Three Hours(37)

Their skin prickles with the words, sweat between shoulder blades, a terror under the conversation.

‘But why would ISIS come here?’ a mother asks, because they are just becoming more frightened, seeing their children in greater, unimaginable danger.

‘On the news, they’re asking about the school’s Prevent policy,’ a father says. ‘Look …’

He turns his laptop to the room. On Sky News, the anchor is talking to a counterterrorism expert: ‘Cliff Heights School, like every school, has to have a Prevent policy by law …’

‘He’s saying it’s kids at the school doing this,’ the father says.

And this is less frightening than ISIS terrorists with machetes and guns, posting beheadings on the internet, who speak a different language, who cannot understand English and their English children.

‘The terrorists are kids at our school?’

‘That’s what he’s implying. Yes.’

‘What difference does it make?’ a mother says. ‘Matthew Marr’s been shot and the gunman might shoot children in Old School and there are junior school children hiding for their lives.’

And she’s right, they all know she’s right, and can no longer believe radicalized students are any less frightening.

‘They mean those Muslim brothers, don’t they?’ another mother asks.

‘The refugees?’

‘We don’t know anything, we don’t know—’

‘Who made sure they were refugees?’

‘Was any kind of check done on them? To prove who they say they are?’

Beth thinks that the cafeteria is becoming ugly, fear peeling away their clothes and skin, exposing something that should be hidden. Most of the parents had welcomed the refugee brothers, cleared out cupboards for clothes for them, donated books and toys for the younger one, held raffles to raise money. She’s shy in a crowd, not as confident as the other mothers, but she has to say something now because this isn’t right.

‘Those boys wouldn’t hurt anyone,’ she says, but her voice isn’t strong enough to be heard, as if every part of her is diminished, but she carries on, ‘We shouldn’t blame two children who—’

‘What about the Parsons Green tube attack?’ a father says, interrupting. ‘The attacker was in foster care, just like the Bukhari brothers.’

‘Are the foster parents here?’ a mother says. ‘Anyone? Is anyone here foster parents to the Bukharis?’

A moment of silence in the cafeteria.

‘I think they were planning on seeing their daughter in Cardiff,’ a woman says. ‘The mother said something about it last week at a coffee morning.’

They might not even know yet, Beth thinks, but once they do they’ll hurry back, terrified as all the parents here are terrified. Mike is still on the train, slow because of the snow.

A woman in sportswear holds her iPad up to Beth.

‘Islamic State train teenagers then send them over here, pretending to be refugees; a Trojan Horse, that’s what they’re called. I’m sorry if you find that hard to believe.’ So she did hear Beth earlier in her quiet attempt to stand up for the boys.

‘You’re researching this nonsense?’ Hannah’s father says, appalled. ‘As if those poor boys haven’t been through enough.’ Beth likes him for it.

‘The older one is sixteen. More than old enough to be a terrorist,’ the mother in sportswear says. ‘And the other one isn’t too young,’ she continues, her finger on her iPad. ‘They have taught five-year-olds to be terrorists.’

‘Oh, balderdash,’ Hannah’s father says. ‘Rafi and Basi ran away from terror. Most of their family was murdered. They just want to be safe.’

‘Your daughter is the older boy’s girlfriend, isn’t that right?’ a woman asks.

‘Yes, she is,’ Hannah’s father says. ‘And I didn’t like that, not one bit, I’ll admit that because what father likes his daughter having a boyfriend, if we fathers are honest? But if it has to be someone, I’m glad it’s Rafi, and that’s what I’m going to tell her. When this is over.’

‘So, she’s safe, your daughter, then, he’s not going to shoot her, is he?’

‘My daughter’s in a class with Rafi and she likes him,’ another father says. ‘So, I don’t think it’s those boys. But it could be connected to them. ISIS or ISIL or Islamic State, whatever the hell they’re called, they could’ve found out that the school took them in and now our children are being punished. Like a country who takes in refugees, it makes you a target.’

‘But how would ISIS even know?’ a mother asks.

‘There was that article in the local paper, wasn’t there? When Matthew Marr went to the Dunkirk camp. And when the brothers came to our school.’

‘And that goes online. So, they’d find out that way,’ a mother says.

‘And then they could’ve looked into the school further, found out about the smoking and drinking and sex, and they wouldn’t like that.’

‘None of us like that,’ a father says. ‘But it’s what teenagers tend to get up to.’

‘But ISIS punish people for unmarried sex and for drinking, don’t they?’ a mother asks. ‘For not being modest even, for not covering up.’