The Things I Would Tell You Read online

  Timam put Doris’s photograph, her mother’s letter and the plate in her saddle bag. She had enough bugloss, alkanet, lion’s foot, pomegranate peel, aloe, colocynth to last her years. She checked the oils in the bottles, eucalyptus, tea tree, bergamot, valerian, sassafras and the peacock and black hen feathers. She put the Fear Beaker back in the bundle, tied it, balanced it on her head, and left.

  Note: Timam is an Arabic name. It and its derivatives mean completion of a cycle, ending and finishing a task.

  Amina Jama

  Home, to a Man

  Home, to a man

  A home without breasts is just a house

  Nooks and crannies need to be cleared,

  mother taught me

  never to be envious of others’ houses

  they only wish to break down yours,

  men wish to break it down

  I’m the lucky one,

  I know that much

  but I can feel the paint peeling

  from the bathroom walls.

  I don’t know what I’ll do

  when it finally falls

  Nooks and crannies need to be cleared,

  Mama told me to never give away

  my spare keys

  that it is sacred between God and I,

  but she makes a pair for any

  wealthy man arranging a visit

  Mama refuses to buy sanitary towels

  in the household shopping

  She asks what will you do

  if your brothers see them,

  if they see that your house is dirty?

  She says Hishod naya,

  Have shame, girl.

  Nooks and crannies need to be cleared,

  I once turned off all the lights

  I swear I felt my soul leave the house,

  I said Good for you girl!

  You deserve to be happy

  Nooks and crannies must be cleared.

  When a man comes to view your house

  it must be clean.

  Don’t just sweep

  the dirt under the carpet.

  Trim

  that rug.

  Make sure all your corridors

  are clear of impurities

  Make sure your living room is presentable,

  it is the bosom of your home.

  Stay in the kitchen or the bedroom,

  mama tells me,

  so he can watch you in your

  natural habitat

  Mama taught me I must

  speak my mind, though

  every man is allowed to test

  out my home before he buys it.

  So if he wants to inspect,

  let him beg to witness all your rooms

  and if he breaks down your walls,

  give in, maybe

  Mama taught me to be wary

  of handing him all my glory at once.

  He must also do some polishing of edges.

  Nooks and crannies must be cleared.

  Perhaps,

  by a man.

  Examples of confusion

  An uncut woman

  is not a clean woman,

  the nurse translated, meant to say

  the doctor needs to open you up

  the stitches were done too tight, everything

  will be ok.

  Meant to say

  meant to

  but said mada hishod haysanin:

  don’t you have no shame?

  The scar healed wrong,

  layers of skin grew but never closed it up.

  You should feel ashamed of

  what they don’t know.

  He’s always on the ward for dying patients, you said

  how does he make it past the angel of death each night?

  It feels awkward

  to use my full name,

  it’s too immigrant to say out loud.

  They argued on what to call me,

  he wanted a name that I couldn’t run away from,

  she wanted a three-dimensional one.

  Said I was her Luul,

  carved and sculpted in the womb, too precious

  to let go.

  She gave in.

  The drive to Heathrow was grey

  somehow Londoners call this summer,

  they don’t know that warmth is in colour.

  Why does leaving feel like the coast, bare?

  Mum’s laugh is recorded

  over Zainab’s wedding tape,

  and I realise it’s not as I remember.

  Fire

  They wonder how you made something of yourself.

  You told them that you stopped dwelling

  on what could have been

  because it was exactly that – could have –

  They see you standing in the park

  muttering to pink pigeons and crisp packets,

  as if communicating with them was easier

  than your family.

  They call your speech urban, but

  it’s scratching at things that shouldn’t be

  scratched, and when it does, it sounds like

  extinguishers crying.

  The council flat you were a girl in has had its doors fixed,

  now

  the tenants can sleep with both eyes closed, not

  hold your fear of him climbing up you

  while you’re trying to dream.

