East of Wimbledon (23 page)

‘For about nine months,’ said Maisie – ‘apart from Ramadan, of course.’

The bastard, thought Robert. The snake! The lousy, double-crossing, deceitful . . .
Muslim!
There was nothing to tie him to the place now. He could go. He could walk away, down the street, go back home and try to start his life. Try to do something that was nothing to do with the ridiculous lie he had told the headmaster almost a year ago today.

Except he couldn’t. This news, he realized, tied him to Malik and the school almost more than before. While he still had a chance of being near Maisie, he would take it. Submission! Surrender! They had come to the right guy! He was on his knees, begging to stay.

Maisie approached a taxi. As they got in, she said, ‘I’m so glad we’ve got rid of that Christian guilt rubbish. I don’t think this would be nearly so easy if we weren’t Muslims.’

The taxi driver did not seem keen on going to Wimbledon. Maisie took a ten pound note from Robert’s pocket and waved it at him through the glass.

‘What does he think about me?’ said Robert. He was curiously keen to know the answer to this question. Had Maisie said what a stud he was?

‘He doesn’t know we had an affair,’ said Maisie. ‘He thinks it’s just brother and sister. It is really brother and sister, isn’t it, Bobkins?’

‘Not to me it isn’t,’ said Robert mournfully.

She patted his hand and looked out at the sunlight glittering on London’s rubbish. ‘I’m sure we can manage it occasionally,’ she said. ‘I’d rather you didn’t tell him about us! We don’t really want trouble at the school, do we?’

From his jacket pocket Robert took out a grubby sheet of paper – the translation of the mysterious manuscript that had been given to him in the pub nearly a year ago today. He waved it at Maisie in a threatening manner. ‘Do you realize,’ he said, ‘that the whole school is about to go up in flames today?’

Maisie smirked. She seemed as unworried as the headmaster at the fact that the place was due to be consumed in hell-fire. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘that today is the day when the Twenty-fourthers believe Hasan will come into his own . . .’

‘It’s
serious!’
said Robert, ‘and Rafiq and his boys won’t stop at a few groans this time. They were prepared to hit me on the head, weren’t they?’

‘Quite a lot of people,’ said Maisie acidly, ‘are prepared to hit you on the head.’

Since she didn’t seem willing to read the translation, Robert took on the job himself. Leaning forward in the seat, he started to intone, in a deep voice:

Bow down,

Bow down and listen to my words.

On the sixth of Rabi

I stabbed the seducer Hasan

And was sent to hell-fire.

But my son lived,

My son Hasan.

He is the Twenty-fourth Imam.

He lives.

He will return.

The taxi driver turned his head slightly. ‘I’m with you there,’ he said.

This surprised Robert. Were there more Twenty-fourthers around than he had thought possible? Had they even penetrated the licensed taxi cabs of London? He read on. Maisie turned her face away from him towards Green Park.

He will come as a boy.

As a little blind boy.

From the West he will come.

His face will be marked.

His eyes will have no sight.

And he will bear my name.

Hasan—

Hasan b. Namawar.

He will destroy.

He will destroy with fire.

And you will show loyalty to me—

You will show loyalty to The Law—

And you will know my name,

Which means companion,

There is fire in my fingers.

Bow down!

The taxi driver nodded. ‘Sale or return,’ he said, ‘is a very good basis for a business deal. And business
has
gone down, no question about it!’

Maisie was still looking out of the window. If the prophecy worried her, she was managing to conceal the fact. Perhaps the headmaster had been able to reassure her in ways that were not open to Robert. As he thought of them actually screwing – of Maisie winding her arms round him, hitching her legs over his, pumping up and down, up and down – the blood rose to his face. Awful, racist thoughts and words rose in his throat like nausea, and then, moments later, a strange image of Mr Malik embracing him. ‘You
are my Muslim brother, Wilson!
’

He liked Mr Malik. That ought to make this situation easier to bear. But it didn’t. He could not stop the clear physical image of their bodies together. He knew what Malik would say, how he would look when they were making love, how he would smile, beatifically, like a baby, when he was satisfied.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead. This wasn’t getting him anywhere. He put down the paper. ‘There’s something weird going on,’ he said. ‘This man really
did
stab Hasan the Second. Because he broke The Law. And pushed Islam close to Christianity. And this manuscript describes our Hasan
to the letter!’

