You're Not Proper (4 page)

I don't know why, but when that Chloe was waving my hijab in front of my face, pretending somehow I talked like that, it made me think about her seventh birthday party. She was so excited she couldn't blow the candles out, so I blew them out for her and she ran to me and hugged me.

What made me really, really mad was the way Karen joined in laughing at me. It's one thing leaving Islam for her Mum's religion, but it's another ganging up with her WTM posse and insulting mine. It's just as well they ran off when I came back with the girls. On the way back home, I said to Laila, ‘I'm going to teach that
Karen
a lesson tomorrow, she'll never ever forget.'

I prayed inside my head,
‘Ya Allah
, give me strength to get my own back on her.'

I couldn't even keep Karen out of my dreams that night, when I slept. I dreamed I was going to a special assembly at school. Everyone was there. There was only one chair left empty. It was in the front of the hall. Everyone was looking at me. Karen was standing next to me, her eye on the chair. I ran for the chair. Everyone cheered. She ran for the same chair. I grabbed her hand, to pull her back but she snatched it free and beat me to the chair. The teachers were praising her. Everyone was clapping for her and laughing at me. My mother stood at the back of the hall. Stone-faced, as ever. I ran to her, crying. I held my arms out for Mum to hug me. She folded her arms. I ran past her and just as I got outside the assembly hall, there was Karen and her mother. Her white mother, combing Karen's hair.

The next morning, I put a pair of scissors in my bag and caught the bus to school early to wait for Karen.

After getting off the bus at our school stop, Karen usually went to Gilani's to get a drink. The shop was next to an ivy-covered abandoned warehouse at the end of a street full of ‘For Sale' signs. I was going to grab Karen, pull her into the warehouse, and give her a hiding she would never forget. I was going to cut her hair and rub muck in her face.

I saw her bus coming, grabbed some muck and hid. She was muttering something to herself. I held my breath and then jumped in front of her. She yelled like she had seen a ghost. I grabbed her by the throat and pulled her towards me. I shoved some of the dirt right into her mouth and rubbed it into her face. As I pulled the scissors out of my bag, I saw Laila coming towards us. I let go of Karen and laughed and laughed at the sight of her. Not at how dirty her face looked, though that was hilarious, but at what she was wearing.

‘Look at you!' I cried pointing to her legs.

Karen looked down and went white. She turned around to leave, but Aisha was right behind her.

As I was leaving school, I stared at a poster of our Halloween party, a copy of which was stuck on either side of the exit door. It said:
Cum On Yea Ghouls, Vamps and Bats.
Against a yellow background were black outlines of witches flying about on broomsticks and bats of all shapes and sizes. Underneath these in thick gothic letters was written #freakyfriday.

I left school that day, flushed with happiness, made all the better by a bright October day. Walking out of the doors, I thanked
Allahjee
for giving me a chance to get my own back on Karen.

I just couldn't get comfortable in the bus seat on the way home; I held a prickly pain in my bum and kept moving about. I could feel a spot or a lump. It hurt each time I pressed down on it.

As soon as I got off the bus, I rushed back home to help Mum. Dad was having one of his parties. They always took place on a Monday. I hated these parties. It was usually the same old men, saying the same old things and leaving their same old smells behind.

There are no pictures on any walls in my house. Dad has forbidden them. Un-Islamic, they are. There is no music. No television. Not allowed. I am allowed a computer, though. Dad got it for my fourteenth birthday. It turned out to be more of a gift for my mother than me!

Though she can't read or write, she's learned to turn the computer on and use Skype. She's always online, gabbing away with her family in Pakistan. She shuts the door if she knows I'm around. Usually, she looks all shrivelled up, but talking to someone in Pakistan on Skype, she seems to grow taller, pointing at the screen and shaking her head.

When I got home, Mum was looking at a darkish, grainy figure of a woman on the computer screen. She didn't realise I was back. ‘How many goats did I give you to look after?' Mum asked. ‘Ten,' the dark woman replied.

‘How many have you got now? ‘Nine.'

‘What happened to my goat?

The dark woman went quiet for a moment and then said, ‘The Khyber Express went over her.'

I dropped my bag in the hallway. Mum shut the door and continued. ‘What were you doing?' Mum was furious. She swore.

