“Where are your parents?” Ubayy Mochi asked again, more insistently this time. He urged Ness across the threshold. “Something must be done about this girl.”
“We ain’t got parents,” Joel responded, and this seemed to produce a further wail from Toby.
“Surely you do not live here alone?”
“We got an auntie.”
“You must then fetch her, boy.”
That was impossible, as Kendra was out for the evening with Cordie. But she had her mobile with her, so Joel stumbled to the kitchen to phone her. Mochi followed with Ness, passing Toby, who reached out to touch his sister’s thigh. He sobbed only louder when Ness flinched away from him.
Ubayy Mochi sat Ness in one of the kitchen chairs, and this revealed more of what had happened to her. She’d worn a short skirt that day, which was now ripped to the waist. Her tights were missing. So were her knickers.
Joel said, “Ness. Nessa. Wha’ happened? Who hurt you? Who did . . . ?”
But in truth he didn’t want her to answer him because he knew who had done it, he knew why, and he knew what it meant. When he heard his aunt’s voice on her mobile, he told her only that she had to come home. He said, “It’s Ness.”
“What’s she done?” Kendra asked.
The unexpected impact of the question made Joel gasp for a breath that did not come easily. He disconnected the call. He remained at one side of the kitchen, by the phone. Toby came to him, wanting comfort. Joel had nothing to offer his little brother.
Ubayy Mochi put on the kettle for want of something to do. Joel told him that their aunt was coming—although he didn’t know this to be the fact—and he waited for the Asian man to leave. But it became quite clear that Mochi had no intention of doing that. He said, “Fetch the tea, young man. And the milk and the sugar. And can you do nothing about that poor little boy?”
Joel said, “Toby, you got to shut up.”
Toby sobbed, “Someone bunged up Ness. She i’n’t talking. Why i’n’t she talking?”
Ness’s silence was unnerving Joel as well. His sister in a rage he could cope with, but he had no resources to deal with this. He said,
“Toby. Shut up, okay?”
“But Ness—”
“I said shut the fuck up!” Joel cried. “Get out ’f here. Go upstairs. Get out! You ain’t stupid, so do it ’fore I kick your arse.”
Toby clattered out of the room like an animal in flight. His broken yowls echoed back down the stairway. He went up the next flight, and a slamming door told Joel he’d hidden himself away in their bedroom. That left only Ness, Ubayy Mochi, and the injunction to make tea. Joel set about this although in the end, no one drank a single cup of it, and they found it the next morning still brewing, a cold, foul mess that was poured down the drain.
When Kendra arrived, it was to discover a tableau comprising a complete stranger, her niece, and Joel: two of them at the old pine table and the other standing in front of the sink. She came into the house, calling out Joel’s name. She said, “What’s going on?” before she saw them. She understood without needing to be told. She went to the phone. She punched the three nines and spoke tersely, in the perfect English she’d been taught for a moment just like this, the kind of English that got results. When she had completed the phone call, she went to Ness.
“They’ll meet us in Casualty,” she said. “Can you walk, Nessa?” And to the Asian man, “Where’d it happen? Who was it? What’d you see?”
Ubayy Mochi explained in a low voice, casting a look at Joel. He sought to protect him from disturbing knowledge, but Joel heard anyway, not that hearing was necessary at that point.
A gang of boys had set upon the young lady. Ubayy Mochi did not know where they had found her, but it was inconceivable to him that any young girl would be walking through Meanwhile Gardens by herself after dark. So they must have fetched her from some place else. But they’d taken her to where the footpath next to the Grand Union Canal passed beneath the bridge carrying Great Western Road over the water. There, thinking themselves safe from sight, they assaulted her and would no doubt have done even worse than they’d done but Mochi—roused from his nightly meditation practice by a single scream—had gone to the window of his small flat and had seen what was going on.
“I possess a powerful torch,” he said, “which I find quite useful for just such moments. This I shone upon them. I shouted that I recognised them—although I fear this is not the truth—and I told them I would name them to the police. They ran off. I went to this young lady’s assistance.”
“You ring the cops?”
“There was no time. Had I done so . . . Considering the length of time between a phone call and their arrival on the scene . . .” The man looked from Kendra to Ness. He said delicately, “I believe those boys had not yet . . . I felt it imperative to see to her safety first.”
“Thank God,” Kendra said. “They di’n’t rape you then, Ness? Those boys di’n’t rape you?”
Ness stirred at this, for the first time focusing on someone. She said,
“Wha’?”
“I asked did those boys rape you, Ness?”
“Like tha’s the
“Nessa, I’m asking because we got to tell the cops—”
“No. Lemme set you straight. Rape ain’t the worst. Just the
This continued to be the case in Casualty, where her injuries were seen to. Physically, they were superficial, requiring only ointments and plasters. In other ways, they were profound. When questioned by a youthful white constable with beads of sweat shining on his upper lip, she declared herself without memory of what exactly had happened after the time she’d left the underground station and until she’d found herself sitting at the table in her aunt’s kitchen. She didn’t know who had set upon her. She didn’t know how many of them there were. The constable didn’t ask any whys of her, such as why she might have been targeted for assault. People were targeted for assault all the time, by virtue of being out by themselves, foolishly, after dark. He told her to take some care next time, and he handed over a pamphlet called “Awareness and Defence.” She should read it, he told her. Half the battle against thugs was knowing what they were likely to do and when they were likely to do it. He closed his notebook and told them to come down to the Harrow Road station in the next day or two when Ness was able. There would be a statement for her to sign and, if she wished, she could look through their collection of mug shots and old e-fits—for whatever good it might do, he added unhelpfully—to see if she could pick out one or more of her attackers.
“Yeah. Right. I’ll do that,” was Ness’s reply.
She knew the dance. Everyone knew the dance. Nothing would be done because nothing could be done. But as things happened, that suited Ness fine.
She said nothing more on the matter. She acted as if the attack upon her was moving water under the bridge of her life. But that armour of indifference that she’d worn for so long prior to her acquaintance with Majidah and Sayf al Din began to cover her once again, an insentient insulation that held the world at bay.
Everyone reacted differently to Ness’s unreal calm, depending upon their understanding of human nature and the level of energy they possessed. Kendra lied to herself, believing she was giving Ness “time to recover” when in reality she was embracing the opportunity to pretend that life was returning to normalcy. Dix kept a wary distance from Ness, unequal to the task of being a father to her in these circumstances. Toby developed a neediness that had him clinging to all who would allow it. Joel watched, waited, and knew not only the truth but what had to be done in response.
Only Majidah took Ness on directly. “You must not allow this matter to cloud your vision,” she said to her. “What happened to you was terrible. Do not think I do not know that. But to give up on yourself, to abjure your plans . . . This hands triumph over to evil, and that you must never do, Vanessa.”
“Wha’ever,” was Ness’s response. She went through the motions of getting on with what she’d been
