A Fistful of Dust Read online

Suddenly, there was a thud on my back window and I looked over my shoulder. A burly man in a brown Gola tracksuit top was eating what looked like a chip muffin drenched in ketchup. He ran round to the driver’s side and asked me to open the window. I reluctantly opened it and he introduced himself as Paul. He asked if I needed some help in reversing the car out of Holmes Street because I had stopped the car in a tight little spot, perilously close to the main road. I said I was okay and he shook my hand. I noticed him moving up very close to me and listening intently as I talked. I knew my voice was getting softer by the day. Paul said he was bored and needed something to do. He also said if I ever needed anything I could visit him in the Atherstone block of Falinge flats. I wound down the window and drove off. As I headed up Spotland Road again, it occurred to me there was a connection, however tenuous, between Paul and a devouring employer like Turner Brothers. Paul was probably unemployed and Turners gobbled up workers and spat them out with ferocious regularity. But what did he do now? Where was the work? What I saw around me in the town wasn’t pleasant – and what was happening to me was even more unpleasant – but Paul had got into my head and got me thinking about something bigger than myself. It was an unpalatable thought but perhaps Turner Brothers had offered something to the town after all: employment.

  After a few minutes, I got into the top end of Edmund Street and drove past Spotland Primary School – the place where Wasim spent his early years. I couldn’t help but think of my grandson now. Paul had got me thinking about him plus the dreaded realisation I was going to sleep in his bed. I felt guilty about taking over his room: what if he came back tomorrow? Nadia said he was doing well in Kashmir and wrote letters or phoned most months to tell of his latest tour to a village or fundraising drive. His picture had even appeared in a national newspaper along with the aid agency he was travelling with. In his last call, he told his mother he had been translating for the agency – and that they had even offered him a job as a freelance translator. He said he was thinking of taking up the offer. That was the last update we’d had from him. He was doing good work out there but I wondered if Nadia was punishing him for not coming back? I chose to believe she genuinely wanted me there because I was unwell and needed help.

  I drove past Silver Street chapel, which was opposite the school yard, and headed towards my new home. Thankfully, as it was mid–afternoon, there was plenty of room to park my car and that was a massive relief. I pulled in outside the pebble–dash terrace with the Georgian windows and could already see Mrs Gleeson, two doors down, looking out from her front window. I got out of my car and walked up the path towards the front door. I glanced at the front garden – which had a two foot brick wall around it – and pulled out a set of extremely long keys Nadia had given me. She had pointed out the front door key to me but as I aimed for the tiny keyhole in the lime green door, I was so tense that I nearly choked on my saliva which naturally set off a dry, painful round of coughing. I was worried about the neighbours – particularly Mrs Gleeson – seeing me fiddling about so I gathered myself and concentrated harder. Eventually, I got in after three attempts and a surge of relief fizzed through my body. I stepped in and closed the door. I rested my back against it and, even though my bags and boxes were still in the car, I didn’t want to go out there again, at least until Nadia came home. I tried to take a deep breath and looked down into the hallway. Yes, it was familiar but had to become more than that: it had to become my home. I walked past the empty coat hooks and looked at the shiny wooden cabinet to my right with its beige touch–button telephone propped up by two Yellow Pages directories. Nadia had already scoured its pages for solicitors’ firms. I had asked her not to bother: it wasn’t worth the trouble. I headed for the stairs and grabbed the brown handrail while sliding the palm of my other hand across the cool dark blue wall on the other side. After a few steps, a sudden rush of sleepiness hit me and there was only one solution. Every day at this time – about 1.30pm to two – I felt the same tugging so I headed across the landing to Wasim’s bedroom and opened the door. I walked in and sat down on the slightly hard double bed. I took off my shoes and socks and rubbed the soles of my feet into the bushy maroon carpet. I glanced round the sparse room and wondered if I’d ever get to sleep in it. There was a small set of dumbbells, a pair of ripped Reebok trainers and a black Head bag in one corner near the white dressing table. A swivel chair and small desk were hastily arranged next to the dressing table but looked empty without a computer or laptop. I figured Wasim probably took it with him. A map, about the size of windscreen, was displayed right across the cream–painted wall above the bed rest. It said ‘The Ummah’ in big white letters and it was a map of the world with all the Islamic countries shaded in red; all other countries with sizeable Islamic populations were partially shaded in red and the rest of the countries without Islamic populations were left white. I looked at the UK: it was partially shaded in red. I had never seen the map before, probably because I’d never been in the room before. I deduced Wasim was another lost boy in a town full of them. It made me feel even more tired. So I got up and did my final preparations for sleep: windmills of my arms and a few neck rolls. I then stripped down to my white vest and underpants and slipped in to the cold bed: I couldn’t be bothered getting my pyjamas from the car. I pulled the bed covers over my shivering body and sorrowfully looked up at the ceiling. Turner Brothers had taken my house, my health and my dignity. I wondered if my grandson had any dignity left after abandoning his parents. It didn’t matter now: his noble adventure had cost him. This bed was mine.

