You Don't Know Me

30

So then every day for the next four or five days Ki is at the mosque for hours at a time. She puts on her burkha thing and leaves taking nothing but her phone with her. I try asking her why, why does she have to go there, to the mosque, but she just passes it off as one of them things.

‘What, you want me to go to the park or the library or something dressed like this?’ she says as if it is the stupidest thing she has ever heard.

‘But why you have to go out at all?’ I say after the third day. ‘Can’t you do your thing here, in the flat?’

‘No I can’t. I need to think. I need room. I need some peace. How can I think with you breathing down my neck all the time?’

‘I know that,’ I say. ‘But can you not see that it is dangerous for you to be out there? Dangerous for you, for Mum, for Bless, for Curt. Everyone, Ki. Is it worth it for your breathing room or whatever you want to call it?’

‘It’s okay babe. I’m wearing this,’ she says tugging on the side of her burkha. ‘I’m invisible.’

I even tried to walk her down there myself but she wasn’t having it at all. It was too dangerous she told me. Turning my own lines back at myself.

Then she would come back and each time she would have this bright-eyed look about her like she just been washed in light. Like she was alive again. But that weren’t the only thing. She began to look sketchy you get me? Jumpy and nervous. And whenever I asked her whether she was any further with her plan she would just say, ‘Soon. Just give me a little more time. It’s coming together.’

On the fourth or fifth day I started to get worried about Ki. Proper worried. I half questioned whether the pressure that Ki had put on herself to come up with a plan was what was bothering her. God only knew how we were supposed to get ourselves out of this shit. And why did I think Ki would have the answer anyway? What was she supposed to do? Think up a plan that would take Face out of the picture somehow – just like that? It was one thing maybe to bring down some next crew, but Face was premier league. There was no way we could face off Face. Mouse can’t fight a snake, I said to myself. Mouse can’t fight a snake.

But the more I thought about how impossible it was, the more it became obvious what had to be done. How it was going to be done was another thing, but at least I knew what it was that needed to be done.

I stared out of the window and noticed that the skies had gone dark like they were brewing up for a storm. I hoped Ki wasn’t going to get caught in the thunderstorm. I was pretty sure she hadn’t taken an umbrella. I found myself wondering whether burkhas were waterproof. Then thinking about Ki, getting caught up in the rain, just a simple thing like that got me wondering about her moods when she came back.

She had this look painted across her face like she had found enlightenment. She didn’t seem worried no more. And each day she seemed less and less scared and more and more focused. Those grey eyes would slip all lazy under her lids and I could almost see her brain mashing up the problems and sifting out the solutions. Was it the pressure of being cooped up inside the flat that was making her strange or was maybe some shit going on at that mosque she was going to? It made me wonder. After all, those places know how to churn out the nutters don’t they?

I didn’t really think of myself as following her exactly. I was more just making sure that she was okay in my mind at least. Who knew what went on in those places after they finished the prayers? Did they all meet up in some room with a wall chart and start planning their next terrorist attack or was it was just tea and cakes? Who the fuck could tell? Not me at any rate. I just wanted to be sure they weren’t mind-fucking her you know what I mean. She had enough shit going on without having to help some shoe-bombing sisters of Islam put their shit together.

The nearest mosque to our place was just a short bus ride away in a straight line. It wasn’t one of them domes and minuets places that I had in my mind. It was more like some grim little community centre that they had converted. Although I didn’t know for sure that was where she went, that was my best guess. I don’t know why I didn’t ever ask her. Maybe I was worried she might have thought I was crowding her if I started to get all up in her face about exactly where she went.

Anyway half an hour after she had gone on this fifth day, Friday I think it was, I decided to go after her. Like I say, not to follow her or check on her, but just to make sure she was okay.

I pulled on a hoodie low over my eyes and jumped down the stairwell to the communal doors. I pushed open the heavy metal doors and the light hit me, like bam. And then all the smells that I had nearly forgotten. It was strange to be out in the proper daytime. It felt like I hadn’t really seen real daylight for time. The closest I had got to the outside was that day with the Alpina but that was more or less night-time. I looked up at the sky which was getting darker by the second and pulled my clothes tight to me. I ran to the nearest bus stop and put my head under the shelter just as the first drops of rain started. For some reason I couldn’t quite work out, I felt really uneasy. Like some bad shit was going to happen.

I jumped on the first bus I saw and sat on the lower deck away from the kids at the top who were making the kind of noise that people without real problems can make. All I wanted to do was to make sure she was okay, I said to myself as I stared out of the window. The ride was a short one maybe two stops. Then I saw the low, square building come into view. I rang the bell and then got off and jogged up to it keeping close to the walls to try and avoid the rain. It still had the words ‘Community Centre’ high up on the bricks, just above the words ‘Camberwell Community Mosque’. I took a deep breath and approached the main doors.

The prayers were still in progress when I got there so I hung back outside and waited close by in a doorway to avoid the rain. I didn’t really want to be interrupting no prayers. You know you don’t want to be fucking wid no Muslims breders when they in the middle of praying. They don’t take to that kind of shit well from what I hear.

Ten minutes or so later the people started pouring out. Hundreds of them. Made you wonder how they could get so many people in one small place. I mean literally, there were hundreds of them. There were even more people in here than in my mum’s church and trust, her church packs them in on any given Sunday. This mosque though must have been rammed with three times the numbers I even saw in a church. I didn’t go in but I had a sneaky look in through the windows of the double doors.

It’s just like it is on TV. Rows and rows of people, not an inch between them, all praying. I have to tell you, for a second I started to wonder whether there was maybe something in this religion thing. That many people all cramming into one tiny space, all praying? It’s not like they even got chairs you get me. It’s all just floor. You didn’t go to a place like that just to get some quiet time or because your mum made you go but you could still doze off and think about at least getting a Sunday lunch after. And there weren’t even no singing you get me. This was more like the gym. The kind of place you go to do your thing and then leave.

