by Ayisha Malik
Shagufta and Gulfashan called her regularly, asking whether Mariam was looking after her, eager for gossip. Mariam wasn’t exactly warm, but every morning she’d come into the room and ask Rukhsana how she was feeling and what she’d like for breakfast. Rukhsana had never slept under a duvet or on pillows that moulded themselves to her body, and the white sheets and eggshell walls with their paintings of things she couldn’t quite make out were all nice, but she was a woman who was consoled by familiarity. Even the beauty of the quiet country roads, the grey-stone churches with scattered honeysuckle, the sheep dotted around the green fields couldn’t distract her from feeling that there was no sense of direction here.
She was saying her Astaghfaars – seeking freedom from hellfire – when there was a knock at her bedroom door.
‘We thought we’d take you to the park, if you wanted?’ said Bilal, coming inside. ‘Get some fresh air.’
If you wanted? Did that mean they didn’t want it? She had already lost her sister; she didn’t want to lose her self-respect.
‘I don’t mind, beta.’
She did mind. She let out an imperceptible sigh when they heard a car park up at the side entrance of the house. Bilal walked up to the window by Rukhsana’s bed and inspected outside.
‘It’s Saif, bringing Haaris back from Birmingham.’ He was able to see them without being seen, if he leaned against the wall.
‘Who can blame girls who don’t want to marry men from Pakistan?’ Rukhsana said, knowing the story of how Saif had left Mariam.
Some people had no God-consciousness.
‘Looks like he’s put on weight,’ said Bilal. ‘And God, look at his beard.’
What a kind heart Bilal had, marrying a divorced woman with a child who he treated as his own. Rukhsana remembered when her husband died how no-one had wanted to marry her – apparently bad kismet was infectious and marriage was complicated enough. She’d had her dose of happiness one day and it had cracked, split and shattered the next. Imagine being born in this age where women weren’t cast out for being divorced, merely judged.
‘What are they talking about?’ he mumbled.
‘Hain?’
‘Nothing,’ he said, still looking out of the window.
‘You’re very good to Haaris,’ she said.
‘Am I?’
‘Mariam has very good kismet,’ replied Rukhsana. ‘Mashallah,’ she added. She didn’t want to give anyone the evil eye, after all.
‘I suppose he likes me a little more than he likes his stepmother. I spoke to him over the phone. He said he hadn’t seen her properly.’ Bilal shook his head. ‘We can guess what that means.’
‘Tst, tst. No-one can replace a real mother,’ she offered.
‘No,’ said Bilal, softly. He stared at her for a moment. ‘Come to the living room when you’re ready. I have some news.’
As he left, Rukhsana wished Sakeena was there to tell Bilal that she wanted to stay in her room, think about her life and pray to Allah, not go to this park shark. She touched her gold necklace with Allah written on it. He, after all, was a constant; a person could lose everything, but He would still be there, a presence unseen but always felt.
Rukhsana had lived so long in Sakeena’s shadow, she mistook herself for one. What she hadn’t yet realised was that shadows were a reminder that we’re still alive.
‘What?’ Mariam asked, folding her trembling hands under her arms.
They’d sat at the table for their Thai green curry as Mariam had tried to keep her smile intact after her conversation with Saif. And then her husband declared that he’d announced to the village he wanted to build a mosque. Bilal gave a minute-by-minute account of what happened as he looked at her and Haaris with barely suppressed enthusiasm, before his gaze rested on Khala. ‘I did it.’
‘Why has it taken you two days to tell me?’ Mariam demanded, almost knocking over her plate of food.
Bilal paused. ‘You seemed preoccupied.’
Stay in the moment. Feel the sensation of the dry chicken struggling down your throat as you try to wash it down with cold water.
With Khala Rukhsana around all the time, Mariam had been feeling on edge – of what, she didn’t want to inspect – and unable to concentrate on her mindfulness videos. The result was increased irritability.
Khala looked between the two, as if trying to translate each word. Bilal repeated himself in Punjabi.
‘Beta!’ she exclaimed with excitement. ‘You’re fulfilling your ammi’s wish.’
He smiled with satisfaction. Mariam tapped her fingers on the table, causing his smile to falter.