  2.

  Seven weeks had passed but I couldn’t get settled. Nadia did everything for me: filled in my disability benefit forms, cooked potato pancakes for me in the morning, washed my clothes, served my inhaled medication, helped me change GP’s but she could not give me the thing I wanted most – time. I missed her dearly when she walked out each weekday morning to get into her Citroen to drive to the wrong side of the Pennines and watched the late afternoon minutes tick by until she returned. Salim, on the other hand, was not missed at all. It occurred to me that he was not comfortable with me moving in but Nadia had twisted his arm to ensure he didn’t upset me. He had not spent more than five minutes in my company and hadn’t asked me once about my condition and how I was coping with it. I was so relieved when he walked out of the front door, a few minutes after Nadia, and headed to Carphone Warehouse in Yorkshire Street where he worked. As for my granddaughter Elisha, I simply didn’t see enough of her. She walked to Oulder Hill School with her friends and when she came back, she was either upstairs listening to some dreadful racket on her stereo or in the front room hunched over the computer late into the evening. We got on fine when we did speak. We had one long conversation about the difference between religion and culture while eating Pringles and drinking warm, flat Lucozade but that was about it. I wanted to spend more time with her.

  Throughout this period, Wasim was hardly mentioned. Nadia said he had recently phoned her about five weeks ago but she didn’t elaborate. Instead, she changed to the subject to Len, one of the umpires at the local cricket club at Redbrook, who had contacted her and said he wanted to speak to me. I was an occasional umpire there, too, but hadn’t stood in the middle since the illness flared up. He had heard I had moved to Edmund Street and wanted to visit to see how I was doing. I could not face him. It was too much, at this stage. He would ask me about my condition and then the whole sordid tale of Turner Brothers would have to be dredged up once more. I wasn’t ready for that. Len had become a friend in later years, perhaps the only one. I didn’t have any real friends after Fareeda died. He was annoyed that the cricket club had to share its facilities with lacrosse and squash but decided not to make a fuss. He had introduced me to umpiring after I had met him during a local election campaign in which he was standing as the candidate in the Brimrod and Deeplish ward. Fareeda had contacted him direct and asked him why he wasn’t doing enough about Danny Langley’s mob who were drinking and smoking join
ts round our back alley and generally causing a lot of grief for residents in our area. To our surprise, he turned up on our doorstep and pledged to ‘clean up our streets’ of anti–social behaviour. It didn’t quite happen, because even though – on Len’s advice – we started keeping a diary and eventually had to call the police because one boy had threatened to kill another, the group carried on being unruly after they had been warned. Len made a passing comment that ‘these boys needed a good clean game’ to keep them off the streets and that’s how our conversation about cricket developed. He said he was an umpire for the Central Lancashire League and asked if I liked the game. Did I like it? We got talking about the Roses Match and how we missed the likes of Jack Simmons, Harry Pilling and Frank Hayes: real characters that brightened up our lives and knew the value of sportsmanship and good humour. We even spoke about our grudging admiration for some Yorkshire players, although Len noticeably winced when I mentioned the all–round quality of Ray Illingworth. To my surprise, Len then asked me if I’d ever considered being an umpire. I hadn’t – I thought I was too old. I was 56 at the time and still coming to terms with being made redundant at Turner Brothers two years previous in 1988. He suggested an umpiring course, which I took, and eventually passed. I spent the next few years travelling to games in Royton, Bury, Oldham, Werneth and many others. I felt alive again. As for Len, he wasn’t elected as a councillor but never complained. We were quite close in the early days but since Fareeda died, I really wasn’t close to anyone, except my daughter.

