Elisse Sophia Ahmet

‘Ayla’ from The Eye of a Little God

North London, November 2018

Chapter 1

Ayla Osman was there when Nene Fatma first started dying. The paramedic was pulling and tugging at the old woman’s arms and chest as the white light of the moving vehicle pressed down on them.

“Mrs. Osman? Can you hear me? Do you speak English, Mrs. Osman?” 

The paramedic was shining a torch in her eyes and attaching wires to her skin.

“She speaks English,” Ayla replied.

The ambulance swung a left, then a right, and Ayla shut her eyes to close the world out.

“Try and keep your eyes open if you can, Mrs. Osman.”        

Ayla stared at the paramedic now. He was scribbling furiously on a clipboard, he was picking up a phone and speaking to someone, he was fiddling with another bleeping machine. Outside, the sirens wailed in warning as the vehicle’s insides shook with the weight of its speed. It jolted as it turned another corner and the old woman jostled on the sterile gurney. Her head lolled to one side.

           “Everything’s okay, Nene. I’m just here.”    

Fatma Osman fluttered her lashes and looked around until she was staring directly at Ayla. Her eyes were dirty marbles, yellow and cloudy. Ayla forced herself to smile. She didn’t want Nene to worry. Fatma tried to return the gesture but it looked to Ayla as though she couldn’t remember how. A knot knitted itself together in her throat as the ambulance hurtled through traffic.

They swung into the A&E entrance and pulled up outside a walkway. Ayla squeezed Nene’s hand. She stroked the paper-thin skin and the sturdy, stubby fingers. She remembered how they fiddled about when tearing open the yellow paper wrapper of a Mr. Tom Peanut Bar. Fatma had been buying those for Ayla since she started primary school, thought of them as her favourite. She had never corrected her.

The ambulance doors were pulled open. Various items began to be unclipped and hooked up and Ayla jumped out to give the paramedic room to manoeuvre. She wiped her face, peering back inside as he went through the motions. He and two others shifted Fatma out from the vehicle and onto a mobile bed. She stretched her hand out and Ayla grabbed it.

They pushed her forward, forcing Ayla to drop Fatma’s hand once more. She followed after them as they proceeded to wheel her into the unfeeling building, down the open mouth of its wide corridors. A harried nurse turned and held up her palm.

“You’ll need to go to the waiting room,” she said. Ayla watched Fatma being escorted further away. “We have to get her to Intensive Care now. We’ll update you soon.”

In the distance, the great swinging doors swallowed her grandmother. They continued flapping long after she had passed through them. Ayla did not move until they came to a halt.

-

The waiting room was stiflingly hot. Minutes passed. Maybe hours. Time revealed its flimsy scaffolding as Ayla shuffled on the orange plastic chair.

In the small food shop in the foyer, she studied the various packages. Her mind was blank, her breathing ragged. Perhaps something healthy? Something good. She picked up a satsuma, Nene’s favourite. She hesitated, put it back, then picked it up again. It was evening; she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but the hunger felt hollow and impertinent, almost childish. Hovering around the aisles, she watched as other people chose what they wanted with ease.

A woman in a navy blazer excused herself and asked to reach for the items behind Ayla’s stationary body. She was in the way; she apologised and shuffled.

Hand hovering over a sandwich, Ayla pulled back and pushed the fingernail of her right thumb into the flesh of her left palm. She saw the woman in the navy blazer again and this time she smiled at Ayla. Her heart knocked impolitely against her chest. For a moment it seemed as though the woman would speak to her.

She didn’t. She simply moved past and began picking through the packets of reduced vegetables. Ayla returned the satsuma to the shelf in front of her and floated back to the waiting room.

She breathed slowly, thoughtfully. Her eyes wouldn’t focus and her head felt too heavy for her neck. She circled it around. On the table next to her was a well-leafed magazine featuring a reality TV star’s wedding day as its cover. She turned it face down. A cough rattled across the room. It belonged to a shrivelled old woman shrinking back into a silver wheelchair, like fruit left too long in the sun. Next to her was a tired young woman with banana-yellow hair pulled up into a scruffy bun. She was wearing large gold hoops that glinted when they caught the light. The tired young woman was around Ayla’s age and she was resting her arm against the wheelchair. She stroked the old woman’s hand and caught Ayla’s eye. Ayla looked at her feet, scuffing her trainers against each other. Pulling at the sleeve of her fraying jumper, she thought about returning to the foyer for the satsuma. She started crying again.