  They call your dreams urban, but

  The doctor who told you that your nineteen-year-old boy

  died from a stroke, makes eye contact on the 25 bus.

  You cling to your bag, ignore

  that you’re back in that white ward, that white room,

  that white-white moment – and

  nod in his direction. Get off

  before the big Asda, before even the station.

  They call our love urban, but

  You don’t cry at your son’s funeral,

  or on his birthday. No, you mourn

  the anniversary of his first football match.

  They call our grief urban, but

  the man who said he loves you, wraps

  his arms around the waist of someone

  less damaged. Don’t care

  until you do, until you are

  standing outside his house

  holding a full glass of water.

  Chimene Suleyman

  Cutting Someone’s Heart

  Out with a Spoon

  Cutting someone’s heart out with a spoon would be an unwise thing to do. For a number of reasons. Firstly, it is not specified whether the body is already open; the spoon’s only job to scoop heart out. Or if it is expected to first manoeuvre through skin as well. This would be far harder and an ongoing job, limiting the feelings of satisfaction that you may have been expecting.

  Spoons are fine, however, if you are balancing cutlery on your nose, eating ice-cream, or performing a regular autopsy.

  – Couldn’t find nothing else?

  – No.

  – In your kitchen, couldn’t find nothing?

  – No. I looked.

  In the plastic bag are six spoons, the plastic case of a ballpoint pen, and half a spliff, charred and folding at the end.

  – In your kitchen? For real? Nothing?

  Kyle’s fingers are dirty. The graze beside his mouth, from where his aunt’s cat scratched him earlier, is drying in the sun. Jack shrugs. He says his mother caught him going through her bedroom, like a pervert, for any cutlery she’d left in dinner plates that she had eaten in bed. So he had grabbed what he could on the way out.

  – Washing-up weren’t done, was it.

  – What are we going to do with these?

  When Kyle is cross his nose flares. The right nostril enlarges a little and pulsates. Jack refuses to give in.

  – You said we were gonna do it like diggin.

  – You’re a fuckin idiot.

  The space between their flats is tarmac, a low wall and a swing. Five floors of brown brick turn around i
tself, a row of red doors along each outside corridor. Black drainpipes run along the double-glazing. Few have bothered with pot-plants. It is the same on every side. A child’s pink bicycle collapsed, the colour fading from weather.

  Above courtyard, taller buildings peer. The brightness of Canary Wharf, unmissable, only a mile into their eye-line. The pyramid stretches – One Canada Square is higher than the Barclays and HSBC beside. In the middle of the courtyard, by the locked bicycle with the missing front wheel, you can’t see a building that isn’t these. The communal green and black bins rest against one wall of their estate. The wall dips ever-soslightly away from the yard, a small space with no windows along the height of it. The street on the other side disappears into the black railing. If you turn to look in that direction you may see Jack’s legs stretched, the rest of his body out of sight against the building he is leaning into.

  – If you don’t want to use them, fuckin don’t.

  – Bit late now.

  – Shu’ up.

  Kyle unfolds paper.

  – It’s a diagram. All mapped out here.

  The outline is of a person. Round limbs, bloated where shape should be. The organs are to the side of where would be correct and drawn in green biro.

  – Got that science girl to do it, two years above, big tits.

  – So where is it then?

  – Near stomach, I guess.

  An incomplete oval is circled, GALBLADER written to the side.

  – My uncle ate his.

  – Your uncle is full of shit.

  – That’s what my nan says.

  Kyle squats low to the ground in jogging bottoms, white vest top and yellowing near the collar, tighter by the shoulders that are growing without his notice.

  – It’s sort of, sort of, here.

  Jack sticks his finger into his side, through a thin pale jacket, tracksuit a little too short, a fat worm-scar running down the side of a shaved scalp that doesn’t suit him.

  – What if no one buys it?

  Jack lies on the floor, body at an angle to fit the corner they are in. Kyle inspects green biro once more, runs his fingers across the page.

  – Lift your top up.