  So on the 49th miserable day in Edmund Street I had no intention of meeting Len. But he was there in spirit. He liked having six peanuts in his pyjama pocket at bedtime and then eating them one by one. It helped him with concentration levels while on umpiring duty, he said. I chose not to go that far but the counting habit in bed was just as obsessive. Overnight, Paul and Wasim had somehow penetrated my defences and joined up to serve up a nasty dream. I couldn’t really remember it, which was just as well, but I woke up counting the number of mills, derelict or otherwise, in and around Rochdale: State Mill, Mars Mill, Warwick Mill, Crawford Mill, Moss Mill, Arrow Mill. Instead of stopping at six I carried on counting. Crimble Mill, Albert Mill, Grove Mill, Fieldhouse Mill, Marland Mill, Dicken Green Mill. I couldn’t remember many more: Fieldhouse Mill, Victoria Mill, Jennings Mill, Buckley Mill. I didn’t know whether these buildings were still standing or if they ever employed a great number of people but that was a sizeable number of factories and mills – and they were the only ones I knew. Throw in the incendiary Turner Brothers and the chimney–loving landscape was complete. Somehow, all this was merging together to create a set of ambivalent feelings that I was extremely uncomfortable with so I got out of bed, picked up my inhaler and tried to snap myself out of it. But the feelings remained. I kept thinking about how little our young people had in terms of work prospects in this town yet I also realised that I had been scarred terribly by my brutish 21–year service at Turners. Which choice was right? Work and get ill or no work at all. It wasn’t much of a choice.

  I took the cap off my inhaler and took a pathetic, wimpy breath. It was utterly pointless. Sometimes, the medication made me more breathless than the illness itself. I went downstairs feeling extremely low. I glanced at the front door and could a see a few envelopes lying below on the bushy green mat. I thought about ignoring them because I desperately needed some fuel to get my body going but one of the envelopes caught my attention. So I walked to the front door and picked it up. It was a white airmail envelope with a blue and red border and it was addressed to ‘Salim and Nadia Rafeeq’. It had a partially torn, black and white stamp in the top corner showing a city I didn’t recognise with the date ‘1920’ written underneath. I looked on the back of the envelope and it made me shudder: there was no address – apart from a sorting office stamp which said ‘International Service Centre, Baghdad International Airport’ and there was a tiny red, white and black flag on the bottom which left me in no doubt over its origin. I could feel my jaw shaking as I clasped the envelope in my hand. Stress lurked like a snake on my shoulder. I raised my inhaler to my mouth but it was no use: I could not get my lips properly around the mouthpiece.

  I went to make breakfast and left the envelope on the wonky dinner table in the living room. After I’d dipped my cake rusk into my tea and been reinvigorated by the cardamom and caffeine, I paced around the living room for a few minutes wondering what to do. But there was no dilemma: I was the head of the family and needed to know what was going on this house. So I sat down on the sturdy metal chair by the table and tore open the envelope. Inside were three folded–up pages of lined white paper – marked 1, 2 and 3 at the top corner of each page – and I spread them across the table. My eye was drawn to the number at the top – 786 – and I instantly knew whose handiwork it was. The red handwriting was tall and angular with big, flourishing circles over the ‘i’s’ and extremely wide verticals crossing the ‘t’s’. It was neater than I expected; I didn’t know he could write that well.

  786

  Salaam Amee and Abujee

  What a mission! Allah–thallah has rewarded me to come to this great land and I’m enjoying every moment of it. It is hot, at times, yes, and I don’t get as much roti and dhal as I’d like but there are more important things than food and I’m here to make those things happen. My brothers in the Iraqi Khalifa Brigade are taking care of me and I will repay their faith.

  It’s important for you to understand how I got here because I couldn’t help but think of the Prophet’s (PBUH) journey and how he spread his message. First, I left the earthquake zone in September 2006 and stayed at crazy Chacha Manzoor’s house in Muzaffarabad for a few months. Then, I travelled to Quetta and stayed there for about two weeks and then onto Peshawar where I met a man who thought I could be useful in Iraq. But that was the easy part! Getting there was another mission. We had to go through some hairy parts of Iran (and you know I love my Shia brothers!) and it took nearly four weeks in the end. Now I’m settled and live in the house of one of Khalifa brothers, so there really isn’t a problem.

