It's Gone Dark Over Bill's Mother's

by Lisa Blower

  I have been driving since 4.30 a.m. It is almost noon and I am hungry. So when I see that the next service station is three miles away, I tell Abdul that we will stop. For food. To use the bathroom.

  One hour, is how he replies.

  At the services I call Christie while I wait for Abdul to return from the bathroom. She has just got up. She yawns. Is drinking coffee. She has all the time in the world and has no idea what to do in it. She is this. She is that. She’s going to jack that in to do this again.

  Have you got him? she asks. What’s he like? Is he old? Does he speak much English?

  He’s frightened, I say, then remind her to put out the bins. That will give her something to do.

  We stand side by side in the service station, Abdul and I, looking at the fast food. I point to the pictures. I have no idea of the Afghan diet. Like I have not thought of anything I should have to make him feel at home. Abdul points to McDonald’s.

  That, he says, and we join the queue.

  There are three girls and a boy in front of us. Teenagers tethered to mobile phones in sweat clothes and trainers. Abdul watches them but not with any interest. He is not looking at the girls in any way that might suggest he has been lonely. He does not look at the boy with envy, distrust or longing. He just looks at them. And as he looks, I realise just how tired he is. And disappointed. As if it’s not been worth it. Though he does, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, look at their trainers. Which makes me for the first time look down at his shoes. Which they are. They are black loafers with rubber soles. The sort teenagers wouldn’t be seen dead in.

  We find an empty table and sit down with our trays. Abdul spends some time looking about the place. At first, I think he is surveying it and for the first time since I picked him up it crosses my mind that he might be checking things out. You know, like checking things out. But then I realise, as he checks his watch, that he is checking the place out because of the time and he would, if still back home, be called to prayer.

  There is no prayer room here, I say quietly. Sorry.

  And I am, because I didn’t think about that. So I say it again.

  Sorry.

  But Abdul is looking at his burger as if it is smothered with flies and this is not the land of everything after all.

  I ask Abdul a few questions while we eat. He tells me his father and mother still live and are farmers. He is the only boy. There are three sisters. One is already married. The other two will be soon. If they’re lucky. And he says no more than that. I am quiet, sifting through questions that go no further than the tip of my tongue until he tells me in very good English that his family are good people and his village is full of good people. There are no bad, he tells me. But it is hell.

  I nod. There is nothing else I can do or say to that.

  Abdul is a slow eater. Occasionally, he brings a napkin to his mouth. Then he pushes the napkin into his jacket pocket.

  Would you like something different to eat? I ask.

  It occurs to me that he is struggling to digest it all so I say that I’m going to get a newspaper. But I’m also wanting to see if he’s being looked at. If people really are as antagonistic as the headlines make out. But no one looks. No one is interested. Everyone is mid journey. Just like him.

  Back in the car and Abdul is more chatty. It starts with the news on Radio 2. There’s been a sports bulletin and he listens to it then asks me of the cricket. He plays. For the under-twenty-fives. He’s a fast bowler. He lifts his right arm to show me how his elbow juts a certain way for a spin he is known for.

  We can find you a cricket team, I say. Somewhere to play.

  English school? he asks.

  That too, I say.

  Tomorrow?

  I do a weird motion with my head as if there is something stuck in my back teeth.

  Not tomorrow, I say. But soon.

  I start the English, he says, and there’s that urgency again.

  Tomorrow is Saturday, I tell him. The weekend. No school. No work. I sort it all out on Monday.

  Too late, he says. I start tomorrow. English lesson.

  No, I say. There is no school tomorrow. I have to sort it out for you. On Monday.

  Monday too late, he says and he is angry.

  I’m sorry, Abdul, I say. But it doesn’t work like that. I will sort it all out for you, I promise. But tomorrow is Saturday. The weekend. You understand? I will get everything sorted out for you next week.

  He punches the dashboard. I instantly brake hard which throws us both forward. For a moment I’m winded—as if he’s punched me—and I wonder if I should pull over. Instead, I say sorry again and stare straight ahead. It has never occurred to me before just how straight motorways are and that I really do drive too slow for the middle lane as Christie always complains.

  There’s a hold-up. Car hazards flash—Abdul covers his eyes—and I slow down. One hour to Birmingham and he must learn English by tomorrow.

  Must be an accident, I say, as Abdul keeps his head down like he’s expecting to drive past the dead.

  It too slow, he mutters at his knees.

  So I lean over Abdul to get to the glovebox and pull out some CDs. I hand them to him.

  Anything you like?

  He looks down at the pile of CDs I’ve dropped onto his lap.

  No, he says. He hasn’t looked at any of them.

  Fair enough, I say, and I take the CDs and choose one. I’m partial to a bit of Queen—Christie despises Queen—play a greatest hits and whack up the volume. We listen to ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘Radio Ga Ga’ and Abdul watches me drumming on the steering wheel.

  You know Queen? I ask.

  He shakes his head.

