Read Online Ibrahim & Reenie by David Llewellyn - Free Book Online

when you didn’t laugh say, ‘Where’s your sense of humour? It was just a bit of banter.’ As if their right to laugh at you, to ridicule you, trumped all else. That was Britain. Britannica. A pompous, sneering gori bitch with her shield and her lion. If it wasn’t for her, his grandparents would never have had to leave their homeland in the first place. Fuck Britain, and fuck his grandparents’ grovelling. Why should he be grateful?
    But that anger, like so much else, had disappeared in time; so gradually it was difficult, if not impossible, for him to pinpoint the exact moment of its passing. The accident, perhaps, or was it earlier than that? Meeting Amanda? Leaving London? Earlier, still?
    There was no point in thinking about all that now, not while he was walking. And walking. How far had his grandparents walked? He had seen the few photographs they took while travelling, and everything looked so old, so long ago. And black and white took the heat and the sunshine out of everything, so that he only knew a certain road in Punjab was dusty because his grandfather, his dada , told him it was dusty, and only knew that it was hot because his dada told him it was hot. Did they have to walk along the hot and dusty road? How often, on their journey, were they carried along by nothing but their feet?
    The details his dada remembered seemed so small, so intimate, Ibrahim was sure they must have walked at least some of the way. Travelling by car or by train, he now realised, you see only trees, but on foot, when walking, you see not trees but the individual branches and leaves.
    They had walked almost half an hour that morning when the van – light blue, the logo of an energy company emblazoned along its side – pulled in, stopping several yards ahead of them, its passenger side window lowering with three jerky movements.
    â€˜If he asks us if we’re off the telly,’ said Reenie, struggling to keep up, ‘tell him he’s mistaken us for someone else. Tell him we’re just lookalikes. Or that we’re eccentric millionaires.’
    When he was level with the open window, Ibrahim stopped walking and the trolley jangled to a halt. Inside the van the driver, a youngish man with grey-flecked red hair, leaned across the passenger seats, his chin almost resting on the top third of the windowpane. He looked at Ibrahim with surprise, as if expecting someone else. Only when Reenie caught up with them did he smile.
    â€˜Hiya. D’you wanna lift?’
    Reenie looked from the driver to Ibrahim and back again. ‘What do you mean, “a lift”?’
    â€˜I can drive you over the bridge. There’s room in the van for all your stuff.’
    â€˜Well how do you know I’m going over the bridge?’
    â€˜I saw you on telly. This morning. Irene something, they said your name was. They said you’re walking to London.’
    â€˜Well, maybe I am,’ said Reenie. ‘But I don’t see what that’s got to do with you.’
    The driver looked stung, and slouched back into the driver’s side of the cabin.
    â€˜Right,’ he said. ‘I just thought… It’s a long way to London.’
    â€˜So everyone keeps telling us.’
    â€˜And they said you’re travelling alone.’
    â€˜Well, that’s not true, but then that’s the news for you.’
    â€˜I just thought it would make things easier if someone drove you over the bridge, dropped you off the other side of Bristol.’
    She turned to Ibrahim. ‘What do you reckon? Might get us there a bit quicker.’
    â€˜I can’t,’ he replied.
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜I just can’t.’
    â€˜But he’s got a van. We can get my trolley in there. How long would it take us to get to the other side of Bristol if we was walking?’
    â€˜A few days. Maybe longer.’
    â€˜Exactly. And you’re saying you don’t want a