Boy vs. Girl (13 page)

“Nothing, Farhana, don't worry.” Faraz tried to make his voice normal again. “I just need to go and sort something out… let Ummerji know I've gone out, will you?”

“OK…” His sister frowned, still worried. “I don't understand, but… be careful, Faraz…”

Grateful to have avoided more questions, Faraz grabbed his coat and headed for the front door. He reached the pavement just as Skrooz's car pulled up. With just one quick furtive glance around him,
Faraz disappeared into the car.

From the kitchen window, Farhana watched, unseen. The moonlight shimmered on the tears that stood in her eyes.

The atmosphere in the car was tense, quite different from the other evening. Hardly anyone spoke. When they neared the Eastside Estate, Skrooz pulled up about two blocks away.

“They're at a party in that house over there…” He pointed to a small house on the edge of the estate, with a tatty front yard and a dull light glowing in the windows.

“They've been getting out of line, these lads. It's time we sorted them out, showed them who's in charge around here.” He looked over at Faraz. “Do you want to handle Maj or should I sort him out?”

Faraz felt faint. What did he mean ‘handle'? What did he expect him to do?

“Er, I'll take him,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster.

“OK, then. Mo, get the stuff out of the trunk.”

Obediently, Mo got out of the car and opened the trunk. After a few moments, he was back with his hands full. Baseball bats, heavy clubs and a
couple of knives whose fierce blades glinted in the lamplight. Mo thrust a bat in Faraz's direction. Clearly, he could not be trusted with a knife just yet.

“So, we go in there and send them a message. Just a message, that's all. And Faraz will take Maj. Let's go”

Faraz felt light-headed as he walked, the middle of the huddle of lads, all tattoos and leather jackets, towards the front door.

As they got there, the front door opened and a girl spilled out, followed closely by an Asian lad in baggy jeans.

“Oi, come here, you!” he called after her, his speech slurred. She giggled and lurched across the yard, daring him to follow.

When she got to the gate, she looked up and screamed, a startled scream that seemed to claw at her throat. The Asian lad stopped short and struggled to focus. He lifted his face to the harsh glare of the streetlight.

It was Maj.

Through the fog of alcohol, he saw a group of guys, big guys, about six of them, all strangely familiar. They were all armed. The flash of the knife
in the biggest one's hand brought him to his senses and he cursed loudly and tried to scramble back into the house.

“Get him!” roared Skrooz and the lads moved, like one body, flooding the garden in an instant.

As the girl in the yard screamed, all the guys rushed the door which Maj was desperately trying to close behind him. They could hear him yelling for his mates, trying to get their attention. But the music and laughter drowned his voice just enough for Faraz and the lads to push the door open. And then all hell broke loose.

The house became a seething mass of bodies: girls in party dresses flew this way and that, screaming, as Skrooz and the others strode into the living room, swinging their baseball bats, smashing bottles, tables, faces, anything that stood in their way.

Faraz was thrust into the room by the movement of the others. In a moment, Maj was in front of him, fear distorting his face. Something primordial took over inside Faraz. His mind flooded with images: the black rainbow that had ruined his picture, the slaps, the punches, the taunts, his phone.

As if in slow motion, he felt the weight of the bat in his hand.

He felt it catch the air as he swung it above his head.

The air whistled as he brought the bat down, down, down, towards Maj.

He heard the sickening thud as the wood made contact with flesh and bone.

He saw Maj crumple and collapse to the floor.

He heard the blood roar in his ears and felt his heart pound in his chest.

The whole room seemed to come to a standstill. Then Faraz felt himself being jerked away and shoved through the room, past the upturned sofas and broken bottles, towards the car. The others whooped with glee, shouting curses at the boys who were left in the house, assessing the damage.

Faraz found that he was shaking, shaking, as the adrenalin pumped its way out of his system. The others all congratulated him and he smiled shakily.

He didn't think Maj would be giving him any more trouble.

