by Sara Alexi
Aaman was so proud of her when she suggested that they call their daughter Juliet. She might not have met her daughter’s namesake but that woman saved Aaman on his ‘adventure’. Calling her daughter after this person was the very least reverence that was due. It was also a way to remind herself every day, by using Juliet’s name, of the situation she had pushed Aaman into: a reminder of all she owes him. She is not sure who first shortened it to Jay. It might have been Aaman’s mother. It might have been herself on one of the days when it all became too much.
He is staring at her, a look of concern.
‘You look very smart in your coat.’ She releases his hands and smooths the lapels of the winter overcoat he bought in his lunch break yesterday. ‘Very English,’ she adds. Aaman picks up his umbrella and tucks it under his arm, and parades stiffly around the room. She laughs and Aaman looks pleased. ‘Do you know what time you will be home tonight?’ Her laughter fades. He has the excitement of the job, a role to play, like-minded people to talk to. She will be sitting here alone, no auntie in the next house, no cousins opposite her. Her family are half a world away. What will they be doing right now? Coming in after a morning of work, chatting and drinking tea in the shade to avoid the direct sun.
‘Do not be sad, Saabira. I will come home as soon as I can. I do not know the bus times yet, but I am sure as the week goes on both our lives will become smoother.’ He puts the umbrella by the door so he does not forget it and returns to her. ‘We must think of it as an adventure. We may not have family here but we will make new friends. There are more people out there like Juliet, who helped me.’ And he kisses her with such tenderness that it brings tears to her eyes. As he pulls away she covers her face with her silk shawl and he smiles as if she were teasing him, and all the suffering of their lives dissolves and there is only their love.
It is his love for her that makes her feel strong, and in that moment she decides all over again that she will do everything in her power to help Aaman in this new country and maybe, just maybe, she will even find a role for herself. Motherhood is paramount now, but what an intellectually rich world England is. It is all there waiting for her, for when she feels ready to spread her wings outside of the home. She has even heard that there is no discrimination here, that she would have a chance equal to a man’s if she decided to take a job.
But for now, she will cook her love his favourite meals, make this house into a home and take good care of Jay. She waves from the doorstep and he walks down the road to the bus stop, his umbrella up.
Chapter 9
The cages in the backyard are all full again, the fluffy bright-eyed rabbits jostling for space. He should release a lot of them before the smaller ones’ bellies begin to bulge and he is into a new cycle of pregnant females.
He picks one of the rabbits from its cage on the top row and feels its belly. ‘Okay, you can go, you’re big enough and strong enough now, and’ – he feels another rabbit’s soft white underfur – ‘you’re not pregnant, so go!’ He lowers the startled creatures over the garden wall. Their paws scrabble in mid-air, but after Cyril has let them go they just sit there, startled by the vastness of no cage, until first one and then the other takes one small hop, and then they run in different directions, at full pelt, disappearing into the bracken. He watches the dark spaces in the undergrowth where they disappeared. He won’t see them again.
‘Okay. It’s okay,’ He tells himself. ‘They are happy and well and free. So who else can go? You, and you.’ He takes two more and closes the door of the hutch with his knee. As he releases them he keeps one eye on the billowing, fast-moving grey clouds that roll over the heather-covered landscape, a blanket of softness. But he is not looking at the weather. Black circling dots can arrive at any time. The kestrels haunt the area, looking for dinner. A small rabbit would be easy prey. The first rabbit he found had been mauled by their talons but was still alive. It was a kindness to take it in and care for it. The second one came from a trap, and was in a much worse state. The two shared one cage in his backyard. But then, with no warning, one of them was full in her belly before the wounds were even healed. The other must have been a daddy rabbit so he let him go. He cared for the mummy until the babies came, all thirteen of them, and he could not let her go whilst she was still feeding her young. Then another wounded rabbit came his way, looking like a dog had played with it. So he took that in and cared for it too, tended its wounds with warm water and cotton wool; he didn’t think that one would recover, and despite his care it didn’t. But in the meantime the first rabbit babies had grown and he had lost track of who was who, and now some of them were pregnant. These he kept back to nurse in safety whilst he released others, but there always seemed to be more pregnant females and now there is just round after round of trying to release the babies after they are strong enough but before they are pregnant.
