Page 30 of There Are Rivers in the Sky
—H ZALEEKHAH
By the River Thames, 2018
A fter Nen has left, Zaleekhah sits by the window in the houseboat, her gaze following a seagull with something mysterious in its beak. When she can no longer see the bird, she takes out the box Nen has brought. She will have the cuneiform biscuits for breakfast.
The sky is murky and overcast, a hint of thunder in the air, an electric taste on her tongue. When she was little, she always wondered where fish sheltered in a storm. Did they carry on swimming even as the water raged and seethed, trusting it would not affect them, or did they flee at the slightest hint of disruption and, if so, where? Today she knows that her simple question is not an easy one to answer. Scientists understand how sensitive riparian, riverine and marine animals are to temperature and pressure and light, and can track their search for calmer waters, but they are still not entirely sure where fish go in a storm.
And if the river is polluted to such a degree that oxygen levels are low, fish cannot breathe properly. Their behaviour becomes erratic – at first they swim faster, moving frantically in search of pockets of air. Then they slow down, falling progressively into a lethal torpor. Massive die-offs can occur in a matter of minutes. Mother fish will exhaust themselves to bring oxygen to their eggs, even as the effort drains them. Still they will carry on fanning and ventilating to keep their offspring alive, until their own reserves of energy run out. Down in the murky depths, the glow from the eggs will fade away, one by one, tiny light bulbs flickering out, as darkness descends when a river dies.
After taking a shower, Zaleekhah scans the few items of clothing that she brought to the houseboat. None are suitable for the evening ahead. She knows that Uncle and Aunt will be elegant, and Helen, no doubt, fashionable. Next to them, as usual, she will feel drab. But then she remembers Nen is coming, too, and Nen wears whatever she wants. Her presence is strangely soothing.
She pulls out a shirt at random and puts it on, hating the way it feels – the fabric is coarse, the colour garish. She takes it off. This will go on and on, she knows. She will try on every single garment she owns and toss each of them to the floor, increasingly convinced that nothing looks good on her.
She remembers another birthday party, a long time ago. It must have been two years after her parents died and she had gone to live with Uncle’s family. The house in The Boltons was decorated with fairy lights, streamers, paper lanterns – balloons, too. She had never seen balloons so pretty – with rose tassels and sparkling confetti. You didn’t have to worry about accidentally popping them. Even if they burst, they would shower you with gold.
In the middle of the table sat a three-tiered, mermaid-themed cake, so pretty it felt wrong to mar its aquamarine perfection. There were children running around, gulping bubblegum-flavoured milkshakes. They were all Helen’s guests. Zaleekhah hadn’t yet made any friends in her new private school in Kensington and her old friends were in Manchester, unable to come even if they had been invited. And so her birthday party was attended mostly by strangers, in a house that was not her home, bearing a quiet sadness that disguised itself as merriment.
‘Aren’t you going to blow out the candles?’ It was Helen asking, her eyes brimming with excitement. ‘Make a wish!’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘But we’re going to sing “Happy Birthday”.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘I don’t know … I don’t like the decorations on the cake.’
‘Dad!’ Helen yelled at the top of her voice, her bottom lip jutting out.
Uncle Malek was calm when he appeared, video-camera in hand. Upon hearing Zaleekhah had developed a dislike for the mermaid, he picked it up by its fondant tail and put it on a side plate. ‘Is that better?’
‘Not really.’ Zaleekhah pointed to the seahorses.
Uncle removed them, too, each leaving a breach in the smooth buttercream icing.
‘But …’ Helen protested, ‘you’re ruining the cake. It was so pretty.’
Uncle ignored her, his eyes fixed on Zaleekhah, ‘Okay now?’
‘No …’
The nine-year-old Zaleekhah did not want the marzipan fish, or the meringue octopus, or the golden shells, or the filigreed corals, or the chocolate treasure chest. And so Uncle extracted them one by one, piling them on top of one another, a marine disaster.
