You're Not Here

By Tariq Mehmood

One brother goes missing in action in Afghanistan, the other falls in love with an Afghan girl in England.

Bitter divisions engulf an English town where young Muslims oppose the British army’s presence in Afghanistan, whilst white youth condemn the Muslims as traitors.

To the disgust of his white friends, 17-year-old J

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daraja Press
• Release date: Mar 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781988832081

Tariq Mehmood

Tariq Mehmood is an award winning novelist and documentary film-maker. His first novel, Hand On the Sun (London: Penguin Books, 1983), dealt with the experience of the resistance to racism by young migrant to the UK of the 1970s and 1980s. His second novel, While There is Light (Manchester: Carcanet, 2003), was set against the backdrop of the case of the 'Bradford 12', where 12 young men who defended their community were charged with conspiracy offences. His young adult novel, You're Not Proper, a story of two girls struggling in a town seething with Islamophobia (London: Hope Road, 2015), won the Francis Lincoln Diverse Voices Children's Book Award. He is the co-director of the multiple award-winning documentary Injustice, a story about people who have died in British police custody. He is also co-director of other documentaries including Defeat of the Champions and Who Polices the Police. Tariq teaches at the American University of Beirut (AUB), Lebanon. He blogs at: https://tmehmood.wordpress.com Reviews and articles http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/sep/22/muslim-teenage-identity-tariq-mehmood?CMP=share_btn_tw http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-claire-chambers/book-review-tariq-mehmood_b_6978978.html Review http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=72495 Dunia Magazine INTERVIEW: http://www.duniamagazine.com/2015/02/award-winning-writer-film-maker-tariq-mehmood-talks-race-religion-new-book-youre-not-proper/ Hand On the Sun, Penguin, London, 1983 - out of print While There Is light, Comma, Manchester, 2003 - out of print https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/dec/27/featuresreviews.guardianreview10 Courageous Ali and the Heartless King, Satchel, 2006. Major film - Injustice - story of the families of those killed in British Police custody. http://www.theguardian.com/film/movie/88286/injustice Homepage of Injustice Film http://www.injusticefilm.co.uk

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I am going to see Mum. I run as fast as I can until I can hear the blood pounding in my ears. I run along a track covered with the dead leaves of the oak trees that line its sides.

I am going to tell Mum that she and Dad were never together even when they were together, never there for me.  I am going to tell her how Dexy laughed at me when I had begged him not to go. I am going to tell her I didn’t know what to do to get him back. I am going to tell her how he had stood by me, three years back, when I had just turned fourteen.

I was outside school and surrounded by boys from my year, gesticulating at me, laughing at me, waving their mobiles in my face and pointing at my groin. Someone had taken a photo of me in the changing rooms. It was on Instagram, and Facebook, and Twitter, everywhere. Dexy had seen it as well and sent me a rude message back. He shoved the boys surrounding me out of the way, and shouted at me, ‘No brother of mine cries like a sissy.’

Everyone started chanting Sissy! Sissy! I was terrified of Dexy as he stepped towards me. Instead of hitting me, he hugged me and slapped the boy nearest to him, saying, ‘Anyone calls my brother a sissy, or picks on our kid, I will have their nuts for breakfast!’ Everyone scarpered. When we were alone, he asked, ‘Why did you do a daft thing like cry in front of that lot of losers?’

‘I don’t know who took the photo, I swear…’

‘At least it shows you’ve got one,’ Dexy laughed, ‘but you can’t cry like a girl.’

Trying to hang on to this memory of Dexy, I run even faster, until I am out of breath. I stop, place my hands on my knees, bend down and try to catch my breath. A magpie lands close to the trunk of a poplar tree with a broken branch, just at the point the track curves to the left. I smile at the thought of how quick Dexy was to have a go at me but would never let anyone pick on me. I look around for the magpie’s partner. But it is alone. It jumps up, perches itself on the broken branch and stares at me.

‘You’re like me then, little bird,’ I say.

The bird flicks its head from side to side.

‘One for sorrow, Two for joy,’ I sing inside my head, ‘Three for a girl, and Four for a boy.’ I have forgotten the rest of the rhyme and I try to remember the words Mum sang to me.

