When I return downstairs, my dad is sitting in the kitchen, munching through a piece of toast and sipping from a mug of tea in turn.
‘You and me need to talk,’ he says when he sees me. I wander over to the toaster and put two slices of bread in for myself. ‘We’ll go for a walk,’ he tells me. ‘Just you and me.’
I nod, but say nothing. I just wait for my toast to pop up and butter it. I sit down at the other end of the table and eat my own.
‘We’ll walk along the valley,’ he says. ‘Up into the woods. I’ve missed it.’
‘It’s muddy up there,’ I say.
‘I want to see the bluebells.’
‘They’re not out yet. But I saw cowslips in the field on my walk with grandad.’
‘That will do,’ he says. ‘The fresh air will do us good.’
I nod my head at him and manage a smile.
Ten minutes later, we’re setting off from home, our feet pushed into heavy walking boots. We walk along our road, turning right at the end to wander down the hill, past granny and grandpa’s house. At the bottom of the valley, we cross the road and head into the field past the sunken barbed wire fence. We a walk on in silence, heading up the diagonal grassy path, right across the field. It’s not too steep, but we stop half way to study the eroded turf. We surmise that badgers have been scraping the ground by night.
At the top of the field, we follow the path through the hedge way, then turn right to hike up the hill into the woods. The trees are late coming into bud this year, but at least there is the birdsong to accompany us. Dad says he spotted a wren in the undergrowth, but I old see blue tits dancing around, and a robin somewhere above us singing its song. Perhaps it’s a blessing that I recognise all the different birds just from their song. Perhaps it’s a blessing that my dad thought it important to teach me the names of the birds and trees we encounter on our walks. I couldn’t tell you anything about Fortnite, Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto, but I know my horse chestnut from my common lime.
Dad’s breathless by the time he reaches the top of the wood. He has to stop to catch his breath, wheezing. He only has himself to blame, for confining himself to his room for weeks on end. He’ll be weak in his legs, though he doesn’t tell me so.
‘You alright?’ I ask him.
‘Just catching the view,’ he lies.
Dad’s put on a lot of weight during lockdown, but I don’t say anything. Mum says he used to be much bigger when he was young. We’re meant to overlook his middle-age spread and congratulate him for reversing his diabetes. I don’t know if he has or hasn’t, but I reckon he has a problem with high blood pressure. The past three weeks has shown that much.
‘Come on then,’ I say, pushing on.
He follows behind me, down an unclear path between two hawthorn bushes. We’re not even sure this is a path, but we know we’re heading in the right direction, so we press on. We pass a crater on our right. We disagree about the cause of them. Dad reckons the Luftwaffe emptied their bombs here after their missions over London seventy years ago. I reckon they’re just ancient chalk pits. We agree to disagree and wander on.
Soon we’re traipsing through swathes of pointed green leaves. These are dad’s bluebells, pushing through the decaying leaves. They’ll be flowering in another month. For now, he’ll have to make do with the primroses. They look so delicate, but we both know they’re as tough as anything. A bit like mum, really. Dad seems to be thinking the same thing as me when he sees their pale yellow flowers all around.
‘I don’t know what I’d do without your mum,’ he tells me suddenly. ‘I’m so blessed to have her in my life.’
The wood narrows here, until it merges into a constricted path between a mixed hedge and a barbed wire fence at the top of a field. We must walk single-file here. The path is muddy underfoot, but we just about manage to traverse it, straddling the muddiest portion, feet traipsing along the grassy bank. At the end of the path, we turn left and pass through a gate into a farm yard. Our pace is more deliberate here, because we are scared of the aggressive dogs we fear roam here. At the bottom of the hill, we pass through a metal gate and cross the road again. It’s the same one we crossed half an hour ago to traipse up the valley. We will head along the lane now, along the base of another valley.
‘How did you know mum was the one for you?’ I ask him. I have been mulling over this question ever since he blurted out his thoughts in the woods.
‘That’s a long story,’ he says.
‘We’re on a long walk,’ I reply. ‘Was it love at first sight?’
‘It was like at first sight.’
‘Mmm,’ I mutter to myself.
When I say that, he stands still and looks at me. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just… just wondering…’ I shrug, ‘For myself.’
Dad smiles at me, but I can tell he’s not taking me seriously. ‘You’re too young to be thinking about that,’ he says.
