There is something in him that rejects the fact that he has to leave. The problem is, if he accepts that this is for real, then it is to shake hands with a pestilent understanding. The acceptance will actually be crippling for him, because it will be an acceptance of the total instability of his life. And that way lies a terror that he must not encounter. So, what then? It can all crack open and swallow him like this at any moment? Really? Is that what it is to live, now?
‘Shan, bloody stop … standing,’ says Ava, her eyes glistening now with a ferocity that is turning hostile. He is endangering them all with his inaction. ‘What, you worried about Tuli or something?’
He shakes his head and begins unpinning his hat.
‘Shan, I am telling you for last time,’ says Ava, fixing on him with what he has to accept is real, obstinate rage. ‘You go. NOW. THROUGH THE BACK. What you want, a practice for this bloody thing like is fire alarm drill or something? You can see I am here. I am doing the restaurant care, what you waiting for, just go!’
He turns and walks through the kitchen, keeps going, out through the rear doorway, past the pipes, the belching fumes and vapours, hoists himself over the small brick wall that borders the yard. After the murky quiet of the restaurant, the sun is agitating his eyes. His heart is like a defective gun that is shooting off all over the place.
Where to go now? He stands on the corner of the back road and removes the offending garments, folds the hat and apron till the thick white squares of cloth are almost small enough to fit between his palms and outstretched fingers.
He looks out at the high-rise buildings in the distance, thinks of the anonymous inhabitants, the families who are living out their lives in these grids in the sky.
Here he is, saving himself again, rather than those he loves. Now that he is out of there, he feels a sudden desire to scream. A single note, over and over. Where do people go to scream in privacy? His legs are shaking as he walks, he is tripping over his feet as he tries now to run, so that he falls over in the alley itself. He hits the pavement on his side as an image of a dead body comes to him, the same body as always, wrapped in white, dark blood blotching the fabric with the remnants of life. Ratatatatat go the bullets in his chest, faithless and worthless. Ratatatatat.
Nia
She was at the crossing with a song in her head, grateful for the warm lick of sun in the sky, waiting for the traffic to pass. The pavements too were starting to fill with people, it was almost time for the monthly street market.
The road to the restaurant was blocked off at one end. She couldn’t see through to Vesuvio, the view was obstructed by a large white van and a small crowd. They were gathered outside the Polish greasy spoon, stretching back towards the Aussie pub. She could recognize some of them – the guys from the Chinese place, the attendants from the launderette. A man and a woman in blue Tesco polo shirts were conferring across the narrow part of the road, near the betting shop.
They were staring at something or someone. She followed the eye line and saw him: a man in black uniform, only then registering the small luminous yellow rectangles stitched on the front, the walkie-talkie in his hand, the words ‘UK BORDER AGENCY’ on his back. A red-haired woman walked out and stood behind him, bronze highlights crowning her short figure, clothed in the same outfit, speaking into her radio and attaching it to her chest.
Oh, shit, Nia thought. Elene. Is she legal? She must be. Surely.
The crowd were pushing in a little now and she couldn’t see the Tesco duo any more. There were about ten people in Nia’s way, give or take a few, mostly men of varying sizes, rumbling with a low, apprehensive energy. They emanated heat, there was a smell that was a jumble of all their different years.
‘Where you GOING?’ one of them shouted, emphasizing the final word, as though kicking off a football chant or a protest march. ‘Where you GOING?’
‘LEAVE HIM!’ said another.
She waited, tentatively pushing herself up onto her toes, on the outskirts. She wanted to call out, let Elene know she was there, but her voice would have no chance against the noise, the volume was increasing with every minute. God knows who they were taking away. ‘Him’ suggested it was one of the cooks. Or even the proprietor himself – was it possible?
Her phone was going against her hand in the front pocket of her jacket. She had long ago switched off the ringtone, so that it was only capable of a faint vibration, because there was really only one person who called her these days. She pulled it out with jittery fingers, worried that someone was ringng from Vesuvio. She hadn’t even considered the possibility that this chaos might have reached her own place of work.
But it was her sister. She pressed the button required to reject the call.
The last time she had answered a call from Mira, there was honestly no rhyme or reason to it, in fact it was a kind of idleness that meant Nia pressed ‘accept’. And then, before clocking what she’d done, she had to speak to her.
‘Banana brains!’ Nia said, into the receiver, before she could get her guard up. She was upstairs at the restaurant, sorting out the mini fridge behind the bar.
‘It’s not funny, Nia,’ came the reply, plaintive in spite of itself.
‘Tomato head!’ Nia said, as if all the old nicknames could form a carpet between them, a magic corridor of embroidered fabric from here to Newport, shrink time and space, put them in the same protected continuum.
‘Nia, stop it.’
‘Peach face! How’s it going?’
‘Nia, it’s two weeks I’ve been trying you for—’
‘What is it?’ The words cut through quickly, suddenly sharp. ‘What does she want, then?’
‘She’s bad, Nia – you don’t know how she’s been, it’s worse than usual—’
She could hear a scuffle of voices in the background, the strident tones of their mother. She couldn’t decipher her words but the energy was intense.
‘How much does she want?’ Nia said.
‘Nia, for fuck’s sake, what do you want to always be bringing it down to that, it’s not just cash—’
‘How much?’
Mira didn’t reply. Instead Nia could hear her mother’s voice making its way loudly through the noise until it was right up close to the phone.
‘Who you talking to? Who you talking to? You talking to that stuck-up bitch in London? Tell that fucking ungrateful slut something from me—’
It went muffled then, Mira had covered the phone with her hand. When she came back, she sounded worried.
‘Nia?’ So tentative and vulnerable that it made Nia screw up her eyes.
‘How much?’ she said.
‘Nia, don’t be like that.’
‘How much, Mira?’
‘I’ve been doing the skips again—’
‘What the fuck, Mira.’
‘Nia, she just wants to see you—’
She hung up. It was her sweet baby sister Mira, yes, but she dropped it on the bar counter, the phone, after ending the call. It was suddenly burning, or so it felt, and she put herself downstairs, into another room, got away from its radioactive waves. She just wants to see you. Just.
Still, after an hour, she went back, held the pernicious thing in her hand and rang the bank. She put fifty quid in Mira’s account. It was a significant part of her week’s wages. By ‘doing the skips’, Mira meant she was doing what they had done whenever things got to their worst and their mother was out of action – gone to the skips of the local supermarkets after dark and rifled through the packages for unused food. The safest parts were from the bakery – bread rolls, Danish pastries, bagels, all baked that morning and thrown that night. They didn’t ever take the fish or meat, even if they were in three layers of clingfilm, not just because you might get sick, but because by that point, if you were rifling through rubbish, you weren’t about to start cooking when you got back.