Selma Dabbagh - Out of It

‘ Excellent!’

It was unmistakable.

Rashid had been driven through the area the restaurant was in on the first night he arrived in London. It had been a similar evening, post-rain clear, the gleaming black pavements pattering with feet. There had been hurry in the air as the street dressed itself up for the evening. And he liked the way that each building on the High Street had a different height, face, origin, but they sat alongside each other amicably, like members of a Cuban jazz band. The lights had been on already, many neon but others were strung from trees to the buildings across the road. Some of the windows were slatted with white wood and jutted out from the bottoms of the buildings like birdcages. Chairs and tables had been arranged in squares and rectangles under striped canopies.

On that first night, the street had been rich with promises for his future in London. These were bars and cafés that were waiting for him. They were places where Rashid would be known. There would be a cheer from the tables as he entered. His friends would pull him into discussions, jokes would be told, and they might even cajole him into playing instruments that he would discover an untapped talent for. He would be known. He would be loved. He would be free.

Lisa did not understand what he saw in these places. She had pointed out the number of chains, laughed at the prospect of going to a couple of restaurants he had named (‘I don’t think you can afford that place, Rashid’), and described the rest as ‘passé’, ‘singles joint’, ‘gay’. With a little time he had learnt to view the street and ultimately the rest of London in the same way that she did.

The sign for the restaurant Lisa had chosen was lit by bulbs in copper cups. In the window a carpet hung like a curtain and a clay pot sprouted gnarled twigs. Lisa was already there by the door, twisting her tube pass in her teeth. ‘You look beautiful,’ Rashid said, leaning over to kiss her. She winced. He wondered whether he had let the street Arab inside him (a horny vagabond hiding right there under his skin) slip out again. This beastly doppelgänger seemed to be making his appearance more and more frequently around Lisa. He was unable to get him under control. Rashid wanted to pull her towards him or to say something to lift her agitation, but he didn’t trust himself to speak. He didn’t know how it might sound. Perhaps there was a way of kissing her that would soften her, or maybe she would hate that, too. He felt taken over with Hey, pretty girl, come look at my carpets. I give you nice price and it made him unable to act.

‘My sister’s coming,’ she said, the rim of her plastic tube pass still in her bite. Rashid resolved not to say anything. Whatever he said on the subject of Lisa’s family was invariably wrong. When in doubt, Sabri had taught him, one should gather information. Sabri had been referring to guerrilla warfare at the time, but Rashid chose to adopt this tactic now.

‘Why’s she coming? I thought you didn’t get along that well?’ He couldn’t help it, it come out despite his promise to himself.

‘We don’t. She’s only coming because Charlie’s coming, and Charlie and Anna were at university together. I asked her to introduce me to him. But she won’t fit in with everyone else. At all. She just won’t fit and I told her that and she got all arsey.’

‘Who’s Charlie?’

‘Rashid, for God’s sake. I told you: Charles Denham, the contact at the Foreign Office. That’s what this whole thing’s for. He’s just been moved to the Middle East desk. I told you all about him. It’s really important that you get through to him about what’s going on. He needs to know about Gaza. About the Centre.’

‘Sure, sure, Charlie, fine.’ Rashid did remember discussing the man. He had a clear image of him already – Charles Denham wore a bowler hat and had a pipe that he tapped on with his little finger. Rashid had not made the connection with a university-going Charlie.

The concert tickets in Rashid’s pocket were tickling him. He shuffled around. A couple in suits stopped to examine the menu in the brass box close to Lisa’s head. The woman rubbed her hand against the man’s hip, as though she was trying to ignite it. They were black ( Afro-Caribbean, Rashid, he could hearing Lisa stressing, not black ). Lisa smiled at them consolingly. Rashid stubbed his cigarette out in a pot holding a tree modelled on a lollypop. The couple walked on. Rashid, deciding that an appropriate length of silence had passed, pulled the concert tickets out and flashed them in front of Lisa.

‘What’s that?’

‘Saturday, the Albert Hall, the man himself: Eric Clapton. Two tickets.’

‘Rashid! They must have been so expensive. How can you afford them? You should have told me. Or asked. I can’t even do Saturday. I’ve got this charity dinner I might have to go to.’

He had not thought that she wouldn’t be able to make it. He had anticipated the scene of handing over the tickets as being one of delight (there would be a hug, a long kiss), that she would only question him about how he had managed to get them as that was a tale in itself. It hadn’t been easy and now she didn’t even seem sure as to why she couldn’t make it.

‘No, I’m certain that I can’t,’ she said, handing the tickets back. ‘You should’ve asked before you bought them. All that money, Rashid. You probably can’t even get a refund.’ Her voice was cross but when she looked up at him she made herself look sweet, her brows frowning up above her nose. ‘Sorry,’ she said, moving a bit closer.

A significant presence was approaching from around the corner, clattering towards them in high heels. Lisa stepped back from Rashid and dropped his hand at the appearance of her sister’s tightly suited body.

‘It’s Anna. Look, I think it’s best if no one knows about us , that we’re, you know, together. OK, just for this dinner?’

He was not going to take Ian to the concert; he would rather go on his own and waste the money. Khalil would have loved it, but he was not coming over for ages. There was no one else.

‘Anna, Rashid,’ Rashid shook hands with a neater, slimmer version of Lisa: plucked brows, tiny static pearl earrings, a cleanly cut fringe. She had the kind of look that would be used to advertise a telephone company or a law firm.

‘Ya, hi! Rashid? Rasheed ? Is that right? Great. You’re umm… a friend of Lisa’s, right? You went down to see the parents, didn’t you? I heard all about that. All about it. I can’t remember, where is it that you’re from?’

That question again; a box requiring a simple tick when he really needed to write an essay.

‘Gaza?’ Rashid raised his eyebrows at the anticipated incomprehensibility of his answer.

‘Sure, sure. God! The places Lisa gets to! Hey, sis, you all right?’ The two women bobbed their heads a bit at each other, but did not in any way touch.

‘You like it over here then, Rashid? I got it right, didn’t I? Rasheed , ya? Who else is coming, Lisa? Apart from Charlie, that is?’

‘Just us and Charlie. Then Ali. He’s Kurdish. And Steffi who’s just started an internship with us,’ Lisa said.

‘Steffi?’

‘Short for Stefanie, Anna.’

‘O- K . Well, why don’t we go in, sit down, get a drink? I’ve had such a day. The tube! I just… the City sometimes – it’s just too much and my boss… you know, Lisa, I told you about my old boss?’

They were moving towards the door. Rashid heard bits and pieces of the conversation: ‘…boob job that got infected, anyway so she’s gone, so now I have this complete neat freak anal guy. Gay, I’m sure of it. Won’t get off my back. It’s just a nightmare. Nightmare .’