They sat on the swings, just the two of them because the park was empty and it was winter. Nikolae made patterns in the sand with his heel and Zareen watched the cars roar past through the gaps in the hedge. She saw flashes of red and then blue. It had never occurred to her before, but she found herself speaking aloud. ‘No one has yellow cars, or green.’
‘Sometimes,’ Nikolae corrected her. ‘You live with your dad?’ he asked. She stopped swinging for a moment and looked serious.
‘Yes. Mum, dad and brother.’
‘You like?’
It was a simple question, but one which made her voice falter and split.
‘Erm, well, I want to go to university and...’ She thought for a moment, but remained wordless, her eyes focussed on a bird plucking a worm from the damp ground.
‘You is clever?’
Zareen hesitated. ‘Do you always ask so many questions?’
‘Sorry, English is very bad.’
‘No, it’s fine. I want to go to university but I’m not allowed.’
Nikolae stared at her, waiting for more. ‘Why?’
Zareen bit a finger nail. ‘In my culture we have to respect our parents and their wishes. I have to get married.’
‘You have boyfriend?’
‘No.’
‘So, who you marrying?
‘I don’t know.’
Nikolae pulled a face. ‘That no good. Marry someone you don’t know?’
‘I have to. It’s what my parents want.’
Nikolae looked serious. ‘Your mother wants you to marry someone?’
Zareen laughed. ‘Not just anyone. It has to be someone my family chooses.’
Nikolae shook his head and breathed out loud. ‘I come to UK because my father said it is better life. Now these things I am hearing tells me parents can be wrong. Life here is hard.’
‘I can’t think about it. I block it out. There are no choices for people like me.’
Nikolae bowed his head. ‘In Romania life is hard too. In my village we have nothing, but people choose who to love.’
‘So, do you live with your mum and dad too?’
‘My mother die, long time ago. Now, I listen to my father, do what my father want, sell metal.’ He paused. ‘I no want to sell metal, I want proper job.’
‘What’s stopping you?’
Nikolae nodded. ‘Father. Have to do as father say.’
Zareen sighed . ‘You are no more free than me.’ She got off the swing and sat on the roundabout. Nikolae followed her.
‘My father said that one day the Romanians will come and steal the metal in this park. He said that the children will come to play and there will just be grass, no toys.’
Nikolae frowned so hard the skin above his nose was pinched together. His cheeks were stained red. Zareen continued. ‘The slide is aluminium. Worth money, yes?’
‘No one will steal your park,’ he said, quickly. ‘That ridiculous.’
Zareen hunched her shoulders. ‘Maybe.’
‘Not all Romanians steal.’
What the girl was saying worried him, affected him. To be called everything that was bad made him angry. ‘Most Romanian people are honest and most Asian people are honest.’ Zareen wasn’t listening.
‘You push’ she shouted and he spun her round and watched her scarf waving and flapping in the wind like a banner.
‘Get on!’ she cried. He jumped onto the wooden seat in front of her, saw her teeth shining white and then she was calling him to push again, this time faster. He got off, his head dizzy and hot. When the roundabout stopped Zareen watched the world spinning around her. Disorientated, out of control, she could see the blurred shape of Nikolae in front of her and when he took her hand she wasn’t sure if she was on the ground or the roundabout itself. The only thing she could be sure of was that the Romanian was holding her hand and she didn’t want him to let go. Slowly the world returned to view. He stood before her, so close she could see his chest moving and feel his breath on her face. She stood still, full of nerves and knowing. Knowing that something passed between them in those seconds made her feel nervous, excited and dizzy. But then Nikolae let go and suddenly looked afraid. He pulled out his phone.
‘Phone number?’ he said. ‘Need number.’
As Zareen said the numbers, he looked down the path towards the slide. He blinked and heard the sound of his own breathing. Rapid, then slow, then rapid again, his heart was pounding in his chest. There was a small girl dressed in pink climbing the ladder. He saw her from the back, her plait swinging. She was shouting something in Urdu and racing to the top.
