Ibrahim & Reenie Read Online Free PDF

first day in Lydney, on the other side of the English border. He had no idea where he would stay when he got there, perhaps a bus station where he could spend the night, or a park with a bandstand. Somewhere dry, with no people.
    Now, as they put up the tent and began unpacking the things from Reenie’s trolley, he tried convincing himself he could walk another twelve miles, at least. Maybe even reach the border. He had no obligations. He had helped her get this far, never promising to take her all the way to London. Besides, there was an urgency to his journey. Time was a factor. He could help her set up camp, in the middle of this roundabout, then carry on walking. He could walk well into the night. Eventually the roads would get quieter, and on some he might feel like the only man on Earth. What was keeping him here?
    But then he remembered the name she’d said and he felt the thudding pain in his right leg; an ache that was spreading now, through every limb and tingling like pinpricks in the soles of his feet. He was exhausted.
    â€˜Shall I put the kettle on?’ asked Reenie, unfolding her small table and draping over it the gingham tea towel she used as a tablecloth. ‘Nothing like a cuppa after a long walk. We used to walk all the time when I was a girl. We’d walk for miles and miles. All the way up over Hackney Marsh, or out as far as Epping Forest. We’d walk all the way there, all the way back. Nowadays, no one walks anywhere. Too bloody lazy, if you ask me.’
    He nodded and smiled but said nothing. He had both hands on his leg, working at the muscle with his thumbs, and each time he applied more pressure a shot of pain pounced through his leg, but it was that good, almost reassuring pain that he could tolerate, though only just.
    â€˜You alright?’ asked Reenie.
    â€˜I’m fine.’
    â€˜That leg of yours giving you gip?’
    â€˜Yeah.’
    â€˜So what happened to it?’
    â€˜An accident.’
    It came out blunt, colder than intended, and it was strange for Ibrahim to remember a time when he couldn’t even call it that, when he’d refused to call it an accident. For months and even years he had called it his injury , both the physical damage to his body and the event that caused it. Injury seemed the only word for it; ‘accident’ felt so diluted, so small. An accident was something unintended, random, without reason.
    The damage he suffered seemed so precise, so calculated, he often wondered if it was the product of some grand, unseen design. There had to be a reason why his leg was broken in so many places, why his face was smashed beyond recognition, why – microscopic and undetected for two years – there had been one final punchline to his injuries. His faith told him there was a reason for everything, that everything that happened was the will of God, from blessed miracles to deaths and injuries. Even his father had believed this, saying it was a sign, a message from Allah. If his father could suggest that, knowing only what he knew, what would he have said had he known everything?
    As it was, the timing was all wrong. Two years earlier Nazir Siddique may have had a point. Had Ibrahim’s accident happened then, there may have been some justice to it, and even then if he was the only one to be injured, but what had the others done? What had Rhys and Caitlin and Aleem done to deserve that?
    He refused to believe his accident – their accident – was some divine punishment, backdated to earlier actions, as if the heavenly clerics and number crunchers meting out spiritual justice were simply catching up with a backlog. And into this single plughole of doubt he saw his faith begin to vanish, like so much swirling, brackish bathwater. He tried clinging to the vestiges of it, but he might as well have tried clinging on to soapy dregs. If the accident, his injury , was not the work of God, what was it? If it was just that, an