The distant sound of screaming sirens made her skin prickle. The air buzzed with the wailing noises twisting into new shapes as they moved from one part of the road to another. She sucked the insides of her cheeks and chewed her flesh.

When her parents finally entered the room, relief washed over her. Tony scanned the seated faces to find the one he wanted cowering in the corner. He raced over and bundled Ayla into his arms like she was a little girl again. For a few seconds, as she breathed in his fermented mushroom and motor oil scent, she felt as though she was. She pulled back from his embrace and looked behind him. Meyrem was wearing the scarf Ayla had bought for her in the months before; a birthday gift she’d regretted the instant she saw her mother open it, clearly too warm for the season.

She patted Ayla on the shoulder. Then she pulled Tony to one side, muttered something about finding someone official to speak with, and swooped back out of the room again. Ayla returned to her father’s arms. 

-

Tossing and turning in bed, Ayla thought back to the moments before she was calling the ambulance. As she did most Sunday’s since moving to North London, she had been visiting Nene Fatma and was nervous for the visit; she was going to tell her she was no longer working. And though it happened very infrequently, she could count how often on one hand, Fatma did lash out at her occasionally. Spiteful things could spill from her mouth, a snake striking unsuspecting prey. But it wasn’t often, Ayla reasoned again, and of course nobody was perfect.

She needn’t have worried. Fatma had merely chuckled when she told her. Clicked open a small green pot of chewing gum and replaced the toothpick in her mouth with two of the chunky white rectangles. Ayla held out her hand and Fatma tilted the gum into it, too many pouring out. She popped the extras back inside, the pot rattling like a baby toy.

“But what do you do now you no working?” Fatma had said, breaking through the hard shell of the gum with her tiny teeth.

           “Read, mainly.”

Fatma chuckled again. “You and your stories.”

“You don’t like stories?”

“I’ve never had time for them.”

The digital clock on the bedside table read 2:59 am. She needed to sleep but still she felt wired. Maybe she should have gone back with her parents. Her dad had asked if she wanted to return to the family home after all. But she knew if Nene woke up she would want her things, and she lived the closest to her, so she’d declined and told them she’d be going to the bungalow to pick up Fatma’s belongings the next morning. To check in on Uncle Osman, too. Meyrem agreed it was a good idea.

Sirens wailed on the other side of her window and her bowel loosened slightly. Living on a particularly busy road opposite a fire station she was privy to the red engines that flew out from behind their garage doors, parting in the middle like stage curtains several times a day. She would wonder what drama was occurring elsewhere in the city as she scrolled through Instagram and Tinder. Sometimes, she just turned the TV up louder as she watched whatever was trending on Netflix. She’d never thoughtfully considered what was happening inside those vehicles. The drama in the ambulance. The life in balance.

Ayla pulled the duvet back and got up to find her backpack. Returning to her bed, she opened her new book at its marker. This sometimes made her more wired but it was her only option; she didn’t like music, too many feelings came with it. Silence was better. Books she could handle. They never caught her off-guard.

After just a few pages, sleep came.

Chapter 2

Ayla woke with a powerful nausea pulsing through her. Rushing to the bathroom, she pulled the toilet lid open in time for a stream of yellow vomit to expel itself violently from her throat. It splashed into the water, small specks flying back and hitting her on the cheek. She groaned as she gripped the toilet seat with both hands, another wave warping inside of her like a twisted rag. She needed to collect Nene’s things and get to the hospital. That was if she could just. stop. throwing. up.

She slumped on the floor against the window and stared listlessly out of the poorly frosted glass. It was an unseasonably warm November Monday and she could just make out the shape of an adult and child. The window opened from the top down if she gripped the edges of the chipped wooden frame. It clunked and jarred awkwardly until the top half of the glass was fully down over the bottom. Ayla breathed in the fume-filled air, could see the pair clearly now, a mother and daughter. The olive-skinned woman, hair a scribble of noodles, helped the girl onto a skateboard, holding both arms for balance. The girl had a purple flower helmet on with matching elbow and knee guards and was about seven? Maybe on half term – Ayla had no idea when kids were or weren’t at school.

The girl flinched as the skateboard got away from under her. It reminded Ayla of her first hard fall, toppling over onto the pavement the day her training wheels came off. Grazed from elbow to knee, she’d wailed loudly as Meyrem reprimanded Tony for taking her out without her safety pads. Pink with yellow dinosaurs.