Mum’s voice comes humming out of my memory,

‘One for sorrow,

Two for joy,

Three for a girl,

Four for a boy,

Five for silver,

Six for gold,

Seven for a secret never to be told,

Eight for heaven,

Nine for hell,

and Ten for the devil who just can’t tell.’

I crack my neck from side to side trying to stop the sadness the words of this song bring to me, and do some stretches, touching each toe turn by turn, readying myself for another jog.

I take a deep breath as I remember that when Mum sang this to me, I would close my eyes pretending to be asleep. I knew that she knew I was pretending, but she pretended she didn’t know. I would ask, ‘Mum, tell my why it’s One for sorrow and Two for joy.’ She would kiss me on the forehead and tell me how magpies only ever had one partner, and if ever I was to see a magpie on its own, then something bad had happened to its partner.

The magpie’s gone. I run and don’t stop until I’m right next to Mum and looking down at her grave.

Kissing the grass next to Mum’s gravestone, I say, ‘The Muslims have got our Dexy, Mum. I’m trying to find him, Mum, but I can’t. I’m really trying.’

Love

Maybe if I had not searched so hard for Dexy, I would not have fallen in love with Leila Khan. But I hate her now, hate her with all my heart, hate her and her kind! Even though I hate her, I still keep her small silky green handkerchief under my pillow when I go to sleep. She gave it to me once when I had had a little cough. I deliberately didn’t give it back to her, and put it into my trouser pocket, pretending like I didn’t know what I was doing. And I knew from the look in her green eyes, and the smile on her freckly face, and from the flicker of her thick black eyebrows, that she knew I knew she knew.

We only held hands and met in places no one would know her, but she wouldn’t let me kiss her. I especially loved going up into the hills with her and sitting somewhere, under a tree or on some rocks where no one could see us, and looking down at the canal that went all around Boarhead. When we did this, we would sit with our backs to the wind and she would take off her hijab, shake her hair and let it blow over her face.

Once we were sitting close to the canal, racing twigs, when I said to Leila, ‘If I could, I would go to Afghanistan and look for our kid, I would. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Dexy.’ She threw me one of those looks she often did when I asked her about Dexy, a look of exasperation.  She remained quiet for what seemed like an eternity, an eternity in which the hills suddenly came alive with the sound of birds and the wind blowing through the bushes, of a waterfall, of cracking twigs somewhere close by, of someone or something walking on them.

‘You said you’d decide today,’ she said, breaking the music of the hills. ‘Maybe that’s the best thing you can do. Maybe then, somebody who can will help you will come forward.’ A startled bird screeched somewhere close by. A wild partridge fluttered out of the undergrowth and whistled away. The wind seemed to stop. My ears began to ring, like a tuning fork was close to them, and the waterfall went silent. I started ripping grass out of the ground, blade by blade.

She had wanted me, as the brother of a serving soldier, to speak at a meeting against the war. Speak about why I thought people like my brother, or anyone else, should not fight in this war. At first I thought it was a stupid idea. Who was I? Only just turned 17, who couldn’t even say he loved his girlfriend, who didn’t have the courage to ask her for a kiss, who was I to stand in front of people and talk about big things like this? At first I had just gone along with her ’cos I loved her, but then, when I was alone, I started thinking that I really didn’t believe in all this stupid war, and I didn’t want my brother going out there. I didn’t want anyone going out there. I didn’t want what’s out there coming here, like it was in my house, and other houses in Boarhead East. Part of me was scared of making a fool of myself, and a part of me was just not ready to face the rage of Dexy’s mates if I did anything like this.

OK Jake, I thought, just say you’ll do what she wants you to do, but I ended up saying, ‘You know I hate this war, I hate it so much and if it was up to me …’

‘Just shut up for once,’ she interrupted, brushing her hair off her face. Tying it into a bun, she asked, ‘Do you want to kiss me?’

Dexy flew out of my mind and I leaned over to kiss her.

‘I didn’t say you can kiss me,’ she said, ‘I only asked do you want to kiss me?’