‘At seventeen, nearly eighteen? How old were you?’
‘Those were different times. A different world.’
‘All my friends have had girlfriends for years.’
‘You want a girlfriend?’
‘I’m not saying that.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘How do you know if somebody’s the one?’
‘Is there somebody?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. Sort of.’
‘Maybe sort of?’ he laughs. ‘What does that mean?’
‘There’s this girl at college…’
‘Just one?’
‘Don’t joke about, dad. She’s really nice…’
‘And you’ve got close?’
‘I didn’t let myself get close because… because I honestly think she’s too good for me… she’s way out of my league.’
‘Part of the cool crowd, huh?’
‘No, not like that. She’s serious about her deen. Wears hijab. She’s not messing about. Studies hard.’
‘But you like her?’
‘I never thought she’d like someone like me, but…’
‘But?’
‘With you and mum… who was most persistent? Was it you or mum?’
‘Well, that’s hard to say. At first, probably me. We were childhood friends, through our parents. Well, through my mum and hers. So of course she became my fairy tale princess all the way through primary school.’
‘And you say I’m too young to think about it?’
‘You must’ve had a primary school crush.’
‘Is that all it was?’
‘Not sure, really. In my own head, I was always just a toad, but to me she was everything. So I was always proposing to her, long before I really knew what it meant. I’d make her daisy chain necklaces and give her flowers I’d nicked from people’s gardens. Must’ve proposed about twenty times by the time we left junior school.’
‘Sounds cute,’ I say.
‘For sure, she lived in my dreams for years,’ he tells me.
‘So, really, you were chasing after her?’
‘When we were little, yes. But later… later, that was her. She’s the one that made the effort to find me again. Alhamdililah! Alhamdulilah for that.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Me? I’d given up, but she was…’
‘Persistent?’
‘I think I’d say patient. She’s the one who never gave up. Even when I had, she insisted. She never gave up on me.’
I’m silent now, walking beside him.
‘You ask because?’
I shrug my shoulders.
‘Because she’s asking you?’
‘Yep,’ I whisper.
Dad smiles at me. ‘Nothing wrong with that,’ he says.
‘She was very direct. I was a bit… taken aback. Someone like her…’
‘Direct in what way?’
‘She said she’s already told her parents she likes me. Gave me her mum’s phone number. Wants me to ask mum to ring her.’
‘That is direct!’ laughs dad. ‘So you’re totally freaked out?’
‘Not freaked out, just… surprised.’
‘A nice surprise though?’
‘You’re not cross?’
‘Why would I be?’
‘I dunno, I just thought…’
‘You know, I promised myself years ago that I’d never stand in the way of my kids seeking love. You know what’s halal and haram, but at the end of the day, it’s your life. I’ll never let you experience what I did. I don’t want anyone to go through that. Your mum and I discussed this years ago. We have our own beliefs, but the most important thing for us is that you follow your heart. The only thing we can do is guide you.’
‘That’s…’
‘Another surprise?’
‘Well, yeah.’ I glance at him. ‘Because in madrasa we were always taught…’
‘You know, your mum and me… we nearly missed each other. I lost her for years…’
‘Seriously?’
‘Totally. I got sucked into a very bad world. That’s when I gave up all hope of ever seeing her again. I had to blot her out of my mind and just tried to live as this strange character I absolutely hated. It wasn’t me. Someone else was living in my body, because… because I just had to give in… because it was the only way I was going to survive. And the truth is, I thought I’d never see your mum again. And, even if I did, she wouldn’t want me then.’
‘Why?’ I ask, squinting.
‘This is going to be hard for you to hear, or understand. But the only way for me to survive by then was to just submit to everything my family stood for.’
‘Which was?’
‘White supremacy. Racial nationalism. Hate.’ Dad looks at me thoughtfully. ‘I’m not proud of it. I wasn’t a willing participant. Not at first, anyway. But I just had to survive.’
‘Survive? As in?’
‘As in not being physically assaulted every single day of my life. Not having my jaw bashed. Not being given a punishment beating by my cousins because I refused to toe the line.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I wish I wasn’t, but that became my reality. My family liked to present themselves as saviours of the white race, but they were really just professional thugs. Rent-a-mob. Their speciality was protection and football hooliganism, but they’d turn their hands to anything. Any excuse to deploy extreme violence and they were there. They behaved like the mafia. My grandad was like the Godfather. So, in the end, I just found it easier to go along with them than try to take another path.’