‘Anne was there,’ he said. ‘She asked about you.’
Mariam took a long sip of water. ‘How is she?’
‘I told her you’ve been meaning to come and see her.’
For once Mariam had a reasonable distraction from the gnawing feeling of guilt, coupled with the self-knowledge of having failed as a friend.
‘How will this even work?’ she said, glancing at Haaris, who was looking intently at Bilal. ‘Firstly, you’ll have to prove there are enough Muslims around to actually need a mosque.’
‘I know.’
‘They’re literally all in this room.’
She noticed him swallow hard.
‘Then there’s a question of where.’
‘Of course,’ he replied.
‘Oh, beta, I’m so happy.’ Khala Rukhsana beamed as she pulled out her rosary beads and began reciting Allah hu Akbar.
‘Of course?’ Mariam repeated, incredulous. ‘So, where?’
She knew when Bilal didn’t have an answer. Was love simply knowing someone? Mariam shook the question from her mind – this wasn’t the time for emotional analysis.
Bilal looked at Haaris. ‘You think it’s a good idea, don’t you?’
Haaris shrugged. ‘Will we pray in it?’
‘Of course not,’ said Mariam. ‘It’s never going to happen.’
‘Why not?’ said Bilal.
It was that bloody grave. It had made him emotional and he didn’t understand how this would change things. Didn’t they have enough change with Saif now back in Haaris’s life?
‘You know,’ added Haaris, ‘if the architecture reflected both British and Islamic identity, that’d be pretty cool.’
Khala Rukhsana leaned forward. ‘Hain?’
‘Yes,’ Bilal said, considering this. ‘You’re a clever boy.’
‘I’ve got chest hair now. I’m a man.’
‘For God’s sake,’ interrupted Mariam.
How could Haaris know what this could mean for him? She looked at him – a combination of pride and uncertainty swelling inside her.
‘They’re all details to be worked out,’ said Bilal. ‘I know, I know,’ he continued as soon as Mariam opened her mouth. ‘But this is right. I feel it.’
‘We have enough to worry about, you know.’
‘Like what?’ Bilal asked.
‘Would Sam be able to come to the mosque?’ asked Haaris.
Mariam raised her eyebrows, waiting for Bilal to answer.
‘Why not?’ said Bilal, unsure. ‘Though strictly speaking, he’s not Muslim … but that doesn’t matter. Does it?’ he asked, looking at Mariam’s stony face.
Just then, and to Bilal’s evident relief, the doorbell rang. Mariam went to open it and Margaret strode past her, into the kitchen.
‘It’s outrageous,’ she exclaimed, putting her hands on her hips as she looked at everyone around the kitchen island. ‘The whole village acting as if this is one imam short of a catastrophe.’
She shook Khala Rukhsana’s hands vigorously and complimented her on her shalwar kameez. Mariam translated as Khala smiled uncertainly, probably because they were the same clothes she’d slept in.
‘I’d love one of those. So elegant,’ said Margaret.
Mariam paused as Margaret looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to translate.
‘Khala, the buddi thinks your shalwar kameez
is nice,’ said Mariam.
‘Tell her I’ll sew her one,’ replied Khala.
Mariam had to take a deep breath. ‘Margaret,’ she said, not without a little exasperation. ‘She’ll sew you one.’
‘How heavenly.’
Margaret smiled so keenly her wrinkled jowls tightened momentarily. Mariam glanced at Bilal, feeling they were getting rather side-tracked.
‘How can we help?’ Mariam tried to add a smile to her question. She was keen on always trying, at least.
‘That god-awful meeting last night was an abomination,’ said Margaret. She looked at Haaris and nodded. ‘Young man.’
‘Thank you, Margaret—’ started Bilal.
‘We can understand people being wary,’ interrupted Mariam.
‘Don’t. You. Dare,’ said Bilal, jabbing his finger at Mariam, repeating Mr Pankhurst’s outburst. ‘That’s more than wary.’
She couldn’t lie: hearing Mr Pankhurst’s reaction roused something in Mariam, which she promptly quashed in order to stay focused.
Margaret’s nose twitched. ‘I never took you for an apologist.’