She pushed me so hard I slid down towards the canal, saying, ‘Oh, yes.’

Putting her hijab back on, she said, ‘I can’t marry a non-Muslim.’

I had rolled down onto something that was stinging my bum. I leaned over, brushed some thorns off my butt and laughed, thinking I’m not getting married, I just want a kiss. She picked up a twig about the size of her finger, snapped it in half and lobbed it at me. She missed and it landed in the canal.

‘I didn’t say I wanted to marry you,‘ Leila said. The freckles on her face twitched. Her eyebrows were uplifted over her flashing eyes.

‘I didn’t say you did.’

‘Just now, after you slipped down,’ she said, standing up. Brushing her trousers, she added, ‘And you’re so pathetic,’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ I was really embarrassed.

‘I really won’t marry a non-Muslim, you know.’

‘What’s a little kiss got to do with marrying?’ I snapped.

‘Temper, temper,’ she laughed. ‘But you can revert!’

‘You mean, convert,’ I said, thinking what have I got myself into here. I just want a bleedin’ kiss.

‘Revert, not convert. You were born a Muslim. Everyone is. You were just brought up a Christian.’

Pointing to my groin, I interrupted her and asked, ‘Do I have to have a choppy-choppy?’

‘That’s what makes you so amazing,’ Leila laughed. ‘You’re so good with words, you are.’

‘Thick, you mean, innit?’ I asked.

‘Sort of.’

‘How can I revert?’ I said, thinking aloud, ‘I don’t believe in this god thing anyway.’

‘For me?’ Leila’s voice dropped to a whisper, which I felt go thud inside me.

She kissed me on each eye and then pushed me away, saying, ‘That’s it for today.’

We sat quietly for a little while and then I told her, ‘I’m scared, but I’ll say what I can at the meeting.’

She stroked the top of my hand with the tips of her fingers and said, ‘You’re so brave, Jake.’

This decision of mine would turn my love for Leila into a burning hatred, and my world upside down.

Bacon

‘Jake, where did you put the bacon?’ Dad’s heavy voice booming round the house chases the memory of Leila out of my mind. I’d been tossing and turning in bed all morning, thinking about her.

‘I think it’s at the back, Dad, behind the eggs.’

‘Already checked the fridge,’ Dad shouts back and then adds, ‘It’s in the freezer you dope head.’

‘Sorry, Dad.’

‘Want a slice?’

‘Can I have three?’

‘What, you want hair on your chest, or summat? Eggs ’n mushrooms as well?’ he laughs, something that doesn’t much happen in our house nowadays.

‘Grand.’ I readied myself for one of Dad’s special English breakfasts.

I brushed my teeth, rinsed my mouth and went out of the bathroom.

Every morning, on my way back from the bathroom, without thinking I end up looking at Dexy’s photograph. I’ve had it framed. It lives next to the lamp on my bedside table. I took the photograph just before Dexy went away.

*****

He looked smarter than I’d ever seen him. He’d shaved his head that morning. He wore a white shirt, a black zip-up jacket, neatly pressed black trousers and shining black shoes. We’d gone into town and had a few farewell beers at the Old Dog near the town hall, just across from the pigeon shit covered statute of Queen Victoria. He wanted me to take a photograph of him with his girlfriend, Donna. I took the photograph on my mobile but faffed around for ages, getting him to stand in this position and Donna in that, sometimes with her arm in his, sometimes with his around her, like I knew what I was doing. Donna had giggled stupidly, like she did in Dexy’s company. I asked them to say cheese, and just when I clicked the photograph Dexy stuck his middle finger up at me. He was wearing his regimental gold ring on that finger.

Donna grabbed my mobile off me, held it in her chubby hand, looked at the photograph and moaned, ‘I look so ugly.’

Dexy slapped her on the butt and said, ‘You’re alright.’

Trying to delete the photograph, Donna said, ‘Take it again.’

I snatched my mobile off her and ran away through a flock of pigeons that were spread out on the pavement. The birds flew up and landed behind Donna, who chased me.

‘You gormless git, you’ll never catch me,’ I shouted, turning round to look at her.