  I know this. Abdul turns down the volume and starts to sing.

  Sing. Sing a song. Sing of good things not bad. Sing of happy not sad.

  I sing along with him, smiling. Mainly because he has let go of the fists.

  The Carpenters, I say. You know that?

  Yes, he says. My mother sing. A hundred per cent singing it all a bloody time.

  Then he laughs. Like, really laughs, like the first time he’s laughed in ages and it almost chokes him. I flick through the CDs again.

  No Carpenters, I tell Abdul. Sorry.

  No Carpenters, he repeats, and he turns to look out of the window, watches a couple of crisp packets giddy in the wind, then tells me with a lump in his throat, No Carpenters. Not any more.

  We get going again but the traffic is bumper to bumper most of the way up to Birmingham. As we go past Coventry and hit signs for Birmingham West and City Centre, I wonder if I should tell Abdul that this is Birmingham—we are in Birmingham—I went to university in Birmingham, met Christie in Birmingham, fell in love in Birmingham—and whether I should just drive him to where he wants to be. Because all I am doing is following orders—like he is probably following the orders of whomever has brought him over here, because this has cost him. This life I am driving him to will be expensive. Illegal. I can see where the leeches have already begun to suck. So as the traffic starts to clear I put my foot down and don’t even mention to Abdul that over there is Birmingham where he’s been sold a lie far bigger than where we are headed.

  Abdul says he needs to pee. We are coming up to Junction 14 on the M6 and I know there’s another service station just up ahead so I tell him we can use the bathroom there. Part of me wonders if this is the plan and this is the service station where he’ll be picked up and taken back to Birmingham, where he’ll wash cars or manage dope farms and never be within spitting distance of seeing his family again. But the other part of me, the one who is following government orders, decides that Abdul just needs to pee.

  Yet at the service station, Abdul tells me he needs to pray. I don’t make any suggestion as to where he might go but he takes himself off, to a patch of grass where the dogs cock their legs and their owners leave their shit behind. He rolls out his mat and looks up at what’s left of the sun.

  Some peo
ple watch him but mostly he’s ignored. I hope that’s what happens for him when he gets to Birmingham. That he’s just allowed to do whatever he needs to do.

  I head for the car. When I look back at Abdul I see he is running. I dump the coffees on the roof of the car and call out at the top of my voice. Then I start to run. But he is just chasing his carrier bag that has blown away in the slightest breeze. He looks at me. I look at him. I don’t say sorry. And I will regret that.

  Back in the car he feels less slippery. So I explain what will happen next and talk as if he understands every word.

  That he has a room in the YMCA where he will live. For now.

  That he will have a little money to buy clothes and food.

  That a translator will take him shopping. Perhaps introduce him to other Afghans.

  That he must inform the YMCA if he is going out so he can be checked back in.

  That we will talk about enrolling him in a school on Monday, about his wishes, his feelings, and cricket.

  I keep on talking as we drive through Stoke as if I need to keep him distracted, so I am still talking when we pull up at the YMCA and I tell him I have a TV for him, in the boot of my car. He looks at me as if he cannot believe his luck. Then says, no TV. Please. It is not what he needs. And he goes to ask me something but here is Karen fumbling about with keys and the right keys, and then we are hurried into an office to sign the paperwork because we are late, Karen says, and she’s got to get home. And as Abdul is asked to sign right there and is handed a single key, he breaks down.

  As Abdul sobs, I put my hand briefly on his shoulder as if I understand. I don’t. And I never will.

  The room is basic, student digs really, fairly clean but fine, though the flimsy set of curtains don’t meet in the middle and Abdul will be too tall to fit the bed. He feeds a duvet its cover, does the same with a pillowcase, shakes out a fitted sheet, then spends a long time looking down at the bed as I connect up the TV. I know he will not sleep in it. That he will instead set up camp on the floor and curl into a space he is used to. I hand him the remote and we flick through a few channels. It is gone 8 p.m. and I’m so exhausted, I find that I am apologising for the TV ads.

  I have to go soon, I tell him, but I can’t quite leave him yet. So I start rifling through the food parcel to give him an idea of the things he might be able to eat over the weekend.

  Cornflakes for breakfast, I instruct. Milk here. I’ll put it in the fridge for you. And there’s bread. A toaster is here, see? You’ve pasta, tomato sauce, and there’s rice.

  I laugh at the packet of dried mixed herbs and tell him to add lots for flavour. I show him a tin of rice pudding. A family bag of crisps. He sits on the bed across from me and just stares.

  Anything else you’d like to know? I ask, and he is shivering. I’m in a fairly thick jumper still warm from the car’s heater so I take it off and give it to him. I tell him I will see him on Monday. He puts on the jumper and looks up at me and though he says nothing, I know I will never see Abdul again because this isn’t the life he has bought.