‘We’re not apologising,’ added Mariam. ‘Just that we can see how they might be—’
‘Racist!’ exclaimed Margaret.
Haaris got up and put his plate in the sink. What was he thinking? Did he care? Was he going to prefer staying with Saif now that he was acting like an actual father?
‘Is she angry about the mosque?’ asked Khala.
‘No. She’s angry that other people are angry,’ explained Mariam.
Khala nodded. ‘White people don’t like us, I think. But your ammi is your ammi.’
‘Sorry for my incompetence, but who’s Khala?’ asked Margaret.
Mariam and Bilal both pointed to Khala Rukhsana. Margaret nodded.
‘Mrs Pankhurst called me to say she was not pleased with the meeting,’ she added.
A flicker of relief came over Bilal’s face before it drooped, and that earnest look which he seemed to have acquired only after they got married took hold. ‘You should’ve seen the way they looked at me. As if they didn’t know me at all.’
‘If Giles were alive, he’d be incandescent with rage,’ said Margaret, folding her thin arms.
Bilal’s smile faltered. They both knew that Margaret’s late husband, Giles, was barely able to remember his name towards the end of his life, let alone form an opinion on the latest social backlash in Babbel’s End.
Haaris rinsed his plate and put it in the dishwasher. ‘That’s a good word, Mrs Filibert.’
‘Use it well, my dear,’ she replied.
‘Why don’t you go and do your homework?’ said Mariam to Haaris.
‘Why?’ he whined.
‘Because I asked.’
‘But I want to know what happens.’
Mariam raised her eyebrows as he exhaled loudly and left the room, her gaze following him, her nerves trembling.
‘We won’t take this lying down, Bill,’ added Margaret. ‘I’ve come to show my solidarity and whatever you need from me to help build this mosque. It’ll be the village treasure, one day.’
‘You know there aren’t enough Muslims,’ he replied.
Margaret scanned the room and seemed to understand the problem. ‘I’ll sign up as one. I’ll start a petition to convert people.’
Mariam massaged her brow, remembering that she still had an article to file about another latrine being abandoned in the lay-by. She sighed at the inconsequentiality of a forsaken latrine in the face of cultural upheaval. Or cultural evolution, depending on how you looked at it. ‘I don’t think that’s the answer, Margaret.’
‘This world,’ said Margaret. ‘Always quantity over quality.’
‘Though we’re very grateful,’ added Bilal. ‘What we need is land.’
‘Hmmm,’ responded Margaret. She glanced at Khala Rukhsana. ‘I feel rather rude speaking in English when your aunt can’t understand.’
She gave Khala an emphatic smile. Khala did the same, between her whispered Allah hu Akbars.
‘Shelley Hawking won’t get the better of us,’ said Margaret. ‘You mark my words.’
With that, Margaret gave everyone a nod and whisked herself out of their home.
‘See what you’ve started?’ said Mariam to Bilal.
‘It is bad?’ asked Khala.
Bilal looked uncertain. Even if the mosque had been his own idea, Mariam couldn’t support it. She thought of Haaris in his school of a hundred and twenty pupils, one of whom was Korean and the other Irish, joining Haaris in the ranks of the exotic. Mariam felt perfectly comfortable with compromising principle for the sake of ease. She had experienced enough difficulties not to want to pass any on to her son.
‘Yes, Khala,’ Mariam replied. ‘It’s bad.’
‘We can turn it into something good,’ replied Bilal. ‘There must be more Muslims nearby.’ He paused. ‘Mustn’t there?’
Mariam considered the pigmentation of her skin. Muslims came in all shapes and colours but something beyond her power was dictating the turn their life was taking and this lack of control felt both absurd and – as with most absurd things – acutely true.
‘Wasn’t that part of the point when we moved?’ said Mariam. ‘That we’d be the only brown people in the village. No interfering aunties, judgemental uncles?’
She detected a faint blush rise in Bilal’s cheeks.
‘Of course not,’ replied Bilal. ‘I mean, yes, it had its advantages, but we’re not self-hating Pakistanis, are we?’