Watching Donna run, with her big wobbly belly and her big fat arms dangling by her side, like she was swimming, was enough to make anyone laugh.

‘If you can catch our Jake, I’ll take you to Bodrum when I come back,’ Dexy shouted after us.

I ran round the statute and went up to Dexy, saying, ‘You going to take me to Bodrum as well mate?’

‘ ’Course kid,’ he said, looking at a new posh ice-cream place across the road. A family with a little girl were coming out, ice creams in hand. The man held his beard as he licked his ice cream and the woman held up her black veil a little to get at hers. The little girl held onto her mothers black cloak with one hand and licked the ice cream in the other.

Donna caught up, huffing and puffing. Her face a burning red. Her eyes watering.

Smiling at Donna, I nodded to the ice cream shop and said, ‘Our Dexy is going to get us a treat.’

‘This place is too expensive for us white folk,’ Dexy said.

‘Let up, Dexy,’ I said.

The way Dexy’s face suddenly became serious, I knew it was best to keep quiet, otherwise we were going to wreck our last day together. Donna whispered something to Dexy, and then, flicking her eyebrows towards the family, said, ‘He fancies one of them, you know, from up the Khyber, like.’

‘What, a Pataan?’ Dexy said, frowning. Pointing under his armpit, he laughed, ‘And you’ll have to shave this and…’

‘That’s it, I’m leaving,’ I snapped. I was blushing madly.

Dexy folded his arms in front of his chest and blocked my way, but his eyes betrayed him. He was a useless actor and the way Donna suddenly put her hand in front of her mouth, it was so obvious that it was all just a wind up.

‘April fool,’ Donna laughed when she realised I understood it was just a joke.

‘It’s not April, thick head,’ I said.

‘Whatever,’ Donna said, shaking her hair off her face.

‘You know, our kid,’ Dexy said putting his arm around my shoulder. Whenever he did this, he was usually softening me up so that he could ask a favour, which almost always meant getting some money out of Dad. I waited for what was coming, and after a short thoughtful pause,  Dexy said, ‘Our kid, you can’t treat them like normal, you know, I mean, under their tents…’

‘Hijabs,’ I interrupted.

Dexy ignored me and glared at the family. The little girl was tugging at her mother’s finger, whilst stepping backwards towards us. As they got close, my brother lifted his shoulders, screwed up his nose and pointed his face towards the family, grunting, ‘Oink. Oink.’ The family turned around and walked back to the other side of the road. Donna slapped her leg and laughed, like she’d seen the funniest thing on earth.

Watching the family go back, Donna laughed even louder as Dexy said, ‘They hate the name of our city, Boarhead. They’re so scared, they can’t even say pig. Did you know that, Jake?’ I didn’t answer him. Donna kissed him on the cheek and he continued, ‘And when I get out there, I’ll shove a bacon sarny in one of their filthy mouths, I will Jake, I will.’

‘You’re going to war, Dexy. It’s not a game. What’ll happen to us if something happens to you?’ I said.

A car screeched somewhere close by, behind me. Dexy rushed past me. I turned around to see what was happening. The little girl had snatched her finger free from her mother’s hand and had run onto the road, into the path of the screeching car. Dexy grabbed the girl in the nick of time, whisked her onto the pavement and left her next to her parents, without uttering a word.

‘I thought you didn’t like Muslims?’ I asked Dexy when he got back.

‘I don’t,’ Dexy replied, ‘but I love children. That’s why I like you, our kid.’

‘Ah, you can’t half be a softie sometimes, you can, Dexy,’ Donna said.

*****

The scent of grilling bacon in the kitchen sends the image of Donna and my brother to the back of my mind. My hungry stomach rumbles.

‘How long, Dad?’ I call down.

He doesn’t answer. Just as well, I think, maybe he’ll get it right for once.

Running a finger across the photograph, I say, ‘Sorry mate, I’m so stupid, I should have known better. I should never have let you go.’

‘I need you Mum, I really need you now,’ I said aloud, looking up at the yellowing wallpaper. ‘What shall I do Mum? Shall I go and speak at the meeting? Will I muck it up? Come on, Mum, give us a sign.’

The smoke alarm