Secret Gardens (3 page)

Mrs Babcock brings me out a sandwich for lunch. I don’t mention the smell to her, but she talks about it.

“The stink’s bad today, isn’t it?” she says.

“What is it?” I ask.

“The sewage plant down the road.”

“Do you get used to it?” I ask.

“No, but at least it keeps house prices down,” she says. “The smell’s worst on Wednesdays, because we have the maggots as well.”

“
Maggots
?” I do not know the word.

“Insects. Little grubs. People use them for bait in fishing. They breed them here.”

“At the sewage plant?”

“No.At a farm just outside the village. They breed them in the fishing season. The maggots smell ripe in the middle of the week. Then the smell goes. They sell them at the weekend. Then they breed more and the smell starts again. It’s bad today.”

“How do you stand the stink?” I ask.

I must look disgusted, for the sweet old lady laughs. “We all have to put up with some shit in life,” she says.

Saturday morning. I wait for Nadimah by the allotment gates. Big mistake. Two boys from school go by. One of them, Paul, is from my year. He was one of the boys who put my head in the toilet.

“I thought they’d deported you, raghead,” he says.

I tell him where to go.

The other boy, Jack, gives me a warning look.

“Where you living?” Paul asks.

“Foster home,” I lie.

When they’re gone, Nadimah arrives.

“Who were they?” she wants to know.

“Bad boys. I hope they don’t tell on me.”

“Do you think they will?” she asks.

“No.They’re too stupid to know who to tell.”

Nadimah doesn’t understand what I mean so I explain. We go inside the allotments. It’s early.There aren’t many people around. Tam is in his allotment with the gate open. He waves as we go by.

“Your dad not here today?” he shouts.

“Not today.”

“Your girlfriend looks a bit young for you,” he teases.

“She’s just a friend from school,” I say.

We hurry away from him, into the allotment.

Nadimah looks around. It’s been raining.

Everything is very green.The bushes are full of red berries that look good but are too hard and sharp to eat. She admires the small pumpkins.

“Where do you sleep?” she asks me.

I show her my hard floor. She lies down on it.

“This is not too bad,” she says.

She has a small bag. In it, there are two oranges and an old book. She hands me an orange, then opens the book.

“I found this.Will you help me read?” she says.

I sit on the cold floor with her. We try to follow the story but I think it’s a bit young for me. I read the words aloud. Nadimah follows them with her finger.

“This is better than learning words from TV,” she says.

A tear drops onto the page. We are not at a sad bit of the story.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her.

“I heard the Ubanis talk,” she says. “Roland comes tomorrow. He brings them a new girl. He will take me away.”

“Where to?” I ask. “Will it be somewhere better?”

She shakes her head. “I am nearly thirteen,” she says. “He will want to use me for bad things.”

I guess what bad things she means. “Stay here,” I say.

“It’s not safe,” she says.

“It must be safer than being with Roland.”

“Here is too close to the Ubanis. And Immigration are looking for you,” Nadimah says.

“I’ve been here for weeks. I have a job. I can look after you.”

“I don’t know,” Nadimah says. She stands up. I spot a mark on her thigh.

“Who did that?” I ask.

“Mr Ubani.”

“You have to get away, Nadimah. Maybe we can go somewhere else, somewhere safer. Don’t go back. Stay here.”

Nadimah looks around the dark, damp bothy. She looks out of the window at the wet, green allotment.

“I have to get my stuff,” she says at last. “Things from home.”

“Let’s go now,” I tell her. “While the Ubanis are out.”

We cross the road.The Ubanis’ car is not back. Nadimah lets herself in with a key that’s hidden under a loose brick on the wall.

“They don’t know I know about the key,” she says. “Will you lock the door and put the key back for me?”

“What does it matter, if you’re running away?”

“They may come back. Keep watch. Call me if they come. If they don’t come, you can unlock the door and let me out again.”

“OK,” I say. She goes inside and I lock the door. I put the key back behind the brick and watch the road. I wait. And wait. I look at my watch. I thought she would be five minutes at most, but it seems longer. No, only four minutes have passed. Five. Six.

