Artichoke Hearts (22 page)

‘If God existed, what happened to my family, to all those people . . . it just wouldn’t happen if God exists. That’s what I think. But then Grace and Jai, they still have
faith, even after everything they’ve seen.’

‘I made a wish when Laila was ill. I thought maybe she was going to die so I asked for Nana to die and not Laila.’

‘Asked who?’

‘Notsurewho Notsurewhat.’

Jidé laughs.

‘That’s what I call God . . . or whatever . . . because I just don’t know what I believe in.’

‘I think the deal with religion is you have to have faith! Your nana is dying anyway. It’s just you couldn’t stand the thought of your sister dying too. That’s
my
sister.’ He nods over to the photo on his shelf. ‘Apparently, she carried me into the camp where Grace and Jai were working . . . they called it a safe zone . . . I was wrapped up in
that bit of cloth. They couldn’t get her to speak, not even to tell them our names, but . . . you’ll probably think this is a bit weird, sometimes she sings to me in my sleep.’

‘It’s not weird. My dreams are crazy too . . . but you must be so sick of me talking about my nana.’

‘Why? I love talking to you.’ Jidé smiles his melt-your-heart gentle smile. I wonder if he knows what effect that has on me.

‘How did your sister die?’ I ask Jidé, staring up at the photo of her holding him in her arms.

‘Cholera, in the end. She didn’t survive the camp,’ he says in a matter-of-fact way, as if he’s talking about someone completely disconnected from him. I don’t even
really know what cholera is. Then I turn to see Jidé holding out a rag of orange woven cloth for me to take a closer look. It’s the same piece of cloth that was wrapped around baby
Jidé in the photo.

As I feel the fraying edges of Jidé’s precious cloth, I think of Krish and how much he bugs me and how I would miss him if he was gone. I think of how hard I prayed for Laila to
live. If only I could do something to bring Jidé’s sister back, but I can do nothing. I place the folded cloth back into his hand and as I do so he folds his hand over mine so that we
are both holding the cloth and each other.

‘So you read my note then?’ Jidé smiles at me cheekily.

‘I did . . . about a hundred times. I’m thinking of framing it!’ I laugh.

‘For someone so quiet, Mira Levenson . . . you’ve got the loudest laugh.’ Jidé laughs back and before I know what’s happening he’s holding my head in his
hands and kissing me on the lips. At first, I’m so surprised I just freeze, and then my lips feel all tingly and my face is scarlet red, but I don’t pull away from him, because of how
it feels to be this close, to be actually kissing Jidé Jackson. When it’s over, what we’ve done feels so weird that I can’t help it – I just burst out laughing again.

‘What did you think?’ Jidé asks, grinning at me.

I can’t stop giggling enough to answer him.

‘I was deadly serious actually! Here, I’ll give you something to laugh about,’ he says, grabbing hold of my feet and tickling me.

‘Having fun?’ asks Jidé’s mum, peering round the door. ‘Tea’s ready in five minutes.’

On the wall, opposite Jidé’s bed, is an enormous map of the world criss-crossed with green and red silk thread, leading to drawing pins stuck into different
countries.

What are those for?’ I ask.

‘The red ones are the countries I’ve been to and the green ones are the ones I want to go to the most.’

I follow the string-tracks across the world.

‘You’ve been to . . . Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, Brazil and India . . . you’ve been to
India
?’

He nods. ‘Haven’t you?’

I shake my head. ‘My Grandad Bimal’s from India, but I’ve never been. I really want to go though.’

‘You should.’

‘What about Africa? You were born there, weren’t you?’ I follow a red string to a place in Africa. ‘Is that Rwanda?’

Jidé nods.

‘I don’t remember anything about it, but one day I’ll go back.’

‘I thought you said there was no point . . . going back.’

‘I’m frightened to go back, but a bit of me thinks I should . . .’ smiles Jidé sadly.

I think of Nana’s tiny artichoke charm and of the layers and layers of protection that Jidé has already had to grow around his heart, and I lean towards him and I kiss
him,
and this time I don’t feel like laughing, not one bit . . . It doesn’t feel like any other place I’ve been to. This kiss with Jidé Jackson is like travelling to another
world.

