Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow

by Siobhan Curham

  “Hafiz!” My aunt Maria appears in the kitchen doorway, her blonde hair glowing like a halo in the sunlight pouring through the window behind her. She’s wearing an apron and holding a wooden mixing spoon. “How are you? How was it?” She looks at me anxiously.

  “It was fine,” I lie.

  “Oh, that’s great!” she exclaims. “Come and have some mint tea. Tell me all about it. Your uncle will be back from the university soon. We’re going to the refugee centre for dinner. I’ve been making some baklava to take down there.”

  I nod but I don’t want to go to the refugee centre. I don’t want to do anything really apart from kill the thoughts buzzing around my head. I follow her into the kitchen, my favourite room in the house. With its brightly coloured mosaic tiles it’s the room that most reminds me of home. But as I look at the tray of freshly made baklava on the counter my throat tightens. For a second I see Mum, silhouetted against the bright sunlight, humming her favourite song. She slowly turns to greet me – and then she’s gone. What if she’s really gone?

  “Is there any news?” I say as I sit down at the table.

  Maria shakes her head. My parents didn’t join me on the refugee trail because my grandma Amira – my mum’s mum – was too frail to make the journey and there was no way they could leave her on her own. A few months ago, they left our home town to seek refuge in the mountain village where my mum grew up. They should be safe from the fighting up there but it’s really hard to get phone reception or Internet access. Uncle Samir hasn’t heard from my dad for weeks. I haven’t heard from him for even longer, as I lost my phone on the journey across Europe. “No news is good news,” Uncle Samir always says to me. But I can tell he’s worried.

  “Would you like some?” Aunt Maria says, offering me the tray of baklava. It glistens gold with honey and smells delicious but I shake my head. I don’t feel hungry.

  I hear the front door open, bringing with it the hum of traffic from the street outside.

  “Hello?” Uncle Samir’s voice booms from the hall.

  “Hey, love, we’re in the kitchen!” Aunt Maria calls.

  Uncle Samir comes in and places his battered leather bag on the table. Although he and my dad might look alike on the surface – the same broad shoulders and long noses and chestnut-brown hair – their personalities couldn’t be more different. Uncle Samir is quiet and calm and studious, like an owl, while my dad is wild and flamboyant and loud, like a parrot. Or “a tornado in a teacup”, as my mum likes to call him. I feel another pang of homesickness.

  “Hafiz, how was your first day at school?” Uncle Samir looks at me with the same concerned expression as Aunt Maria.

  “It was OK.”

  “Isn’t that great?” Aunt Maria says with a smile as she comes over to hug my uncle.

  He nods. “Yes, yes it is.” He sits down at the table and looks at me over the top of his glasses. “You know, if you ever want to invite any friends over after school that would be fine, wouldn’t it, Maria?”

  “Of course.”

  I try not to laugh. Somehow I can’t see the students at my new school queuing up to be friends with me. Not that I’m bothered. But I don’t tell them how it was today. I don’t want to worry them. “Thanks,” I say. Beneath the table my feet start to twitch. The urge to kick a ball has been growing stronger all day. But my aunt and uncle only have a tiny backyard and somehow I can’t see the studious Samir owning a football. I decide to daydream about football instead and picture myself lining up a free kick outside the penalty area – my speciality. I spent hours practising after school every day. I’d got so that I could curve the ball into the top corner of the goal, sometimes from deep inside the midfield. My coach at Hutteen used to call me Hafiz Beckham. I bet I’d never be able to score like that now. My heart sinks as I think of all of that time and training gone to waste.

  “I can’t wait to see what they’ve been doing at the refugee centre,” Uncle Samir says as Aunt Maria pours us each a cup of tea. “Apparently the library shelves are all built and ready to be filled.”

  I force my feet to stay still and drive all thoughts of free kicks from my mind. I’m no longer Hafiz Beckham. I’m a refugee. Rootless and stranded like an upended tree.