Soon, the Ubanis’ Range Rover comes. You cannot park on the main road.The car signals to turn onto the side road by the house. I bang on the back door and shout. “They’re coming! They’re coming! Come quick, we can still get away!”

Nadimah doesn’t come. I have to go before they see me. I hurry out of the alley, onto the road. I go up the road and hang by the bus stop.There they are, Mr and Mrs Ubani and their three kids. A tall African man in a suit is with them. He has angry, staring eyes. I know who he must be. Roland.

I go back to the allotments. Stefan is in his. Karl is holding the ladder while Stefan cuts a rotten branch from an apple tree.

“Mrs Babcock wants you back next week,” he tells me.

“I like Mrs Babcock,” I say.

“She asked about you,” Karl says. “I said you were sixteen and you’d finished school.”

I nod. I want to ask Stefan about Nadimah. But I don’t want to tell Karl about her. They go back to their jobs.

“Do you want help with the raspberry canes?” I ask.

“You’d better go,” Stefan says. He points over the fence. “You have a visitor waiting outside.”

I hurry back to my allotment. There is Nadimah, with a bag over her shoulder. She is shaking.

“What happened?” I ask.

“I ran out through the front door.”

“How did you get into the allotments?”

“Someone opened the gate,” she says. “I ran in past them. Roland saw me. I ran across the road before he could catch me. But he knows where I am. You must hide me.”

“Get in the bothy,” I tell her. “I’ll see if he’s coming.”

I hurry back up the path. There are six allotments between mine and the road. I don’t pass Roland. I don’t like to be out in the open on a Saturday. Too many people around.

There’s a patch of open ground beside the gate to the allotments. It’s full of brambles and people dump rubbish there. Every so often the council clear it. I stop there and hide.

Roland’s on the other side of the gate. He’s waiting for someone to let him in. Maybe he’ll give up. Maybe not. I run back to the allotment, but stop before I get there. I go in to see Stefan and Karl.

“There’s a big African man,” I say, and tell them about Roland. They’ve seen Nadimah, so I have to trust them.

“Give me your key,” Karl says.

“What?”

“I’ll lock your allotment from the outside, so it looks like no one’s in. I’ll come round and let you out when he’s gone.”

Karl follows me and locks the door behind me. I go into the bothy where Nadimah is hiding. She’s still shaking with fear. I try to hold her but she doesn’t let me. I suspect more bad things have happened to her, bad things she does not want to tell me about.

“You’re safe here,” I tell her.

I hope it’s true.

On a fine morning at Hungerhill Gardens the birdsong is magical. Sometimes I wake early and go outside to listen and watch. Bird calls drown out the sound of cars. The air tastes sweet and clean. But today I can’t relax. I don’t know if I can stay here.

Nadimah sleeps. She is stronger than me, I think. I miss my parents, my brother and sister. All the time. I worry that Roland will come back. He did get in to the allotments last Sunday, the day after Nadimah ran away. He made up a story about why he was looking for a young girl. No one said they’d seen her.

There is an exit at the bottom of the allotments. Nadimah could have gone out through there. I hope Roland thinks so. I hope he is gone for good. But I can’t be sure.

A big old fox crosses the allotment. It sees me and stops. The fox looks at me for a moment, then moves on. I hear a door open behind me. Nadimah is up.

“Are you OK, Nadimah?” I ask.

“Is there anything to eat?”

We eat some crisps and drink fizzy pop. Then we read her book. We do not talk about the future. At seven, I go to work.

When I come back, Nadimah has made a stew.

“Where did you get all these vegetables?” I ask.

“I dug them. Stefan gave me some. And he lent me ... I don’t know what it’s called.”

She points to a long stone.

“A knife sharpener. What did you need a sharp knife for?”

“Taste,” she orders.

The stew is very good. There’s meat in it. Chicken, I think. It is chewy but nice.

“This tastes fantastic. Where did you get the meat? Did Stefan give you that, too?” I ask her.

“No,” says Nadimah, “I caught it.”

“You caught a
chicken
?”

“I don’t think it is called chicken.” Nadimah says. She goes out and comes back with a bloody skin. A grey squirrel. “There are lots here.”

I carry on eating. It’s the first meat I’ve had in days.

“Did Roland come back?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “I like it here,” Nadimah says.

