Zarrin, was published by UK publishers RedDoor in July 2022.
An odyssey for our times, the story follows a young Kurdish woman and her new-born son, as she flees retribution in Syria and journeys across Europe in search of safety and a new life.
In respect of the real-life refugees, from whose stories the novel draws inspiration, all author royalties are donated to the UK charity, Refugee Action.
Extracts from Zarrin
On the sixth or seventh day, in a wadi somewhere, where she rested for a while, waiting for the road ahead to become safe, for a truck that might take her on, she sat in the shade of a pistachio tree and watched as a kestrel hovered above a small rock outcrop, head down, intent on some invisible lizard or vole or hamster that busied itself amidst the crevices. Long minutes it hung there, a star of brown against the blue, wings fluttering, tail bending to the wind, and all was silence. Then, with no warning, the bird fell like a stone, down, straight towards the Earth, as if all levitation had suddenly been lost and gravity had reclaimed it. In the silence, she thought that she could hear its body, as it carved the air aside.
Then, a wing’s width above the ground, it twisted, banked, and with a careless slash of a curled claw swept up its prey; shrieked its victory.
In that same moment, she saw, or sensed, for the movement was too fast, another trajectory. A dark arrow-flash. An eagle owl or buzzard, perhaps. It came from upwards and right, from some other stratum in the sky, too high for human vision. It swooped, not in a tangent line but following a perfect arc – a parabola, the sweep of a swan’s neck – and, even before the kestrel had completed its cry, smashed into it. Feathers scattered, gobbets of bloody flesh spattered on the ground. The bird wheeled away, dangling the lifeless kestrel in its talons. And all was silent again.
Only a single feather remained, floating, this way then that, in a parody of flight. Then it, too, yielded, and sank to the sand.
‘And then?’ Zarrin asked. ‘How did you get here?’
Yaasmin shrugged. ‘I was just one,’ she said. ‘One amongst hundreds. I just did what they did. I walked. I waited. I went thirsty and hungry. I was spat at and kicked and beaten by the police. I was given a helping arm by people I had never met - people who fed us and walked with us for a while. I slept in fields. I did my business there, with hundreds of others. I lost whatever was left of my dignity. And one day I was put on a truck with forty other people and we were locked in. And we sat in the dark, bumping along roads, rumbling along highways, sitting somewhere waiting. And it was hot and there was no air. And we had no water. Why do we never have that? Why do the men who do these things - men who take your money, who make you pay with whatever you have - why don’t they give you water? And again, more people died, and some broke down and just cried or shouted, or tried to hurt themselves. And men fought. And one day we were let out. And we were in England. In the countryside somewhere. And so I walked and a few days later I arrived here, in London. And here I am.’
‘What will do you now?’
Yaasmin lifted Zarrin’s hand, clutched it between hers, bent forward, kissed it. ‘I will do what we all do. I will live for another day, and then see what life brings.’
‘Jamie’s turn,’ Pal said.
Jamie shook his head.
Pal thrust the guitar at him. ‘Captain’s orders.’
Jamie shrugged, started to strum as if checking that the instrument was in tune, or searching perhaps for something to play. Gradually, a pattern formed, soft and lilting, and as it formed, he started to sing. His voice was a light tenor, not pure but rough and authentic. Zarrin couldn’t catch all the words, but there was a phrase that repeated, about being taken by the hand and walked through the streets of London, which felt like a message aimed at her.
She and Elend had done that, she thought - walked the streets of London, his hand in hers. She glanced again at Jamie, wanting to acknowledge his choice of song, but his head was raised, his eyes closed, and he did not see.
‘Do you sing?’ Blaise asked, when he’d finished.
Zarrin shook her head.
‘I bet you do. You sing to Elend, I’m sure.’
‘Sometimes,’ she admitted.
‘Sing us what you sing to him. A lullaby. Sing for the children.’
Still she demurred, but then Pal said, ‘You should. We’ll be offended if you don’t. We’ve even managed to get Jamie to sing.’
She sang. ‘Lay, lay' - Sleep, sleep - telling them that everyone in her country knew the song, because every mother sang it to their children. After the first time, she was made to sing it again, and Melanie picked up the tune on her penny whistle, and Pal followed, humming softly, a wandering melody that wove its way between the notes. And she felt herself suddenly let loose so that the words seemed to spring from her, like fledglings, and fly into the night.
And later, as others sang and talked, and even the blackbird paused its song to listen, and Elend came and snuggled against her, she tried to imagine a life like this for the two of them. Not just for this night, but for all the nights ahead. The days, too. Days of travelling and working together, life simple and free. And the thoughts felt like a dream, more real than life could ever be.
In that first hour, she was met by dour resistance. The clay was hard, the cabbages and cauliflowers slippery in her hands, the stalks tough and unyielding against the knife. As she worked, the coldness rose up to claim her, clamping her feet in dull pain, so that each step jarred and was taken reluctantly. Her breath became her own, gathering around her, freezing on her cheeks, until it fitted like a tight mask. Every false move brought hurt beyond its worth: the whiplash of a leaf against her face, stub of clod against her toe, the razor-sharp gash of a flint. She yearned for the sun, for daybreak at least, when she could see what she was doing, avoid these taunts. Yet later, as the murky grey of dawn was replaced by the paler grey of day and the land slowly thawed, the pain simply shifted and took on new forms. Her hands became clagged with soil and her boots grew heavy, so that she moved clumsily, like an old woman on tired legs. Sweat, slug slime and sap smeared every exposed piece of skin. Her back ached, knees protested, arms were like lead. The skin on her fingers split, her eyes burned with the cold and the dirt.
And all the time, the wind came, searching for her. It blew from the east, a Russian wind. It carried with it an ancient Bolshevik distrust of anything in its path. By the time it reached Zarrin’s corner of the world it had already split boughs, toppled trees, stilled rivers, turned vast tracts of forest and lake and boggy waste into bleak white deserts, felled elk and deer in their tracks. Now it had only her left. It fretted and snarled, frayed the hems of her clothes, the loose edges of her mind, tried to devour her. She hated it, and it hated her in return.