‘I was bringing my animals back from the jungle,' she said. ‘I have twenty six goats and four cows.'

‘Which one of my goats died?

‘The soil-coloured one with white patches.'

‘Didn't that give birth only three months ago?' Mum asked. ‘And it was pregnant again.'

‘What happened to the offspring?'

‘One of them was born without eyes, and a wolf took the other one.' ‘How is it that it's always my goats that the wolf takes? It's only my goats that go under the Khyber Express.'

I could hear people in the room in Pakistan with her. They laughed. Just then the Skype connection went. ‘Load-shedding. Always load-shedding when I want to talk,' Mum cursed the electricity people in Pakistan.

She came out of the front room, nodded to me and disappeared towards the kitchen at the back of the house.

I put my school bag on the table near the stairs, took off my shoes, placed them on the shoe rack and went upstairs.

I ran the bath and watched steam from the water rising. Wiping our big bathroom mirror, for a moment I felt a shock run through my body. I thought I saw Karen's long, boney face in my reflection in the mirror.

‘Get out of my head, you cow,' I cursed, looking closely at my own reflection. Was this chubby face with thick eyebrows really me?

I could hear Mum and Dad talking about something outside the bathroom door, but couldn't work out what they were saying to each other.

I got hold of Dad's round shaving mirror and looked at what was causing me so much pain. It was a ginormous boil and without thinking, I shouted, ‘Dad, I've got a boil on my bum.'

‘That's OK. I've got one on my bum as well.'

Mum and Dad laughed out loud, a rare thing in our house. When they finished laughing, and they laughed for a long time, Dad said, ‘I'm popping out to the shops, do you want anything Shamshad?'

I didn't reply. In our house you never talked to someone in the bathroom, let alone what I had just said, and to Dad at that. I felt so ashamed. I got into the bath, lowered my head and watched my hair spreading in the water.

After having my bath and getting changed, I ran downstairs and went straight into the kitchen. Mum was chopping onions. I called out for my cat and listened for the patter of her feet coming down the stairs. She loved curling up in a basket in my bedroom.

‘She's not been in all day,' Mum said, putting the chopped onions into a plastic bowl.

‘All day!' I exclaimed. ‘She must be really hungry.'

Mum didn't say anything at first. As I bent down to pick up a half-empty packet of cat food she said, ‘Hungry animals find food. Or they die trying to find it.'

I didn't say anything to her. It was my cat. I looked after her. I opened the back door and shook the cat food bag a few times. I called to her, ‘Rani! Rani! Food! Come on, Rani!' I couldn't see her and shook the bag again. I was about to step out into the back garden when I felt her curling herself around my legs.

After feeding the cat, I went to my bedroom, put my blazer on a coat hanger and hung it on the back of the door. I had just put my dirty clothes in the laundry basket when Rani popped her head round my door. I was about to pick her up when I heard the front door slamming shut. Dad was home.

‘You'll have to wait,' I said to Rani, running my hand over her back. She closed her eyes, arched her back, and curled up her tail.

By the time I got to the kitchen, Mum was frying onions in a big pan. Steam from the pan was being sucked noisily into the extractor.

‘How many are coming?' I asked. ‘Four or five,' she said.

I took some more garlic out of the basket that hung on the wall opposite the window and started peeling.

‘Bring my
Kala Kola
,' Dad popped his head into the kitchen and asked me in English, touching his hair. He always spoke to me in English.

‘OK, Dad,' I replied, putting a peeled garlic clove in an empty plate Mum had put in front of me. I washed and dried my hands and took a small box of hair dye out of the cupboard. I looked at the box,
Quick-drying Kala Kola.
I took the bottle out, crushed the box in my hand, threw it into a bin and went upstairs to the bathroom.

The door to the bathroom was open. Dad was wiping his face with a towel. Placing the towel in the sink, he held out his hand and I gave him the bottle. He glared back at me and I realised I hadn't opened the bottle for him. I snatched it back, opened the bottle and gave it back to him.

Dad nodded pouring some hair colour into a saucer. Dipping a toothbrush into the saucer he said, ‘Too many cars.' ‘Yes, Dad.' I said turning to leave.

