Out of Heart Read online

  ‘Can’t tell you. Too deep for me, fam. I’m a simple guy. I like simple tings. Music, girls and barbecue chicken. In that order.’

  Adam smiled. Cans was one of the brightest people he knew.

  ‘Speaking of girls, what’s that one you like sayin? Green eyes, what’s her name?’

  ‘Laila. I didn’t see her today. She’s OK.’

  ‘OK? Is that it? I see you two standing close, all deep connection and that. What’s going on? I know she likes you.’

  ‘I don’t know, man. I always say the wrong thing around her. She says something nice, I say something stupid. She’s understanding and patient, I do something that makes me look a wasteman.’

  ‘You do have that mysterious-outsider thing down pat.’

  ‘What mysterious-outsider thing?’

  ‘Never mind. Look, in my opinion, there’s never a situation where music isn’t the answer. I have the solution to your social awkwardness.’

  ‘Yeah, a rope, a bridge and a gentle push …’

  ‘If that’s all you got, try not speaking! I think a few pointers from Farah might help – stick to sign language. Now look, make her a mixtape of your choice tunes, you get me? Then you’ll have something to talk about. You could even pick songs with coded messages in them so she gets the hint.’

  ‘I’m no good at making playlists. I just put it on shuffle.’

  ‘See, that’s where you going wrong. It’s gotta be from the heart. I can help with that. I’m gonna make you a playlist. Pick what you like and give it to her. She’ll love it.’

  ‘Awright, cool. I’ll try it.’

  ‘Cool. Awright, gotta go. Got some remixing to do.’

  ‘Awright, man. Thanks for going old school and comin round.’

  ‘S’cool. I would say keep it real, but it’s as real as it can get with heart dude in the house.’

  ‘A bit too real.’

  ‘Bell me if you want it to be less real sometimes, bruv?’

  Adam nodded and smiled. Cans shrugged on his rucksack, picked some music and, placing his headphones, sauntered down the street. Adam watched as he turned and, pointing to his phone, yelled, ‘See? Hand-picked playlist. It’s gotta come from the heart!’

  Your heart is in the middle of your chest, in between your right and left lung. It is tilted slightly to the left.

  Farah put her green pen down and turned to watch William. He was so pale he shone like a ghost sitting there in the dark room. Farah signed, Do you want something to drink? William shook his head. During his time in hospital, William had lost his appetite. Now, he couldn’t eat anything without an acrid, metallic taste in his mouth. Yasmin entered the room, having returned from the shops, and looked at William and Farah.

  ‘Chai,’ she said, placing a mug in front of William and leaving again. William looked at the steaming mug and made to take a sip. Still watching him, Farah waved her hands and signalled for him to stop. She shook her head. Do you want to burn your tongue? William set the mug down. Leaning over the mug, Farah gently blew on the tea to cool it. As he sat back to watch her, William took his right hand and hooked it over his left shoulder. Something he had started to do soon after the operation, closing off his heart to the world and protecting it within.

  ‘Is that why you don’t speak? Because you burnt your tongue?’ asked William.

  Farah shook her head and stuck out her tongue. My tongue’s not burnt. See? I just don’t like to speak.

  ‘She said that she doesn’t like to speak,’ said Adam, who had come in behind his mother. He could see that Farah was comfortable with William and had accepted his being there. It made Adam look at William in a different light.

  William nodded. He thought he understood. Farah chose not to speak.

  ‘There’s not always a lot worth saying,’ he replied.

  Pleased with that answer, Farah lifted the mug and handed it to William, urging him to drink. William swallowed the sweet, milky tea and sighed. The taste reminded him of something, but the fragment of memory floated out of his reach. Taking another sip, he realised he liked the taste very much. Happy now, Farah went back to the window and her book. William watched as Farah’s hand jerked from point to point, eyes scanning the page. Adam knelt down beside her.

  ‘It’s a dot-to-dot book,’ he explained. ‘Farah always has to have her big book of dot-to-dot. When she was just learning how to hold a pencil, she would watch me draw in my notepad and try to copy me. Since she … stopped talking, she can’t make the connections to draw by herself or copy, but she can do dot-to-dot. She’s very peaceful when she’s drawing in her book.’

