Youssef Hassan had spent the past year looking tired, but that evening he looked more weary than his wife could ever remember having seen before. He sat at the dining room table and stared at the meal Mahira had cooked, having barely touched it. It was his favourite curry and she had made it especially for him. Even during the preparation, she had known she was likely wasting her time. She was trying to recreate something – a past family life she longed for, though she knew they had long left it behind; that things were never going to be the same again. Watching her sons across the table, she knew in her heart which of them was to blame, though she still couldn’t bring herself to speak the words aloud.

‘We need a reminder of some house rules,’ Youssef said, sitting back in his seat and trying to assume an air of authority. ‘Have you heard what people are saying about you? My own sons, discussed in the street like common thugs.’

The arguing had started as soon as he’d returned home. First he had been told about the fight and then Mahira had had to tell him about what had happened to the shop. She had listened to the raised voices, wondering when all this would finally come to an end. It was always the same – Youssef would shout for a while, lay down his set of rules, but by the time morning arrived, things would all be swept under the rug again, ignored as though nothing had happened.

She had once thought her husband a strong man, but in recent months she had begun to question whether the act was greater than the reality.

Youssef caught Jameel’s eye. The bruising on his son’s face remained livid, broadcasting the fight he had got himself embroiled in on Thursday night. ‘You’re not to go out again until those bruises are gone.’

Across the table, Syed laughed. It was subdued, subtle, but there nonetheless.

‘Do you have something to say about it?’ Youssef challenged.

The words said one thing, but the tone with which they were spoken said another. Mahira studied her husband with sadness. He was a broken man. He didn’t have the strength to go through this again, not now, after everything else.

‘He’s nineteen,’ Syed said with a shrug. ‘You can’t tell him what to do.’

In his lap and hidden beneath the table, Youssef’s hands clenched into fists. Syed was always doing this. Always challenging; always disobeying. He was the reason they’d been forced to leave their old life behind, yet here he was trying to sabotage what might become of their new one.

‘He lives in my house,’ Youssef said, the words now sounding more like those of the man he had once been. ‘He eats my food. If either of you don’t like the way we tell you to do things, then you are free to move out and fend for yourselves.’

Jameel hadn’t spoken. He was staring glassy-eyed into his curry, having eaten even less than his father. Beside him, at the end of the table, Faadi sat eating silently, his head bowed over his plate in an attempt to shut out the sounds of what everyone knew would escalate into an argument. He didn’t really have the stomach for food either, but with no one else eating he didn’t want his mother to feel that her efforts that afternoon had all been for nothing.

‘I thought we were going to talk about the fire.’

Youssef glanced at Jameel, his jaw tensed and dark eyes narrowed. ‘We are.’

‘What is there to talk about, though, really?’ asked Syed. ‘It was only a matter of time. People round here hate us.’

Mahira sighed and dropped her fork into her bowl. ‘Not everyone hates us, Syed. There are plenty of nice people around if you bothered to look for them.’

‘Where?’

‘I speak to nice people every day of the week. You know, if you stopped being so angry and confrontational all the time, perhaps people might start being nice to you too.’

Syed gave a bitter laugh. ‘How long are you going to keep up this pretence, eh? How much more abuse do we have to listen to? How many more insults do we have to have smeared across the shop walls before you open your eyes and see things for what they are? You know, it’s all well and good wanting to see the best in people, but sometimes it’s just burying your head in the sand.’

‘They’re a minority, Syed,’ Mahira argued. ‘Ignorant people are everywhere, or do you know of somewhere they can be avoided completely?’

Syed shook his head, his mouth turned up at the corner in an angry smirk. ‘You’re deluded, you know that?’

‘Enough!’ Youssef slammed his fists on the table, sending water slopping from the rim of his glass. At the far end of the table, Faadi winced in his seat. A lump of chicken lodged for a moment in his throat.

‘You will apologise to your mother for speaking to her in this way.’

When Syed said nothing, Youssef rose from his chair. Father and son glared at one another, each refusing to back down.

‘Say you’re sorry.’

Syed pushed his chair back from the table and stood. ‘No. I’m not sorry. Unlike you, I’m not scared to speak the truth.’

As he walked to the door of the dining room, Youssef followed. He grabbed his son by the arm, and Syed responded by shoving him away. ‘If you walk out of here without apologising to your mother, then don’t you dare think about coming back to this house.’

‘Youssef—’

‘No,’ he said, turning to his wife and cutting her short. ‘Enough. You’ve defended him and made excuses for him and where has it got us? We moved here for him, to keep him safe, to keep him out of trouble, yet here we are still mopping up his mess and still pretending we can make a better man out of him.’ He was shouting now, and Mahira caught sight of tears spiking at the corners of his eyes. He had always been a proud man; he had never let his family see him reduced to tears before. ‘Our whole lives have been turned upside down for that boy, and for what? So we can watch everything we’ve worked for be ruined? You can stand by him if you want, Mahira, but think carefully if you choose to. It’s me or him.’

Mahira hoped it was an idle threat, but when she looked at Youssef she realised he meant every word. ‘Youssef,’ she said, keeping her voice low and steady. ‘You’re tired and upset. The fire … your job … you’ve taken too much on. You need to rest. You don’t mean what you’re saying.’

Youssef turned back to Syed, who was hovering at the doorway. ‘Why are you still here?’ he asked flatly.

His eldest son looked to Jameel, widening his eyes, conveying a secret message that no one else could decipher. Jameel nodded before looking away. Their father might be prepared to ignore the real problem, but that didn’t mean they had to.