  Abdul wasn’t there when I went back on Monday. Karen said she hadn’t seen him for most of Saturday then on Sunday he’d complained of a fever and gone back to bed. He’d been shopping with the translator, visited the mosque, and had also asked for directions to the train station. As Karen continued to discuss Abdul like a disobedient dog who has just cost her a fortune at the vet’s, I excused myself to go up to his room. Everything was the same as I’d left it on Friday, except there on the bed was my jumper. I immediately put it on as I’d not brought a coat and my blood had suddenly gone cold.

  Original sources

  ‘Barmouth’ was shortlisted for the BBC Short Story Award 2013, broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 2013, and published by Comma Press, 2013.

  ‘Dirty Laundry’ was first published on www.shortstorysunday.co.uk, on January 4th 2015.

  ‘Broken Crockery’ won The Guardian’s National Short Story Competition, August 2009.

  ‘The Cherry Tree’ first appeared as part of the online anthology The Casual Electrocution of Strangers, a project by Literary Salmon, October 2015.

  ‘Johnny Dangerously’ first appeared in The New Welsh Review, March issue, 2014.

  ‘The Land of Make Believe’ was Highly Commended in the Bridport Prize 2015, and published in the Bridport Prize anthology, Redcliffe Press. ‘Hoops’ made the longlist in 2016.

  ‘Chuck and Di’ first appeared in Hidden Voices anthology for The Luminary, September 2014.

  ‘The Trees in the Wood’ was commissioned by Comma Press for their Spindles: The Science of Sleep collection undertaken with the Wellcome Trust in 2015.

  ‘Fron’ was longlisted for the BBC Short Story Award 2018.

  ‘Abdul’ was longlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Award, 2018.

  Ta, duck

  THERE’S A WHOLE nine years between ‘Broken Crockery’ and ‘Abdul’ so I’d first like to thank all those I don’t know who’ve read my stories, found my stories, chosen my stories and bought this book. I hope our paths will cross one day for me to shake your hand.

  And then to the folk I’m lucky enough to know and who know how much these stories mean: Phil and Becky, Len and Jim, Hallsy, Deb, Ami, Mags and Steve, Petra, Maz, Rachy, Lord and Lady Moncrieff, John and Sandra, Laura Creyke, Siani Hughes, Laura and Lee, Jo and Dan, Anna Dreda, Fay Bailey, Meg Hawkins, Liz Lefroy, Fat Boy, Nick Button, Jack and David, Jim Hawkins, Phil Gillam, and to all the Blowers and the Edwardses with the A53 in between.

  To Philippa Brewster who has been my word glue from the word go and continues to always believe in me and my stories. To Candida Lacey and the Myriad team, who also saw something in me to give me a shot. Thank you x

  To Professors Ian Davidson, Helen Wilcox and Ailsa Cox—for their tireless readings of a novel that never made it but became some of these stories all the same.

  To Professor Deborah Wynne and Dr Catherine Burgass for flying that Midlands flag for me.

  To my fabulous colleagues at Bangor University—for your support, advice, boiling kettles, listening ears, and allowing me to be me.

  To Liz Allard, Justine Willett, Rebekah Staton and Jacqueline Redgewell, who brought ‘Barmouth’ and ‘Pot Luck’ to such life.

  To the literary wizard Jonathan Davidson and the Room 204 cohort who never cease to amaze.

  To Natasha Carlish—thank you for sticking your neck out for me.

  To Tania Harrison—a constant shining star.

  To the huge talents that are Niall Griffiths, Luke Wright, Hollie McNish, and my short fiction consciousness Paul McVeigh. Thank you for reading me and always being so supportive.

  To Kit de Waal. Where do I even start? x

  To Ra Page at Comma Press for always giving me a chance to be part of a project that blows me away.

  To the team behind Literary Salmon—Jane Roberts, Fran Harvey, Alexa Radcliffe-Hart—and to Cathy Galvin and the Word Factory team for always keeping me in mind.

  Finally, to my mum, dad and Sarah, who never ever stop listening or thinking I can’t do it, and to Dave who reads me better than anyone and puts big light on when I need it.

  This book is also in the memory of ‘Uncle’ Dave Jones. Thank you for mending so many paths going up x

  Sign up to our mailing list at

  www.myriadeditions.com

  Follow us on Facebook and Twitter

  About the author

  LISA BLOWER is an award-winning writer. Her debut novel Sitting Ducks (Fair Acre Press) was shortlisted for the inaugural Arnold Bennett Prize 2017. She is a creative writing lecturer at Bangor University, where she studied for her PhD. She lives in Shrewsbury.

  Copyright

  First published in 2019 by

  Myriad Editions

  www.myriadeditions.com

  Myriad Editions

  An imprint of New Internationalist Publications

  The Old Music Hall, 106–108 Cowley Rd, Oxford OX4 1JE

 
Copyright © Lisa Blower 2019

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN (pbk): 978–1–912408–16–0

  ISBN (ebk): 978–1–912408–17–7

  Designed and typeset in Palatino

  by WatchWord Editorial Services, London