‘Were you violent yourself?’
‘Funnily enough, the nearest I ever came to it was the day that propelled me back towards your mum. That was my first and only public outing representing the cause. We were supposed to be taking a stand against the extinction of the white race. Our job, me and my cousins, was to stand in the way of a march against racism and try our best to spark a riot. Which we did, in a way, but it didn’t go exactly to plan.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I just resumed my usual role as community punch bag. But really, it was a blessing in disguise. Actually, it was an answer to a prayer. I really didn’t want to go there, but I had no choice, so the night before I prayed like I never had before, and never have since. I hoped a whirlwind would take me away before we ever got there. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. Something better maybe. Not that I saw it at the time. In fact, I only really saw it this morning during that impassioned speech your mum gave.’
‘You mean she rescued you?’
‘That’s a nice way of putting it. Honestly, without her… I don’t even know if I’d be alive today.’ He glances at me. ‘I’m so glad she pursued me. Maybe you and me are alike in this. Too shy for our own good. Maybe that’s why Allah sent us strong, confident companions.’
‘Is that what you think’s happened?’
‘Could be,’ he says. ‘But we’ll have to see, won’t we?’ He smiles at me. ‘If it’s meant to be, it’ll be.’
‘So when did you really know?’
‘In my case? When I opened my eyes and found she’d been waiting for me.’
‘When you popped out of your mum’s womb?’
Dad looks at me strangely. ‘I was actually thinking of the day I woke up in hospital and the doctors told me she was outside waiting for me, and had been waiting for me for days on end. That’s when I knew.’ Dad looks at me intently. ‘Your mother is my gift from God. I’ve always believed that, but none more so than today. She was the answer to my prayer. She’s a special woman, your mum.’
I can’t help nodding when he says this, but I say nothing. We walk on in silence for a while, but I’m pondering words of my own. I just don’t know how to broach the subject. We’re heading up a grassy hill now.
‘Can I talk about your mum?’ I ask finally, but my dad doesn’t reply. We walk on without talking for another five minutes.
‘Or is it still… too raw?’ I ask.
‘I have a lot of regrets, Ibrahim,’ he replies eventually.
I don’t know what he means. ‘Are you still angry with me for making contact with her?’
‘You just touched a nerve,’ he says, patting me on my back. ‘Because… yes, I’ve been thinking of her a lot lately. No, no I’m not angry with you. You did what I should’ve done. Years ago, to be honest. But you’re braver than me.’ He glances back at me. ‘I guess I reacted that way because… I guess it was my pride. Because you managed to do something in a couple of days I’ve avoided for two decades. I suppose I was upset my son managed to do something I’d never mustered the courage to do myself.’ He chuckles to himself. ‘Is it any surprise that Al-Ghazali wrote about pride so extensively? No, just look at me.’
‘Well I am sorry if…’
‘Please, Ibrahim, there’s no need. The truth is I have been thinking of my mum constantly for the past three weeks. Nearly every moment of every day. Your mum doesn’t see it this way, of course, but I just want to apologise for… well, just about everything. The truth is, that’s what’s been eating me up. My regrets… yes, they’re eating away at me. Maybe that’s what sent me into those heavy doldrums. Despair. Remorse.’
‘But I don’t think your mum’s upset with you,’ I tell him. ‘In fact, it’s the opposite: she’s the one full of regrets. She loves you, dad. She loves you a lot. And she misses you.’
‘I miss her too.’
‘So why don’t you…’
‘Get in touch? Where would I begin?’
‘Maybe the hard part’s out of the way already,’ I say.
‘Thanks to you, you mean?’
‘Not really me,’ I say. ‘I have a confession to make: it wasn’t me who made contact with your mum. It was…’
‘What’s her name?’ asks dad, as if he can read my mind.
‘Ayşegül.’
‘Nice name,’ he says, his eyes smiling at me. ‘Is she Turkish?’
‘How do you know?’
‘Well I know gül means rose.’
‘How?’
‘I’ve consumed enough Turkish lokum in my life to know that much,’ he laughs. ‘So…’
‘I only asked her to help me search for your mum because she’s a genius with computers. It’s not that we were chatting and I decided to mention it to her. To be honest, I’d never really spoken to her before at all. But I was desperate. Because… because of how you were. Because of the way you yelled at me on Monday for no reason at all.’
