Yasmin stared at me, fingering the cane absently, before handing it back to her mother.
“If you were going to hurt us you would have by now, so I guess we can trust you…” she murmured, her lips quirking in a fleeting smile. “Sit, Shari can be a bit full-on when she gets wound-up, but no-one’s going to hurt you. Have you eaten anything today?”
I shook my head; other than a railway station buffet doughnut at Carlisle station when I first set out, all I could afford, I hadn’t eaten anything in two days, and now that she’d reminded me, I realised just how hungry I was. I couldn’t stay and eat their food, though; Shereen would be back soon, and she’d told me to be gone before then.
“It’s OK, I’ll find something to eat on the way home.” I told her, although I had no idea how I was going to get there; I just had to hope something would turn up.
“I don’t recognise your accent, where are you from?” she asked me, so I told her we lived in Carlisle, up in Cumbria. She nodded. “Yeah, the Borders, I couldn’t place you at all. How are you going to get back there?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“I don’t know, I’ll probably hitchhike, or just walk back… something will come up… ” I mumbled, causing her to flash a glance at her mother and pull out her phone. After tapping it a few times, she looked quizzically at me.
“It’s over three hundred miles away; you’re going to walk back there? How? That could take weeks. Have you got any money?”
When I shook my head her eyes widened.
“So how are you going to eat? What are you going to live on? You can’t just head-off into the wilds and hope food will fall in your lap! Sit there, I want to talk to mummy.”
Yasmin and Ayesha huddled together, I couldn’t hear everything they were saying, but I caught snippets; “… not his fault… at least some food… he’s still my brother, we can’t just…” and so on.
Just then the door opened and Shereen came back in, her expression hardening when she saw me still there.
“I thought I told you…!” she began, but Yasmin cut her off.
“That’s it, Shar, enough! He didn’t do anything, he didn’t even know, that’s why he came here, he was looking for answers! Now belt-up, mummy wants to talk, just shut your trap and listen for thirty seconds!”
We both stared at her, Shereen with a shocked expression at her sister taking my side, although I wasn’t sure why. Shereen stared at me for long, endless seconds in silence, her eyes like bullets, grey and merciless as steel shot and just as hard and deadly, and then she nodded just once.
“OK, sit, stay, listen, and just shut up, no-one here wants to hear your pathetic excuses, you got that?”
I nodded dumbly, but couldn’t help but see the fleeting smile flit across Yasmin’s face before she schooled her features into an impassive mask. Her bright, green-hazel eyes, however, didn’t have that steely hardness that Shereen’s had. If I hadn’t known better, I would have worn she was trying not to smile, or burst out laughing. Ayesha cocked an eye at her younger daughter, obviously seeing what I’d just seen, and the look she gave me was thoughtful, not hostile, and definitely not angry.
“Richard… Ritchie,” she sighed, shaking her head sadly at the mess I’d caused by showing up, “You came here into the middle of all this, you didn’t know what had been going on, but if I threw you out for things that were not your fault I’d be no better than your father, so I apologise for the welcome I gave you, I see now that none of this was your fault, you had nothing to do with it, and you’re just as much a victim as anyone in this room, so please… sit, I’m sorry. No… ” she murmured as Shereen stirred angrily, “let me finish, sweetheart, we all need to calm down a little.”
She turned her attention back to me.
“You tried to find your mother, you came here from all the way up North with nothing but the clothes on your back, looking for family, for answers, for someone, anyone, who could tell you who you are, and you were ready to go back there any way you could because of the way we responded to you. You didn’t come here to threaten, or beg, or blackmail or force your way in, you just wanted to know who you are. There’s nothing wrong with that, and you’ve done nothing to me or your sisters. Your father has much to answer for, he’s done things to this family that beggar belief, this is why Shereen is so angry, but you, you’re just a kid, fallout from your father’s actions, just another victim, and I would never forgive myself if I turned you away and something happened to you: you haven’t done anything wrong at all.”
She grinned lopsidedly.