‘You can go, and you.’ He releases two more. Coco comes out to see what he is doing, followed by Sabi, who makes a dart at one of the cages.
‘No, Sabi, they’re not for eating.’ He smacks at the dog’s nose, intentionally missing. ‘Zaza,’ he calls, and the wiry-haired hound snakes around the furniture to slink out of the back door. ‘It’s okay, Zaza, you come here. Go next to the cages – there, sit. Now Sabi will keep her distance.’
A black dog with short legs and a big body pokes its nose out of the back door, but on seeing the other dogs near Cyril it does what it always does – shuffles backward and disappears. ‘Come on, Blackie Boo,’ he calls, but he knows the dog will not come. He releases more of the rabbits and watches them tear off across the moors. He wrinkles his nose and pushes his glasses up with one finger.
‘How are you doing, Flop?’ He addresses a big grey rabbit that takes up most of the lower cage nearest to the back door. He has had Flop the longest now, and somehow this rabbit has become a favourite. Flop eats any leftovers that the dogs do not want. Its eyes are sunk into puffy cheeks, ears slick against its back. If it was not for the twitching nose Cyril would wonder if it was still alive, it moves so little; but then Flop is very greedy and very fat. ‘Whole cage to yourself. You live like a king.’ But the dull-eyed creature makes no movement; just its whiskers shiver with the twitching of its nose.
Zaza barks and this starts Coco off. Sabi growls and inside he can see all the other dogs shifting, moving, burying themselves deeper between furniture or coming forward growling, ready to fight.
‘What is it?’ he asks Coco. But the dog relaxes and the others follow her lead. ‘Did you hear something, girl?’ he asks, but she has settled down again. Cyril considers taking the few rabbits left in the top cage nearest the back gate and putting them in with Flop. He doesn’t know how Flop will react but it will give him a chance to repair and clean the cage. The baking tray that makes up the back of it is coming away from one of the wooden sides.
Coco stands, nose to the moors, alert again.
‘Hello,’ comes a voice.
He recognises her from yesterday. In a panic he tries to push all the dogs back inside, close up the rabbit cages, go indoors before she comes any closer.
‘Hello.’ She steps past the tall stack of cages, on the moor path from the direction of her own backyard. ‘I am Saabira. We met yesterday?’
Coco is motionless; the other dogs sink and retreat. The scuffling in the cages stops. Nothing moves besides the wind from the moor lifting and dropping the bits of ragged tar paper that cover the tops of the rabbit hutches.
Cyril turns on one foot, ready to run, but he is mesmerised. Today she is wearing mustard-coloured trousers and scarf and a green tunic top. There are sequins sewn into the hem of her trouser legs and along the scarf’s edge. They twinkle at him and he wants to touch them.
‘I have brought you something. I hope you do not mind. I was making experiments with the stove and now I have too much food.’
From a dish in her hands comes the most inviting smell as she lifts a corner of the silver foil. He is not going to be able
to resist but he cannot invite her in.
Chapter 10
‘I – er…’ he begins, but words elude him. The sequins on her scarf are shining so brightly they are like captured stars, blindingly brilliant like the sun must be above the clouds, where everything is golden. He closes his eyes – the light filling his vision, the sequins expanding their prism – and tumbles along the colours and floats along paths of multicoloured rivers that run between glistening clouds and mists of gold and silver and bronze. The air begins to fill with hums and murmurs, with the sounds of wonderful tunes that are too beautiful for most people’s ears, but he can hear them, and it is as if he is dancing, spinning, whirling, until he is dizzy, until the colours in his mind dissolve and he dissolves and fragments of him are in the clouds and the rivers of colour and even in the songs.
