lets out a long sigh, like letting air from a balloon while holding on to its neck. In the soft light, his cheek muscles quiver. ‘I’ll go and get some now.’ He and Mum whisper to each other in very fast Sylheti.
My breathing tightens.
As he turns, I get another waft of that smell, the one his clothes so often reek of. ‘Won’t be long,’ he says in English.
I feel a swirl of something in my stomach, pulling at me. I put down my spoon. I don’t want Dad to go out again. He’s home now and it’s cold. I look into his face, with its gentle creases, the dark growth round his face, and his large eyes the colour of conkers.
‘Dad?’ I can’t help saying. I don’t know why.
‘You children be good for your mother,’ he says sternly, and ruffles my hair with his hand. When he stops, he lays his palm flat on the top of my head for a second, and I feel momentarily held in his warmth before he removes it. He gabbles something else to Mum in Sylheti, his voice even lower than usual. A jumble of sounds, noises, tones.
I squeeze Jaz’s thumb. Use my eyes to plead with her, but she shrugs and shakes her head.
Before I know it Dad pulls the flat door behind him and the latch clicks shut. He never even took off his coat and now he’s gone.
Mum’s spoon drops from her hand and clatters on the bowl in front of her. She closes her eyes, sucks in a long breath and lets it out, at first with a low moan, like an animal in pain, then in a full-throated wail.
‘Mum?’ She’s never made a noise like this before. ‘Are you okay?’
Sabbir’s chair screeches on the hard kitchen floor as he pushes it back to stand up. ‘Okay. Let’s all play a game.’
I know something’s happened, but have no idea what. ‘Dad will be back soon with the candles, won’t he? We can finish our homework then. I’ve got English to do and Jaz —’
‘We can play ’til then.’ Sabbir looks over at Mum, and I follow his gaze.
She’s sniffing, dabbing her nose and fanning herself with her hand. ‘I’m fine,’ she says, her voice faltering. ‘Just give me a minute.’
But I can still hear that moan in my ears and I know we can’t leave her.
‘How about we get the blankets from our bedrooms and put them on the floor in here?’ It’s Jasmina. ‘If we push the table over, we can make a camp. Mum?’
Excitement bubbles up. I love camps. ‘We could sleep down here too.’
‘We may have to if the power doesn’t come back on soon,’ says Mum.
Five minutes later, Jaz, Sabbir and I have fetched our bedding from upstairs. Mum has cleared away the dishes and pushed the table against the wall. On the gas hob a pan is heating for our hot water bottles. We pile cushions onto the eiderdowns and clamber on top. Our bottles filled, Mum joins us, but with her back against the wall and her legs under the covers.
‘Tell us about Bangladesh again,’ I ask Mum. ‘What was it like growing up outside the city?’ All three of us love to hear her stories. We’d lived in the city centre of Sylhet so this part of our home country wasn’t something we knew well.
Mum speaks slowly as though she’s combing through her memories and putting them in place. Hearing her speak in Sylheti feels completely natural. Comforting, somehow. It’s like being in our old flat by the river.
‘One of my favourite things was the rolling hills. The land often flooded, especially in the monsoons, and lakes formed on the flood plains. Sometimes your grandfather took us into the swamp forests by boat. They’re magical places where trees grow out of the water. Their branches join up at the top to form canopies and tunnels.’ Mum gestures with her hands.
In the soft candlelight I catch the look on her face, as though the memories bat her back and forth between pleasure and pain.
‘Living here in London, in the cold and grey and the dark, I miss life by the river and the lush green colour. After the monsoons, beautiful star-shaped pink water lilies would float on the lakes. Sabbir, d’you remember the migratory birds? You always loved the swamp hens, didn’t you?’ Her melancholy makes me wonder how she feels about us moving to Britain. ‘The tea estates are glorious,’ she says, making a sloping gesture with her arms. ‘Carpets of green bushes, all trimmed to waist height. My mother and her sisters would pick the tea. I went once to help.’ The soft candlelight melts the ache in her features. It warms her voice for the first time this evening. ‘My father’s family grew rice.’ Energy builds in her voice. ‘I liked to watch the buffalos treading on the rice hay to dislodge the grains. It’s the traditional way of doing it. Afterwards we’d all swim in the Surma, and watch the cattle as they drank in the river. They’re —’
The flat buzzer silences her, and we all jump. Wrenched from the vivid colours of Bangladesh back to our dark kitchen.
‘Who’s that, ringing at this time?’ Mum’s tense again.
‘Perhaps Dad’s forgotten his key?’ It’s all I can think of. ‘I’ll go.’ I get up and feel my way to the hall, my eyes used to the dark. I open the door, expecting Dad to rush in, laden with bags, full of apologies and jokes and stories.
But there’s no-one there.
‘Who is it, Maya?’ Mum shouts through.
‘No-one. Someone must’ve pressed the wrong bell.’ I step outside the flat into the hall and, smelling tobacco, I scour the darkness for a glowing cigarette end or the light of a torch. My foot knocks against an object on the ground. There’s something beside the doorway. I lean over to feel what it is. A plastic bag rustles in my fingers. In it is something hard, like a cardboard box. I pick up the package and carry it into the flat.
‘Someone left a parcel.’ I place it on one of the kitchen worktops.
‘At the door?’ That tone is back in Mum’s voice. ‘For pity’s sake, Maya —’
‘No-one was there, just this bag.’ I point, although it’s obvious.
‘Give it to me,’ says Mum sternly, moving towards the worktop.
But Sabbir has already begun rummaging in it. He looks at us all in turn, his face excited. ‘It’s candles and . . . you’re never going to guess what . . .’
‘Bagels?’ Jasmina and I shout in unison.
When I got home and closed the front door, relief surged through me. It wasn’t my brother’s photo in the hall that brought the tears, nor the suitcase I’d parked by the stairs when I arrived home in the early hours. It was that, all day, my attention and energy had been on the investigation when what I wanted was to be alone with my grief. Now, I finally had the chance to gather it up so I could feel close to Sabbir; to wade through all the conflicting emotions about how he’d died – and why.
In the kitchen, I lobbed my keys onto the worktop, followed by the soggy bag of chips I’d half-heartedly collected on the way