“You and I, we still have things to say, some hard things to hear, but we’ll do that later. There are things you don’t know, things that still make me sick and very angry to even think about, and there will be anger and hurt, oh yes, and probably hatred, too, but if I get angry just remember, it’s not at you. You’re a victim too, and you’re just a youngster, you shouldn’t have to deal with this, but these things need to be said, and then perhaps you’ll know and understand why Shereen is so very angry.”
She leaned her chin on her hand on the arm of her chair and fixed her gaze on me, keen and sharp for long seconds, before speaking again, her tone softer, more considered than earlier.
“For now, just think about this; you came here looking for answers and found your family, Ritchie, strange as that may sound. Your brother Robert and my two girls are all you have, Yasmin is your little sister, Shereen is your big sister, I don’t think they have any excuse to abandon you and blame you for something you couldn’t possibly have known about. Shereen, would you ever abandon your little sister?”
Shereen’s eyes kindled.
“NEVER! How could you even ask…” she almost shouted, and Ayesha nodded.
“Yet you’d abandon your younger brother, who hasn’t done anything to you, who just came here hoping to find some answers?” murmured Ayesha. Shereen looked stricken as Ayesha’s logic drilled into her.
“Please, baby girl, what have I always told you about guests, and who they might be? This boy is our guest, and he needs our help; are you really going to turn him away to starve in an alley somewhere for something that’s not his fault? He didn’t pick his father, and he isn’t his father, he’s someone who doesn’t know who he is, or who we are, or why he’s here. Is that a sin, or a crime?”
Shereen’s shoulders slumped.
“No…” she murmured, defeated by her mother’s relentless logic.
Ayesha smiled gently at her.
“Then let him tell his story, sweetheart.”
Shereen looked at me and nodded.
“Go ahead then, tell us, tell us the whole thing.”
So I did, starting with Nicky, what Bobby and I had thought of him, about Barbara, how we’d ignored and marginalised her, the beatings we’d heard and closed our ears to, the way our father had treated Nicky, and the stories he’d told us, stories I was now coming to realise were lies, how he’d made sure we were completely isolated from the outside world, how we’d never had friends, or met anyone, or really spoken to anyone our entire lives.
Shereen’s face remained expressionless through this whole thing, how I’d found clues, isolated fragments that had led to them, and finally my astonishment at the fact I had two sisters, an older and a younger one, the last thing I’d been expecting.
When I’d finished my story, Shereen stared at me for the longest time, but searchingly, and that bullet-hardness was gone from her eyes. Finally, she sighed.
“OK, so what do we do with you? By your own admission you not the kind of person we should allow into our lives. You’re selfish, spoiled, indifferent, arrogant, you didn’t have a thought for anyone except yourself, am I right so far?”
I had to nod; she was right on the button on her assessment of my character. I was not what she wanted around her family, and the thought inexplicably saddened me.
“However,” she continued, “you spilled your guts completely about who and what you are and what you were like, you didn’t try and lie or sugar-coat or justify any of it, you told it like it is. Truth is hard to find, mummy always says that sometimes you have to dig deep to find it all, but you were truthful with me off the bat, even if you didn’t like what you were telling me, and I get that. Mummy was right, I may not like the idea, but the truth is, you’re my little brother, and you came here to find answers, not lie to us, or steal from us, or hurt us, and because you’re my little brother, I’m not going to turn my back on you. You need us, and maybe we’ll find out we need you. So what, exactly, are we going to do with you, Richard Davies?”
My spirits surged at that; at least she wasn’t threatening my life anymore, that had to be a good sign!
“When’s the last time you ate something, Richard?” enquired Ayesha. I mumbled something about “not long ago” which got me a narrow-eyed stare.
“I’m not going to ask you again: when’s the last time you ate something?”
When I told her it had probably been two days earlier she stared at me like I was mad.
“How much longer were you planning on waiting before telling me you’re hungry, eh?” she gritted, and I quailed at her tone.
“I wasn’t going to, I’m not hungry, honest, I just wanted some answers, then I’ll get out of your hair and go home.” I replied, too scared to stay there any longer than necessary. She grinned at me and pointed at Yasmin.
“You really don’t know how to lie properly, do you? Yaz, take your brother and show him where he can wash-up, Shari, go make your brother a sandwich, he hasn’t eaten in two days, and get him a glass of milk too, he must be starving…”
*