‘Cyril?’ Saabira’s voice is musical, like the songs. She does not enter his gate. He blinks a few times, recognises where he is, braces his arm across the back door, to present a barrier. She takes a step back. ‘Cyril?’ she repeats, a look of concern on her face. She retracts the arm that was holding out the food towards him.
‘What?’ he manages as the clouds of colour beneath his feet turn back to rabbit and dog faeces.
‘Perhaps if I put the dishes on the little table outside, at the back of my house, where there is a bit more room, you can come if you feel hungry?’
He looks at his hands, stained and smeared with dirt.
‘The dishes can just wait for you,’ she says and with these words she turns to leave. Cyril stares after her, relieved, but also disappointed that she is gone. He checks the latches on the cages and herds the dogs back inside. His stomach grumbles with hunger. He has an open tin of beans somewhere in the kitchen, from yesterday.
But as he steps inside and begins to close the door, the smells of her cooking drift to him again.
‘Any time!’ she calls, unseen, and the sound of her own door shutting eases the tension out of his shoulders. The smells are beckoning, like the sound of her voice. He looks at his hands and with sudden and exciting spontaneity he runs them under the kitchen tap, wipes them down his tank top and hurries out to the source of the temptation.
Her backyard has nothing in it besides a table and chairs, and it seems startlingly large and very tidy and clean. Her back door is closed. There is no sign of her but on the smooth wooden table is laid one plate and a steel bowl of something that smells amazing, and next to it in a glass dish there are what appear to be a stack of pancakes, neatly folded.
He waits at the boundary between the houses for her to come out, like a mouse sniffing the cheese in a trap, and with every minute that passes the aromas pull him a step closer. He hovers, touching the very edge of the table, wondering if he can take the plates back to his house, eat sitting on his bed. But there is too much to carry and it is laid out so beautifully. A shiny ceramic plate, a knife and fork, a sparkling glass of water and a jug containing more. The food itself steams in separate dishes, the aroma of spices and herbs drifting to him until he can no longer stand it, so he sits with a heavy thump, grabs the fork and eats straight from the stainless steel dish.
The flavours cause his eyes to roll back in his head. He never imagined that food could taste so good. His hunger pushes him to fork more into his mouth than he can manage but he also wants to savour, relish each morsel. It takes great effort to slow down. His picks up the glass dish and sniffs the pancakes. They are warm but they have no smell. Tearing a tiny piece off, he samples the unknown and is pleasantly delighted to find it is like bread, but delicately flavoured. Without unfolding the pancake-bread he tears off a hunk and gnaws on it between forkfuls of the mixture from the stainless steel bowl.
Both dishes are nearly finished when he realises his plate is still clean. She will think him an animal for not using it. With a quick glance at the back of her house he scrapes what little there is left of the flavoursome food onto the plate and wipes it round with the remains of the pancake before stuffing the flavoured bread into his mouth. If he leaves his knife and fork on the plate as well, as he has been taught, the two together, neatly, she will think he used everything in the correct way, that he has manners.
His stomach groans against his trousers. Leaning back, he undoes the top button. The braces beneath his tank top will keep them from falling down.
From the window halfway up the stairs to the second floor, Saabira can just about see into the backyard. Cyril’s glasses have fallen almost down to the end of his nose as he eats, but she feels certain that she has done the right thing. He was obviously hungry, and she will leave him undisturbed to eat. He seems to be a shy man, and a little lonely, certainly used to being left on his own. If she pushes her company on him he will retreat; that is something of which she feels sure. She cannot afford that. It is her job to make friends with the neighbours, become part of the community which they have chosen to live in, and which, hopefully, Jay will grow up in and become one with. This is the least she can do for Aaman.
If she stands on tiptoes she can see the tabletop, and the dishes that are almost empty. She sees him pouring what is left onto his unused plate and wonders why. It is almost as if he is dirtying the plate for no reason. She only gave him the plate because that is the custom here. With a shiver she continues downstairs, wrapping her Kashmir shawl more tightly around her. By the time she has checked on Jay and then opened the back door, Cyril is gone.