She turned to him. ‘So you really think,’ she said, ‘that that poor little chap is going to zoom in from the clouds and wipe us all out?’

‘Is that any more barmy than believing that Muhammad went up a mountain and God spoke to him? Or that there’ll be wine in heaven? Or that you’re a duffer if you can’t polish off a wall gecko in under two minutes?’

The taxi driver nodded vigorously. ‘This is it,’ he said – ‘two minutes! And we’re given no warning, are we? We’re just told to get on with it and hope the recession will go away!’

Maisie grabbed his hand. She looked suddenly nervous. ‘You do believe that, though, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Because you’re a Muslim, aren’t you? If you don’t believe that, you aren’t a Muslim. You’re an impostor!’

‘I don’t know what I am,’ said Robert. ‘There are times when I think I’m a Twenty-fourther. They seem to have a lot of fun.’

‘They do,’ said the taxi driver. ‘They go to Spain twice a year. They have country cottages. They send their children to private schools. They pay no tax. They have it easy!’

They were crossing the river now. Even the summer sun could not take the grey away from the thick band of the Thames, sluggishly curving towards Wandsworth. As they sped back towards Wimbledon, Robert wondered why he still couldn’t own up to the lie that had started all this. Why had it trapped him as neatly as she had done?

What did he believe? That was what she was always asking him. If he could say it, out loud, he might know what it was. It might even win him what he knew, in his heart, he wanted. Maisie. The spoilt, black-haired girl sitting beside him, staring out at the river. As they climbed West Hill, he started to sing, to Mr Malik’s tune, words of his own.

Beautiful girl,

Beautiful girl,

You don’t go with them.

You belong to your people.

You are one of my people.

You will stay mine.

You are one of my people.

Beautiful,

Beautiful,

Beautiful, beautiful girl.

The Great Hall of the school was hung with green drapery. A makeshift stage had been erected at the staircase end and, above it, Class 1 had hung a large, hand-painted Islamic crescent moon and star. Samples of their work were laid out on trestle-tables at the side. Mafouz’s record-breaking account of the school journey to the Natural History Museum, for which he had been awarded alpha double plus, was in pride of place. ‘My Cat’, it began,
‘was in agony due to being hung upside down from our bedroom window by my brother, when I set off in the luxurious coach provided for us. I thought only about my beautiful cat as the huge engines purred and the round wheels revolved enabling us two-legged people to journey in comparative comfort through the streets of London town!’
It had been extensively rewritten by Robert, who was now so good at doing Mafouz’s handwriting that it had affected his ability to reproduce his own signature convincingly. In the garden at the back, Sheikh had organised a chemistry exhibition. There was, he had told Mr Malik, a huge explosion planned for 16.00 hours.

It was the school’s first Open Day. It was a shame, really, thought Robert as he lugged a crate of lemonade in through the front door, that it was also the day the whole place was due to be consumed in hell-fire. Would Mr and Mrs Husayn get a chance to study
MY HOLIDAYS
by M. and N. Husayn, a hundredword masterpiece that it had taken three months to squeeze out of them? Would Mr Mafouz be able to glory in his son’s seventeen straight alphas, or to admire his leading part in the headmaster’s
The Bowl of Night
, a musical based on
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám?
Would anyone be able to enjoy the first public performance of a pageant, devised and directed by Mr Malik, with the working title of
Islamic Wimbledon?

‘Put the buns on the far tables!’ called Maisie. Robert picked up a large cellophane bag, and, with a resentful glance in her direction, pulled it across the polished floor. Outside he could hear the coach bringing Class 1 back from the Museum. There was a squeal of brakes, the sound of Mr Malik (‘One at a time, please, gentlemen!’) and then a noise as of wild horses galloping across a parquet floor.

Mahmud was the first through the door. He looked with interest and sympathy at Robert, who was setting out paper cups next to the pile of buns. ‘Are you mentally ill, sir?’ he said, in a small, polite voice.

‘Yes!’ said Robert.

This seemed to satisfy the boy’s curiosity. Behind him came the Husayn twins. They were carrying the Bosnian refugee, feet first.