  Kyle drags the spoon across Jack’s skin. The friction leaves a red mark, but little else happens. Skin moves, flattened on one side. It is possible no one will buy Jack’s gallbladder. Kyle has considered this. He knows that if they get through the skin, using the diagram that was drawn for them, they may still not receive its worth. Kyle thinks about reminding Jack of the risks, weighing it all up, but he knows Jack will disagree. Jack will express certainty of his plan, remind Kyle it is fool-proof, a question at the end of his sentences, it’s fool-proof, Kyle, it’s fool-proof, it’s fool-proof? Kyle?

  They already have the bubble-padded envelope, A5, addressed; Mick Hucknall. Glenmore Estate. Donegal.

  – What if he don’t want it?

  – Why wouldn’t he?

  – Your gallbladder?

  – Ah’ll tell him mum’s got all his shit CDs, he’ll have to buy it off me after that. Kyle sticks the spoon into Jack’s stomach, jabbing it quick.

  – Sit still you dick. Does it hurt?

  – No.

  – Does it hurt?

  – No.

  Kyle turns the spoon a different direction, drags it back, left, back, red, red, white, red, a red line across the area. His knees on the ground for better grip, the hand with the spoon dragging a pattern across his friend. Nothing changes, skin is raised but does not open. Skin is sore but stays in one piece. They repeat, back forward, left, Kyle’s movements faster until his arm aches.

  – This isn’t fuckin worth it.

  Kyle throws the spoon. Jack turns onto his side so he can reach where it has landed, dulled metal with white rice stains.

  – She’s wanted this fucking washing machine.

  – Your mum’s as big a prick as you.

  – We’ll get this fuckin thing out, sell it to Hucknall, then you don’t need to do nothing. I’ll take the money to shop myself.

  Legs out in front, Jack moves his bottom until he is lying flat again, at an angle, he throws back the spoon. Kyle tips his head, a guiltiness in his lips, pressed together. He has poked holes at his friends plan without offering any suggestions of his own.

  – Think he’ll buy it, then?

  – Guess so.

  – Where’d she meet him?

  – Hucknall? Dunno. Don’t think she has. She don’t leave the house enough. Plays his songs a lot.

  – Why?

  – Cos she likes em. You know, they talk or something. He’s havin conversations with her in the words, or some shit like that. I’d give it all up for you, then she sings, Yeah, I would, I’d give it all up for you, yeah, I would.

  – Dumb bindt.

  – Fuck off.

  – OK. What you gonna get her once we get the money?

  – Zanussi, I reckon. Bosch seems alright.

  Scoring a spoon energetically against skin won’t break it. It will raise skin, slightly, blistered around the lines from the metal. The bins, black heavy lids, near where they are sitting do not smell today. The sun is bright. It is one of those summer days where city boys will fill Smollensky’s and the All Bar One; they will flirt with girls from their office, or the offices near by, cold beers and white wines. Here the estate is empty. There is little point in flirting. The Bangladeshi mothers bring their children home from school together, a large crowd migrate the same journey. A few children play in the courtyard, picking toys abandoned the night before. A television plays from one window, a mother shouts for it to be turned down, the icecream van plays his song outside the estate.

  – Try a little harder, Jack says. Kyle lifts, stabs Jack up and down with it,

  – Like that, yeah, he is wincing.

  – Not working,

  – If you don’t get it out, Jack says.

  Kyle scratches with it, Jack moves his legs involuntarily in response.

  – Stop moving,

  – I’m not,

  – Stop, with his other hand Kyle holds his legs down.

  – I’m not,

  – Stop,

  – I’m not, Jack moves.

  – Shall we try a different way? I’ll run at you with it.

  – OK.

  Kyle stands, throws himself forward two steps, pushes the spoon hard as he lands. Jack pulls his knees up and rocks, – For fucks sake. Kyle looks at the diagram again with sore fingertips on dirty hands, he studies it. Jack rests on his elbows, watered eyes, his jogging bottoms marked from the ground, but only on one side.

