Healah Riazi
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Take Me Home
Matthew, cleaner, 16 years old
On stage after magician’s show. Confetti strewn around stage. Watford.
I think of it a bit like painting but on the ground. And with a massive paintbrush. But I try be bit more
method-like with it most the time. So I start round the edges in a square then work my way in with
long zig-zag strokes. Or- start in the middle and swirl out. Like a worm. Thursday’s the big one in
here. Use it for bingo some nights, have a karaoke night- honestly one of the most ungodly things
I’ve ever witnessed. And I’m not judging on technical abilities, if anything the worse they are the
more I look up to them. Up there belting out an already shit song making it shitter. Takes proper guts
to do that. And whiskey. But there’s a slowness to it all do you know what I mean? Like actually slow
motion. People move less. And you’re suddenly aware there’s loads of space. This massive, hot,
echo-ey hall. They’ve got Shirley though who used to be a professional singer, she did all the holiday
hotels back then so really gets it going when she’s up. Absolutely dire at all other times though.
Charlotte’s mum works on the bar some nights as well apparently. She’s in the year above,
Charlotte.
I love her. Not like that. A bit like that. She’s got this massive coat she wears to school. And she’s
quite like, big. Not fat-big, really, just built, like she’s actually made of bricks. Proper hard nut.
Couple months ago at school, some of the boys had me cornered in the corridor and she comes up
to them, says, right- okay- she goes: “Um ’sxcuse me Aaron, (that’s him) I’ll give you five seconds to
leave him alone before I squeeze your bollocks so tight your eyeballs pop out your face.” (Gasps in
awe).
I should have probably been embarrassed I know but I was swooning over her after that. It was like
her face was made out of stars. All them little spots she’s got. When she’s chasing after people it’s
like seeing a meteor shower. Wouldn’t go for me though, she thinks my name’s Tom. Which is fine, I
probably look like more of a Tom than a Matthew.
I know her from maths. I’m good with numbers so they moved me up a year for that. I like the order
of it all. Get a real sense of calm from a good maths equation me. Send those irregular numbers my
way, I am your man. They take the piss but I mean everything is maths. It’s the balance and structure
of what everything’s made from. Makes confusing things make sense in the end.
There’s this new boy that started recently at school. His name’s Mustafa. No one likes him so he sits
next to me in maths. There’s not really much to not like, he don’t do anything. I thought he couldn’t
speak English but he can he just didn’t, speak, at first. Definitely comes across as a bit of a prick
because of it. Apparently he came here on the bottom of a lorry, wrapped around the pipes and
planks and whatever it is they have going on down there. Under a lorry. For three hours. To end up
in Watford sitting next to me in maths.
It’s been two months now that Dad’s lost his job. He was quite good at pretending he was okay at
first but I can see it’s hammering away at him, his face is starting to look like it’s made out of
shadows. My dad’s the complete opposite of me. Made a life all from manual labour, he’s basically
one massive slab of meat. He’s strong, uses his hands to figure things out, got a charm about him;
people like and respect him. Our heads are sort of wired differently but I like to pretend we’re the
same with a lot of things. Not the maths and no football thing. I try to rationalise this and tell him it
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means I’ll become a good mechanic (I won’t). But it’s nice to hold on to that you know. Where he
inhales a dose of page three every morning I’m there wondering how this is actually a thing that still
exists, like really. Obviously don’t tell him this.
It’s just been me and him since Mum died four years ago. Which to be honest was a bit odd, the
manliness of it all. Especially the manliness of not crying. You sort of learn to just carry on after a
while. Once people stopped dropping off lasagnes to the house I think it marked the point where
you’re meant to start being okay. Absolutely fucking hate lasagnes now. Just the sight of a three
tiered pasta with its lumpy creviced layer of potholed cheese makes me want to go build a fort with
my duvet and sit under it and...
But dad losing his job coincided with me turning 16. So here I am. Worked out quite well, you could
say.