‘Getting stolen,' Dad said, dyeing his hair with the toothbrush. ‘No one has a proper job round here. When I was young, we went where work was. This lot just want to make quick money.'

‘Yes, Dad.' I said.

‘And I spend my life phoning the council. Our streetlights don't work. Nothing works round here anymore. I leave a message on a machine and no one bothers to get back to me.'

‘Yes, Dad.' I said.

I went back to the kitchen and helped Mum cook. After the main dishes were cooked, I made some salad and then cleaned up. Rani came in a few times, curled around me leg and went out again.

I cringed when I heard Dad welcoming someone. ‘The old farts are here,' I thought.

‘What was that?' Mum asked.

‘I said nothing, Mum,' I said. ‘Was that your father, I mean?'

‘Yes Mum, he was welcoming our guests.'

I washed my hands, placed some orange and apple juice cartons on a tray along with some glasses, adjusted my hijab, and took the drinks into the living room. The room was bursting with grey beards and bloated bellies. I gave my
salaam
to everyone, put the drinks on the table and came out.

‘Daughters grow up so quickly,' Dad said as I turned around to leave. ‘Such a good girl, your Shamshad, Amjad Saab,' Baba Alam, with his ever-bulging belly said, clearing his throat.

I stopped outside the door and listened.

‘Never a bad rumour about her,' the croaky, old voice of Baba Bagha agreed. That's what he always does: agree.

‘Amjad Saab, it is official now. Victoria Baths are going to have a women's only day, and our women will end up going. What a shame on us.' ‘Yes!' I whispered, clenching my fist.

‘Such a shame,' Baba Bagha added.

‘And can you believe it, there are seven days in a week and they chose Friday for women's-only swimming. Friday! They're rubbing salt into our wounds,' Baba Alam said.

‘How could they do it on a Friday?' Baba Bagha asked.

‘There was a petition signed by lots of women from East Boarhead,' Dad said in his matter-of-fact voice. ‘And some of the women, even the illiterate ones from round here, put their thumbprints on the petition.

The other old men went silent.

Mum tapped on the side of the pan with her spoon. I rushed back to the kitchen and blurted out, ‘There's going to be women's only swimming in Boarhead Mum. Isn't that great?'

Mum pursed her lips, shook her head and carried on with the chores. ‘Hurry up.' Dad popped into the kitchen.

Mum took the lid off a pan with one hand and stirred the keema, the mince meat with the other, over and over again. She had a special way of cooking keema. Whilst everyone else added the spice at the beginning and then fried the onions, garlic and ginger, Mum always quickly tossed the meat in a hot wok without any oil and turned it over and over again until it released its water and began to shine. Only then did she add some hot oil, onions and the other ingredients. There was nothing in the world like Mum's keema.

‘Sorry Dad,' I said taking my eyes off Mum.

Mum stopped stirring the food once Dad left the kitchen and looked at me in a strange un-Mum like way. I couldn't tell if she was smirking, smiling or smouldering.

‘What?' I asked Mum.

Mum took hold of my hand, pressed it in both of hers and said, ‘Nothing.'

I picked up a tray and went to collect the empty glasses. Dad was sitting on his favourite sofa, set into the alcove of a window, dressed as ever in his grey shirt, flowery tie and striped suit. The old men were discussing the same old things, same as ever.

‘Amjad Saab, you are a very influential man. There are many Muslims in this town now and, god willing, there will be many more in years to come.' This was the permanently red-bearded Abdullah Khan from number 127. He was really, really prehistoric and like my Dad, dyed his hair and eyebrows jet black. Mister Khan looked comical as no matter how hard he tried, you could see that the roots of the hair on his head and brows were white. Ever since I could remember, he had driven a taxi for On-time Cars and still drove them now. His sons, like most of the men around here also worked on the taxis or worked in take-aways. Every one of them who came to talk in our house was depressed about not making ends meet. Mister Khan's favourite subject was that he wanted to get the name of our town changed. For as long as I could remember, he had been going on about it. ‘I am always ashamed to tell people I live in this city. I have to say, B.O.A.R.head. I can never pronounce its name, only spell it. How can we name our mosque B.O.A.R head Central Mosque.'