Kia Abdullah - Take It Back

To his merit, he was well-spoken and seemed to have a sense of humour – more than she could say of his predecessors. The conversation was brief and shallow: job, hobbies, favourite books; the sort of thing you might ask a fellow dinner guest, not the person you would shortly marry. It was that day, sitting mute in six yards of silk, that she made the biggest mistake of her life. It was that day she caved into pressure and said yes to a marriage she did not want. After all, she was her sick father’s only fucking burden.

The engagement came and went and the ball of anxiety grew and grew, contracting in her stomach like some sort of pestilence. Friends greeted the news with disbelief. She, Zara the Brave, was succumbing to tradition. She, with her iron will and unyielding ambition, was bowing to pressure? How could this be?

It was clear that Zara was struggling but her mother did not ask about the circles beneath her eyes or the weight that drained from her frame, for she knew they had reached a delicate détente . Granted the smallest concession, Zara would surely bolt, and so she was held to her decision with a cold, unremitting expediency. It was five months after the engagement that she took the decision to get out. Of course, by then the wedding had passed and her marital bed had long been soiled.

When Kasim secretly searched through her phone and found her message to Safran expressing her mortal doubts, his family rounded on her like wolves on cattle. Neither time nor history had thread trust into their relationship and so her husband showed her no empathy or discretion. Perhaps she could have stemmed the crisis before it reached their ears. She could have sweetened him with loving words, secured his silence with a warm tongue, but subconsciously she welcomed the fallout. She couldn’t be his wife. She couldn’t be a woman who wore elaborate saris and expensive rings; who made fifteen cups of tea every day; who was indefatigably sweet and loving and innocent. She couldn’t be that woman. And so she let them round on her and take away her phone and grab at her throat and call her a whore. For four hours she sat, waiting for her family to come. When it was clear that they would not, she gathered her belongings and marched out the door. She fled from the house and went back to a home that welcomed her no more.

Despite the trauma, that night was not the worst one. That privilege was reserved for the one that followed. The memory of it was oddly monochrome in her mind, darkly black and blinding white, film-noirish in its detail. She had recounted it all to Luka. One night, surprisingly sober, she lay in his arms and unlocked the floodgates for no reason at all. It all bled out: the bitter-centred anger and gut-wrenching pain.

Luka held her as the tears from her eyes stained kohl on his skin. He didn’t say the words but it was the night he fell in love with her. She knew from the pain he tried to hide from his eyes. Until that moment, all he had known was Zara the Brave. That night, he saw her weak and vulnerable. He touched the sorest part of her and he couldn’t let go.

She wondered how he could use it now to hurt her. But then, isn’t that what people did when you laid yourself bare? Luka would be lucky to ever have her in that position again.

Najim Rashid scanned the hall and spotted the four boys in a corner, huddled over a foosball table. Hassan Tanweer, the smallest of the four, danced restlessly around one edge, spewing a stream of obscenities. The others seemed amused, laughing as his wiry limbs flew from one handle to another. Amir broke the string of expletives with one or two of his own.

Fuck yes, son! No, no, no, you wank stain!

Across from them, another group of boys had set up a game of cards. In the middle of the table was a large pile of chips. Nah, sir , they had cried last week. We don’t play for money. That’s haram , the last word loaded with scorn. Najim had moved on without mentioning the pictures of naked women he had seen them sharing earlier. I suppose that’s halal, is it ? he’d wanted to ask, but the Dali Centre was a place of acceptance. Supported by government funding, the community centre was set up soon after the 7/7 London bombings to engage disadvantaged youths in the borough. It attracted a ragtag group of kids, mainly boys, mainly brown, who came to be free of judgment. Here, there were no prayer rooms to prompt them to be pious, no parents with lofty immigrant dreams. There were no pushy preachers or angry teachers, no masters they had to please. Here, the boys could be themselves and as long as they weren’t breaking the law, Najim let them be. Of course, it was hard not to dispense advice or push college brochures into the hands of his charges. Every year, he lay out a stack of ‘Informed Choices’ from the Russell Group universities. Every year, they remained untouched but it was not his role to push the boys in the right direction, only to pull them from the wrong one. Of course, sometimes, trouble came knocking regardless.

Najim leaned over the table to interrupt the game. Hassan stepped back from the haze of competition, his face flushed red and pools of sweat dampening his T-shirt.

‘Sorry to disturb you boys, but you’re needed in my office.’

Amir playfully jabbed Najim in the rib. ‘“Office?” Since when do you have an office? Do we have to call you sahib now?’

Najim smiled good-naturedly while the boys laughed at the jibe. ‘Come on. You have some visitors.’ He gestured to the door, praying it was nothing serious. ‘Bring your things.’

He led them through the main hall, across a small pitch with forlorn goalposts at either end, and into the northern edge of the complex. Outside his cramped office stood a slim woman with shiny blonde hair scraped into a bun. Next to her was a much older man, dressed all in grey. He had hair that verged on ginger and a face like crumpled paper, his features focused in the middle as if someone had scrunched up his face then smoothed it out again. Behind the pair stood two uniformed police officers.

The blonde woman spoke first. ‘I am DC Mia Scavo and this is DC John Dexter. Can you state your names please?’

Amir offered a bright smile. ‘What’s the problem, officer?’ Then, to Hassan, ‘Has your mum been caught working the streets again?’

A snigger rose in the group and Hassan, never one to take insult lightly, bounced a hand off Mo’s chest, silencing the taller boy, knowing that he – nervy, docile, amusingly principled – was the easiest target in the group.

Mia stepped forward. ‘State your names please,’ she repeated.

Farid complied, then Mo and Hassan too. Amir sighed exaggeratedly, his eyes rolling skyward. Fine, it said. Be a joyless cow. In a tone dripping with deference, he said, ‘I’m Amir Rabbani, ma’am. How may I help you please?’

Mia’s lips drew a tight line. ‘Mr Rabbani, I am arresting you on suspicion of rape.’ Her tone was even. ‘You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’ While she spoke, her colleagues arrested the other three boys.

Amir looked to Najim for help. ‘Rape?’ he asked dumbly. ‘What are they on about?’

Mo grew pale and Farid flushed red as if the blood had drained from one boy to the other.

Najim reached out a hand, not touching Mia but close to it. ‘Excuse me, you can’t just arrest them. Don’t you need a warrant?’

Mia regarded him coolly. ‘We have reason to believe that these young men have committed a serious crime. We don’t need a warrant to arrest them for questioning.’ She turned to Amir. ‘Please come quietly. We can discuss this at the station. Your parents will be informed and will join you there.’