  Kyle runs the spoon against the ground as though sharpening it. He checks the green biro drawing for certainty. – Just do it. – Yeah. Kyle puts spoon to the red raised skin. He drags it across the spot, strikes with the spoon. He moves quickly, Jack’s body stretching out, neck hunched, he moves, – Stay still, he moves, – stay still. Kyle’s legs go either side of Jack’s, holds his body down between his. – What if we don’t get it out? Jack says. He is held there, his legs touching beneath his friend’s, one hand grabbing at his side. He wants to move the spoon without getting in the way, pulls his body up the tarmac. Kyle climbs his body, Jack’s hips between his knees, one hand open on Jack’s skin. – Try harder, the spoon against him he pulls his top up higher, gives more flesh to help, – Just get it the fuck out.

  Kyle’s fingers are tight on the spoon as he moves quickly, drags it fast. He is concentrating, pushing it into Jack’s skin on the same spot, small sideways movements that get quicker. Jack’s hand is held away by his friend, escaped tarmac resting in the back of his arm. His shoulders pushed into ground, he raises his body. His feet and shoulders, the back of his head on tarmac as he lifts the rest of himself, pushes Kyle up with him, toes of shoes on floor. The handle bends, Kyle’s stomach against the one beneath. He digs with the spoon, drags it sideways and back, rubs, his face close to chest and they are both breathing. His knees scrape,
Jack’s body drops back against it. Jack rolls to his side and again, Kyle moving with him, the spoon never leaves skin. Jack’s hand in his, fingers closing into the other. – I’m trying, Kyle says slowly, gently, the stem of the spoon digging into his chest for strength. He rests his head against Jack’s stomach, one knee now under his. They are breathing, face on skin, when he gives up.

  They stay like this. Jack lying across ground, Kyle’s ear near spoon-marked skin, his head in Jack’s hand, his hair between Jack’s fingers.

  A tree grows out of gravel and blinks the sun through it, – We’ve got the envelope, nothing to put in it. A few clouds park over their heads. – Got nothing to sell. Kyle doesn’t move his head, stretches his arm and puts the green-biro diagram into the envelope.

  – Give him this.

  – That stupid drawing?

  – It’s a picture of my gallbladder, alright? I said she should draw it of me, so send him that. I don’t need it, have mine.

  The plastic bag doesn’t blow away, held by its insides including the case of a ballpoint pen to suck the gallbladder out and an A5 bubble-padded envelope addressed, ‘Mick Hucknall, Glenmore Estate, Donegal’. Neither boy moves. Kyle’s hair is wet from his sweat and lifted lightly in Jack’s hand, Jack’s stomach moves Kyle’s head up, then back down. – Don’t tell anyone about this. – I guess not. – They’d laugh if they heard we’d used a spoon.

  A woman turns her head around the corner, looks at the buildings towering above them. Her face calm, she takes a photo of the pyramid, the buildings surrounding it, until they are one. The ice-cream van plays his song outside. There is no sky here, only the windows of Docklands buildings that reflect it.

  Chimene Suleyman

  Us

  The plastic handles dug into Madeeha’s fingers. A small rip appeared near the bottom of the carrier-bag where a juice carton poked through. From the pavement the canal below looked grass-green, the fungi a still blanket across it. Two newbuilds with metre-long balconies tucked between redbrick warehouses that functioned as offices. Back windows watched out onto water. Letterbox-red Royal Mail vans parked in a line, the wide clock-face of St Anne’s behind them.

  From beneath a black coat zipped high to his chin, his gut swelled. Bald, grey stubble appeared by his ears, a day old. To one side of him a younger man with a long face and blue eyes the colour of cold that set against the grey of his suit. On the other, a man with a tight navy tie let out a mean laugh. They would teach her a lesson. That’s what they said when they stepped from the bus outside Lidl and she had walked in front of them. They would teach her a lesson, this hummus-eating, camel-shagging slut.