When I first started cleaning here I used to think it looks a bit funny when you come in ‘cause they
turn off all the lights after hours and it’s just these silent left overs, like people have left bits of
themselves. Whole room looks knackered. As if it’s passed out and been sick on itself. Used to find
myself being really quiet so I didn’t wake it up sometimes. Sleeping pisshead monster.
To be honest I’d always thought magicians were a bit shifty- all that dodgy facial hair and bulging
eyes. But I saw this one tonight just for a few seconds back stage. I’m not usually there before events
but Allen my boss needed me to fish out a dead mouse from one of the vents. Bit of a health and
safety problem having him basically inside the air-con. Poor thing, state of him. So he’d left his
dressing room door open. I say dressing room, we did up the store cupboard for our special acts,
looks pretty convincing though. And he’s in there in front of the mirror, this tall smart, elderly man, a
bit like a butler, bow tie and everything. And he’s getting himself ready, fanning cards out, making
them vanish in his wrists, stuffing colourful silk up his sleeves- all sorts. Comes out, don’t speak, sees
me, nods and goes on his way.
Shift properly starts once everyone’s gone. You can always tell what event they’d had on before by
the pieces left behind. Bingo numbers, chocolate wrappers from the karaoke prize, music stands.
Found a recorder once. Thank you very much. Anyway I’d come in after this magic show. Sparkles
and all sorts of tedious mess all over the stage. The sort of confetti you find three months later stuck
to your trousers when you’re on the bus. It just never leaves.
But the thing is, he dropped something when he left the dressing room.
I swear to god it looked like fuck all. I actually thought he was littering at first. But I went closer and
it was a piece of cloth with some sort of calming smelling fabric for the rabbit? So like, when the
rabbit was actually going a bit mental on stage, that was why? Apparently.
So the thing is, he takes him out of the hat, fuck knows how they do that trick but he does it and
then the rabbit’s a bit on edge and won’t go back in and he wriggles his way out and runs off.
Personally I think he should’ve just got back in the hat and kicked off later if he had to- on stage
behaving like that… At this point I’m already in the vent trying to get out this dead mouse. But like, I
can hear the audience gasping, and I think to myself, sounds like it’s a good one. But actually what’s
happened is the bastard’s decided to do the two step on stage and run about. The magician cuts his
losses fairly swiftly and lets him go and after that the audience keep bursting into claps and cheers.
There’s a loud bang and I’m guessing he’s made something disappear in a puff of smoke. Love that.
Probably got multi coloured streamers coming out an’ all. I’m prodding this mouse now, he definitely
looks very dead but I just want to be sure. Got my plunger thing with me if I needed to do some sort
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of resuscitation but I give him another nudge and he just flops to the other side. So I pick him up
with this hospital glove thing I’ve got and place him in a carrier bag. Will bury him somewhere later
but for now I say a few words. I don’t believe in God or anything I just pray to the sky when
something bad happens. This was a bit like that.
So I’ve still got this smelling fabric thing in my pocket. Can hear the magician’s set below. Bit
uncomfortable in this vent have to say, it’s got this slimy dust stuff whatever that is and I hear this
scratching behind me. Tiny nails. I look behind and it’s the rabbit. I think, ‘you absolute dick what are
you doing here?’ He’s all rubbing up next to me and giving me these rabbit head butts, his fur’s a
silvery silky grey but he’s got this sort of bulbous face. Bit of an unfortunate looking stage animal.
Meanwhile I’ve still got a dead mouse in a carrier bag in my hand and the rabbit pushes his way past
me and starts going further into the vent. I can’t just leave the dead mouse and if I lob him down to
pick up later Alan will go mental so I swing him onto my back and crawl after the rabbit. And we’re
going through this metal tunnel, take a sharp left, keep shuffling through, left again. The rabbit hops
along then has a little break then as soon as I get near enough to nab him he’s off again. I’m
beginning to think he’s taking the piss. The sound of the audience is getting clearer, which is a worry
but I’ve come too far so tell myself it’s fine. And this rabbit is relentless I’m telling you, I suddenly
think for a second this is it I’m just going to be following him on an endless trail through the
overhead venting world of Watford never to find my way out. And then he stops. I slowly crawl
nearer and we’re at this little cage bit looking out onto the stage.