‘You are sweating. What’s the matter?’ Zareen touched his arm. ‘Is something wrong?’
He didn’t answer, wiped the sweat with the back of his hand and continued to observe the girl. Then he said he had to go. He wondered about God and praying. Maybe he could find a church. He had wanted to kiss Zareen but how could he. The girl Amna was always there. Between them. Watching them.
Chapter Five
Red gold. That was the name Andrei and the others gave to the copper they stole. Most of it came from derelict houses and empty yards. They could get three pounds in English money for a kilo. ‘Precious metal,’ Dragos said, holding up a twisted piece of copper pipe caked in paint. ‘Old lady just give it me. She told me to take it all away. A good day, eh?’
Nikolae nodded and continued to check his phone. He was thinking about Zareen, about the day at the park. The smell of curry drifted through the kitchen window and he closed it shut.
‘We need help tonight,’ Dragos announced.
‘I put rubbish out,’ Nikolae said. He went out into the cramped yard and peered over the wall. Green moss erupted from a crack in the yard wall and he could see burst bin bags in the road, the remnants of last night’s pizza on the ground. He opened the gate, stooped down and collected a stray crisp packet. Dragos was behind him. ‘You think people would clean this shit up,’ Dragos said. ‘Some people lives like animals.’
Together they threw the bags in the empty bins and squashed them down.
‘Come inside.’ Dragos guided Nikolae back into the kitchen. ‘What’s the matter with you? Like you not here. Everything will be all right.’
His son nodded.
‘You thinking about that business?’
Dragos always referred to the dead girl as ‘that business’, as if he couldn’t bring himself to say the words.
‘No,’ Nikolae said, scratching his head. ‘What you think about arranged marriage?’
Dragos scooped some toast crumbs from the worktop in his hand. ‘Ah, the Asians. I don’t know. If it’s their way and the girl is happy, then that’s OK.’ He looked confused for a moment.
‘What if the girl not happy?’
Dragos stood motionless. ‘Then, that’s bad. Freedom. Freedom of choice for everyone in England.’ He turned towards the sink and placed the crumbs in a bag. ‘Why you asking me?’
‘I know someone who will marry like this.’
‘How you know her?’
‘Works in a shop.’
Nikolae shuffled his feet. Dragos looked at him. He seemed satisfied with the answer. ‘Well, keep away from her. Don’t get involved. It’s their business. And anyway you need to come with us tonight. Don’t be thinking about girls, especially Asian ones. The Asians hate us.’
‘You say the English hate us.’
Dragos laughed. ‘This is England Nikolae. Here everyone hates everyone. In the newspaper every day.’
‘This, I don’t like. This hate.’
‘You are soft boy. Now you are telling me you like this girl?’
Silence filled the room. There was just the sound of the tap dripping. Then Dragos spoke and Nikolae sensed the anger in his voice. ‘Go, get some dark clothes on, there is a big job to be done.
No more wasting time.’
Tape flapped on the truck window. Again the window was stuck and the tape hadn’t worked. Nikolae placed his hand over the gap to stop the wind lashing and biting his face. He was glad when the truck stopped.
They met the others at the bottom of the hill. There was Andrei and his two sons, both of them tall and thin, legs straight as pipes. They stood smoking in front of Andrei’s truck. Nikolae remembered they were twenty and twenty four and the older of the brothers worked in a factory in town packing plastic. He wondered why Andrei’s son was on the metal trail given that he had a job, but Andrei said the wages were poor, that the boss paid cash in hand. Less than the minimum wage. Not even half the minimum wage, he said, and all the staff were Lithuanian, Polish and Romanian. Today was a good day for collecting metal, Andrei said. For a change there was no rain.
It was agreed. They would avoid the main road and drive to the abandoned hospital via a dirt track which brought them out towards the back of the building. Andrei had researched the place carefully using Google Earth. Moorview had once been a mental asylum, but now its only inhabitants were a colony of bats. On Google, Andrei had seen photos of the building as it had once been and some in its dilapidated state. He’d been sure to check the dirt tracks, all the routes in and out. He gave Nikolae a map. ‘Just in case police come and you need to get out.’ Nikolae tucked the map in his inside pocket.
