"I'm here to see my son." Masood barely looked at Christian as he spoke, standing alongside Zainab in the hospital waiting room.
"Is this what it takes?" Christian kept his eyes focussed on Masood's face. "He has to be beaten up before you'll acknowledge him as your own? What are you going to do, wait until he's better and then disown him again?"
Masood's voice was quiet and slow: "This is my family. He is my son. This is not your business, Christian. You have no place here."
"My place is next to Syed. Just as it has been for the past few months when you haven't even been able to walk past him in the street. Don't think he didn't notice, all the times you turned away and took a different route round the square. My place has been right next to him, in the day, and at night…" Zainab winced at Christian's words. "Yes, Zainab, at night, my place is next to him in bed. Funny how you were prepared to put up with it when you needed somewhere to stay, isn't it? Friendly enough when it suits you, huh?"
"Enough, Christian. This is no place for your temper tantrums…"
"This is exactly the place. We're all here, we're not going anywhere. Syed's here too, and he needs us – all of us. If ever there was a good time to get this sorted out, it's right now."
"Excuse me." An apologetic voice cut through Christian's rising tone. A nurse was standing in the doorway. "Are you here for Syed Masood?"
"Yes." Three voices spoke at once. The nurse looked taken aback, but continued. "He's awake and can have visitors now. But only for a few minutes."
Zainab turned to Masood. "I've already seen him. You go. He'll be pleased to see you, I'm sure."
"No. I'm the one he'll want to see." Christian was half way across the room when Zainab's voice brought him up short.
"He'll want to see his family."
Christian turned to her. "Exactly." He turned to the nurse. "Which room is he in?" She indicated for him to follow her. Zainab turned to Masood: "Are you going to let him barge in like this?"
"Let it go, Zee. I don't like it any more than you do, but this isn't the place to argue about it. Besides, we're Syed's family, and nothing Christian says can change that."
"If it wasn't for Christian, he wouldn't even be here! It's his fault Syed got beaten up."
Masood shook his head, slowly. "No, Zee, it's not. Syed was attacked because of the colour of his skin, not because of…" Masood hesitated, trying to find the right words, "… not because of where he sleeps. It was the same gang that have been causing trouble at the mosque. They were waiting outside, and Syed was the first person to leave and he was alone. He left when he did because… " Masood sank into a chair, his shoulders sagging. He looked, Zainab thought, as if he'd been attacked too. "He left when he did because I told him to go. You know," he said, his eyes fixed on the floor, "all these months, I've been so worked up about the way Syed's defied us, the way he's grown apart from us, become so different. Yet when I saw him there, lying on the ground, bleeding, all I could think of was that this had happened because of what he and I have in common – the colour of our skin. He's part of me Zainab, of us. He's our son, our flesh and blood. Look…" Masood rolled up his sleeve and placed his bare arm against Zainab's, their flesh touching. "… Look at our skin: the colour of it. We share that with our children, and when they suffer for it, we suffer too. Zainab," he took her hand and laced her fingers tightly in his own. "My oldest son is hurting and I want him to come home with us."
Zainab hugged him tightly, burying her face in his shoulder.
Christian brushed his fingertips gently against the tops of Syed's broken fingers, wrapped tightly in their bandages. Syed's eyes were closed, his swollen face etched with pain. Christian leaned forward and placed a kiss gently between the bruises on his forehead. Syed's lips upturned in a small smile though his eyes stayed closed. "I knew you'd come."
"Always. I'll always be here for you."
Syed's eyes flicked open and met Christian's. "I can't… I don't remember…."
"You went to the mosque, do you remember that?"
Syed's eyes widened in alarm. "My dad. We argued… then I left. I don't know what happened after that."
"It's ok, you don't have to remember now. I'm just glad you were found, that you're going to be ok."
A flicker of a smile from Syed: "You're normally the one who gets beaten up."
"You know, we should stop making a habit of this."
"I bet I'll be a better patient than you were."
"Excuse me? I was the perfect invalid. I never complained once."
"Yeah, right," Even though Syed's voice was little more than a whisper, it was still loaded with irony. "I had to promise to spend the night with you just to get you to leave the house."
"That was just a smart move on my part, to get you stay over."
"Oh, so you were trying to get me into your bed then, were you?"
"I think I'd already got you into my bed. More than once, if I remember rightly. I was trying to get you to stay a whole night there. And it worked."
"So what are you going to promise me, if I get better?"
Christian had to lean in close to hear the broken whisper. He brushed his lips gently against Syed's. "Well, first of all…"
"Syed." Syed turned away from Christian as he heard his father's voice.
"Dad. Dad, I don't want any troub…"
"No, Syed. I'm not here for that. I'm here - " Masood's voice's broke with emotion as he stepped towards his son, lying in the hospital bed, swollen-faced and bandaged, " - I'm here for you. My son." Masood reached out and gently placed his hand on Syed's own. "And when you're ready, Syed, I'll be here to bring you home."
Syed's eyes locked with his father's. Neither of them noticed Christian as he left the room.