‘Better, my dear?’
‘Can you also scrape off the blue icing?’
They stuck nine candles into the mangled sponge that the cake had now become and summoned the children to sing, but, when Helen joined in, her face crumpled; she tried hard to fight back the tears, and her voice came out more like a wail.
Years later, Zaleekhah would find the video Uncle had shot that day. She did not look unhappy in the footage. Nor did Helen seem distressed. No one would be able to tell what had transpired. The only sign of something not being right was the broken mermaid in the background, her tiara crushed and her mouth hanging open, like a fish gasping for breath. Then, as now, Zaleekhah felt grateful to Uncle Malek for not getting upset with her, just as she appreciated the way he had taken care of everything after the accident that killed her parents – the funeral arrangements, the sale of the house … Uncle had set aside what little money remained after the mortgage was repaid and added a substantial sum from his own purse for Zaleekhah’s education.
Uncle Malek … he was always reassuring, funny, supportive, strict in various ways but never towards her. Zaleekhah’s biggest fear was being seen by him as a burden. A freeloader. A parasite. To honour her debt, she studied hard. While Helen was, and remained, mostly an average student, Zaleekhah excelled in every single course, sailing through exams and winning prizes both in and out of school. She knew that it was she, not Helen, that Uncle believed could follow in his footsteps. But, no matter how many years passed, every morning when she opened her eyes in The Boltons, she would remember that her room, her bed, her clothes, her shoes, her toys and even the books that she had read and reread … none of them belonged to her. She missed the small, terraced house she had shared with her parents, hearing their laughter through the hardboard wall at night-time in her bed. As soon as she could muster her strength, and before the hospitality of the Maleks ran out, she would have to leave. The house was less a home than a harbour where she had sheltered as if from a storm.
Zaleekhah recalls her parents, their easy smiles, their grace of speech, the way they loved watching old films together, and held hands on leisurely walks in Piccadilly Gardens. She remembers a placid afternoon, from a time so far away that her recollection of it laps at the edges of her memory, like the ripples from a coin dropped into a wishing well. A landscape buffeted by winds. A dusty trail fringed with clumps of heather and gorse. A silence disturbed only by the whirr of dragonflies and the tramp of hiking boots. Far ahead, rocks in fascinating colours, striped with layers, their shapes so unusual they could just as well have been sculpted by invisible hands.
Her father is walking briskly up the hill, humming a song. Every now and then he pauses to remark on a plant or an insect. He carries the heaviest backpack, and rivulets of sweat trickle down his neck. Periodically, he glances back over his shoulder to check on his wife and daughter. When he smiles, his eyes crinkle up against the sun, the skin pulled tight. Normally chestnut brown, the hair on his arms glows golden. Mother follows a few steps behind him, a burnt-orange bandana wound round her head. They move in tandem, their shadows blending into other shadows. The blue of water shimmers in the distance, its banks clouded with flies that resemble a spatter of ink drops from a fountain pen. As they approach their destination, her father trips over a root, almost falls. The flask slips out of his hand and the metal container bounces down the incline, clanking all the way.
Evening is descending, and Zaleekhah is still not dressed. She sits in the armchair by the window, touching the cold glass with her fingertips. She is wearing only her knickers and a bra, and she hopes that people in passing boats will not see her. They appear to be distant enough, and a part of her does not care that much. She has no wish to attend tonight’s gathering. What would happen if she were to fail to show up at her own birthday dinner? What would happen if she were to stop showering, stop tweezing, stop waxing, stop washing, stop exercising, stop drinking, stop eating? Stop speaking again? Oddly, it is the idea of giving up work that makes her blood run cold.
The thought of death returns, like an intense dream that has found a passage from the realms of sleep to the waking world. Her limbs feel heavy, her chest constricted. Slowly, she stands up, begins hunting for something passable to wear. She will go to tonight’s dinner. It is her birthday, after all.