‘Pizza,’ calls Jidé’s mum from the kitchen.

‘How was school, Jidé?’

It’s amazing that all parents, even teachers, can’t think of a better question to ask.

‘Boring, we had History.’

‘Ha ha! Wait till you get
me,
next year,’ laughs Jidé’s mum. ‘What’s your favourite thing at school, Mira?’

Jidé does an enormous yawn, as if to say, ‘Could you be more boring?’

And to make it even more uncomfortable for me he keeps nudging my foot under the table, in an attempt to make me laugh.

‘Art. I like Art,’ I giggle.

Then the phone rings.

‘Sorry, Mira,’ she sighs, striding off.

‘Typical!’ Jidé raises his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Grace and Jai have always got some massive project on, to save the world.’

I listen in to her conversation for a few minutes. The way she talks, you can tell she’s the sort of person who gets things done.

‘It’s the meeting I told you about transforming the Rec into a community park,’ explains Jidé.

‘I’m hoping that you and some of your friends will join the youth committee,’ Jidé’s mum calls over to me as she slings on her jacket and grabs her bag. ‘We
could do with some girl power!’

I smile politely and Jidé groans. I suppose everyone’s parents are just as embarrassing.

‘Don’t be too late walking Mira home, Jidé. I’m so sorry, Mira. I can’t get out of this meeting today. Hope we can chat more next time.’ She kisses
Jidé on the forehead, tousles his hair and is gone.

‘She’ll probably bring the whole meeting back here later.’

‘Your mum’s on a mission,’ I say. ‘You make her sound like Superwoman.’ ‘That’s what she looks like to me.’ When she’s gone, the flat is
quiet again. Our house is never quiet.

‘Leave me at the corner,’ I tell Jidé. ‘Mum thinks I’m at Millie’s.’

Jidé laughs. ‘It can get you into trouble, lying,’ he grins, his face moving closer and closer towards mine until we are lost in another kiss. My first thought is to ask
Notsurewho Notsurewhat to please not let anyone I know see me kissing Jidé Jackson, but then my mind empties and I am starting to understand why kissing isn’t such a weird thing to do
after all, because I forget everything in this kiss and everyone, except for Jidé Jackson . . . And it feels, well, it feels . . . like flying. When it’s over, I rummage around in my
pocket for the keys and with them I pull out the note I had folded away in my pocket. The note that I never thought I would show anyone, especially not Jidé Jackson . . . the note that
says:

Horse,
Artichoke, Green, Rwanda.

I hand it to him without saying a word. He unwraps it carefully and reads.

‘We’re both green then,’ he grins, and plants another playful kiss on my lips, and another, and another! It’s as if he never wants to leave me.

It’s probably my too-strong imagination but I feel as if Jidé’s eyes are burning into my back. I stop myself turning round to see if he’s still watching me cross the
road. As I climb the steps to my front door, I glance sideways and out of the corner of my eye catch him waving to me. I pretend I haven’t seen him, but he carries on waving anyway, as if to
say, ‘I know you know I’m still here!’

I fit my keys in the lock and let myself into our quiet house. I lean against the back of the door until my heart finally stops racing, and I breathe it in, for the first time ever, this sweet
silence, because I know it won’t last for long.

Krish, Dad and me are in Nana’s flat. We’re here for Krish to choose something of Nana’s. Krish didn’t even want to come . . . He only wants to be with
Laila since she’s come out of hospital. Today, Krish looks more miserable than I have ever seen him. He goes around the flat peering into boxes and eventually finds a silver baby rattle on a
blue ribbon for Laila. After that, he seems to lose interest. Dad’s busy looking through stacked-up papers and boxes in the cupboard. I can’t believe how organized Nana is. He finds
some documents in one of the boxes to take back to Nana Josie. I roam around the flat showing Krish things I think he might like, but he just shrugs or shakes his head. I know what he means.
It’s miserable being in Nana’s flat when she’s not here. It makes you remember all the fun we had here, in the past.