  Stevie

  As I make my way up the steep hill home a daydream flickers into my mind, like the opening scene in one of those wholesome American family TV shows. It’s of me arriving at the cottage to find Mum up and dressed and in the kitchen. Everything is sparkly clean and there’s a plate of freshly baked cakes on the table. Freshly baked cakes with bright pink icing. And glitter. The room smells of strawberries and cream. Music is playing on the radio – something jaunty and summery by The Beach Boys – and the air dances with light. I try to push the dream from my mind, but I can’t. It’s too nice. And so comforting after all the stress of the first day back at school. Daydream-Mum looks at me and smiles. “How was your day, sweetheart? Would you like some coffee? I’ve baked something special for you!”

  I put my key in the front door and take a deep breath. Maybe my going back to school has been a good thing. Maybe it’s given Mum the incentive to get up and do something. The freshly baked cakes might be pushing it a bit but if I could just find her up and dressed… Mum’s barely been out of bed all summer. When she first got depressed after Dad died, her depression came in waves of good days and bad days, and the good days were like rocks for me to cling to. But ever since the second anniversary of Dad’s death back in February, the good days are fewer and farther between. She did go to the doctors and got some antidepressants but they’ve made zero difference. I open the door and step into the darkened hallway. The air is icy cold compared with outside – and it’s very, very quiet.

  “Hi, Mum, I’m home!” I call. There’s no reply. Maybe she’s gone out. I feel a spark of hope. What if she’s gone food shopping? My appetite, which had completely disappeared during the heat and stress of school, is suddenly back with a vengeance. I go into the kitchen and check the cupboards. They’re still bare – apart from the remains of the loaf of bread. I feel the kettle to see if Mum’s made herself a drink recently. It’s stone cold. I take off my blazer and tie and make my way upstairs. There’s no answer when I knock on Mum’s door so I open it and peer inside, hoping to see an empty bed. But she’s in the same position she was in when I left, a clump of matted hair trailing across the pillow. I feel sick with disappointment – and cross at myself for even daring to dream that things might be different.

  “Mum?”

  The lump murmurs and anger rushes into me, red and hot. Why should she get to lie in bed all day while I have to do the hard thing of living? It isn’t fair. I swallow my anger like a horrible-tasting medicine.

  “Stevie. What time is it?” Mum heaves herself semi-upright and rubs her eyes.

  “Just gone four.”

  “Four – but…” She blinks and stares at me. The side of her face is red from where she’s been sleeping on it and her eyes are puffy.

  “Have you been in bed all day?” My words come out much terser than I’d meant them to.

  “No. I – I wasn’t able to sleep this morning. I took a sleeping pill after lunch.”

  I look at the plate on her bedside table, at the cold, untouched toast. She hasn’t even had breakfast, let alone lunch.

  “I’m sorry.” She looks at me, her eyes wide and pleading, like a little girl’s. “How was school?”

  “OK.” I learned long ago not to tell her the truth about school. The one time I did tell her I’d had a tough day, after Priya had taunted me for being a “bag lady” because I had a hole in my jumper, Mum burst into tears. “I just can’t deal with this right now,” she told me.

  “That’s good,” Mum says flatly.

  “Do you have any cash for me to get something for dinner?” I ask – even though I know what the answer will be.

  Mum shakes her head. “I’m sorry, love. My benefits don’t come through till tomorrow.”

&n
bsp; “OK.” Anne Frank. Malala. Stevie Nicks. Hafiz, I say in my head. Hafiz has fled a war-torn country. He’s thousands of miles away from his family and friends. If he can deal with that, then I can deal with this.

  “Can you use some of your guitar money to get whatever you want?” Mum says. “Don’t worry about me, I’m not hungry. I can pay you back tomorrow.”

  I sigh. I’ve been trying to save up for a new guitar for ages now but it’s so hard. The truth is, there’s hardly any guitar money left. I always seem to need to dip into it.

  “OK.” Anne Frank, Malala, Stevie Nicks, Hafiz.

  “Thanks, love.” Mum slides back down in the bed.

  I see tendrils of Mum’s depression creeping out from under the duvet and snaking their way towards me. I have to get out of here.

