Selma Dabbagh - Out of It

Iman didn’t know what Lisa was doing there. Rashid had told her that he had hardly seen her since he had taken her sister out to a concert, months before, although they had spoken on the phone about work issues, speakers for the demonstration and things like that. Lisa did not seem delighted to see Iman. The two women greeted each other grudgingly.

‘What could he have on him that would show up in a search?’ Iman asked Khalil in Arabic after he answered her questions. Iman could feel Lisa shift uncomfortably at the change in language.

‘No idea,’ replied Khalil, switching back into English. ‘Where were you, anyway? I was waiting for you at your flat.’

‘I met someone I knew. We went for a drink.’ Iman tried to make it sound like something she did regularly.

‘Who?’ Khalil asked, ‘did you meet for a drink?’

‘Who did I meet?’

‘Unless it’s personal that is…’

‘I was with Ziyyad Ayyoubi.’

‘What did you think of him?’ Lisa butted in before Khalil had a chance to express his surprise. ‘He was good, don’t you think? I was just saying that we weren’t sure initially, because we wanted one of the big cheeses to speak, but they insisted on Ziyyad so we agreed. I thought he was quite charismatic. He’s a friend of yours?’ Lisa spoke with a mixture of reverence, jealousy and petty dislike.

‘Who exactly did recommend him, Lisa?’ asked Iman.

‘I think it was whatshisname? Abu? With the big moustache and bald head?’

‘The spokesman?’ Iman gave a name.

‘That’s the one.’ She nodded. ‘Ayyoubi’s a friend of yours, is he?’ Lisa asked again.

‘I met him once before I left,’ Iman said. Her hair, which was still wet, sprayed everything around her when she turned her head.

They could make out the sound of several keys unlocking the door that led down to the interview rooms and the cells. The owner of a loud androgynous voice that was shouting down a mobile was approaching the waiting room. Iman, Khalil, Lisa and the rest of the room stared as the speaker stepped into the room and took it over. She was several feet wide and dressed in a floppy crêpe fabric, her neck strung with low-carat gold chains, her hair dyed into soft orange curls that exaggerated the age of her face. She reminded Iman of a stuffed cushion with a small dog’s pointed face coming out of one side that they had at the nursery in Gaza. The children called it Foofee.

The Foofee woman settled quickly on Iman and Khalil. ‘You here for Rashid Mujahed, then?’ she asked, but before they had a chance to reply, Lisa was talking to the woman – standing up she reached the other woman’s shoulder height – lowering her voice and saying something about the broadening of the terrorism laws and how she knew, if it ever came to that, there was a QC who she was sure she could get to act.

‘Don’t think it will come to that this time, love. All right then, who should I talk to. You all with him, then?’ the woman asked.

Lisa sat down, her bag back on her lap. Iman and Khalil stared in awe at the commanding tower of flesh and fabric standing before them.

The woman wiped her brow. ‘Humid, isn’t it? Rain hasn’t shifted it at all.’ She sat opposite them, taking up two seats, the cheeks of her bottom divided by the moulding between the chairs. ‘Right, OK, so what’s happened is, they arrested your friend. Is he…?’

‘Boyfriend,’ said Lisa.

‘Brother,’ said Iman.

‘Friend,’ said Khalil.

‘All right. Whatever. I’m Annabelle Prieston, right? I represented Rashid Mujahed during his interview. I was his legal representative. What happened was Rashid was arrested this afternoon by the Terrorism Unit in a case of mistaken identity. Apparently they were looking for someone else from the same place as him who is said to be in London at the moment. The other person was being watched during the demonstration but they weren’t watching hard enough and they arrested your friend and brought him here by mistake. Then they did some checks and found out they had the wrong guy. Right?’

The woman flicked through her notes. Her handwriting was very tight and sloped backwards menacingly.

‘Why didn’t they release him, then?’ Lisa asked.

‘They would have, except for the fact that your friend, brother, boyfriend, whatever, had a not insubstantial amount of a Class C divided into two separate packages which the police chose not to overlook.’

‘Class C?’ Khalil and Iman asked at the same time. Lisa was holding her bag tightly against her stomach as if trying to protect herself from a punch.

‘Marijuana. Dope. Hash. Black. Whatever you want to call it.’

‘Grass?’ asked Iman.

‘Well, no. Actually, technically, yes, as far as the law is concerned, but grass is actually the leaves, whereas this was the black, the resin, the hash block. Now, thing is, you get found with this divided and they’ll do you for possession with intent to supply, a much more serious offence than simple possession. Added to this,’ she lowered her voice, as she led up to the best bit, ‘the fact that Rashid had a) signed for the stuff on the custody sheet when he was booked in and b) actually told the officers that he was going to give the other block to a roommate at uni.’

Annabelle’s eyes widened and she sat back against the wall, before leaning forwards again – she could see her audience were not quite getting it.

‘Even just passing a joint to someone is intent to supply, see, so by him saying that, he had basically confessed to the more serious crime. Right?’

Iman and Khalil focussed hard on Annabelle.

‘But I managed to get that discounted, because at the time there was no legal rep around and he had been arrested for something totally different. In the end I got him off on a caution.’ Iman and Khalil continued to stare at Annabelle, forcing her to spell it out. ‘It’s a bloody good result – a caution – considering how much dope he had on him. May affect his immigration status. You need to check on that. It’s not my field, but he won’t need to go to court or anything. No criminal record.’

‘What’s a caution?’ Iman and Khalil asked together.

‘Think of it like a warning. Right. He got a warning; if he does something like this again he’ll be in trouble, but for now he’s free to go.’

‘Where is he?’ asked Iman.

‘He’s just getting his stuff together. He’ll be here any minute.’ Annabelle looked disgruntled.

‘What do you mean that it might affect his immigration status?’ asked Khalil. ‘He needs to be here until September for his course.’

‘Like I said, I don’t know, but he might need to go home sooner than that.’

‘But he’s on a scholarship,’ Iman said.

‘Like I said, it’s not my area. Here.’ She handed over a card. ‘Give the immigration section at my firm a call in the morning, all right? They might be able to help him out although I doubt whether he’ll get Legal Aid. Right. I’m off now.’

‘You don’t need to wait for him to come up?’ Iman asked, taking on Lisa’s interrogative role now that Lisa had fallen silent.

‘He’ll be up any second, and I’ve got a GBH down south now.’ She stood in front of them.

‘Well, thank you.’ Khalil stood up before Iman did; he realised that that was what this vast woman seemed to want from him. The rep nodded before leaving the premises.

‘Drugs!’ Lisa was muttering, disgusted. ‘If I had known it was just some hash that he was in here for…’

Khalil was turning the card over, looking at the name of the immigration solicitor when Rashid arrived. Rashid only seemed to see one of them. ‘Lisa!’ he cried. She stood up as Rashid came towards them.