* * *

When he got home, even Farhana wasn't up waiting for him. He was completely alone as he took a shower and struggled to pray, to concentrate, to understand what was happening to him.

That night, he dreamt again of the strange alien city, of the road that began to slope upwards, upwards, until he was struggling to find footholds with his toes, fingers, anything.

His nails splintered and his fingertips bled as he began to slide down the rough tarmac, slowly at first, then faster and faster, his knees scraping the tar, his teeth jarring. Then darkness, the terrifying darkness began to close over him, shutting out the streetlights and the air around him. He began to struggle for breath.

Farhana tried hard to wake Faraz for the morning prayer but he was like a lump of lead. In the end, she had to leave him sleeping to avoid missing it altogether.

When he wandered down later, bleary-eyed, asking, “Did I miss
sehri
?” she was furious.

“Of course you missed it, Faraz! What time did you get in last night anyway? And where did you go?”

Faraz's head hurt and he waved away his sister's questions. “I was just out, OK?”

“With Skrooz?”

Faraz looked away then. “Yeah… we had some stuff to take care of.”

“Stuff, Faraz? What
stuff
? And why have you gone back to hanging with those lads anyway?
I thought you were past all that… I thought things were going to be different…”

Faraz turned on Farhana, his face red with anger. “Well, maybe it's not that easy to be ‘past that'! Listen, sis, spare me the lecture, OK? I can handle myself and I know what I'm doing. Just do yourself a favour and stay out of my business!”

“Stay out of your business…?” Farhana's voice faltered, her eyes clouding with confusion. It had been so long since they had had an argument, so long since they had raised their voices to each other, she wasn't used to it any more. And after the closeness they had shared this Ramadan, it seemed so strange. And it hurt. It hurt to be pushed away.

She blinked back tears. “All right,” she said then, quietly, “I will.” And she left the room. She had a presentation to prepare for.

Faraz let out a ragged breath and nursed his anger. What did she know about what he was going through? What gave her the right to judge? She had the perfect life, always had done. There was no way she would understand his situation. Farhana was the kind of person who would tell you to shove off to your face, would defend her corner, stand up
for what she knew to be right. He had never had that kind of courage.

And now his inability to stand up for himself was taking him down a road he had never travelled before, one where he felt compelled to do things, say things, that were as far from his true nature as they could be.

But how am I going to get myself out of this? How?

The question plagued him every moment of that day. And he got a detention for not having done his English homework.

* * *

“Right, Fraz,” said Skrooz that night. “It's time you started doing your bit for the collective.”

They were sitting in Skrooz's smoke-filled car on a quiet side street.

“To be part of the crew, you have to earn your keep, see? It's simple: you help me, I help you, we all benefit. Cos there is only one language that we speak around here, only one language everyone understands. That language is money. Money is power. And if you control the money – who
makes it, who takes it, who spends it – you control everything.

“Dem idiots like Maj think that they can have a piece but they don't know. We ain't interested in no power-sharing. It's either we run things, or we destroy dem. Personally, I ain't interested in destroying nothin', cos it's all sweet right now. And you're gonna help keep it that way, see?”

He brought out five plastic packets, hardly bigger than his hand. Two brown, three white. Heroin and cocaine, they had to be.

“I want you to carry these, take them to this address…”

Faraz's eyes opened wide and his heart fluttered. What was he asking him to do? Carry bags of illegal drugs?

“The police are getting a bit cheeky around here. They keep wantin' to stop and search me, thinkin' I'm up to illegal dealings. But the thing is, yeah, I'm clean. They will never find anything on me. Why? Cos I got clean, pretty boys like you to do my dirty work for me. And then when the money comes in, you get a piece, simple as that.”

Faraz's eyes darkened and he looked around fearfully. All the other lads were staring at him,
their eyes fixed on his face, looking for a reaction.

“No!” he screamed inside and his mouth opened, then shut again.