  ‘Must be satisfying, using the dots to complete a finished picture.’

  ‘Yes … maybe. It helps her make sense of the world.’

  ‘And you? You like drawing – does it help you make sense of the world too?

  ‘Sometimes it’s the only thing that does help.’

  Adam came to sit on the sofa, between the two, and pulled out his notebook. William watched him sketch and sank into the chair, letting the iron anchor pull him down into the dark.

  He woke as he did every time since he’d left hospital, with a jolt. The doctor had told him, not long after he’d come back from surgery, that when the heart was placed into his chest it had been unresponsive and that the final procedure had been to jolt the heart alive with a shock of electricity. William kept feeling the jolt. The room was dark and Farah and Adam were no longer there. Sitting up in the chair, he rubbed his eyes.

  ‘Daddima thinks you’re Adam’s tutor,’ said Yasmin.

  William tried to make out the dark shape sitting on the sofa opposite him. Yasmin sat, staring at William, arms folded across her chest.

  ‘I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth,’ she continued.

  Still half asleep and adjusting to the dark, William looked at Yasmin and didn’t say anything.

  ‘It was meant to be a little joke. Ain’t got much of a sense of humour, have ya?’

  ‘I’m sorry – I should go,’ said William, and stood up.

  ‘Will we see you again, William?’ asked Yasmin as she ushered him out.

  William took in the house and the short, intense woman in front of him. He felt the anchor dragging him back down again. He touched the russet brickwork of the house wall and felt better.

  ‘I can come back tomorrow?’ said William.

  Yasmin nodded.

  ‘Good. Farah likes you. We’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said, and closed the door.

  Hooking his right hand over his left shoulder, William walked up the street feeling like he could really do with another cup of chai.

  Almost 100,000 times each day, the heart continues its steady beat.

  Adam walked through the school gates, hoping he’d bump into Laila. He hadn’t seen her for a few days. He hoped he’d say the right thing this time.

  ‘Oi! Art boy! Wait up!’ shouted a voice behind him.

  A tall boy jogged towards him, followed by a bunch of other boys shoving each other. Adam carried on scanning the playground for Laila. The tall boy reached him first and cuffed him gently on his head.

  ‘What’s up, Art boy?’

  ‘Nuttin. What’s up with you?’

  ‘Oh, you know, this and that, bruv.’

  Adam looked at the boy standing in front of him. He and Faizal had grown up on the same street together, spending a lot of time at each other’s houses as kids, but that had all stopped when Adam’s mum and dad had separated. Faizal had always treated Adam like his younger brother. Although he had always been Faizal to Adam, everybody else called him Faze. But Adam didn’t want to talk now. He wanted to find Laila. Faze’s friends bundled into him and sent him careering into Adam, shoving him to the ground. Adam landed hard. He got up slowly. That was the first time in a while somebody had come so close to him, let alone touched him, and it had hurt. Faze turned to the other boys and swore at them and they backed off. They wouldn’t go up against Faze.

 
‘You all right?’ he asked quietly.

  Adam nodded. He didn’t want to speak. Didn’t trust himself.

  ‘How’s your mum? And Farah?’

  Nodding again, Adam looked at the floor.

  ‘I’ll come round and we can play a bit of Xbox.’

  Adam nodded again. Faze hadn’t been around for a few years.

  ‘Still drawing those mad things and writing those mad words …?’

  ‘Still,’ Adam replied.

  ‘Mad kid,’ replied Faze, shaking his head. ‘I’ve got to go. See you later, bruv.’

  Adam scanned the crowd as he watched Faze move away.

  ‘What you looking for?’ said a voice behind him.

  He turned to see Laila looking like she’d been running again. He decided to keep his mouth shut about it this time.

  ‘Nuttin. Jus lookin.’

  ‘You looked far, far away.’

  ‘Sometimes I feel far away too.’

  ‘I get you. I feel like I’m watching myself sometimes. Are you still feeling sad about things?’

  Adam shook his head and looked at his feet. Lifting up her hand, she almost brushed his chin and like magic made him look up again.

