‘Are you OK, Malik?’
‘I’m fine. Why shouldn’t I be?’
‘It’s just the way you’re walking – all stiff. You look as if you’ve hurt your back or something.’ Malik usually strolled along, his arms hanging loosely by his sides, but today he was almost marching, his back very straight and his head up. He looks like a soldier on parade, Tahira thought.
‘I went to the gym yesterday for the first time in ages. I think I overdid it a bit. But I’m fine. Who wouldn’t be, walking with a beautiful girl to a decadent pop concert?’ he added with a laugh.
Tahira was struck by how light-hearted he seemed. Maybe the Jane woman from London had got it wrong about him. She hoped so.
On the Stratford Road the traffic was gridlocked. Cars sat motionless in two long lines, completely blocked by the swarm of mainly Asian young people who, bunched up at the entrance to the park, were spilling over on to the road. They made a colourful crowd on the sunny morning, many of the girls in very short skirts that barely covered their pants, tottering along in high-heeled sandals; the men, fewer in number, were wearing bright shirts and jeans, some of them pushing buggies or carrying small children on their shoulders. Tahira thought Malik looked very out of place in his jacket and pullover, but if he’d never been to a pop concert before, perhaps he didn’t know what people wore.
As they were carried along by the crush of people towards the entrance gates, she grabbed Malik’s hand. It would be easy to get separated in this crowd. Closer to the gates, stewards in orange jackets were trying to divide the crowd into those who had tickets and those who needed to buy them. Two booths had been erected, one on each side of the gate, and tapes marked where the queues were supposed to form. But the lines were already longer than the tapes and there was a lot of confusion about where each queue ended and who was in front of whom.
As they stood waiting, Tahira watched the uniformed policemen who had joined the stewards at the gate. It struck her that they seemed more concerned with scanning the concert-goers than with helping the stewards sort out the chaotic crowd. There was a man in a parka with a camcorder. She thought he must be from local TV because he was filming them all as they approached the gates.
‘Come on,’ said Malik. ‘I’m not waiting here any longer. The concert’ll be starting soon.’
‘How are you going to get in without a ticket?’
‘I’ve been watching them and they’re not checking very carefully.’ He took her arm and pushed her towards the dense crowd going through the gates, walking closely behind her. He was right – there was such a crush that the ticket checkers had more or less given up. They were reduced to looking cursorily at tickets when people held them out, but they weren’t able to stop anyone who didn’t. A sudden surge from the crowd pushed Tahira through the bottleneck of the entrance, Malik hanging on tight to her arm. As they came into the park the pressure eased and the crowd spread out, like water pushed through a narrow channel suddenly finding room to flow.
Tahira took a deep breath and realised that Malik had let go of her. She looked around for him, panicking slightly when she couldn’t see him. Then his now-familiar face materialised behind her, and she saw with amazement that he’d put on an orange baseball cap, which had a big blue P emblazoned on the front.
Tahira laughed at him. ‘Where on earth did you get that from?’
He grinned. ‘I went to Tesco earlier this week for my mum. They were selling them there and I thought I could use it today. Isn’t this what you’re meant to wear at a pop concert?’
She shook her head. ‘You’re a clown.’ But as she said it something was occurring to her. If he’d bought the cap in Tesco earlier in the week, he must have meant to come to the concert all along. Why had he pretended to her that he’d only had the idea this morning?
She had no time to think this through, jostled into following the crowd of people moving in the direction of the stage, but Malik steered her towards the side where ropes strung loosely between stakes marked the boundaries of the audience area. She pulled the other way. She wanted to get up to the front, near the stage, and join the girls there who were jumping up and down and clapping in time to the warm-up band. But Malik tugged her back and pointed to a huge screen showing the performers on-stage. She realised that she’d get a better view from here, and it would be more comfortable than being squashed in the crowd and probably seeing very little.
The warm-up band finished playing and the crowd clapped and shrieked as they went off the stage. Then a tall Asian man came on with a microphone in his hand. It was Amrit Sandhu, presenter of the local TV station’s music channel. The crowd roared as he waved to them, then gradually the noise died down.
‘ Namaste, everyone,’ he shouted.
‘ Namaste,’ the crowd roared back.
‘ Salaam, ’ he shouted.
‘ Salaam,’ they roared back.
And finally ‘Hello,’ and back from the crowd ‘Hello.’
‘Are you enjoying yourselves?’
‘Yes,’ the crowd shouted back.
‘Well, now you’re in for the treat of the afternoon. They’re here, straight from their successful European tour, already booked for a US tour and waiting to perform, just for you. Put your hands together. It’s… the Chick Peas!’
A huge answering roar came from the crowd.
Tahira was watching the big screen beside her as the group’s band began to play a heavy bass line accompanied by loud insistent drums. Suddenly from the wings the lead singer, Banditti Kahab, marched on to the stage wearing a white leather miniskirt, stamping her tall, shiny, high-heeled boots in time to the beat. She had huge silver hoop earrings in her ears, silver bangles on her arms, and her hair was brushed out in a lustrous black mane.
The two other Chick Peas now came on to the stage, one in wide-bottomed silk trousers displaying a bare midriff, the other in skintight crops and what looked like a bra made of sequins.
They stood side by side at the front of the stage, waving and smiling at the audience. Then suddenly the band started to play the intro to their hit single and the girls began to sing. Banditti waved to the crowd to join in and the resulting noise was deafening.
Tahira sang too, and glanced over at Malik to see if he was joining in. But he wasn’t singing; he was looking at her. She smiled but he didn’t smile back. She felt uneasy again. What was the matter? As the song ended and the applause died down a bit, she said, ‘That was great, wasn’t it?’
He didn’t reply. A guitar was being tuned before the next song and over Malik’s shoulder, on the screen, Tahira could see Banditti moving around the stage, waiting till the band was ready. Malik said, ‘Listen, I have to go now.’
‘What do you mean, go?’ She couldn’t believe it.
He nodded. She said, ‘So you aren’t enjoying it.’
‘No, no. It’s not that,’ he said. ‘I just have to leave.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why have you got to leave?’
He gave a thin smile. ‘It doesn’t matter. Just trust me.’
‘But where are you going? You’ll never be able to get out in this crush. When will I see you again?’
He looked at her and said, ‘I can’t predict that. But I am sure we will meet again. Maybe not in this world, but certainly in the next one.’
As he said these words, Tahira went cold from head to toe. She stared at him open-mouthed. There was a dreamy look on his face now, as if he was already somewhere else.
She didn’t want to think about that. Instead she said, ‘Why are you talking like this? Why can’t you stay here with me? You wanted to come,’ she added accusingly.
But he wasn’t listening. Malik seemed to be drifting away from her, right before her eyes. She was helpless to call him back.
He said slowly, ‘You are very special, Tahira. Please always remember that I said that. Goodbye.’ And he reached out his hand and touched her lightly on the cheek, then turned and walked away. She watched, mystified, as he headed towards the gates.
Then Malik suddenly changed direction, angling sideways into the back of the crowd. She lost sight of him for a moment, then saw the orange baseball cap bobbing among the excited teenage girls. What was he doing?
And then she realised he was heading for the stage, and suddenly she knew. It had all been a sham. He hadn’t changed his mind about the Chick Peas, or the West, or the evil he seemed to see in everything Tahira enjoyed. He had tricked her, pretending to have changed; he’d used her as cover to get into the concert. He was going to do something terrible.