You Don't Know Me

33

I hope you lot had a good lunch. Mine was Gordon Ramsay obviously.

So I decided to go out and look for her. The weather was still pretty U.K. It was grey with that rain that hasn’t decided to commit to raining properly. I stuck on my hoodie and put my face to the ground and walked out of the block. I jumped on the bus and before I knew it I was there, waiting outside the bit where the women go in and out round the back. The whole of my journey there was a blank. I remembered none of it.

I am waiting wondering how this conversation’s going to go. I know more or less what I need to say to her but what I can’t do right then is imagine what she is going to say that ain’t going to make this shit less mad ting than it is. And one thing that was frying me up more than everything else was why, whatever she was doing, she was doing behind my back. You know what I mean? She could have at least told me about it.

‘Brother you can’t wait at the ladies’ entrance.’ I look round startled and see that this guy who is standing there is talking to me. But he’s smiling at me so I can tell he’s not disrespecting. I move round to the front. It’s starting to spit down so I stand just inside the entrance and wait. Through the glass in the doors I can see it again. Rows of people standing like bottles in an off-licence, all their shoulders touching. All of them moving as one, standing, kneeling, standing. Even when they are doing the ‘I’m not worthy’ pose, all of them go down and come up at the same time like there’s a signal inside of them.

When they pour out at last, a few of them nod at me. I even recognize some of them back from the last time. Then one small guy with a white skull-cap thing and cotton dress thing, with a smile that makes dimples in his face, looks like he’s coming straight at me. Just before I move out of the way he puts out his hand.

‘Assalamalaikum brother.’

‘Slamalaikum,’ I go, or something like that.

‘Imam would like a word,’ he says still smiling.

‘Who?’

‘The imam. The, erm, priest.’

‘What for? I ain’t doing nothing,’ I say making a face at him and then I turn as if to leave.

‘No, he just wants to talk. Maybe you have some questions?’ he says smiling still.

‘Questions?’

‘About Islam?’

‘Nah, man. I’m just looking for someone innit,’ I say and try and leave again.

‘I seen you here last time brother. Maybe the person you are looking for is Allah?’ he says still with that Buddha smile.

‘Trust me I ain’t looking for Allah,’ I go and turn around for real now. Then as I go to walk away I feel this gentle pressure on my arm and see that he’s holding it. I hold back my instinct to shrug him off and punch him in the face.

‘Just come in for five minutes. Ask Imam anything you like and then you can get on with the rest of your day. Just five minutes.’

The crowds had all about gone so that there was only really me and him left. The rain was coming down heavier now and I guess right then at that moment, that’s all it took. Plus it might not be a bad thing to have a look inside and see what is going on at this place where Ki has been hanging.

The imam wasn’t the hook-hand-eye-patch-beardy-screamer that I was hoping for. He was just, you know, normal. He was maybe thirty with a trimmed beard. Not tall. Not fat. Just average. And he weren’t in some box or nothing or standing on top of a flight of stairs waving a stick around. He was sitting in the corner just saying goodbyes or whatever to some regulars.

‘Ah brother,’ he says standing up and offering me his hand, ‘Assalamalaikum.’

I gave my best try back at him.

‘You’re the young man Abdul mentioned. You’ve been waiting outside, he tells me. He thinks you had some questions perhaps?’ he says. I look round for the guy who brought me in, but he has gone.

‘Not really. I was just waiting for someone,’ I say and start shifting about in my socks.

He carries on smiling at me and part of me begins to feel sorry for him. I feel like I need to ask him something just so he feels better about having brought me in. I search for a question I can maybe ask him.

‘Actually I do have one question. Why does everyone stand so packed in tight together when they’re praying? You need more space or something?’

‘Muslims,’ he says, ‘are fond of saying that if there’s a space between two people praying then the Devil stands in it.’

‘Seen.’

‘But that isn’t what is really meant by that saying. It means that if you let people make spaces between each other when they are praying, then some people will say, “Oh I don’t want to stand next to that man, he looks dirty or he smells,” or something like this. The Devil is really in man’s behaviour, not standing in the mosque with horns and a tail,’ he says making a ‘horns’ sign with his fingers.

‘But maybe sometimes people don’t want to be standing next to some rank-smelling person. They want to be standing next to clean people,’ I say back. If you ever been on a bus in Peckham you will know what I mean.

‘Clean people are only dirty people who have washed. And dirty people are only clean people that have not yet washed,’ he says showing me a smile.

‘So we all the same then is that what you’re saying?’

‘No, we are not the same. But we can be.’

