Constance by Rosie Thomas

scream.
    The bicycle was seized and hauled inside, dragging her with it. One of the pedals bit deep into her shin at the same time as the man grabbed her wrists and forced her up against the wall. The door slammed shut, cutting off her escape route.
    ‘Did I miss something? Did you buy that bike off me? Or did you say to me, “Mr Kemal, I need to borrow a piece ofyour property”? Or did you just nick it out of here without a word to no one, like you own the world?’
    She tried not to inhale the smell of cigarettes and unwashed skin.
    ‘No,’ she said. Her teeth rattled in her head as he shook her.
    ‘No what?’
    ‘I didn’t buy it. I didn’t ask. I thought it wasn’t anyone’s.’
    ‘That was a mistake, Russia.’
    Roxana lifted her head. The man was plump, black-haired, unshaven. He was wearing a grey singlet and there were thick tufts of glistening hair under his arms and curling all the way up to his throat. ‘I am from Uzbekistan,’ she said. ‘Not Russia.’
    ‘Like I give a shit.’ He twisted her arm and she winced. ‘You’re not hurt, Russia, not yet. If you take things that don’t belong to you, then you’ll find out about being hurt. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘What do you say now?’
    ‘I am sorry,’ she whispered.
    Mr Kemal let go of her arms. ‘Upstairs,’ he ordered. He followed her up through the breathless house, made her unlock her padlocks and kicked open the door of her room so he could take a good look inside.
    There wasn’t much to see.
    She had sellotaped a picture postcard of a tropical beach to the wall beside her bed. She had bought the postcard from a street vendor in Tashkent, when she was out shopping with her friend Fatima. She had fallen in love at first sight with the image of silver sand and blue sea. Apart from that there were her few clothes hanging behind a curtain mounted across one corner, a two-ring gas burner and some tins and packets, a transistor radio in a turquoise plasticcase, and her Russian–English dictionary lying open beside her plate and cup on the small table.
    As he flicked through her belongings the man made a dismissive tssshhh through his teeth.
    ‘Didn’t you say to me you’re not Russian?’
    ‘My father, he came from Novosibirsk. That’s Russia, okay. But my mother was Uzbeki and I was born in Bokhara.’ Roxana was recovering herself. She said quickly, in Uzbek, ‘I think you are Turkish, yes?’
    To her relief, she understood that he was finished with her. From the doorway he said, ‘Born in Stoke Newington, if that’s any of your fucking business. Now, keep your thieving hands off my stuff, all right?’
    Roxana nodded. She would make every effort never again to come into contact with Mr Kemal, or any of his belongings, until such time as she could move out of this house for ever.
    After he had gone she quietly closed the door and secured it from the inside. Then she sat down on the bed, her head bent and her hands loosely hanging between her knees. She could feel blood congealing on her shin and her arm throbbed, but she didn’t make the effort to examine her injuries. Once the initial shock and fear had subsided, what Roxana was left with was a feeling of dreary familiarity. Life had a way of repeating itself. To stop the cycle it wasn’t enough to be in a different place, even a different continent. You had to be a different person. You had to become a person like, say, the English boy. Noah. Big, and crumpled in a way that meant you were not worried about what anyone thought of you, always smiling, and completely certain that you had your rights and that justice was on your side. Roxana wasn’t so sure, after all, that she could make this much of a difference in herself.
    Half an hour went by and someone tapped at the door.She ignored it for a while, then heard Dylan’s voice. It came out as a breathy hiss, which meant he must have his mouth pressed right up against the splintery