Brutal: The Heartbreaking True Story of a Little Girl’s Stolen Innocence

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Each night, Mum would chop and prepare all the food in the flat above the shop. We spent most of our time up there as youngsters, while Mum and Dad were working downstairs. At mealtimes, Habib had to turn on the cooker and heat up the food Mum had prepared earlier. It was his job to feed us.

‘You should be the one cooking,’ he complained to me. ‘You’re the girl, not me. This is a girl’s job.’

That’s how Habib was. He was clever and he knew it, but he also thought he was too important to look after the rest of us.

My second-eldest brother Saeed was a year younger than Habib, but he wasn’t as smart. Saeed was good with his hands. He loved taking things apart just to see how they worked. One day he took one of my dolls to bits. First he pulled her head off and then her arms and legs until there was nothing left apart from a stumpy body. He tried to put her back together again but it didn’t work so she remained an amputee.

He did this with all our toys and his own as well, which made my parents despair. When we were older and got bikes of our own we didn’t dare leave them in the garden in case Saeed got his hands on them.

Tariq was the tough one, a typical boy, who used to beat me up all the time. He loved to fight and nothing or no one would ever be able to hurt him back. He was mad on wrestling and boxing and used me as his very own punchbag.

‘Just stand there while I hit you,’ he instructed.

‘But I don’t want to be hit. You’ll hurt me!’

‘I need to practise my moves and if you don’t stand still I’ll hurt you more.’

Seconds later I was lying in a crumpled heap on the floor, with Tariq standing over me.

‘Get up, Nabila. I need to do it again.’

Sometimes he was so rough that he crossed the line and our so-called ‘play fighting’ became something more akin to torture, with me as the unwilling victim.

Asif was my youngest brother, and although he teased me constantly he was also the kindest one. There were only three years between us so we often played together, which annoyed Habib no end. He teased Asif for playing with a girl, but secretly I think he was jealous of our friendship because no one liked Habib.

I adored Asif. He was my favourite brother, and even if he teased me he always stuck up for me if need be. We spent lots of time together, making up games. My favourite was one in which Asif pushed me round the garden in my dolls’ pram, like a baby. We’d giggle away until we felt sick.

As we grew older, though, Asif began to spend less and less time with me. He discovered football, his head was turned and he was off, leaving me far behind.

Our house was just a few streets away from my parents’ shop. We’d moved there not long after I was born so that we’d have more room, but it was still small and cramped inside. There were three bedrooms upstairs but one was used as a storage room and was constantly piled high with boxes of stock from the shop. My parents slept in the second bedroom and my brothers shared the third. The boys had the biggest room, but with four of them sleeping in two double beds they needed it.

I slept in a little bed in my parents’ bedroom. My dad worked in the shop by day and had a job as a labourer at night to supplement his income. They were building a new shopping centre on the other side of town and Dad was paid to drive a big bulldozer. It was his job to dig out all the soil so that building work could begin. It meant he got hardly any sleep, just sneaking a nap here and there when the shop was quiet.

Even though he was exhausted, Dad would always spend at least quarter of an hour playing with me when he got home from his night shift. I’d roll about on the floor as he tickled my tummy and sometimes I’d giggle so much I’d feel sick. Then he would scoop me up in his big strong arms for a cuddle and call me ‘Baby’. It was his nickname for me because I was the baby of the family – his baby girl.

With Dad away at work most nights, I’d sneak into their double bed and snuggle up to Mum. I’d curl in tight, wrapping my arms around her waist and absorbing the heat from her sleeping body. It made me feel warm and safe to be next to her, although I was always closer to Dad when he was there. I was a real daddy’s girl.

Maybe one reason I wasn’t closer to Mum was that her English wasn’t very good when I was small. She spoke to us in a mixture of her native Urdu and pidgin English, and while I understood most of what she said, I spoke only a few words of Urdu myself. Sometimes her lack of English made her struggle when she was serving in the shop so when I was five Dad suggested that she enrol in a night class at my infant school and learn the language properly. She improved a lot after that and would practise in front of customers, but if she went wrong or was lost for the right word, she’d call to Dad or one of my brothers for help.

Our grocery store sold staples like milk, bread, cigarettes and canned goods, as well as meat. We never stocked fruit and veg. I think Dad had an arrangement with the greengrocer next door that we wouldn’t encroach on his trade.

I loved the fact that my parents ran their own shop because of the extra perks. When Mum and Dad weren’t looking, my brothers would make me sneak downstairs and steal sweets from the front counter. One afternoon, just after locking-up time, we were in the rooms above the shop when Tariq told me I had to go and get some chocolate bars.

‘Go on,’ he hissed, giving me a jab in the ribs.

My heart was in my mouth as I crept silently downstairs, being careful to avoid the second-bottom step because it always creaked if you stood on it. At that moment I heard a noise above me and froze in my tracks. It was the sound of the toilet being flushed. Dad must be in there. I waited until I heard his heavy footsteps move into the living room. My heart pounded in my chest as I tiptoed over to the counter and grabbed as many chocolate bars as I could. I pulled up my trouser legs and wedged four or five bars in the top of each sock. With that I sneaked back upstairs, walking with difficulty. When I finally made it back to the room I was welcomed as a hero.