By the time I leave I know that Ki ain’t here. She has gone already. I had missed her again. I was going to ask the imam about where the ladies hang out but I thought maybe I would come off as some kind of pervert if I did that so I just shook his hand and left.

By the time that I get back to the flat, Ki is there already and is deep in conversation with Curt. I walk in and see them both sat around the table and flipping through the notes that she has made. Ki looks up and starts to speak as if she knows what I am going to say.

‘Look I know what you’re going to say,’ she says standing up and taking a step towards me, ‘but I can explain it.’

‘I doubt that. Because this shit is going to need more explaining than I think you got in the tank. But fire away Kira. Tell me. What the fuck is going on?’

‘I didn’t know for sure whether what I was being told was true. I had to, you know, test it out. That’s why I told Curt, so he could get back to me if it all checked out. And it does!’ she says her eyes going wide with excitement.

‘Wait, wait, wait. You didn’t know if what you were being told was true? Being told by who? Who, Kira? Who is giving you all this vine?’ I say now with my voice at max revs.

‘One of the girls in the mosque. I overheard her speaking to one of her friends. It was her. That is who I got it from. That’s why I have been going there every day. To pick up bits and pieces.’

‘One of the girls? Are you crazy Ki? Just some random girl starts talking to her mate and suddenly you know that a proper big man gangster is planning a hit on Guilty? You expect me to believe that?’

‘It’s not some random girl,’ she says quietly and then her tone changes a bit, ‘and anyway what does it matter if you believe it or not? It is checking out.’

‘Are you even that stupid? You believe some girl you don’t even know? How you even know that you’re not being set up by Face himself? And who is this girl anyway. You still haven’t said.’

‘It’s Face’s girlfriend. Or to give him his real name, Faisal’s girlfriend. Look whether you believe me or you don’t believe me the fact is that I trust what I am hearing. She is not setting me up because she has no idea who I am. I don’t even talk to her. I just sit close by and listen in.’

‘So how do you know that she is Face’s girl? Or that Face is this Faisal guy? Come on Ki you’re smarter than that,’ I go, getting angry now at how stupid this is all sounding to me.

Just then her phone pings up a message and she quickly clicks her phone and puts it back in her handbag. She thinks I ain’t seen it. But I have.

‘Obviously I didn’t at first. But the more I heard, the more it sounded like it could be him. That is why I had to tell Curt. So he could check it out. See if it was real.’

Curt gets up from the table holding the pad.

‘Listen guys. Right now it don’t matter how Kira knows this shit. Truth is we need to stop him. He is getting too close to Guilty and we are next, believe. We can’t just sit here waiting to be merked, innit.’

Ki sits down again and takes out the notebook she’s been writing in. I try and catch her eye to maybe see if I can see in her but she avoids my look.

‘Okay Curt,’ she says flipping open the book, ‘if we are doing this thing, we need to move quickly. Face is going to be at Charley Horse nightclub on Jake Street on Friday. We do it then.’

Curt nods as if she’s just said, ‘Let’s go for a burger.’

‘What just like that?’ I say amazed that this is all so simple for them.

‘Yes. Just like that. You’ve still got your gun. We go in at nine.’

I feel her being pulled away from me again. I can’t hold on to her tightly enough. She just slips through my fingers. This time though I can’t tell whether she is the one moving away or I am. She is talking at us in a way that makes this seem almost like a dream. I tune in and out until I can get a clearer signal.

‘I’ve squared it with the door staff, they’ll give me a pass in through the front. You and Curt go in through the back. I’ve arranged it so that the doors will be unlocked but pulled to. Give it a tug and you’ll be in. When you walk in, there’s a corridor and some steps leading up to the main club. It’ll be pretty dark so use your phones for light. There’s a door on the left. You wait in there. I’ll let you in when it’s time.’

Curt nods.

I’m still stunned about what I am hearing. Nothing seems real. It feels like I’ve walked in halfway through a film but a film that I was supposed to be in. It wasn’t like I had forgotten my lines, it was more like I didn’t even know I had lines. I snap out of this trance that I am in by shouting at Curt.

‘Curt are you listening to this? Ki what the hell you chatting about?’

‘This is still a surprise to you?’ she says cocking her head and squeezing bright lights out of them eyes.

Curt steps in between me and Ki as if I might do something to her.

‘Bro, what are our choices right now? I’m just about keeping Guilty out of the way of enough bullets,’ Curt says, but he can’t look at me so he’s looking at his hands.

‘Fuck,’ I say, ‘we can’t do this.’

‘Why? Why can’t we do this? We can’t not do this,’ says Ki keeping her eyes on me till I can’t look at her no more.