  I know you’ll be wondering exactly where I am. I’m sorry but I can’t tell you that because the kufr Annans will be on to you like Cyril Smith on a sofa! They won’t waste a second in shopping me, you and our family so I’d advise that you keep this all to yourselves. Their agents are everywhere.

  So please, please don’t worry about me. I’m in good health and being looked after by a good family. I will be back when the mission is completed. I’ve heard there is a surge going on in the country by the invaders but I don’t see many of them around here. They don’t know if they’re coming or going.

  I do miss home but hanging around the Wheatsheaf and playing football on Lenny Barn can’t really compare to this. I had to leave and do something else, something more worthwhile. There’s too much suffering going on of our people and someone had to take a stand. Now, I’ve found the right path and, I hope, with your blessing, that I will succeed in this critical mission.

  Of course, it’s much warmer here too which helps!

  Allah Hafiz

  Wasim

  To calm down a bit, I watched one of my VHS copies of the Roses Match and relished the sparse Old Trafford crowd, the comforting drizzle and the spirited cricketers. The umpires too, had the total respect of the players and knew how to diffuse a vigorous appeal with a smile or a wink. Wasim could learn from these matches, I thought. He could learn about teamwork, discipline and tolerance; he could learn about the power of personality and language to get your message across rather than physical confrontation.

  The Roses Match took me up to noon and Nadia had left me a plate of brown rice and keema for lunch but I could only eat a few spoonfuls because its taste was dry and metallic. So I decided to fold up Wasim’s letter, put it in my beige trouser pocket and lie down for a couple of hours – until Elisha came home. I rested my head for a matter of minutes when the doorbell rang. I wasn’t going to answer it but ca
ught sight of Len walking away down the street through the front window. The orange flat cap, knitted burgundy cardigan and brown corduroy trousers were unmistakable. On balance, it was better to speak to him now. I opened the door and called him back but it was obvious he still hadn’t invested in a hearing aid. His stubbornness was admirable but it had practical drawbacks. I stepped out and picked up a tiny stone from the front garden and flung it over his head. It landed a few yards ahead of him. He turned and smiled.

  ‘I’ve rang many a time. Are you poorly?’

  ‘Come in, it’s too cold out here.’

  He walked towards me and took his cap off. He stubbed out his Woodbine on the muddy part of the garden wall and placed it in a tiny pouch within his flat cap. Same old Len, I thought, his umpire’s coat was full of these terrible little stubs. He hated litter and got depressed by the state of modern pavements and roads which should have been like the square on a cricket pitch. He even railed at his fellow smokers for not getting ‘rid of their dirty work’ and, peculiarly, never once sounded hypocritical about it. He grabbed my hand and shook it vigorously. I followed him in and he sat down at the dinner table in the living room. He placed his cap and the Woodbines on the edge of the table. He folded his arms and looked at me as I sat on the sofa. There was an uncomfortable silence between us and I knew I had to come clean. It was as though my illness had become a secondary consideration to the bombshell of my grandson’s letter.

  ‘It’s asbestos–related,’ I said, clearing my throat. ‘Got it from Turners. Had some symptoms out in the middle a few month ago: choking and chest pains. Not sure if I’ll be able to umpire again.’

  Len shook his head and sighed. He picked out another Woodbine and lit up with his silver Zippo lighter which had his three daughter’s names engraved on it like a set of wickets. He rubbed the extravagant letters softly with his index finger and looked up at me. A strand of his neat silver hair had dropped onto his forehead and I was surprised he didn’t reach into his back pocket for his comb as usual. As a former barber, of 26 years experience, he liked to be immaculately groomed up top. He used to run a shop in the town centre but it closed when business began to dry up after the opening of the Wheatsheaf Centre. He claimed it was simply because the old people, who were his clients, had passed away and the younger ones didn’t want to have their hair styled by an old codger like him. He heard all the local gripes and opinions in his barber’s chair, however, and used the experience to run as a candidate in the local elections after his shop was forced to close. He only missed out being elected by 26 votes in the end but it didn’t stop him taking part in local affairs because he joined the National Trust immediately and started fundraising to protect sites and buildings in the area. On non–umpiring days, he liked to take leisurely walks and contemplate why his marriage to Sylvia hadn’t worked out.