They got in the trucks and drove up a steep lane, never going above first gear, the wheels jolting on stone, trees tapping on the window. At one point Dragos stopped, unsure if the truck could climb the gradient. Nikolae got out and kicked a rock free. Soon they were on the move again. ‘Easier to come down,’ Dragos said through gritted teeth. Nikolae looked at his phone. He was thinking about Zareen and considered sending her a message. He put the phone away and decided he would call her tomorrow.
At the top of the hill they saw the hospital looming over them. Windows on the ground floor were boarded up. Dozens of windows. ‘Must have been a lot of fucking mad people to need a hospital this big,’ Dragos said. Nikolae got out and shivered. He shone a torch up high and saw a tower at the side of the building. Such a waste he thought, to have a building like this and for it not to be used. But the others were talking about boilers and digging for cables. Andrei had the generator, a saw and a large crow bar to unfasten the door. They would saw the cable off and burn it there. It was an ideal place. Deserted. Empty.
‘You make the fire.’ Andrei was stood over him, a torch flashing bright. ‘We get the cable and you burn it. Burn cover off cable. Understand?’
‘Yes.’ Nikolae nodded. ‘But what if someone see smoke?’
‘Do it. No one will see.’ Andrei waved his arms. There were red roses tattooed on his right arm with dark green stems spiralling down his wrist. He was a large man with a large face and rarely smiled. ‘Do you see any houses? Do you see any people? What fucking mad people come here?’ Maybe he was joking but no one laughed and no one replied. The others looked on. Andrei directed the torch onto the gigantic building. The bricks flashed red. ‘Scary place, eh?’ He pointed to the truck. Nikolae noticed a dent in the side. ‘Bring the saw. You can do the fire later.’ Nikolae and the others followed him in.
‘Have a look round, Nikolae. Find boiler, anything, come and tell me.’ Under his feet Nikolae felt a wooden floorboard dip and bow. Their talk carried around the empty rooms, echoed and returned to them like the voices of ghosts. There were ceramic sinks still bolted to the walls, some cracked and damaged, others hanging off where others had tried to steal them away. Nikolae pointed at the metal taps and Dragos fetched the tools.
‘This place give me creeps,’ Nikolae said.
‘Every place gives you the creeps,’ Dragos retorted, a roll up cigarette dangling from his mouth. He changed his mind about the joke and carried on with his work, intent on unscrewing the ancient taps.
Everywhere there was evidence that people had slept here at some time; abandoned cans of lager, candles and blankets strewn around the room. And a shoe, turned on its side, a man’s shoe, the lace missing. All the time the sound of water dripping filled their ears but none of them could see the water in the dark.
Nikolae looked around, half expecting someone to appear. Just he and Dragos stayed in the one room. The others were looking for the cellar. That’s where the red gold lay. Pipes and cables, Andrei said, ‘like gold spaghetti running everywhere.’
When Andrei appeared again he was calling for the generator. There was so much metal they would take the taps, maybe come back for a second or third time. The cellar was under the kitchen and they had found a door. There were rooms under the whole hospital. ‘It’s a gold mine,’ Andrei said. ‘A fucking gold mine.’
The generator was heavy and it took three of them to carry it down the stone cellar steps. Dragos pulled the cord and they all started at the sound of the engine revving. They listened to the roaring engine. ‘Fuck,’ Nikolae said. ‘That too loud.’
‘Lucky no one around for miles,’ one of the brothers said, covering his ears. The smell of diesel was strong and pungent. Nikolae’s throat burned. Dragos plugged in the halogen lamp. White light like the moon, Nikolae thought. They could see now. They took it all in. Cellar walls, speckled black and crawling with moss. Rusty orange water swimming down a gulley in the ground. Tiles hanging crooked and flaky paint. But it was the smell of earth that permeated the air that bothered Nikolae the most. He looked up. The ceiling was low, so low he reached up with his hand and touched a crack. Black soot on his hand, or was it dirt he couldn’t tell. He wondered how safe it was in the bowels of this awful place. ‘What we do now?’ he said.