  I race to my room and close the door behind me. I go straight over to my Little Book of Big Song Wisdom and flick through until I get to the page SONGS FOR WHEN PEOPLE LET YOU DOWN … AND YOU WANT TO WALLOW IN IT! Beneath it is written, “Pale Shelter” by Tears for Fears, 1982. I pull the record from the stack and put it on. As the opening chords echo around the room something inside of me cracks and in through the crack slips my dad. I picture him as a teenager sitting on his bedroom floor listening to this exact same song. Who did he think of when he heard the words? I know he listened to it a lot – the cover is coming apart at the seams and the vinyl is covered in scratches. Did he think of his own parents? A girl? Who was it who gave him “pale shelter”? Why did he include it in his book for me?

  “Why did you have to leave?” I whisper to the writing in the book. A tear rolls down my face and plops onto the page, instantly smudging the ink. I feel so alone. When Dad died I didn’t just lose him, I lost my grandparents too. Or at least, I lost being able to tell them anything. Mum doesn’t want Dad’s parents knowing about her depression because she says they have enough to deal with after the death of their son. They live in a retirement villa in Portugal anyway, so it’s not as if they can just pop round. They call from time to time but I almost wish that they wouldn’t. It’s so hard not telling them what’s been going on. Mum has never been close to her own parents. She and Dad used to jokily call them “The Stiffs” because they’re so uptight. The one time I suggested she call them and ask to borrow some money, she burst into tears. “I don’t want them knowing I’ve failed,” she sobbed. “I can’t bear how smug and self-righteous they’d be.”

  I don’t get why she sees her depression as a failure. Like, you wouldn’t tell someone who’d got cancer they were the world’s biggest loser, would you? But there was no point arguing with her. I didn’t want to make her even more upset. So her depression has become our guilty secret. Even though there’s no reason to feel guilty. It’s so messed up but that’s the way it is. I wipe the tears away. Anne Frank, Malala, Stevie Nicks, Hafiz. I can do this. I’ve got this. I can be who Mum needs me to be.

  HAFIZ

  I first came to Brighton when I was six years old and my parents and I were visiting the UK for Uncle Samir and Aunt Maria’s wedding. I have only two clear memories of that trip. The first is of Uncle Samir and Aunt Maria kissing at their wedding party – and me wishing they’d stop so we could start eating the awesome five-tiered chocolate cake. And the second is of me and Mum and Dad standing on Brighton Pier, the day after the wedding, eating hot salty chips from a paper bag. “One day I want to live here just like Uncle Samir,” I told my parents as we stood at the edge of the pier looking down into the frothy waves. A year later the civil war broke out in Syria – and so began the chain of events that would eventually bring me here. I wish I had never said those words. It’s like I uttered some kind of prophecy. Back then I’d assumed that work would bring me to the UK, just like it happened with Uncle Samir when he got a job teaching theology at the university here. I had no idea it would be war.

  As Uncle Samir drives along the coastal road I keep my eyes fixed firmly inland. It’s bad enough that I can smell and hear the sea through the open window. I don’t want to look at it too. Finally, Uncle Samir takes a turning and we drive through a labyrinth of Brighton’s narrow backstreets until we arrive at the refugee centre. Apparently it was once a carpet store. Now it’s a drop-in centre where refugees can come and get food and help and advice. The hand-painted sign reads, SANCTUARY BY THE SEA. I know I should feel grateful that places like this exist; that there are people in Europe who care about what’s happening in the war-torn parts of the world, but I wish places like this weren’t needed. Uncle Samir parks in the small car park at the rear of the building. The back door is open and I can hear the hiss of something frying in the kitchen, mingled with women’s voices chatting in a foreign language. I think it’s Tigrinya.

  “Something smells good,” Aunt Maria says cheerily as she checks her lipstick in the car mirror.

  “It certainly does.” Samir turns to me and smiles. “How about you and I go and see how they’re getting on in the library, Hafiz? While your aunt checks on the kitchen.”

  “OK.”

  I wonder how many times in the two years since I left Syria I’ve said “OK” when I haven’t really meant it. That simple word may have helped me get across Europe relatively unscathed but now I’m sick of the sound of it. Now I long to utter “no”. As Aunt Maria disappears into the kitchen with her tray of baklava I follow Uncle Samir to the front of the building. The window is covered with posters advertising the different services on offer to refugees here. Then I see one I haven’t noticed before. It’s for five-a-side football. I stop and look at it. Uncle Samir notices and stops too.

  “You must miss playing football?”

  I nod. “Yeah, a bit.”