Mariam didn’t think it was as dense as self-hatred, more a sprinkling of distaste. Like catching a whiff of a rotten egg and wondering where it was coming from. Hard to detect, but far more apt to linger.
‘What is “self-hating”?’ asked Khala.
She’d almost forgotten Khala was still there. ‘Don’t worry.’
Bilal looked increasingly helpless. Mariam didn’t enjoy it, but she had to strike before the metaphorical iron lost its ability to burn. She took out her phone and Googled ‘land for sale in Babbel’s End’. It was just as she’d thought. ‘I didn’t realise we had a spare eight-hundred-thousand odd pounds.’
She put the phone in Bilal’s face as he looked at the only two listings on the page. One of the pieces of land lay adjacent to the ruined pre-Reformation chapel in the woods. Mariam and Bilal would take Haaris there when he was younger for their walks, letting him leave an offering of boiled sweets at Jesus’s altar. The other was a field behind St Swithun’s church.
Bilal clenched his jaw. ‘I didn’t say I had it all worked out.’
‘You don’t have any of it worked out. And you didn’t even think to speak to me about it.’
Mariam wasn’t sure if he was silent because he had no retort, or because he was brimming with too much emotion. She wished he’d just tell her what an unsupportive wife she was, so she could reply that she’d pay the price for the sake of her son. A prickling of guilt surfaced again as Mariam thought of Anne – she always did when worrying about Haaris.
Mariam recalled the look she’d see in Teddy’s eyes when she used to ask him how he was. Sometimes she tried to detect anything similar in either Haaris’s looks or behaviour – you had to learn from tragedy, after all. Khala’s own eyes were on Mariam now. They so often were that Mariam ungenerously wondered again when Khala would be taking her gaze back to Birmingham.
She tried to level her voice, lowering it in case Haaris heard. ‘And you know Saif just told me that this isn’t enough for him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He says he wants Haaris to be more in touch with his culture.’
Bilal scoffed. ‘He’s an earnest dad now, is he? I suppose for him Birmingham is the hub of culture.’
Mariam paused. She’d said exactly the same thing to Saif, but her prejudice shouldn’t affect Haaris’s happiness. That was the general rule, surely.
‘So? What’d he propose?’ asked Bilal.
‘He
wants Haaris for the coming half-term.’
She left out the specifics of how he’d said it.
‘You can give that to me, can’t you, Mariam?’ His voice lowered, and he leaned in closer, increasing the flow of blood to her heart. She’d noticed the change in him – the new beard, the tiredness in his eyes that sometimes looked like remorse – and she felt a rush of affection, for which she naturally hated herself. ‘He said himself he’d like more time with me,’ he’d added.
‘When?’ she’d asked.
Saif had paused. ‘I’ve missed him, yaar. I’ve got so much making up to do. And he should know more about our faith and culture, no?’ He’d paused with a knowing smile. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll teach him all the classics too.’
Mariam wouldn’t be taken in by it.
‘What about just being a decent human being?’ she’d replied, steadying herself. ‘Like keeping promises?’
She couldn’t help it. The sight of his beard, this growing religiosity, his sombre, thoughtful manner irked her.
He’d nodded and took a deep breath. ‘I hope I’m becoming a better person.’ She’d clenched her fists in her folded arms. ‘Right.’
Bile rose to her throat but she refused to ask herself why he’d almost touched her hand. She should be glad that Saif was becoming an active father. Instead Mariam felt something slipping away. What if half-terms turned into longer holidays? What if Haaris realised he preferred his father to his mother – and his stepmother became an increasing influence? She turned around, gathering all the plates and putting them in the sink.
‘Are we going to the park?’ asked Khala gently.
Bilal looked between the two women. ‘Some fresh air would be good, I think.’
Fresh air felt frivolous when the kitchen cupboards needed organising. And then there was her exercise. The story she had to send Jenny. Shouldn’t she instead look through old photos of Haaris when he was a baby and she was a single mother? And then learn to un-love the man who leaned in towards her only when he wanted to take her son further away? She took a deep breath and thought of Anne. Be grateful that you still have a son. It was a shame when guilt and gratitude had to go hand-in-hand.
‘No,’ said Mariam. ‘We’re not going to the park.’