“Me too.”

“It reminds me of home, when we had a farm.”

“What happened to the farm?”

“Crops failed. We had no more food,” Nadimah tells me. “Why did you leave your country?”

“Politics,” I tell her.

“Maybe we can stay here forever,” Nadimah says. “We grow things. We catch things. We earn money for milk and bread and stuff to keep us clean. It could be a good life.”

“A good life,” I agree.

I try not to think about Roland and the English winter.

Summer is here. Apples swell on the trees but are still too small and sharp to eat. The old ones are all gone. I work most days. No one comes to look for me, or Nadimah. We spread nets over the fruit bushes to stop birds from eating the berries. On the light evenings, we read. Mrs Babcock gives me old books from her daughter’s room.

“Penny doesn’t need them,” Mrs Babcock says. “She has no children. She’s a member of the county council.”

“But she can’t stop bad smells,” I point out.

“That’s true,” Mrs Babcock replies. “Aren’t these stories a bit young for you?”

“They’re for someone else.”

“A younger sister?” Mrs Babcock

“Sort of.”

“Are you OK, Aazim? If I can help you in any way, I will.”

“Thank you, but I’m all right.”

At the weekend, Stefan invites us in to his allotment. Nadimah sits in a corner of his shed, shy and quiet. Stefan talks to me.

“It’s one thing for you to stay here. You have no choice. But this girl is young. She needs to go to school. She needs looking after.”

“If we tell someone, they may give her back to the Ubanis,” I say.

“I don’t think so,” Stefan looks at us both. “The Ubanis lied about her being family, didn’t they? They used her as a servant? That’s against the law.”

“I won’t let them send me home,” Nadimah says. “I don’t want to go back to Africa.”

“I don’t think they’d send you home,” Stefan says. “I think they’d put you into care. They might find you foster parents.”

Nadimah frowns. These words mean even less to her than they do to me. “I don’t want,” she says.

“What
do
you want?” Stefan asks.

She thinks for a moment. “It is better not to want,” she says.

“But you want to stay with Aazim?” Stefan asks.

Before she can answer, someone bangs on his allotment gate. Nadimah jumps.

“Wait here,” Stefan says. He goes outside, to the gate. I hear a deep voice. Stefan returns.

“That man said he was your uncle,” he tells Nadimah. “He’s the one who came before. I don’t think he’ll give up easily.”

We have to run away. But where? It has to be a place I can find work. I ask Karl.

“This is summer,” he says. “Lots of jobs at the seaside.”

“How far is the seaside?” I ask.

“Nottingham is as far from the sea as you can get,” Karl tells me. “Over a hundred miles.”

I travelled thousands of miles to get here. A hundred miles is nothing.

“There are buses and trains,” he adds, and tells me where to get a timetable.

Later, I show the timetable to Nadimah.

“Where will we stay?” She sounds unhappy.

“I don’t know. But I think we have to go.”

We go on a Saturday. The bus is mad. Everybody is going on holiday. Some wave buckets and spades. They sing songs.

We’re going on a summer holiday

Doing things we’re not supposed to do

It is nine in the morning, but some people drink beer. Everybody but us is white. We don’t talk to each other. Nadimah keeps her head down. When people try to talk to me, I pretend not to speak English.

I look out of the window. At first I see places I know. Carlton. Arnold. Then Southwell. Next is Newark. After two hours we get to Lincoln. Nobody gets on or off.

The land around Lincoln is flat. It is nothing like Nottingham. Karl said there were many farms near here. He said I could find work:
no questions asked
. We stop at a town called Horncastle. Again, nobody gets on or off. When we set off again, the singing gets louder. Kids run up and down the middle of the bus.

“Keep it down!” The driver shouts.

“Don’t be so mardy!” Someone shouts. I sort of know what
mardy
means, but can’t put it into words. Nothing is allowed to spoil our journey.

Half an hour later, the bus gets to Skegness. People cheer. The streets are full. The shops look bright and full of colour. Some have plastic toys in piles outside.

We stop. People hurry to get off the bus. We wait until most have gone. Then I say, “Come on”.

Something is wrong. Nadimah won’t get up.

“What is it?”