‘A lonely man,’ she whispers to herself. ‘Maybe he is in mourning.’ She thinks of Hanfi.
She dabs at the corners of her eyes with her shawl and picks up the stainless steel bowl, nodding her head in satisfaction. The dishes of food have not a morsel left on them.
Chapter 11
Cyril strides across the moors, watching the grey clouds twist and turn in billowing shapes, threatening to disgorge their contents at any moment. But he has seen such dramatic displays before. It will rain, there is no doubt about that, but he probably has a couple of hours to get home, maybe longer.
Coco runs past, followed by Sabi. They have become inseparable now, and Sabi’s paw is all healed and Zaza is no longer thin. Loyal Zaza stays just a few paces behind him. Blackie Boo, the black dog with short legs, named on account of her colour and her fear of – well, everything, makes her own way, sometimes close, sometimes not to be seen at all. The others he has left at home.
The sky might be grey but there is a whiteness to the light that reveals the storm to come. The breeze is picking up and he has turned up the collar of his tweed jacket. The moths have been at it again and there are more holes around the shoulder. He pulls his flat cap down over the side of his face against the prevailing wind. The moors smell of heather and ozone, wet earth and, occasionally, woodsmoke drifting up from the village.
He has been right over the tops this morning and could see Heckman-on-Thirstle in the distance. On his way back, where the cairn marks the way, he found a rucksack. It wasn’t big, and one of the fasteners was missing and another was broken, but there were no holes in it. He carried it over one shoulder and put the other things he’d picked up inside it: a hanky with the initial ‘J’ embroidered in one corner, and a comb with no teeth missing. He discovered them trodden into a puddle by the triangulation station. ‘Triangulation station.’ He rolls his tongue over the words. ‘The highest point, marked with a small pillar.’ Archie taught him that. ‘Triangulation station,’ he says again.
He also found a blunt pencil and a shoe. He quite often finds single shoes, usually trainers, and it always worries him to picture the owner hopping home with only one foot protected from the stones and wet.
Today he has also found a baby’s dummy. Maybe he could give it to Saabira.
‘Coco, leave it!’ Up ahead Coco is sniffing at the remains of a bird, the wing feathers wet and spread, most of the body gone. Coco does as she is told, turns and waits for Cyril, and then walks close to him, pushing her nose into his hand. He pats her and she runs off again, full of
joy, chasing Sabi who bounces as she runs, jumping high over the bracken.
‘Maybe Saabira will make me lunch today,’ he muses, following Coco’s wake. ‘Maybe she will? Triangulation station.’
Blackie Boo is back by his side.
‘Blackie Boo, how are you?’ He laughs at his rhyme. ‘Triangulation station.’ Then a new thought comes to mind. ‘The family next door are so quiet,’ he says to the dog. ‘We might disturb them.’ He looks down to see Blackie Boo’s response but she is off across the heather.
He hadn’t tried to be quiet in the first few weeks. Quite the opposite; he had wanted them to leave and was as noisy as he could be. He had thought that they might start knocking on his door, or leave spiteful notes on top of his rabbit hutches like Mr Brocklethwaite on the other side.
Other letters have come in the last few weeks but he has left them under the stone on the doorstep where the postman put them; they became soggy with the rains, slowly disintegrating, until, in the last downpour, and with a nudge from the toe of his boot, they washed out into the road and he didn’t think about them any more.
Turning his nose to the sky, he looks for the sun to judge the time, but the clouds are too dense. He has been walking for hours and is hungry, and they said he must not be late for work again or he will be sacked.
‘I hate it!’ he tells the nearest dog. ‘I hate everything about it.’ The only relief is that work starts at five, when everyone else has finished. But it is a small consolation, with the whole place stinking of death and shit and fear. It still makes him cry, every day.
He has tried imagining that everything he sees and smells and feels is unreal, that it is all a game, that none of it is true, but his heart knows, his soul cries and his eyes water.