So anyway, I waited to see if I could see Ki when I realized that the only people coming out were men. I don’t mean mainly men. I mean all men. Every single one. So when the last few stragglers were coming out I stopped one of the younger guys.

‘Hey, is there ladies in this place?’ I said keeping my eyes low.

‘Sisters’ entrance round the back,’ he says as he’s slipping his shoes on and then mingles in with the rest of the crowd heading out.

Who knew there was a ladies’ entrance? Shit. I ran round the back just in time to see the door open. And then slowly at first, they start to come out, until there’s maybe sixty of them out there. And then slowly it hits me. I’m a idiot.

Every second one of these ladies is in a black burkha. There are dozens of Kiras. All star-bursting into different directions to get out of the rain. Shit. I can’t follow all of them so I decide I got no choice but to get back. Quickly.

I kept it on the low, head down, hoodie zipped up, eyeballed no one. In less than ten minutes I was racing back up the stairs to my flat. Breath heavy with all the no-exercise I was doing at that time. I know to look at me with all these prison muscles I look like a superhero but in them days, cooped up in that flat, I was more Fatman than Batman.

The thing that messed me up though when I got back in was that Ki still wasn’t back. Maybe she was still inside hanging with a few of the sisters until the rain stopped, I thought. It was possible since I didn’t actually go into the building. And anyway she weren’t going in there to pray so maybe she was up in some room somewhere where maybe people go to meditate or whatever.

So when she did turn up an hour later, I didn’t say anything. Nobody wants to be one of them type of guys who stalks his own girlfriend innit?

She breezed in holding her burkha over one arm and came into the kitchen bit where I was heating up some soup for lunch. She gave it a jokey, ‘Honey I’m home,’ draped her burkha over one chair and sat on another by the table.

‘Hey come sit, we need to talk,’ she says and smiles at me.

I sit next to her and I can feel the heat coming from her body. Then she puts a hand on my leg and suddenly a waterfall opens in my mind. The thoughts come crashing out just like that. Her face close to mine. Her eyes locking me into her. The scent of her skin. My head begins to spin from the memory of her, of us. Of how we were before it all became messed up. It has been so long since she touched me at all that I have almost forgotten that we were a living thing once. A fire-breathing thing. I look at her and she smiles that smile of hers. A smile from before.

For a second it makes me forget that anything was wrong. Then something niggles me and I snap back into reality feeling like when you fall asleep and then you are awake.

‘Those things waterproof?’ I say, indicating the burkha.

‘What? Erm no.’ Then she realizes what I’m getting at and adds, ‘Oh I got a lift. Anyway shut up about that and listen for a second. I think I’ve worked it out.’

I stare blankly at her for a second until her look reminds me. We have more serious stuff to worry about than this.

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Yeah well I think I worked it out too,’ I add and pull up a chair next to her.

‘Oh yeah?’ she says, ‘Fire away genius,’ she says still smiling. ‘And while you’re at it pour me a bowl of that delicious-looking soup you got going on there.’

This was one of those moments where the old Ki seemed to materialize. It was almost as if she was back to how she used to be. If I could only hold on to her and keep her here I knew everything would be okay.

‘Well,’ I say as I pour her soup into a mug, ‘the way I figured it yeah, is there ain’t no way Guilty going to be taking down no twenty-man crew, all of them carrying. Nothing we can do going to fix them numbers you get me?’

‘Go on.’

‘But –’

‘Yeah?’ she says, curious.

‘Can a mouse eat a snake?’

She looks at me like I have lost my mind. ‘Are you feeling alright?’ she says with a kind of half-smile.

‘Look Ki, what if the snake had no head?’

‘Err – what?’

‘What if the snake had no head?’ I say and realize that I am sounding a bit crazy even if I know what I mean.

‘Then sure,’ she says slowly but you can see from her face she thinks she’s talking to a retarded person.

‘Then that’s what has to be done. We need to find a way to take the snake’s head off.’

‘What are you talking about?’

So then I explain it to her. All about how I was asking myself how can a mouse beat a snake, and how he couldn’t unless maybe the snake had no head. And then even as I am saying it, it sounds stupid so I stop midway.

It takes a minute but then she smiles to herself and says, ‘You are a genius after all.’

‘No need for sarcasm,’ I say.

‘No. I’m serious. That is just what I have been thinking.’

And that’s when she says them words that change our lives. Once a thing like this is said, it can’t be unsaid. It gets a life of its own. Like planting a seed. All you can do is step back and watch it grow.

‘We have to take out Face. Once he’s gone it’s game over. And we can get some normal back in our lives. Stop all this hiding. Living like we are fugitives.’

‘That’s it! That’s what I was getting at!’ I say amazed that for once I’m not completely stupid. Then it hits me what she just said. ‘ “We”? I never said nothing about we,’ I say suddenly not liking what I think she means.

‘Who then? Guilty? You think he can do this?’ she says looking right at me.

‘Yes I do. We can set Face up somehow and let Guilty take him out. One on one. Element of surprise.’

‘Guilty?’ she says with her eyes all wide. ‘From what I hear about Guilty, he can’t even take the bins out. No babe. We can’t risk leaving this to him.’

‘I don’t know what you’ve heard Ki or who you been speaking to, but Guilty ain’t a person to fuck with. Mans is brutal.’

‘It’s not about that. I don’t care if he’s brutal. I care about if he’s smart enough to make a move on Face. And even from what you told me, he is not,’ she says and I know she is right.

‘Who then?’ I say. ‘Who’s going to do it?’

‘Us. We have to do this,’ she says and leaves the room.