No Fear of Falling (Zarry AU)

Chapter 1

Zayn should have been the oldest, but Harry couldn’t wait, and, on a bitterly cold morning in January, made a break for it. His mother, who’d just got up to go to the toilet for the fourth time, had finally found a comfortable position after almost an hour of adjusting and readjusting pillows when Harry made his escape. He did so with as much drama as possible, something his parents are now used to, but back then they had no idea what was in store for them so his mother wasn’t prepared for the swift kick Harry gave her to announce his imminent departure. She yelped and, in turn, kicked his father who had been snoring soundly, blissfully unaware that his son was coming two weeks earlier than expected. It made him leap out of bed and send the half-drunk glass of water on his bedside table flying across the room and that’s how Harry Styles came into the world, in a rush, startling his poor parents who pleaded with him to stay put until they got to the hospital.

He did – just – finding his way out a second after a nurse got his mother onto a bed. Mercifully, the doctor had quick reflexes and caught him as Harry landed in his hands with a shriek and, his parents were sure, a giggle. Zayn, however, was in no such hurry and was two weeks late. They had to bribe him with a cup of tea and a fried egg sandwich, his mother always says with a smile when she tells the story and Zayn always smiles, too, because it’s still the only way to get him out of bed. That or pancakes.

The Styles’ lived next door to the Maliks, at number 35, and were the first to introduce themselves the day they moved in. They brought a chicken casserole and Yaser and Tricia, who’d just moved out of a tiny flat on top of chip shop, were somewhat bewildered. Their old neighbours played their music too loud and would sit in their shared garden smoking weed all day. So when Tricia opened the front door to be confronted by a couple holding a casserole dish, she stared at them for a beat too long.

That was the hardest thing to get used to, not the curmudgeonly old house with its creaky stairs and white wooden windows that stuck in the winter, but Anne and Des. They were everywhere. Anne would say hello over the garden fence when Tricia went to put out the washing or Des would stop washing his car and wave at Yaser when he answered the door to the postman in his boxer shorts. But, as alarming as it was at first, after a few weeks, it was kind of nice, knowing that Anne and Des were there. Anne would sign for packages for them when they were at work and Ed offered to take their empty boxes to the dump one Sunday afternoon when he saw Tricia trying to wedge them into the shed. So Tricia began to say more than just hello over the garden fence and Yaser would offer Anne a lift if he saw her at the bus stop. Then, after a few months, when the Maliks had finally unpacked everything and bought a dining table, they invited Anne and Des over for dinner.

It was obvious from the moment Anne and Des arrived and went rigid, their eyes widening when Tricia led them into the kitchen where Yaser was still cooking, that it wasn’t the sort of dinner party they were used to. When they returned the favour a few weeks later and Yaser and Tricia sat in their dining room with its china cabinet and mahogany chairs, eating prawn cocktail from martini glasses, they realised that Anne and Des must have been horrified to sit at their scuffed, second hand table, eating with their fingers. But they were perfectly gracious and ate everything Yaser put in front of them. Even the aubergine pakoras, which they’d clearly never had before judging by the way Anne plucked one off the pile then sniffed it before smiling sweetly and taking a bite.

The Maliks appreciated that, that they were willing to try rather than turning their noses up, so it became a regular thing. They would have dinner once a month and in the summer, when Anne and Des were having a barbeque, they would call over the garden fence, saying that they had veggie burgers for Yaser.

It wasn’t long until they saw each other almost every day, so, when Tricia and Anne got pregnant (at almost the same time, prompting months of ‘there must be something in the water’ jokes from the other neighbours), they became even closer. Yaser and Des bonded over what video camera to film the happy event on (not that Anne and Des had time to even think about bringing the video camera in the end, they barely had time to put on shoes), while the women bonded over birthing plans and what vitamins to take.

Tricia laughs about it now, about how calm Anne was back then. Even towards the end, when Tricia was miserable and shuffling around in odd shoes and one of Yaser’s kurtas, Anne looked immaculate. She was sure that Anne never forgot to feed the cat and couldn’t imagine her lying on the sofa while Des fed her Maltesers. Even the morning she had Harry she looked perfect, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright as she handed him to Tricia. And of course Harry was perfect, too, plump and pink with a froth of dark hair. When they brought him home, Tricia would hear him wailing through the walls and she would press her hands to her belly and walk around their big old house. She’d pace back and forth over the worn carpet in the hallway and around the bedroom at the back, the one overlooking the garden that smelt of drying yellow paint and baby powder.

The house had never been so quiet and it was unbearable. But a month later Zayn was born and it was never quiet again. The house would shudder with noise, the constant churn of the washing machine or the chirp of the Winnie the Pooh mobile that turned over Zayn’s cot while he stared up at it with his father’s frown as if to say, Don’t you know another song?

Tricia was constantly out of breath. She never seemed to have enough time – or hands – but to her consternation, Anne was just as useless. Gone was the immaculate Anne who wore neat white shirts and pearl earrings. The new Anne would bring Harry around at midnight, convinced he had a fever, or she’d call to say that she and Des were ordering pizza and ask if Tricia and Yaser wanted some.

Tricia liked the new Anne. She liked the sneaky glasses of wine they’d have when the boys were asleep and the way she stroked Zayn’s cheek with her finger when she went to check on them. It was the same way she stroked Harry’s cheek and if Tricia didn’t already love Anne Styles, she did then, because she wouldn’t have got through those first few weeks of motherhood without her. Neither of them had a clue what they were doing, but they worked it out and eventually they weren’t so scared of how tiny the boys were, with their heavy heads and delicate fingers. They didn’t cry when the boys cried or hesitate when they changed their nappies, just wrapped them up then kissed their warm bellies when they were done.

Whenever she was over, Harry would sleep in Zayn’s cot, not that Harry slept or Zayn noticed. The first time Harry was tall enough to pull down the Winnie the Pooh mobile, on tip toes, his tongue poking out from the corner of his mouth as he reached for it, Zayn was asleep. And the first time he discovered the box of tissues in Yaser and Tricia’s bedroom and pulled out each one, Zayn was asleep. And the first time he climbed out of the cot, Zayn was asleep.

For a while, Tricia was worried that there might be something wrong with him, until one day, when he was playing on the living room floor with Harry. He handed her a red wooden block and said, Mama with such assurance it was as if he’d known the word all along but never had cause to use it before that afternoon. Then, the first time Harry pulled himself to his feet and walked across the kitchen floor (to follow the cat out of the cat flap), Zayn copied him, tottering unsteadily behind him as if to say, Where we going, Harry?

That was it then. Harry passed over the whole walking thing and went straight to running and before they knew it, Harry and Zayn were tearing around and fighting over whose turn it was on the swing that hung from the tree in Yaser and Tricia’s garden. And when they weren’t doing that, they were sitting at the kitchen table gulping down glasses of milk and divvying up a plate of custard creams like pirates with their spoils.

Birthdays passed, bones broke, healed, then broke again and that’s how they grew up, running in and out of each other’s houses with earth under their fingernails and cuts on their knees. They made mud pies and buried treasure in the garden and built cities out of cardboard boxes in the living room when it was raining.

‘They’re trying to kill me,’ Yaser muttered at Tricia at least once a day, usually when he was called upon to retrieve a kite from a tree at the park or a ball from the roof of the shed. But it was something he got used to. At least once a day he’d hear, Daddy! and run into the garden to see two pairs of trainers dangling from the tree. Then Zayn’s little face would appear. Daddy, help! We climbed too high!

The cure for a fear of heights, Yaser Malik discovered, was a son who liked to climb trees.