help her, though.” I said. “I feel so bad she ended up with tickets closer to the bomb.”
“How’s that our fault?” Sukhi said. “We paid less, so got rubbish seats — THANK GOD. Can you imagine if we’d actually been given the chance to buy the fansign ones like Jo’s?”
“Don’t,” I interrupted and blinked hard to get rid of the image forming in my head.
As we got nearer to Lisa’s street, I started glancing over my shoulder.
“Darren won’t be around right now.” Sukhi squeezed my arm. She could read my mind.
“I know,” I replied quickly. Even if he was, he couldn’t do anything to me in broad daylight. He couldn’t, I reassured myself.
“Shall we try calling Lisa again?” I asked.
“I did.” Sukhi raised an eyebrow at me. “Her phone connected, and guess what? She didn’t answer!”
“No way! So she hasn’t lost it!” I said as we both continued to walk. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I seriously don’t.”
We were quiet the rest of the way home.
“Here you are,” I said, handing Uncle Aziz a mug of steaming chai, the scent of cardamom drifting from it.
“Thanks,” he said, barely looking at me. Even though he and Aunty Rashida had apparently popped in to see how I was, all they’d done so far was talk to Dad. I don’t think Mum and Dad had told anyone else what had happened because they probably regretted letting me talk them into going to the concert in the first place.
I sat next to Dad, flicking through the magazine he’d bought Mum while they talked. I stopped at a feature about social media influencers because one of them was wearing a hijab. The hijabi social media influencer was a model and said she put it on when she was fifteen. Just two years older than me. I was surprised she was so confident wearing a hijab so young. According to the article she put it on to empower herself, because she didn’t want to be judged on what she looked like or wore. She wanted to be free of society’s expectations of what women should look like. I should follow her on Snappo, I thought.
“This country’s a mess,” Dad told Uncle Aziz. “They claim to be Muslims, but these so-called Islamist extremists are making things a lot harder for us.”
I closed the magazine to listen.
“It was better than this when we were growing up,” added Uncle Aziz, sipping his tea.
“How?” I asked. “I thought you had to deal with more racism?”
“Well, yeah, in some respects it was harder,” said Uncle Aziz. “But we were all in it together. And religion was never an issue. We had one community center, and we all mixed there regardless of our beliefs. Indians and Pakistanis, the Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and people from the Caribbean and Africa. We struggled together. That’s all changed now everyone has their own halls and places of worship.”
Aunty Rashida sat up in her armchair and said, “We used to send Eid food to Savita Behen and she’d send us Diwali food. That’s stopped now … You remember your neighbors from before you moved out here?” she asked.
“Err …” I looked at Mum.
She helped me out. “Your daadi’s neighbor Savita used to own that corner shop you loved when you were little.”
“Ohhh, yeah!” I smiled, remembering the story Daadi loved telling about me running off in my nappy, barefoot, to get sweets.
“Daadi looked after Maureen every day too,” Dad added, talking about his mum’s other elderly neighbor whose family didn’t visit much. “Maureen loved us. They knew we were good people. Now these damn extremists have ruined everything. They’ve given racists a voice — just the excuse they needed to openly hate us. Everyone blames Islam and Muslims for everything. You’re judged as soon as they hear your name.” He tutted and shook his head.
“You’re a problem even if you don’t ever mention Islam and just live peacefully practicing it,” added Uncle Aziz, taking another sip of his tea.
“Exactly,” said Dad, his face sullen.
“Would you ever move back to Tanzania? Would that be better?” I asked, looking at Dad on my left and then Uncle Aziz across the room on my right.
“No,” said Uncle Aziz. “Your dad was only ten months old when he came here, so he was raised here, and I was twelve. We’ve never been back to Africa. We may have family roots in Iraq, India, Pakistan, and Tanzania, but this is our home. We couldn’t live anywhere else.”
Twelve. Wow. That was only a year younger than me. I couldn’t imagine starting life over in a new country. “Why did you leave?” I asked.
“Our family had a lot of money and your dada’s businesses were doing very well. You know your daadi had six nannies, one for each of us?” He smiled at me. “But the political climate became too dangerous. People were forced to leave their homes and businesses and resettle in villages to look after farmland. There was also a drought and the economy was struggling. Your granddad thought it would be safer to get out before things got even worse.”
“How come you chose England?” I wanted to know as much as possible while Uncle Aziz was being so chatty about our family’s past.
“Well, one of your granddad’s friends recommended it. So we all came over here, thinking it would be better.” He sipped more tea. “But it wasn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“We had to start from scratch. We owned nothing. No house. It was cold, we had no heating, no maids, no help, no car. We bought a brand new Mercedes van with our savings — we bought it to trade out of, no one had one back then — but no one would give us insurance because we were brown.”