Andrei had wandered down the narrow room to the far end. ‘Like a tunnel,’ he said. ‘We like rats in a tunnel.’ But then he was laughing. He had found a metal tank. The boys could free the tank. He placed his hand on a cable that was strapped to the side of the wall. It stretched on forever. He tugged it hard. Plaster split and crumbled as he pulled the cable away. It was impossible to know where the cable started and where it ended. Dragos cut the first cable down and it bounced and reared up like a snake before spiralling on the ground dead.
Together they cheered. As instructed, Nikolae took the cable up the cellar stairs to burn. He built a fire in a well of bricks. Carefully, he tipped in a bag of sticks and straw, some pet bedding that Dragos had found in a skip. The flames jumped and sparked, the sticks spitting angry and hot. He looped the cable round his arm, held it together and pushed it in with a metal rod. Through a hole in the roof he could see stars and in the distance the rumble of a drill, or a saw could be heard. Eyes watering, he stepped back and watched the cable catch light. But he wasn’t prepared for the smell that gripped his chest. Toxic. He remembered there was a mask in the bag. Coughing and spluttering, he spat on the ground. It was then he heard his name. Outside there was a commotion. He turned the torch up on full. The others appeared carrying Andrei by the arms and legs. They lowered him on the ground. He lay there totally still, his eyes bulging up at the starry sky. The eldest son was smacking his cheeks, trying to listen for a pulse.
‘Where the fucking hospital? Where? Oh my God. Not breathing.’ Dragos was in a panic. ‘Big fucking flash. Nikolae! We need to take him to hospital. NOW.’
He couldn’t explain how, or why, but Nikolae ran and knelt down. He pounded Andrei’s chest. It was something he’d seen on a TV programme. Soon Andrei was breathing. He was sure of it. ‘Get him in truck.’ He saw Andrei’s hands blistered shiny red. ‘I drive.’
He drove quicker than ever before. Dragos held Andrei’s head still. There was no time to argue. They left the others to clear the evidence away. At the hospital Nikolae said ‘electric burn’. That was all.
Two hours later they were all at Andrei’s bedside. His hands were bandaged. Andrei sipped some water through a straw while his son held the glass still.
‘I need t
o know,’ Andrei mumbled.
‘Best not to speak,’ Dragos replied, touching his friend’s arm. ‘No metal is worth this.’
‘Doctor say I’m lucky to be alive,’ Andrei said, his voice rasping. He gestured for more water and tilted his head towards the plastic straw. Exhausted he lay back and stared at the ceiling, the hot hospital lights blinding him.
His voice was feint. ‘How much metal we get my friends? How much?’
Chapter Six
COOKING IN THE kitchen together was a good time to talk. Zareen watched her mother fry the onion and garlic ready for the biryani. She seized the moment and asked, ‘Love marriages. Do you think they are bad?’ Marika turned the stove down and thought for a moment. ‘Love doesn’t always last, Zareen. There is more to marriage than love.’ It was the answer Zareen had expected and she regretted asking the question.
‘What would happen if I loved someone else?’
Marika frowned. ‘Like who?’
‘Like someone not from our culture.’
‘You know what would happen,’ said Marika, turning the stove up so high the fat spat in Zareen’s eye. ‘You would be judged.’
‘Judged by you?’
‘It is for you to live with any decision that you make.’
Zareen struggled to stay calm. ‘So, there is no choice.’
Her mother’s arm was around her. ‘Zareen. Trust us to find you someone who will make you happy. Trust us.’
Her father appeared in the doorway. He had heard the discussion. Zareen washed the dishes and turned towards the window. ‘Zareen, come in the front room. Leave that. We need to talk about the future.’
Precious Metal Page 3