  ‘I don’t mean to upset you,’ she said quietly.

  Adam looked at her wavy, wild black hair and saw the world reflected in her green-grey eyes. Wanted to draw it.

  ‘You’re a funny, quiet boy,’ she said.

  ‘I know I’m weird.’

  ‘No, I meant it in a different way, a good—’ she said.

  ‘I know I’m different. And weird. Weirdly different.’

  ‘No. No, you’re not, that’s not what—’

  ‘I get it,’ Adam replied.

  ‘You don’t get it. You don’t understand anything,’ she huffed, and walked past him. He watched her go, wild hair trailing behind her, and took out his notepad.

  Looking hard. Lookhard. Hardlook. Hard luck.

  When Adam got home from school the last thing he had expected was to see William sitting in his Dadda’s armchair. Farah had taken up her usual position near the window. Putting down his rucksack, Adam walked into the kitchen. His mum was still at work and Daddima was probably having a nap upstairs. Walking back into the living room, Adam went to stand by Farah.

  ‘Have you had something to eat?’

  Farah looked up and nodded. I had some tea with William. He doesn’t really say much.

  ‘Neither do you,’ Adam replied.

  Thinking about it for a second, she signed, True, and went back to her book.

  Adam looked at William.

  ‘Why’d you come back?’

  ‘Your mum asked if I would and … I said yes. It felt right,’ he replied quietly. ‘Do …? Do you mind?’

  Adam hesitated, then shook his head. He moved to a drawer and pulled out a photograph of his grandfather, Abdul-Aziz Shah. It showed him on his wedding day, surrounded by family and friends.

  ‘Is that him?’ William asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He looks happy,’ said William, taking the photograph from Adam.

  ‘He might have been then. I don’t know – he was always kind to us, but he never really properly talked to us.’

  ‘But he had you and Farah, his wife and your mum. He had all of that.’

  ‘He never let us know what he was thinking. Not even the heart thing. He lived inside his head.’

  Adam looked over at William. In the shadows lingering in the living room, William could have been his Dadda sitting in the moss-green armchair.

  ‘Why did you come here, William?’ asked Adam.

  ‘I had no choice. I left the hospital and just started walking …’

  ‘We’ve been through a lot. We’re trying to forget things and move on. You’re reminding us of things we need to forget,’ said Adam suddenly, feeling like he wanted to cry. Just looking at William stirred something in him.

  ‘Your Dadda? Why would you want to forget him?’

  ‘Because he lived in his own world! And he forgot about us! Leaving his heart behind, that’s just cruel. Sending you to us. That’s just one big joke!’ Adam found he was shouting.

  ‘You think he sent me to you? I’d never thought of it like that,’ whispered William.

  ‘What do you WANT FROM US?’ demanded Adam, stopping pacing and standing in the middle of the room.

  ‘I don’t want anything … I don’t know, Adam, I’m sorry. I know I’ve just ended up here, with your family, but …’

  Adam picked up his rucksack and stomped up the stairs.

  Snapping the lid back onto her green felt-tip pen, Farah went to stand by William.

  He’s not angry at you.

  William shrugged his shoulders, not really understanding what Farah was trying to say.

  He’s just serious all the time. He thinks he has to look after us now.

  ‘He thinks he has to be the man of the house now?’

  Looking at him strangely, she signed, That’s what I meant.

  She hopped off the armchair and went back to her book. Turning, she smiled. Ask him about his drawings. He’s got books full of drawing and words. Ask him. You’ll see, he’ll talk. He won’t be angry.

  William watched her fluttering hands and tried to concentrate. What was she trying to say? He tried to piece it together. Farah had smiled throughout. Whatever it was she had signed, it was positive. He’d caught a few of her signs – talk, words, drawings, book … William sank back into the chair and rubbed his eyes.

  Adam pulled his hoody over his head and waited. The disused railway yard was deserted. He looked over at the old trains packed tightly together – a place where trains came to die. Adam thought about his grandfather, about donating your self so that another person could live. Everywhere people were recycling things, saving them so they could be used again. Rebuilt and reconstructed.

  Reuse. Refuse. Refuel. Refuge.