           The woman checked the girl over, rubbed her shoulders, embraced her. A red motorbike raced past and the girl was distracted before she stopped crying altogether. The woman took the opportunity to pick up the skateboard from the road and place it under her arm. She held out her free hand, beckoning the girl. She stayed where she was, stamping her feet, the tears returning. Ayla smirked at the mother’s irritated tone. Meyrem had always been too tense for these sorts of activities when she was younger, identifying the many risks – real and imagined.

Pulling herself up and away from the toilet, Ayla quickly showered standing up in the bathtub. She threw on yesterday’s clothes. Pounding down to the hallway she shared with the bottom floor tenant – a gentle Bulgarian man who snored like a strangled warthog – she opened the second front door, the obscene yellow colour of it confronting her as she closed it again, loudly slamming it so it shut properly. Ayla withheld complaints like this one though; Meyrem had already given her a reduced rent and didn’t make her live with anyone. What was a stiff door, a leaking tap, or a very uncomfortable and ostentatious sofa in comparison to the luxury of solitude? She filled the empty corners with her books.

-

Ayla smiled at the middle-aged shopkeeper as she entered his store.

“Merhaba,” she said.

Hello.

“Hoşgeldiniz,” he replied.

Welcome.

She picked up and put down an apple from the trays of lush vegetables and fruits stacked just inside the doorway. Smooth, fat watermelons, tall reeds of dill, dirt-covered kologas, Cyprus potatoes. A craving for pineapple washed over her.

           “Just these, please.”

Ayla placed a packet of four Mr. Tom Peanut Bars on the counter. The man turned, dusted the packet off, and rang open the till.

“£2.95, darling.”

Even though she used her debit card everywhere else, she made sure to have change when she came here. She handed over a five-pound note and the man took it with a grateful smile. He handed her coins in return.

“Teşekkür ederim,” Ayla said.

Thank you very much.

Though her ability extended to greetings and goodbyes – the odd phrase here and there – the Turkish Cypriot people she encountered often expected Ayla to know more of the language than she did. Most embarrassing was when they launched into a barrage of unfamiliar sentences. But the man who ran Akdeniz knew her limits by now and only spoke the lines she understood. He placed the packet of Mr. Tom Peanut Bars in a blue plastic carrier bag and handed it over to her with a smile. It was 10.45am.

Walking away from the shop, she checked her pocket and found her debit card. Instead of turning back onto her road, she carried on straight ahead until she reached the entrance to Finsbury Park station. She went through the turnstile, walked down the stale tunnel, and took the stairs to the Piccadilly line. After three, painfully long minutes, the tube chugged its way onto the platform, opening the doors with a sluggish jolt. Ayla hated the old and slow Piccadilly line. She would walk to Nene’s on any other occasion; it was one of the perks of living relatively nearby her again. She had missed Fatma not being around the corner the way she was while Ayla was at school. Her flat was a second home then and especially good as a getaway.

She sucked in the fresh(ish) air as she left Wood Green station, her nausea having returned on the journey. She bent over, hands resting against her knees, the blue plastic carrier bag swinging on her wrist. She took a few breaths before continuing on. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep.

She arrived at the house Nene had lived in for the past twelve years. It took a while before her uncle opened the door. His eyes were ringed with darkness.

"Hi,” she breathed. “I’ve come to pack a hospital bag.”

"How’s she?” he slurred. He looked at the blue plastic carrier and Ayla pulled it behind her back.

“Not sure yet.”

He nodded before walking backwards into the house; Ayla followed him. He turned his back to her and led her down the corridor. Arms hung limp by his sides, Osman Osman kept his chin to his chest, head tilted to the left. His clothes were soiled and smelled musty. His Batman pyjama bottoms were falling down at the waist from worn elastic. He stopped at the bedroom door and pointed. Ayla thanked him and passed by, careful not to brush against his protruding stomach. She placed the carrier bag down and began pulling the duvet into shape – Nene never left it undone and she suspected Osman had slept in it. When she was finished piling up the six pillows Fatma insisted on having, Ayla turned around. Her uncle was still hovering at the door, rubbing the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. Swaying gently from side to side. He did not look up. She wished he would leave her to pack in peace. She turned her back on him, hoping he would take the hint. She knew she should try to chat, make small talk, but it was too difficult, too awkward.

She kneeled onto the plush peach carpet and pulled up the bed runner. The smell of mothballs slapped her in the face. Rifling through the carrier bags, Ayla found underwear and socks, as well as the elasticated clothing Fatma liked to wear two sizes too big. She touched the ancient Marks & Spencer and BHS labels; Fatma’s favourite stores (she complained for weeks when the latter closed for good). She pulled the runner down again and smoothed her hands over the blood red floral bedcover. Ayla had turned her nose up at its chintzy pattern when Fatma had pointed it out to her on a shopping trip to Dunelm. She tried to deter her from buying it but her grandmother loved anything red or purple or peach, and soon demanded a shop assistant find the matching curtains.