‘Forgive me…’
‘I already did, but… but it did upset me. A lot. That’s why… that’s why I asked her to help me.’ I look at my dad seriously. ‘And so that’s what she did. She was great. She helped me so much. But it was more than that. When we found your mum, she was so kind and supportive. So genuine. So…’
‘Go on.’
‘In truth, I was too shy to contact your mum myself, so she wrote to her for me. Then they spoke on the phone, for, like, hours. She smoothed the way for me. She was so… helpful. Without her… I don’t think I would’ve had the courage to speak to your mum, let alone visit her.’
‘Sounds just like your mum,’ grins my dad. ‘I’d take that as a good sign.’
‘Maybe,’ I whisper. ‘But then… maybe I already know.’
‘How so?’
‘Because last night, when you were all still mad at me, I was so upset that I decided to call her. I wasn’t thinking straight. And do you know what she told me to do? She told me to make dua. To pray tahajud. So that’s what I did. All night long. And now? Here we are, talking again. Friends again. Back to normal.’
‘Mashallah,’ says dad.
‘You know that thing you said about mum? How it was like at first sight. I think that’s how I feel. I like her too.’
‘She certainly sounds…’
‘Special? Like mum did for you?’
‘I was going to say a good person.’
‘Yes, she is. So…’
‘So you’re going to get her to write to my mother on my behalf?’ he laughs.
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘Good, because I think I better do this myself.’
‘You could just ring her,’ I say. ‘Or we could visit her, like I did,’ I suggest.
‘I don’t think your mum would go for that.’
‘Or you could invite her here.’
‘And send her our address? Your mum would definitely veto that.’
‘Then let’s phone her,’ I say.
‘Maybe later,’ he says.
‘Why later? You always said to me never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.’
‘True,’ he says, ‘but…’
‘Strike while the iron’s hot. That’s another of yours.’
‘It is, but… I haven’t planned what I’m going to say. I’ll have to think about it.’
‘Thought you said you’ve been thinking about her the past three weeks non-stop.’
‘That’s true, but I was writing a letter… in my head. I was imagining what I’d write to her. I never imagined things would move so fast. I thought we’d take it slowly, exchanging letters, backwards and forwards.’
‘Nobody writes letters anymore, dad.’
‘You want me to snapchat her?’
‘Just pick up the phone.’ I pull my own phone out. ‘Here,’ I say, swiping through in search of her number. ‘Only… er, I don’t have it.’ I glance back at dad, embarrassed. ‘I’ll have to ask Ayşegül for it,’ I say. ‘I never found the courage to ring her myself.’
‘Oh, Ibrahim, you’re worse than me.’
‘I know,’ I shrug. ‘Overbearing parents, you see.’
‘We’re not that bad, Ibrahim.’
‘Oh yes you are.’ I smile at my dad. ‘But I can ask for it now, if I have a signal.’
I tap out a message to her. Ayşegül replies ten minutes later, sending me my gran’s number with a smiley. ‘Here you go,’ I tell him, forwarding it onto him.
At the top of the hill, we follow the path up towards the edge of town. As I walk beside my dad, I see him toying with his phone.
‘So are we go?’ I ask him.
‘Inshallah,’ he replies.
Finally he stands still and puts it to his ear. He lets it ring.
‘Mum,’ he says finally, his whole body convulsing with shivers, ‘this is Ben.’ His hand lands on his head. ‘I… I’m sorry…’ Then he says nothing at all for nearly two minutes, though his face is filled with all manner of expressions. ‘No, no, it’s me…’ he tries, ‘No I’m…’ He can hardly get a word in edgeways. She’s doing all the talking. Another five minutes pass before he finally says, ‘Yes, I’d like that.’ Gradually his shivers seem to subside and a smile seems to creep across his face. ‘Of course… yes… no, you have nothing to apologise for… yes. No, I’d… Yes, I’d like to visit…’
I realise I’ve been listening in too intently and decide to give them space to enjoy their amazing reunion, wandering off ahead, my father sauntering far behind me, speaking to his mother at length one to one. This is where I take my own phone in my hand and decide to message Ayşegül.
‘Thanks,’ I write to her. ‘You’ve made my dad very happy. Jazak Allah khair. May Allah reward you and grant you everything your heart desires.’
‘Amin,’ she replies, accompanying it with another smiley.
