As I entered the gate, I narrowly missed treading on the corpse of a half-formed baby bird that had fallen from the cherry blossom. I stared down at it. A bulbous eye stared back. It was lying in a coffin of fuchsia petals, its pink jellied belly turned on one side. I took a tissue from my bag, scooped it up and as I was burying it by the rosebush I heard someone calling my name.
I turned to see Samira Kahn herding two shiny-faced grandchildren into the back of her Ford Galaxy on the other side of the street. Samira lived at Number 28. Her eldest son Adeel had recently bought Numbers 34 and 36, and coverted them into a huge six-bed detached. The result was an impressive facade with Grecian pillars, a huge wrought-iron gate and wide gravel driveway. Samira shut the car door, shot at it with her key remote and hurried over the road.
“Carmel!” she cried, placing the stress on the last syllable of my name instead of the first as she always did.
I never corrected her. I thought it made me sound exotic.
She took my hands in hers and squeezed tight. “How are you, my dear?”
“Good.” I pointed up at the house. “Just doing a final bit of sorting before we exchange.”
“I hear a young Pakistani family are moving in?”
“That’s right. From Bradford. Two kids. He’s a teacher and she works for the BBC in Media City.”
Her eyes widened. “Ooh! Maybe she can introduce me to the stars of Corrie.”
“Corrie’s on ITV, Samira.”
She winked. “I know. Anyway, I’ve gone off it since Deirdre died.”
She glanced up and down the street and sighed. “Did you know we were the first Asian family in Brantingham Road, Carmel?”
“I didn’t, no.”
“March 1969 we arrived. It was only English and Irish then. Most of the neighbours ignored us. Many made nasty comments. But not your mother. Not Tess. She always said hello and stopped to chat. She knew that we were both strangers in this land. She sensed we had more in common than what was different.”
I swallowed. “That’s really nice to know, Samira.”
I’d always been bemused by Tess’s friendship with Samira and I often wondered what they talked about. Samira was a retired GP and Radio 4 listener with a season ticket at the Royal Exchange Theatre and Tess was an eccentric part-time cleaner who liked Irish showband music, knitting and gardening.
As if reading my thoughts, Samira said, “Your mother and I would sit and talk for hours. She used to tell me all about her life in Ireland before she came here and I used to tell her all about mine in Pakistan.”
“Really?”
I was piqued, envious almost. Tess rarely spoke to us about her childhood. All Mikey and I knew was that her parents died before we were born and she had an older brother who’d moved to London. She said he was a good-for-nothing who’d ended up in a shelter in Kilburn. They were estranged and she clammed up whenever I asked about him. Whenever we went to Ireland on holiday we stayed with Dad’s family. I don’t ever remember visiting the village where she was raised.
Samira sighed. “Your mother made me laugh but she also made me cry.” She paused then searched my face. “So cruel to have her son taken from her like that.”
I stared down at the weeds that were coming up through the paving stones, my lips trembling. I knew the tears would come if she said his name. Mikey was everywhere: kicking a football against the side wall, blaring the Stone Roses from his bedroom window and painting “I LOVE PARIS ANGELS”, his favourite band, in huge blue letters on the porch wall for the entire world to see.
I quickly changed the subject and waved at the yellow “Vote Labour Vote Kahn” signs in every second garden. “Adeel is doing well. I saw him on BBC North the other week. You must be really proud of him.”
She rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her bosom. “Oh yes. He’s a hotshot politician but who does he leave his kids with all the time? Naniji. I ask you, Carmel. Where is my bloody life?”
Adeel Kahn was a couple of years older than me. As a boy he was small and scrawny with National Health glasses bigger than his face and masses of determination. At eleven he won a scholarship to Manchester Grammar, one of the city’s top fee-paying schools, and then he went to Oxford. After graduating he returned to Manchester, set up his own business then got involved in local politics. The NHS glasses had long gone, he’d beefed up and recently won a narrow victory to become Labour MP for Withington.
We both jumped at the blare of a car horn. His youngest was leaping up and down in the front seat of the Galaxy.
Samira waved a fist and shrieked something in Punjabi. “Better go. I’m off to Pakistan tonight for six weeks and I’ve still got so much packing to do.” She put her arms around me and hugged me hard. “Don’t be a stranger, Carmel. Come visit.”
I watched her hurry across the road, a silver sari drifting like a cloud under her navy M&S blazer. Then, with a heavy heart, I turned and walked up the path to the front door.
Chapter 4
I stepped into the hallway and picked up the post from the mat. I listened for her voice. It was like trying to remember a song when I only had the first few notes. When nothing came, the tragedy of it hit me. My mother’s voice was gone from me forever.
I opened the venetian blinds