  Staring at the words he had scribbled in his notebook, Adam shook his head. He knew scribbling random words down in the middle of conversations was odd, but he didn’t know how else to hold on to his thoughts. No wonder Laila looked at him in that way. He put his pad away and waited. He knew they’d be here. This was where they always came, every day, for a smoke and to try out their new cans. He wasn’t part of their crew, not really, and the only reason they tolerated him was because he could really spray and he was discreet. Adam knew about all their tagging spots, but he knew to keep quiet. Two boys with rucksacks approached him.

  ‘Awright, bruv, you cool? Thought it was one of those Bow youts. They been taking piss recently. Stealin our best spots. Long ting,’ said the short stocky boy known as Tank.

  ‘I saw them earlier, near that industrial park down the road from the warehouses,’ replied Adam.

  ‘That used to be a top spot for us. Been rinsed now,’ he replied, shaking his head.

  The other boy still hadn’t spoken. He was much taller than Adam and had a little strip of beard. His name was Paul, but he liked to be known as Strides. Adam knew that Strides didn’t really think Adam should be there. Adam didn’t have a tag and he didn’t really hang with the crew. He was an interloper. In any crew, you had to be there. You had to belong. Adam didn’t. They both set their rucksacks down and lit up.

  ‘Wanna drag?’

  ‘Nah. I’m good,’ replied Adam.

  Strides took a deep pull on his cigarette and spat.

  ‘You don’t have a tag, you don’t really crew with us and you don’t want to smoke with us. What good is you to us, bruv?’

  ‘Nah, come on, leave it, Strides, he’s all right. He’s cool. Man can spray, right.’

  Adam went to his rucksack. ‘I’ll go if you want. Don’t want no problems.’

  ‘Nah, come on, you’re all right. Stay, do a bit of work. Tag something, cuz,’ said Tank.

  Strides didn’t say anything, and Adam put down his rucksack, grabbed a few cans and started to walk away.

  ‘Where you going
?’

  ‘To tag something,’

  ‘But the wall’s here, bruv. What you going to tag? The trains? They all been mostly done. This here wall still has some canvas,’ said Tank, pointing with his can to the large breeze-block wall.

  ‘I have an idea for something. Something that might take some time.’

  ‘Oh yeah. What’s that?’

  ‘Can’t explain. You’ll have to see as I do it,’ Adam replied throwing his hood over his head and lifting up the black scarf around his neck to cover his face, leaving only his eyes exposed.

  Both boys looked on as Adam, merging with the shadows, walked towards the trains. Climbing up onto the nearest one, Adam looked over the tops of the closely packed carriages. Huddled together, discarded, set apart. Dead machinery. Adam quickly sketched the plan that had been forming in his head onto his notepad, taking note of the formation of the trains. It was perfect. They were almost symmetrical. A large square expanse of metal. A clear canvas. He looked up, eyes tracing the surrounding estate blocks, noting the lights flickering in each flat. Watch me now. Tying a scarf around his mouth, he shook the spray can and heard the metal ball bearing rattle. He pressed down on the nozzle, and the paint sprayed down onto the grey metal. Adam was satisfied with the colour – a splash of blood red. He took off his hoody and set to work.

  William had been lying in his hospital bed for almost two weeks when Dr Desai had come over with a big smile on his face. Opposite him, there was an empty bed with newly laid crisp white sheets. ‘William, are you ready for this? We’re going to get you living. We have a heart for you,’ he’d said. William remembered being surprised. He’d signed up for it. He’d gone through the tests. Had prepared himself that it could happen. Realised that the right thing to do would be to fight. To stay alive. He’d never for one second thought it could actually happen. Now that the moment was here, William felt a kind of disappointment. He was going to live – when for so long he’d expected to die. He hadn’t been able to say anything at the time, and the doctor had mistaken that for shock and congratulated him. As the nurses fussed about William and pushed him in his bed out of the death ward, he spotted a set of prayer beads on the floor. He made the nurses stop to scoop them up and entwined them around his hand. Breathing in the scent of sandalwood, he sank further into the bed. William knew only one thing with certainty. That for the doctor to give him that news, someone had died …