Curtains. Ayla opened them and let the light in, revealing the accumulated dust on the wall’s mounted plates featuring Queen Elizabeth at various stages of her reign. She flicked her head quickly to the left. Osman was gone. Good. The window looked straight out onto a small but well-kept garden. The pond at its centre was filled with rainbow coloured carp. How often did they need feeding?

Sat on the cream leather stool in front of the gold-rimmed curlicue dressing table, she looked at the hairsprays, the moisturisers, the various shades of lipsticks. Twisting one of the black tubes, a peachy pink nub emerged. She breathed in the familiar scent. It caught in her throat and she snapped it shut. Fatma always dressed impeccably when she was going out, even if it was just to Asda.

She would need shoes. She hadn’t been wearing them when she was taken away. Ayla rifled through the Clarks boxes. How to choose; she’d not seen her wear even half of them. Hadn’t owned any shoes until she was eight, she remembered her saying that now.

 She fingered the buttons inside a blue patterned pot before returning the lid. Examined the three jewellery trees stacked with treasure. Lifting the gold-chain from the stand, the one with the evil eye pendant and heart locket, she opened it and looked at the photo. It was impossible to feel sad in any real way about a person she had never met. Still, she wondered what Kemal would’ve been like from time to time. It felt strange to call this person her grandfather, so she never did. She clicked the locket shut and put it over her head. She didn’t believe in any evil guarding mumbo-jumbo but she did feel safer with it around her neck. Closer to Nene.

She breathed.

Opening the drawer below, she found more lipsticks, cards and letters, faded bills. Fatma never let her look through her things like this. She hesitated before she pulled a stack out. A magazine cut out of prince George and princess Charlotte, and a photo of a chestnut-haired toddler wearing dungarees and a striped shirt sat in exceptionally overgrown grass. Clutching a half-clothed bear in one arm. An older child in the background, darker, unsmiling, pulling at a reed as tall as himself. Beside them, an empty rabbit cage. She turned the photo over: 1964, Chalk Farm, Meyrem and Osman.

The bathroom, fit with peach coloured toilet, sink and shower, hid itself in the corner of the room. Ayla took the ancient toothbrush from the cup holder. She was still unsure if Fatma actually brushed her teeth. She claimed she did; Ayla had asked after seeing her fish out lumps of food from between her little pebbly mounds with those trusty wooden toothpicks she always kept handy. She put it in the bag. Then she relieved herself. She didn’t like this toilet, she thought the knitted seat cover was unhygienic. Fatma was very fond of it.

Pulling open the drawer of the bedside table, she retrieved more things – chewing gum, dried figs, toothpicks. She took the lemon kolonya spray just in case. She’d packed a hospital bag several times before and always forgot something she didn’t realise Fatma would want. She closed the drawer. As she made to leave, she studied the black and white framed photo above the headboard, ‘November 1955’ written in pencil at its base. She could barely believe it was the same woman. Smiling awkwardly, stood next to her new husband without touching him. The sheath dress beaded at the neck was clearly a light colour next to the man’s darker suit, which looked fairly tight.

Ayla took a sharp breath. She’d heard almost nothing of that time, of those two young adults in the photo. Even less about the two children who became her mother and uncle. She returned to the draw and pocketed the picture.

Osman was standing in his bedroom doorway waiting for her as she walked back down the corridor.

“Going now?” he asked. He made brief eye contact before his head lolled back down to his chest.

She nodded. “Mum will call you later to let you know what’s going on.”

    Osman pulled back into his room and shut the door. A waft of the musty darkness from within swept up Ayla’s nostrils and a fresh swell of queasiness came over her; her body’s way of reminding her what her brain was trying to forget.

           Ayla checked her watch. She decided to walk the distance to the hospital. Two hours was plenty of time to think. A young Black woman pushing a pram moved past her and Ayla peered over at the sleeping baby. The woman caught her eye and she looked away.                  

           Continuing on, turning back on to the busy Wood Green high street, Ayla found herself leaving Nene’s road behind her. A red bus roared passed and she pulled further away from the curb. She gave the last of her change to a skinny grey homeless man and hoisted the hospital bag higher on her right shoulder. With her free hand, Ayla pulled her phone from her pocket and found her mother’s number. She had forgotten the Mr. Tom Peanut Bars.