“Wow.” My jaw dropped and I couldn’t close it. I was sure you could sue if a business did that now.
“The van sat on the cobbled road for two months, untouched, before we found someone in London who would insure us. Your granddad was miserable because it was so hard to establish himself again. He was a respectable businessman back home with lots of staff and a driver.” He put his mug on the TV stand.
“We don’t have anything in Tanzania now, Aaliyah,” Dad chimed in. “No family, no connections. And I certainly don’t have the energy to start over. And —” he said, pointing at Mum and telling me for the fiftieth time — “your mum was born here, at the same hospital you were born in! So the people who say, ‘Go back home,’ can shut up — this is home.”
“Exactly.” Mum nodded in agreement.
I didn’t know my granddad had to establish himself again. I thought they’d come here to have a better life. Not because they were forced to leave a good life behind. Their story could be in a magazine.
I rested my head on Dad’s shoulder and he put his arm around me and squeezed hard. I was proud of my family and what they’d achieved, given the challenges they’d faced.
After Uncle Aziz and Aunty Rashida left, Mum and Dad insisted we go to the vigil. I said I didn’t want to, but they told me it was important we pay our respects to the injured and to the people who had died, especially as we were Muslim. We had to show we didn’t agree with the terrorist.
I held the bouquet of carnations tightly, my hands sweaty from the moisture on the plastic wrapper. It was in the town hall square at five-thirty p.m., in broad daylight and not near the concert venue, so it would be okay, apparently. I didn’t quite believe them. If a bomber wanted to kill people at another big gathering, this would be perfect. We’d be toast in minutes. In seconds.
We followed hordes of people toward the main town square. The road was closed, and two police cars and a fire truck blocked any cars from entering, but the air was still smoggy from the car exhausts on the busy roads nearby. As we approached, I heard someone talking on a loudspeaker, their voice muffled. Then I saw the huge crowds crammed into the square, like pens in a pencil case.
I stopped in my tracks, struggling to breathe as people brushed past.
I could see the packed crowd at the concert right in front of me.
“Aaliyah?” Mum walked toward me while Dad went on ahead, unaware of what was happening. She put her hand on my chest. “Hey, hey. Calm down. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.” She steered me to an empty bench, not far from the armed police stationed at the corner. Somehow they made me feel worse, not better.
Mum pushed me onto the wooden bench and sat next to me. “Aaliyah, you’re safe,” she said gently as she texted Dad.
“I’m scared, Mum,” I cried.
“Shhh,” said Mum, wiping my cheeks. “Nothing’s going to happen, in shaa Allah. You are so brave, Aaliyah. I’m so proud of you.” She wrapped her arms around me.
“Why don’t you stop bombing people?” someone shouted.
I lifted my head off Mum’s shoulder. A bunch of guys walked past us, sneering. One of them must’ve said it.
“And eat bacon!” another one added, their nasty laughter trailing behind them.
“Come on,” said Mum, her eyes wide. “Let’s go.” She tugged my arm.
I dropped the bunch of flowers and froze. My gaze darted everywhere, but I couldn’t move.
“They’ve gone. Look, they’ve gone,” she whispered in my ear. “Come on, let’s get back to the car. We’ll wait for Dad there.” She kneeled down to pick up the flowers and placed them gently on the bench, then put her hand in my sweaty palm to pull me away.
After holding me tight in the car the whole way home, Mum went straight to the kitchen when we got back around seven to “make my favorite meal.” Dad told me we would talk about how I was doing later and drove off somewhere as soon as he’d dropped us at the door.
I stepped into the front room to hip-hop blaring from the TV. Yusuf lay across the sofa with his legs on the armrest, his cap covering his face. He’d got out of coming to the vigil because he had to revise for his exams, but he obviously wasn’t revising.
I sat on the carpet with my back to him and checked my messages to see if Lisa had replied. There was nothing. Maybe she’d dropped her phone in water and it wasn’t working. Maybe she was embarrassed by how Darren had behaved. She’d never go this quiet for so long otherwise.
Sukhi sent me photos of the speakers at the vigil and the hundreds, possibly thousands, of bunches of flowers laid across the front of the town hall. I scrolled through them, a deep sadness creeping over me.
Something dark fell to the floor near me, and I jumped. It was Yusuf’s cap. I put my hand to my chest. I’d thought it was an intruder!
“You dodo, what you doing?” I said, glancing up at him. He’d fallen asleep. There was something strange about his face, so I got on my knees to get a better look.
A massive purple bruise covered his left eye.