– Come on, Charlene. Let’s get out of this shitheap, he said.
He marched towards the entrance, spitefully dashing a handful of confectionery to the floor as he went. Charlene turned on her heel with an audible harumph and followed him out. For a second nobody moved. Then the shoppers simultaneously returned to their ordinary business. Still no one spoke as Mr Haroun’s son shakily emerged from behind the counter, his face pale with shock.
– They’re crazy, he said, looking around desperately at his customers. I didn’t do anything. You saw!
But the customers wouldn’t meet his eye. You could tell they were unsure if he was telling the truth. They hadn’t seen anything. Besides, it was nothing to do with them. They had come in here to buy a newspaper or a bar of chocolate, not to get embroiled in unpleasantness. And now the shopkeeper was asking them to bear witness; what temerity, what an imposition! Hadn’t they endured enough already? Why didn’t he understand that it was much better just to pretend the whole thing had never happened? That was the way things were done in this country. Mr Haroun’s son looked at me then, the last customer to come into the shop. He knew I wasn’t a witness, yet he was beseeching me to believe him.
– Don’t worry, I muttered. That reaction was totally over the top. Totally.
He looked at me in utter bafflement.
– These Australians, you know? I added lamely, turning a finger at the side of my head. What can you do?
He turned away without a shrug or a smile. This wasn’t the validation he sought, and we both knew it. I left the shop as quickly as possible, leaving him alone among the incomprehensible foreigners he had served for half his life, forlornly picking Kit-Kats off the floor.
Mir’s scare on the tube was a useful lesson, and I decided to drive it home by taking him to Soho. We were soon prowling the narrow streets west of Wardour Street. It was barely noon but there were already one or two raddled-looking working girls lurking in the doorways. I pointed one out to Mir, who stared in disbelief, then looked away in confusion as she caught his eye and asked if he was looking for business, luv. He kept close by me after that, but his curiosity soon got the better of him.
– Hohh, what is it? What is it? he whispered, transfixed by the sight of a dildo in a sex-shop window. It was a foot long at least and crafted from solid black latex, its flanks gleaming menacingly in the shop lights like an upended miniature Stealth bomber. I explained its purpose in clinical terms, feeling like a father telling a twelve-year-old son the facts of life.
– But it’s huge! he said, openly dismayed.
– Oh, I don’t know. Is it? I teased him.
It was harder to explain the sado-masochist display we saw in another window. It was simply beyond Mir’s comprehension, and he seemed only mildly reassured when I told him that whips and leather and chains were not to my taste. I coaxed him into a large porn shop. If I was surprised, he was stunned to see that the clientele largely comprised Asian men. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder facing the magazine racks on the walls, shifting their weight awkwardly as they readjusted their erections, their eyes flickering furtively across the lurid pages. It was as quiet as a library but the atmosphere was thick and charged and seminal, and we hastily backed out. Mir looked shocked, and I wondered briefly if I might not have overdone this baptism of fire, but decided that there was no point in trying to protect his innocence. London was London, and if he was going to live here then he needed to know what to expect.
I took him home via a Tesco supermarket in order to buy something for lunch, but by the sliding doors he stopped and gawped at the glittering aisles like Aladdin at the entrance to his cave.
– So much, he said. So much.
I hadn’t anticipated that Tesco’s would confound him. I suddenly understood that in East Ham he must have been buying his food in small shops, or perhaps from the covered market by Upton Park – but that resembled the markets in Islamabad. Mir had never seen anything like this. Deeper inside he moved like a trespasser. He kept a respectful distance from the overpackaged goods on the shelves as though they were tainted, or bombs.* I had little idea of what he might want to eat, and he offered no guidance when I asked.
– I don’t know, he shrugged. Whatever you like.
– Are you hungry? Some meat? Should we get some bread?
– It doesn’t matter. As you wish.
– But it’s your lunch, I said, irritated. I want it to be as you wish.
– I don’t know.
I thought the chill-cabinet of microwave-ready meals might inspire him. There was a meals-for-one section, 250g per portion, a range that I knew all too well. Back at home Mir’s meals had been prepared by the women in his family. Afghan men did not cook. But that was going to have to change now that he was alone in London. He scanned the neat packages and the mendacious photographs on their lids, as exotic to him as meals for astronauts. In the photographs the meals were garnished with a sprig of greenery and laid out on a table suggestive of a farmhouse kitchen, a full place-setting glinting in soft candlelight.
– Like in a restaurant, Mir observed doubtfully. They look werry expensive.
– Don’t worry about that. I’m going to pay.
– No, I am going to pay, he said, showing decisiveness for the first time.
– You most certainly are not. You’re my guest and you’re in my country now. Choose something.
But we didn’t buy a ready meal. There was an obvious difficulty about Tesco’s prepared food that I had overlooked: it was not halal. So I steered him instead towards the fruit and veg section, but he remained tentative. The melons resembled the ones found in Mazar, but he was suspicious because they were out of season. He would concede nothing beyond the fact that he quite liked the look of the string beans. With increasing desperation I eventually selected an avocado, pitta bread and a tub of taramosalata. Even in the soft-drinks section he was paralysed by the choice on offer.
– Which one is best? he said simply. There was no Mirinda for him to latch onto here.
– Maybe Tango? I sighed. I think you’ll like Tango.
– As you wish, said Mir.
But back at my flat, he did like the Tango. Once he had established to his satisfaction that it contained no alcohol he slurped it down. He hesitated at the avocado, testing the surface of the peeled flesh with a podgy finger, but he tasted it and immediately declared it werry delicious, like a nut. Nothing could make him try the taramosalata however. He conceded that it was probably halal because it was made from fish roe, but when he asked where the fish had come from, and how it had been caught and killed, there was no answer I could give.
I pondered this Afghan placidly munching on my sofa. There was a pleasing symmetry to guiding and teaching the person who had once taught and guided me. At times in Afghanistan, Ewan, Rick and I had been wholly, scarily dependent on Mir’s interpretation of what was going on around us. Now the boot was on the other foot and I felt a sweet sort of satisfaction, almost like revenge. There was a helpless, childlike quality about him here, as though he had just been born into a new world. If so, then I was the midwife. But I understood also that I had a duty of care towards this young man that went beyond mere technical assistance in the initial asylum process. After all, in Afghanistan