minute!”
“No!” I whispered vehemently, but the door opened and Tariq stood there in the doorway, slightly breathless just with the effort of walking up the hallway.
“What do you think?” said Shameena, gesturing to me with a malicious little grin, and I later wondered how she had known so quickly, and if it was me or Tariq who gave it away. Tariq’s eyes flickered briefly with surprise when he glanced at me, then quickly the veil came down on them again. But he smiled, that sweet, slow smile that has never left me.
“Nice,” he said, and softly closed the door.
CHAPTER TWO
The memories kept me awake on the long road, as the dark shadows loomed towards me then disappeared into the rear view mirror. I turned the memories over in my mind, like the pages of a photograph album. The forgotten images. The treasured ones you turn back to again and again. Da and Sarah and Charlie and Peggy. Shameena. Tariq. Nazima and Khadim. Our lives all touching and intertwining.
At first, Da thought it was Shameena who made me so keen to visit Khadim’s house again after that first visit. And partly it was. But it was Tariq too. It was so hard to talk to him because we were never alone. The first time was a night in August, a perfect night when we all sat out in their postage-stamp garden till nearly ten o’clock, Da and Khadim and Nazima on chairs at the back door, me and Sarah and Shameena and Tariq further up on the grass.
Shameena knew, though we never spoke about it. This night, we were all talking amongst ourselves, the adults and the young ones, and then Shameena winked at me and said to Sarah to come into her room and she’d show her these new earrings she’d bought. And dumb Sarah said, “Coming, Rebecca?” I wanted to hit her. But Shameena said, “Oh, Rebecca’s seen them; we’ll only be a minute.” She was at least twenty. I glanced up at her window while Tariq and I were talking and saw her looking out. She gave me a furtive thumbs-up sign.
Tariq was still in his first year of accountancy at university then. His health hadn’t yet deteriorated so badly that he had to give up. But he did have a date for his next operation, a month down the line.
“Do you mind hospital?” I asked him, picking the daisies round me carelessly and throwing them into a pile. I used my thumbnail to slice through a stem, feeling the juice on my finger, then threaded another flower through to make the beginnings of a chain. My self-consciousness around Tariq made me need something to focus on. He made me feel clumsy, ungainly .
Tariq shrugged at the question and plucked at a blade of grass. “I’m used to it. My whole life has been spent in and out of hospital.”
“Must have been hard watching your friends do things you couldn’t do.”
“I had to find quiet things to interest me. Music. Reading. Computers.”
The daisies were becoming limp and difficult to thread. It was getting late.
“Did you want to be like the others?” I asked.
“Of course I did. Every kid wants to be like the others. I wanted football boots. I wanted my dad to watch me play for the school team. I wanted to join in on the school sponsored walk and run at sports day. I wanted to be free. And I wasn’t free.”
“Maybe this operation will make you free.”
He shook his head. “Nothing can do that. It might buy me more time, that’s all. I’ll need a transplant to be free, and even then I would need medication for the rest of my life. I’ll never be free, not like you are.”
“That would be weird, having someone else’s heart,” I said, and instantly regretted it.
“Yeah.” He rolled onto his front and looked at me. “People are funny about the heart, like it’s more than just a heart. Like it’s the core of you.”
“I know. You know the composer, Chopin? Da says he died in Paris, but though his body was buried there, he asked for his heart to be taken back to Warsaw, where he was born.”
“Really?” said Tariq. The
“No!” I whispered vehemently, but the door opened and Tariq stood there in the doorway, slightly breathless just with the effort of walking up the hallway.
“What do you think?” said Shameena, gesturing to me with a malicious little grin, and I later wondered how she had known so quickly, and if it was me or Tariq who gave it away. Tariq’s eyes flickered briefly with surprise when he glanced at me, then quickly the veil came down on them again. But he smiled, that sweet, slow smile that has never left me.
“Nice,” he said, and softly closed the door.
CHAPTER TWO
The memories kept me awake on the long road, as the dark shadows loomed towards me then disappeared into the rear view mirror. I turned the memories over in my mind, like the pages of a photograph album. The forgotten images. The treasured ones you turn back to again and again. Da and Sarah and Charlie and Peggy. Shameena. Tariq. Nazima and Khadim. Our lives all touching and intertwining.
At first, Da thought it was Shameena who made me so keen to visit Khadim’s house again after that first visit. And partly it was. But it was Tariq too. It was so hard to talk to him because we were never alone. The first time was a night in August, a perfect night when we all sat out in their postage-stamp garden till nearly ten o’clock, Da and Khadim and Nazima on chairs at the back door, me and Sarah and Shameena and Tariq further up on the grass.
Shameena knew, though we never spoke about it. This night, we were all talking amongst ourselves, the adults and the young ones, and then Shameena winked at me and said to Sarah to come into her room and she’d show her these new earrings she’d bought. And dumb Sarah said, “Coming, Rebecca?” I wanted to hit her. But Shameena said, “Oh, Rebecca’s seen them; we’ll only be a minute.” She was at least twenty. I glanced up at her window while Tariq and I were talking and saw her looking out. She gave me a furtive thumbs-up sign.
Tariq was still in his first year of accountancy at university then. His health hadn’t yet deteriorated so badly that he had to give up. But he did have a date for his next operation, a month down the line.
“Do you mind hospital?” I asked him, picking the daisies round me carelessly and throwing them into a pile. I used my thumbnail to slice through a stem, feeling the juice on my finger, then threaded another flower through to make the beginnings of a chain. My self-consciousness around Tariq made me need something to focus on. He made me feel clumsy, ungainly .
Tariq shrugged at the question and plucked at a blade of grass. “I’m used to it. My whole life has been spent in and out of hospital.”
“Must have been hard watching your friends do things you couldn’t do.”
“I had to find quiet things to interest me. Music. Reading. Computers.”
The daisies were becoming limp and difficult to thread. It was getting late.
“Did you want to be like the others?” I asked.
“Of course I did. Every kid wants to be like the others. I wanted football boots. I wanted my dad to watch me play for the school team. I wanted to join in on the school sponsored walk and run at sports day. I wanted to be free. And I wasn’t free.”
“Maybe this operation will make you free.”
He shook his head. “Nothing can do that. It might buy me more time, that’s all. I’ll need a transplant to be free, and even then I would need medication for the rest of my life. I’ll never be free, not like you are.”
“That would be weird, having someone else’s heart,” I said, and instantly regretted it.
“Yeah.” He rolled onto his front and looked at me. “People are funny about the heart, like it’s more than just a heart. Like it’s the core of you.”
“I know. You know the composer, Chopin? Da says he died in Paris, but though his body was buried there, he asked for his heart to be taken back to Warsaw, where he was born.”
“Really?” said Tariq. The
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