“Good lad,” smirked Skrooz. “If you're cool, I'm cool, yeah? You know what
izzat
means, right Fraz? Your honour, your reputation. Well, dis is your
izzat
, right here, bro: the
izzat
of the streets.”

Then Skrooz leaned in, so close that Faraz could smell his smoke-tinged breath and see the red lines on his eyeballs, the open pores on his nose, every thick hair that formed his eyebrows.

“And know dis, Fraz,” he said softly. “No one crosses me, y'hear? No one. If I call you, you answer. If I send you, you go. If I want you, you come. Cos if you don't, I can make you pay in ways you could never imagine.” Then he sat back in his seat and proceeded to light a cigarette. “But we don't even have to talk about that now, do we…”

Faraz swallowed hard, his heart hammering in his chest, his throat dry. He shook his head. No, they didn't have to talk about that.

* * *

The next two weeks were like a patchwork of horrors for Faraz. Every time his new mobile phone rang, his heart sank. So far, only his family and Skrooz had this number, and since his father hardly ever rang him on the mobile and he and Farhana had not yet made up, it was usually Skrooz calling to tell him to meet him after school.

After getting into the smoke-filled BMW, there was no telling what would go down: teaching some lads a lesson, dropping off some stolen goods, picking up a stash of weed, dropping off the brown and white packets, sometimes with another member of the crew, sometimes on his own. And money, money, money. There was always so much money, to be paid, to be collected, to be spent.

At first, Faraz's conscience tore at him. His heart ached every time he missed the pre-dawn meal, every time he noticed that it was sunset and realised that he hadn't prayed, not even once. Many times, while out with the lads, he would ache for the feeling of peaceful elation he had found during the
tarawih
prayers but, when he reached for it, it seemed beyond his grasp.

Not only that, but he was also acutely aware of the number of forbidden things,
haram
, even illegal
things he was witness to. But even these things began to feel normal as he became used to living in Skrooz's world.

Whatever had sustained him at the beginning of Ramadan had all but seeped away, almost without him noticing. He had lost count of the number of times he had broken his fast.

His initial disgust with himself gave way to resignation. After all, this was reality he was dealing with right here, not some spiritual utopia. Besides, since their encounter with Maj and his gang, his reputation at school had received a huge boost. The story of how Fraz the Wrecker and Skrooz's crew had stormed the party became legendary, particularly since Maj sported an ugly scar on his forehead as proof for anyone who didn't believe the story.

For the most part, Maj lay low and kept his head down, admitting defeat. But more than once Faraz had caught him looking at him, hate burning in his eyes. It was almost as if he was biding his time.

* * *

One day, they finished their business early and Skrooz was in a good mood. There was still an hour of sunlight left when Skrooz suggested they go to the park. “I ain't been to the park in ages, man!”

They did look slightly out of place: a gang of big Asian lads in black hoodies and crew cuts walking past the mums in the playground with their children. They walked to the far side of the park. Although it backed on to an estate, it was quiet here; there was hardly anyone around.

“Us Pakis are funny, innit?” Skrooz said suddenly, taking a drag of his cigarette. “Y'see, our grandparents came to this country and worked hard to set up their little businesses and told their kids to study to become doctors and accountants. So our parents did all the studying, played by the rules and tried to get on in this society. But they thought they could win the game – they didn't realise that they would never be accepted, would never fit in.

“This society's racist, man, racist to the core. Even if they got a couple of coconut Pakis in government, it don't mean nothing. They hate us and they want to keep up down in every way they can: throwing us out of school, locking us up, setting up anti-terror laws and all those sorry excuses to
harass us even more. But they don't know that lads like us, we don't want a piece of their bloody Middle England. We don't want their City jobs and poxy universities.

“We make it so that they are pissing themselves about our neighbourhoods, so scared they can't even come here cos
we
rule. This is our turf and there ain't a damn thing they can do about it…” He sucked hard on his cigarette, looking over at the playground.