  “Hmm.” My uncle looks thoughtful for a moment, then heads through the door.

  I follow him into the narrow corridor that runs through the middle of the building. There are doors either side leading to offices and meeting rooms where classes are held or refugees can get legal or medical advice. Most of the doors are closed but I can still hear the murmur of voices. We walk to the far end of the corridor, which leads into a huge, open-plan area. One side of the area is set up like a café, with tables and chairs dotted around in front of a counter. The other side is lined with empty shelves. This is going to be the library. The library was Uncle Samir’s idea and he’s very excited about it.

  In between the café and the library there’s a pool table. Two African guys wearing low-slung jeans and hoodies are stalking around the table holding cues, engrossed in their game.

  “Samir! Hafiz!” a woman cries from behind the café counter.

  “Hi, Rose!” Uncle Samir calls back.

  Rose volunteers at the café. She has snowy-white skin and pale blue eyes and long blonde dreadlocks that reach down to her waist. Before I came to Brighton I’d never seen white people with dreadlocks. I’d never seen people with so many piercings or tattoos, either. Rose has a tiny tattoo of a ship’s anchor on her wrist and silver rings in both nostrils.

  “Are you hungry?” she asks as we walk over. “We have chalau on the menu this evening. It smells amazing.”

  Chalau is an Afghan stew made with lamb and spinach. As I breathe in the smell of the meat and the spices my stomach rumbles. “That sounds great. Thank you.”

  Rose places a mound of rice on a plate and dollops a huge serving of stew on top. “Enjoy,” she says, handing it to me.

  I take my dinner over to a table and wait for Uncle Samir to join me. One good thing about being a refugee is you get to learn about food from all over the world. Or from the world’s danger zones at least. Maybe there should be a special name for refugee cooking, like the French Cordon Bleu. Cordon War, perhaps?

  As Uncle Samir takes his seat the guys at the pool table put down their cues and stroll over.

  “Hey, Samir,” one of them says.

  “Hello, Majeed,” he replies, “hey, everyone.” Uncle Samir knows most of the people here. He’s taught a lot of them how to speak English. “Thi
s is my nephew Hafiz from Syria.”

  Majeed shakes my hand. “Good to meet you, brother.”

  “Hafiz was interested in the five-a-side football advertised in the window.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Majeed looks me up and down. “How old are you?”

  “Fourteen,” I say, taking a mouthful of stew.

  “He was a star player back at home. Played for one of Syria’s Premier League youth teams,” Uncle Samir continues, making me squirm. “It would be good if he could get a game.”

  “Sure.” Majeed nods. “Come along a week Saturday. We have some other Syrians playing. It will be like World Cup – Syria against Sudan.” He laughs.

  I nod and smile and take another mouthful of stew. As Uncle Samir and Majeed start talking about asylum applications my feet do a celebratory tap dance under the table.

  Stevie

  This morning, when I get up, I go straight over to my record player. I’m determined that today is going to be better than yesterday. I don’t want to feel that angry and helpless ever again. Last night I prepared an empowering play-stack (the vinyl equivalent of a playlist) to listen to as soon as I woke up. I put the first record on. “Two Tribes” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood – listed on the page titled SONGS TO MAKE YOU FEEL UNSTOPPABLE in my Little Book of Big Song Wisdom.

  As I get dressed the rousing beat starts working its way inside of me. Today is going to be better. As the song builds I start dancing around my bedroom – the way Paul Rutherford from Frankie Goes to Hollywood dances in their old music videos on YouTube. It’s all going to be OK. Mum’s going to be OK. I’m going to be OK. Everything will—

  I feel something ping by my chest. I look down. The button that was straining has literally popped, revealing my once-white bra. (I accidentally washed it with some black jeans and it’s now a skanky shade of grey.) My heart sinks. The record skips and gets stuck. The word “war” booms out from the speakers over and over and over again. It’s official: today is going to be even worse than yesterday. I turn the record player off and pull my jumper over my shirt. Fears start creeping into my mind. What am I going to do? How am I going to get the money for a new shirt? The fears start reproducing. How am I going to get through another year of school? What if Mum never gets better? And then, the worst fear of all – the one I’m always trying to escape: What if I catch her depression?