In maths me and Muz- I call him Muz now, that’s alright yeah, we do that- we’re doing an exercise
on probabilities. We’ve got this teacher she’s like a glass sculpture that’s about to smash to pieces.
Really shaky with a high crackly voice. She tries to assert herself either by sending people out for the
smallest thing, til you’ve got a little party going on in the corridor. Or she dishes out so many merits
that in the end everyone’s got about fifteen basically for being a dick. Either way it backfires every
time and the whole place ends up like a zoo. Turns out she did smash in the end and was off school
for two months and she’s just come back. We’re in maths. Aaron’s at it again. He’s one of those
bulky types, one eyeball’s bigger than the other, probably from a permanent state of rage. And he’s
going:
“Miss you feeling better now? Is it true it was some sort of mental problem? Is that it? No is it
though? Does that mean you can’t do your job properly?”
The whole room just tightens. She sits down at her desk and begins.
A few days ago I’m walking up my road, going past bricks of houses and I come nearer to ours and
see these thick wooden planks sticking out the ground. Dad’s kneeling down on where it used to be
grass and you can see the rectangle of his tattoo sliding out of his t-shirt with its cross in red. I go
closer to the fence but it looks sort of toothless because it’s not finished yet and I don’t really ask
dad what he’s doing, I’m sure there’s a need I just don’t know what. I go in and the house has a
dusty darkness to it. There’s a headline on the table saying they’re coming and taking more from us.
I go to the kitchen to make us dinner, open the cupboards and it’s just crumbs and a few cans.
I’ve been thinking more and more about how Muz got here. Wondering what it is he wanted. Surely
if you have to be smuggled to get in somewhere that’s a sign that you shouldn’t be there.
Turns out he lives quite near to mine so some days we walk home together. I’ve never been into his
house, he says it’s a bit cramped, you know. But his mum isn’t here and he doesn’t have any
brothers or sisters either. He doesn’t talk about them. Just has this thin gold chain inscribed with a
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prayer that he always wears around his neck. It makes me wonder how it is that we both live in the
same area though. Why did he end up living in the same streets?
Dad’s started going to these meetings, political ones, with speakers talking about our country and
our ground and how we’ve been left with nothing. They’re taking everything we’ve made.
He starts changing his mannerisms. Stuff he says. The way he talks about our home and where
we’re from and our territory; uses flags for curtains to block out the light.
We didn’t build this country for you.
*
He’s doing this trick now. And I honestly have no idea how it works. But he’s rolling these little
marbles on the table in front of him in a round frame and they’re all knocking about like mad and he
takes out a silk cloth then another one and just by waving them on the balls they attach together
until he has this long cord of colours all joined together and he hands it over to this woman who
wears it as a scarf.
What I only realise months after knowing Muz is that he lives in that house with eleven other
people. He shares a room sleeping on the floor with four others and his dad works in the kitchen of a
restaurant and is paid £1 a day because that’s what they can do when you’re desperate. And they
are both legal, but not allowed to work yet but they need to pay the man that brought them here
because apparently they owe him for this. They owe him for this life they tried to dream.
And it is unbearable living in that house some days but at least that way they’re not alone.
It isn’t your life that they’re taking. They’re not the ones that are taking from us.
Can see right through to the stage now. It’s a bit like the private stalls they have in theatres, that was
us sitting there- me this rabbit and the dead mouse. All three watching the end of the set.
And I’m counting all the people below. There’s fifteen altogether. Sitting around these circle tables.
I’m up there looking at everyone and the sparks of time where that magician has all of us watching,
and in that moment makes us sit in the sky and you forget.
*
That’s the thing with my dad these days. He’s gripping so tight that you don’t know what’s real.
Sometimes you can’t tell if his eyes are sparkling or if they’re filled with tears that won’t fall out.
I don’t ask Muz why it was that he came here.
I only guess sometimes that you hope for more.