It was him, I knew it. I would have recognised him anywhere. What was he doing on our street? Then, I remembered the moving van I had seen parked by number 7 and everything fell into place.
Mr Light Eyes was my neighbour.
Instinctively, I looked over at the sketch I had propped up on my desk, still piled high with A level textbooks, the sketch of his hands that I had drawn off by heart, literally.
Too close, I thought. Too close for comfort.
But, to my frustration, that thought didn’t stop me dreaming about him that night.
***
I don’t know how many times I fell asleep as the double-decker bus crawled along the High Road, choked with Monday morning traffic.
Four of us – Abdullah, Taymeeyah, Malik and I – were on our way to the Islamic centre in Streatham. The community had finally got itself together and put on a summer programme for the kids and I wasn’t wasting any time: those kids were going to be the first to sign up for summer school.
Don’t get me wrong now. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the rugrats’ company; it’s just that I wanted them to get out more. It wasn’t healthy, staying indoors all day, only playing with each other, fighting over the computer. I’d always wanted them to get out more – especially Abdullah. Abdullah, my sweet, loving, tender-hearted brother who was born deaf, needed this more than any of them. He needed to be around other kids his own age. And they needed to be around him, to get to know him, to learn that the fact someone can’t hear you doesn’t mean that they can’t understand you, that they can’t be your friend. Abdullah needed to get out there and so did the other two. It was breaking my heart to see them preferring computer games and TV to reading books and playing outside. Even their Qur’an and Islamic Studies had taken a back seat to those games, something Mum was always ranting on about. I told her to just take away the computer, let them go cold turkey, but she just looked at me like I’d gone crazy.
‘Then what will we do with them?’ she wanted to know. ‘They’re driving me crazy as it is.’
So I knew exactly what kind of summer holiday they could look forward to, especially with Mum in her iddah and on anti-depressants again. I overheard her talking on the phone to one of the sisters, Umm Laila, saying something about him not coming back, about needing to move on. But the waiting period after a divorce is three months and a lot can happen in that time. I walked away then. No way was I getting pulled into any of that drama.
All of which had made me even more determined to get my brothers and sisters into that summer school. I didn’t want them soaking up all the bad vibes in the house.
‘You guys excited?’ I said brightly as we walked towards the Islamic centre. Abdullah was walking in front of us and I held Malik and Taymeeyah’s hands.
‘Stop sucking your thumb, Tay,’ I said, nudging her with my elbow. She grinned up at me, flashing her big gap.
‘But it tastes so good!’ she giggled, batting her eyelashes at me.
‘Yeah, that’s because you flavoured it with bogey,’ growled Malik.
‘No, I didn’t!’ retorted Taymeeyah, whirling to face him. ‘I pick my nose with this finger, not my thumb!’
‘Arghh, Taymeeyah, TMI!’ I laughed. ‘No picking noses and no bogey business, all right?’
Abdullah had turned around and was looking at me, all the confidence gone from his face. ‘Ams, do we have to go summer school?’ he signed with his chubby little hands. ‘Can’t we just stay home with you and Mum or go park or something?’
‘No,’ I signed back, putting on my no-nonsense face. ‘This summer’s going to be different. You guys are going to do new things, meet new people.’ Then I made my face bright and signed, ‘Don’t worry, yeah, trust me, it’ll be fun!’
Abdullah looked up at me, doubt all over his face. Poor kid, he was finding it hard to trust anyone. That was problematic. I needed Abdullah onside. Without him, the whole thing could end in disaster. Like the time me and Rania took the kids to an Eid party in West London. Don’t get me started on the tears, the yelling, the meltdown and then, the grand climax: the hide and seek that lasted three hours because Abdullah wanted everyone to just leave him alone. I stopped walking and knelt down in front of him.
‘Hey, listen,’ I said out loud, taking his face in my hands so that he would look at me and read my lips. ‘I know you’re nervous – that’s cool. I would be, too. But I’ve got this, OK? You’re going to be fine, I promise. Just relax, yeah? It’ll be fine.’
Slowly, slowly, I saw him relax and his face lost that pinched, worried look. He believed me. Now I had to make sure that these people took good care of my babies.
I wasn’t worried about the girls’ side; Rania was volunteering to run the arts classes and she had roped me in to accompany them on the trips. It was the boys’ side that I was worried about. Abdullah was ten, when they started having separate sessions for boys and girls, so I was hoping that, for once, the brothers had got their act together to cater for the boys.
When we got to the centre, it was clear that we were the first ones there. There was a big pile of boxes by the door and we could hear the sound of scraping chair legs coming from inside. A girl’s face peered out of one of the windows, and then it was covered by a bright poster advertising the summer school.
Not bad, I thought, as we all stood there, reading the poster. Malik put his arms up to me and I picked him up so that he could read it too.
Well, they were certainly aiming high – Qur’an challenges, quizzes, football, art, you name it, they were hoping to offer it.
A young Asian brother with a wispy beard and a tracksuit top over his thobe came out of the front door and gave a little jump when he saw us.
‘Oh, As-salamu ‘alaykum, sister,’ he said, his eyes sliding away from my face to the kids. ‘Are you guys here for the summer programme?’
‘Yeah, that’s right…’ What else would we be doing there? ‘You guys are early,’ he blushed furiously. ‘Would you mind giving us 15 more minutes to set up?’
I looked around at the car park. There was nowhere to sit and I didn’t want the kids to start getting restless. I turned to him and saw that he was having the same thoughts as I was: there was no way we were waiting outside.
‘What am I talking about? Sorry, sister, please, come in. The sisters are setting up in that room over there.’ He ushered us in. ‘Just give me two minutes, yeah? I’ll get one of the brothers to bring the registration forms over.’
The room that the sisters were in looked bright and welcoming. We greeted each other with salams and smiles and then they got back to writing a big ‘Welcome’ sign on the blackboard.
When Taymeeyah and Malik wandered over to them to see what they were doing, they laughed, said how cute they both were and invited them to colour with them.
I began to relax.
Just then, there was a knock on the door. I heard a brother with a rather posh accent say ‘As-salamu ‘alaykum, sister, I’ve got the forms.’ And then, the door opened and there he was, as real as anything, in front of me.
It was Mr Light Eyes.