From the kitchens came the new master, carrying an armful of cardboard chain-mail. Nobody had wanted to play the Crusader, and so it was almost inevitable that the job should go to the Bosnian refugee. He had cheered up when told he was going to have a plastic sword, a cardboard helmet and the chance to run around the stage hitting the Husayn twins.

Mr Malik came into the hall. He gave Robert a brief, concerned glance and clapped his hands together. Next to him, his hand grasping the head’s trouser leg, was Hasan.

‘Keep an eye on Hasan, Wilson!’ said Mr Malik. ‘We want to avoid a major incident if we can possibly help it!’ Then he turned to the other children and clapped his hands once more. ‘Gymnastic boys,’ he said, ‘out to the garden!’

Behind him came Rafiq. He, too, gave Robert a glance. Then he went up the stairs towards Mr Malik’s study. The headmaster caught his eye, and Rafiq turned, shiftily, towards him. ‘I have to get some scripts, Headmaster!’ he said.

Malik nodded and went to the back of the hall. He opened the door to the garden, and from Classes 2 and 3 a small group of boys in white running shorts and T-shirts ran silently for the open air. As Rafiq disappeared out of sight at the top of the stairs, Maisie staggered in with a step-ladder and started to put up black drapes at the windows. They looked, from a distance, as if they might well be the remains of her first attempt at Islamic dress.

Mr Chaudhry started to dress the Bosnian refugee. He grinned at Robert. ‘Doesn’t it remind you of Cuppers?’ he said.

Robert put on his Oxford face. ‘Dear old Cuppers!’ he said. ‘How is he?’

Mr Chaudhry chuckled. ‘Wilson,’ he said, ‘you are a joker! All Pembroke men are jokers!’

As Robert was trying to remember whether that was the college he had said he had attended, Mr Malik went over to the far wall and began to pin up the league table of exam results. Every boy in the school was placed, and next to his marks was a small graph illustrating his performance throughout the year. The
x
-axis was attitude and the
y
-axis achievement. Most of the graphs were set on a steep, ascending curve, apart from the Husayn twins’; they started in the top left hand corner and were headed, inexorably, for the far right end of the bottom line. Next to each graph was a Polaroid photograph of the boy concerned and his own brief reaction to his assessment. Mafouz had written, ‘I have done brilliant. There is no stopping me in the Sports Department. We went on a skiing holiday.’

The Open Day, Robert thought to himself, was physical evidence of how far the school had come during the year. There was a running video of the television documentary about Sheikh, who had, at the beginning of June, gained entrance to Oxford and Cambridge and had published an article in an American scientific journal that an eminent German physicist had described as ‘revelatory’. That had generated quite a bit of business.

Robert held on to Hasan’s hand as Mr and Mrs Brown, the new parents, came through the now open front door of the school. ‘Welcome, Brown!’ called Mr Malik.

‘The blessings of Allah upon you!’ said Mr Brown, an assistant manager at the National Westminster Bank, Mitcham. He was a small, weaselly man of little charisma. It was a puzzle, really, how he had ever risen as high as assistant bank manager, although there were rumours that his immediate superior, Mr Quigley, had been confined to a lunatic asylum after claiming that aliens were about to take over south-west London. ‘If he is a Muslim,’ Mr Malik had confided to Robert, shortly after the Brown child joined the school, ‘then I am the Duke of Edinburgh. He likes our record of academic achievement, that is all.’

Sheikh was not the school’s only triumph. Mr Malik had a winning
way
with the press release. His coup in the
Wimbledon Guardian
was the headline
ISLAMIC BOYS SCHOOL HEADS ACADEMIC LEAGUE TABLE.
The story mentioned only in passing that the league table was one devised by Mr Malik for assessing Independent Islamic Schools in Wimbledon. A rather hard-line establishment in Southfields – the Islamic Academy of Learning – had been excluded as not being of ‘sufficient weight’. He had also stolen Cranborne School’s prize physicist, Khan, and had offered a free place to Simon Britton, a boy whose mother had had to take him away from Cranborne because of her financial circumstances.

The Browns started to browse along the wall, and, in ones and twos, other parents made their entrances. Mr Mafouz came in wearing his best blue suit, and dragging his six daughters behind him. Mr Husayn, wearing, as always, a bright floral shirt and smoking a large cigar, came in with a woman who was quite clearly not his wife.