‘Remember that burping competition you had with Nana when we came to tea once?’ I ask Krish.

His face starts to brighten up a bit.

‘Or the time when you fell into the gloop by the pond, and me and Nana had to hose you down?’

He’s warming up a bit now.

‘And when we were little, how we used to climb over the wall, and Mum and Sheena from opposite broke down a bit of the fence so that me, you and her three boys could have a double-sized
garden.’

‘Yeah! But then they moved out and the new family boarded up the fence.’

Cheering Krish up is going to be hard work today.

‘Remember May who lived in the flat upstairs? She used to wave to us from her window and throw us sweets in shiny wrappers. You thought it was raining sweets, the first time she did
it.’

As soon as I say this, I know it’s a mistake.

‘Then she died,’ Krish sighs.

I have days like this too, since Nana was ill. Dad puts his arm round Krish’s shoulders, hugging him close, and, for a change, he doesn’t pull away.

‘You don’t have to take anything, if you don’t want to,’ Dad tells Krish, but Krish thinks Nana will be upset if he doesn’t choose something. Then Dad has an idea.
He walks over to the cupboard he’s been looking in and takes out a blue cardboard box, covered in fine dust like brown flour, which Dad gently blows off its surface, making us all sneeze. In
it, there are all Grandad Kit’s letters and photographs.

Grandad Kit died just before Krish was born. Krish often says things like, ‘At least
you
met Grandad Kit,’ and he seems quite jealous of that, although the fact is I only know
things about Grandad Kit that other people have told me . . . it’s not the sort of knowing I have with Nana Josie. But I do sort of remember sitting on his knee. Once Mum told me the story of
the day Grandad Kit died. She went to the hospital with Dad, saw Grandad’s body and held his hand. When my mum told Grandad Bimal that Grandad Kit had died, he asked my mum if she had touched
his body.

‘Then the spirit of Kit will go into the new baby,’ Grandad Bimal told Mum. That baby turned out to be Krish.

Dad opens up the blue box and takes out a navy blue beret covered in medals as Krish fires questions.

‘Which war was Grandad Kit in? What did he do in the war? Who’s this in the photograph?’

When Krish finds out that Grandad Kit was a gunner in Malta during the Second World War, he is transformed; his arms morph into machine guns shooting planes down from the ceiling of Nana’s
flat. I don’t think that Nana Josie would approve, somehow.

‘Can I have that painting of Grandad Kit eating fish and chips?’ Krish asks, stopping suddenly with his arm-gun firing in the direction of the painting, which has always been there,
but I suppose he’s never really noticed it before. Actually, if you look closely, it’s the fish eating the chips, not Grandad Kit. This is the painting where Claude the Newfoundland dog
has a head bigger than Grandad’s. Nana does some very funny paintings where she gets the perspective all wrong on purpose. The style is called ‘art naive’, but I think Nana really
does see things a bit the way children do. I’ve done a painting of Laila in an art naive style where her head is too big for her shoulders and her arms and hands look really little in
comparison to the size of her head. People say it does look a lot like Laila.

‘Take the easel, Mira.’

I hear Nana’s voice order me, as clearly as if she was standing right next to me in this room. I fold down the legs and drag it towards the car. Dad sees me struggling and takes one end
and we carry it to the car together. Nana’s easel is surprisingly heavy.

As soon as we arrive at the hospice, Krish runs up to Nana to show her Grandad Kit’s things. He’s happy again, full of energy, but when he approaches Nana’s
bed he sees how weak she’s become. Dr Clem keeps trying to get the right combination of drugs for her so she won’t feel any pain. He has to keep changing her painkillers because the
cancer pain is changing too . . . getting stronger.

You can tell when Nana has been in pain because her skin goes grey and her eyes sink into her. If she’s had a bad night, she can hardly lift herself up off her pillows, but when she sees
Krish, so enthusiastic, she tries really hard to look lively. He shows her the beret and the photos and the box and Nana puts on her glasses to read some of the letters from Grandad Kit.