Betrayed: The heartbreaking true story of a struggle to escape a cruel life defined by family honour. Rosie Lewis
Betrayed: The heartbreaking true story of a struggle to escape a cruel life defined by family honour
a ritual washing of the hands, feet, face, arms to the elbow and feet.
‘Are you OK, Zadie?’ I whispered, tapping quietly on the closed door.
‘Yes, sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’
‘It’s all right, honey. Not to worry. As long as you’re OK.’ Our whispered exchange was the longest conversation we’d had since Peggy had left the previous evening. Zadie had politely declined when I invited her to join us for something to eat, asking whether I minded if she went straight to bed. I knew she must have been exhausted so of course I told her it was fine, but I worried that she might have been staying out of the way because she felt unwelcome.
Leaving Zadie to get on with her prayers, I went back to bed for an hour but was too alert to go back to sleep. Lying awake on top of the duvet, I listened to the swirling sound of the sink emptying and then the whoosh as the taps went on again. When she finally finished washing I pictured the teenager up in her room bowing, prostrating and then sitting to face Mecca in Saudi Arabia. I couldn’t help but admire her self-discipline. With no adults persuading her, she had still managed to get herself up before dawn. Whatever the problems at home, it was unlikely, I thought, to be a case of the needle on her ethical compass swinging too far in the wrong direction.
At the more civilised hour of 7 a.m, we all sat around the breakfast table. Zadie, dressed in a black robe and baggy cardigan that looked far too big for her, hung her head in silence. Emily, though friendly, tended to be a bit more reserved when older children first came to stay and so I was missing the noisy banter that usually flew between her and Jamie. If Zadie was a toddler, Emily would have been clowning around and trying to make her giggle, but since she was close to her own age she merely threw the odd smile her way and studied her cereal with unusual interest. I tried to behave naturally and let them all get on with it. Children generally hate being thrown together and time usually smoothes the jagged edges.
Sure enough, after a minute or two Emily looked Zadie’s way. ‘You were up early,’ she said as she buttered some toast.
Zadie nodded, lowering her gaze.
‘Do you have to get up early to pray?’ Jamie asked before ramming another spoonful of cereal into his mouth. He always seemed to eat as if he was expecting a famine.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, her gaze lingering on Jamie for a second or two before darting back to the table. It was a penetrative look, as if trying to detect whether he had been mocking her. The flash of suspicion in her eyes reminded me that there was a real person beneath the head scarf.
‘And is it true that you’re not allowed to –’
‘J-amie,’ I said warningly. ‘Shall we save the interrogation for another day?’
He shrugged and blew out a huff of breath so that his lips vibrated noisily. Zadie looked up again, her dark eyes sweeping over us. I think she must have recognised Jamie’s interest as simple curiosity because the frozen angle of her shoulders seemed to soften a little. She continued to watch both Emily and Jamie whenever their attention drifted from her but, as is often the way with teenagers until the ice is broken, as soon as they made an effort to include her she averted her gaze, overcome by a sudden urge to examine the back of her hands.
‘Not very hungry this morning, Zadie?’ I asked. Her toast, though she had cut each slice into neat little squares and arranged them in lines across her plate, remained uneaten.
She looked at me warily. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Sorry. It’s very nice though. Thank you.’
‘You should try to eat something, honey. How about some cereal?’
She gave her head a tiny shake.
‘When was the last time you ate?’ I pressed. Even though her skin was coffee-coloured there was a pallor to it that I hadn’t noticed the previous evening. She looked awfully washed out.
‘It’s OK. I’ll …’ She picked up a tiny square of toast and took a tentative nibble. With her free hand she rearranged the left-over pieces of toast until there was an equal distance between each of them. Her fingers trembled as she worked and I could tell that Jamie had noticed too. He sat transfixed and was about to open his mouth when Emily, always quick to be kind, whacked him on the shoulder. ‘Come on, you. We’ll be late.’
I mouthed a thank you to Emily as she pushed her chair back. Straightening two fingers, she aimed them at the back of Jamie’s head and crooked her thumb as if firing a gun. I suppressed a grin and she rolled her eyes in his direction. The usual chaotic build-up to leaving the house then commenced, with Jamie emptying the cupboard under the stairs, trying to find his trainers for PE. Halfway through the search he decided it would be a good time to start printing his geography homework.
‘May I leave the table please, Rosie?’ Zadie asked.
‘Of course,’ I said, groaning at Jamie as he switched the computer on.
Zadie began piling the bowls on top of one another. ‘Don’t worry about that, honey. I’ll do it.’
She spoke so softly that I had no idea what she had said, but she continued to collect the crockery and then pottered off to the kitchen. Leaving Jamie to sort the printer out, I took up where he had left off in the hallway. Within 30 seconds I had the trainers in my hands. ‘Oh, Jamie,’ I groaned again, aware of the sound of running water in the kitchen. Five minutes later Emily called out to Zadie from the hall. ‘See you later, Zadie.’
There was a barely audible reply from the direction of the kitchen.
‘Actually, Mum, I think I might stay off today as well,’ Jamie said, beginning to slip his blazer from his shoulders.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ I said, straightening his tie and flattening his sleep-rumpled hair with the palm of my hand. He gave me a look of disbelief. ‘Mum, I like being groomed as much as the next man but I think I can get myself dressed, thanks all the same.’
‘Fair enough,’ I said. Jamie was teetering on the cusp of adolescence and I was still getting used to the transition as well as the tone of sarcasm that threaded all of our recent conversations. ‘Now, have you got everything, honey?’
‘Yep,’ he said, offhandish, driving home the fact that I was meddling in something I had no business with. ‘See you later.’
‘Sure? Packed lunch? PE kit?’
‘Y-e-sss, Mum,’ he said with a long-suffering sigh. ‘Bye, Mum. See you, Zadie.’
I stood at the front gate and watched until Emily and Jamie rounded the corner at the end of the road, then closed and locked the door, quite pleased at the prospect of having some time alone with Zadie. With just the two of us around I was hoping that she might open up a little and give me some idea of the problems that led her to run away.
Dropping my keys on the table in the hall, I walked through to the kitchen. Zadie was standing at the sink with the sleeves of her black robe rolled up tightly to the elbow, her forearms submerged beneath the washing-up water. Our breakfast bowls were all washed, propped over in a neat line on the draining board, each dessert spoon resting neatly beside it. ‘Zadie, you don’t have to do that, honey. Let me …’
‘OK,’ she whispered, though her hands remained where they were for a few moments, as if reluctant to leave the sanctuary of the water.
‘What do you usually do during the day?’
She lifted her hands from the sink and then turned on the tap to wash them. Squirting some liquid soap into her palms, she scrubbed between each knuckle, a few tiny bubbles escaping and floating above her head. After rinsing off the soap she stretched over the sink and released another generous blob of soap into her palm. It was a delaying tactic that wasn’t going to work for ever. When she reached for the soap a third time I handed her a towel.
She took the hint, holding her hands in mid-air for a moment as if not convinced they were clean. ‘I clean the house,’ she said softly, wiping her hands and then