‘Brilliant! What did you get?’ Saeed said, grabbing at my leg.

‘Wait a minute,’ I said, slapping his hands away. ‘Let me get them out first.’

‘Yuck, I’m not eating them. They’ve been near her smelly feet.’ Tariq stuck his fingers down his throat in a gagging motion.

‘Fine, I’ll have yours then!’ Asif said, quick as a flash.

‘Sssh,’ Saeed whispered dramatically, putting his finger to his lips. ‘Habib will hear, and if he does we’ll all be for it.’

Habib was supposed to be looking after us and he’d have got into trouble if I’d been caught. Tariq and Asif shared the chocolates between them and all they gave me for my trouble was a Curly Wurly, but at least I’d earned their respect. Maybe having a little sister wasn’t so bad after all.

This became a regular occurrence and I’m sure that after a while Mum and Dad must have sussed out what we were up to, but nothing was ever said.

The butcher’s area at the back of our shop was always a hive of activity. Dad would take delivery of halal meat from the local slaughterhouse and I’d watch with morbid fascination as he chopped off animals’ wings and limbs using special meat cleavers and razor-sharp knives. The sound of metal hitting the wooden chopping block used to make me jump. What wasn’t chopped up was minced, using a large stainless-steel mincing machine. Dad’s meat cuts were legendary and people would queue from early in the morning to buy the best joints.

At night, he’d wearily pull down the shutter at the front of the shop and head for his second job on the building site. I’d usually only see him in the morning, when I got up for school, and he would just be getting in from work, ready to wash and start all over again in the shop.

Soon, the toll of having two jobs began to wear him out so he called his brother Kahil over from Pakistan to help in the butchers’. Mum would work in the grocery, while Uncle Kahil served and prepared meats in the back with Dad. It gave my father more time to rest and it also gave Kahil a better life. Like my father, Kahil settled in England. He married a girl over in Pakistan and brought his wife back to England. Soon, they’d bought a house and begun to raise a family of their own.

With the extra pair of hands Dad was able to get some rest in the mornings, but he’d have to be there by midday to cope with the lunchtime rush so he still only had a few hours’ sleep. He worked five nights a week at the building site and seven days a week at the shop.

At home, my four brothers would constantly bicker and fight. Mum was usually ratty and exhausted. She’d shout out orders in Urdu and deliver slaps here and there as she tried to bring some kind of order to the household, but it never worked and that made her even more short-tempered.

On the other hand, our father never raised his voice to us. He didn’t have to, because one look from him was enough to quieten even the fiercest argument. His kids were his life but he couldn’t stand confrontation and discord. He was a peaceful, hard-working man, who took pleasure in watching his children grow and develop. The last thing he wanted after all the hours he worked was to come home to any kind of trouble.

I enjoyed looking pretty and liked all the nice clothes Mum made me, but my looks separated me from my brothers. It stopped me joining in their games, because they saw me as some stupid girly girl.

‘Where are you going?’ I asked Habib one day, as I watched him retrieve a bat and ball from a cupboard underneath the stairs.

‘To the park to play cricket,’ he snapped, his tone implying it was none of my business.

I screwed up my nose, annoyed that no one had asked me.

‘Please can I come?’ I asked politely.

‘Girls can’t play cricket,’ he answered crossly.

I was furious and wouldn’t let it go. When Mum heard us arguing, she left the pot of steaming hot curry cooking in the kitchen to come out to the hall and intervene.

‘Habib, take your sister with you and look after her. If she wants to play cricket, let her join in!’ she scolded in Urdu, no doubt seeing a chance to get us kids out from under her feet for a few hours.

Habib’s face changed. A mood descended on him like a black cloud. Reluctantly he agreed to take me, but he flashed me a filthy look. Having his little sister in tow, trailing behind him, slowing him down, would mess up his plans for the rest of the day. With my back to my mother, I stuck out my tongue at him – but my triumph didn’t last long.

As soon as we arrived at the local park I was dispatched to the far reaches of the grounds. It was a baking hot day and the grass was dry and itchy under my feet.

‘Stand there and catch the ball if it comes your way,’ Habib instructed me.

I stood where I was told and my four brothers disappeared into the distance. I could just about make out that the game was in progress but I was further removed from it than a spectator in a back row seat at Lords cricket ground.

‘Hey, when’s it going to be my turn?’ I hollered, as I stood hot and uncomfortable in the sweltering heat, my brown leather sandals too tight on my feet.

‘When we tell you,’ Habib yelled back.

Soon the light began to fade and I still hadn’t had a turn. I wasn’t wanted or needed there. Instead I stood, lonely and left out, like a spare part waiting to be collected on the way home. I learned my lesson that day. If I wasn’t invited, it was because my four brothers didn’t want their little sister joining in. My place was to be pretty, the shining trophy of the family. It was no use trying to be one of the boys. I was the little girl with the ribbons in her hair, and that’s all I was good for.