East of Wimbledon Read online

  ‘Indeed,’ said Robert.

  Robert had been to Oxford. He had been there for the day in 1987. It had seemed a nice place.

  ‘I read classics,’ he said, trying to remember whether that was what he had said in the application, ‘and I was lucky enough to get a first-class degree.’

  This seemed to go down quite well.

  Robert had noticed quite early in life that people tended to believe what you told them. Even people who were professionally suspicious – lawyers, policemen and certain kinds of teacher – were never suspicious about the right things. The only difficulty was remembering what you had said about yourself, and to whom. Only the other day a neighbour had asked him how the viola recitals were going, and there was an elderly man in the village who still insisted in talking to him in Polish.

  ‘Oh God, yes,’ said Mr Malik with some enthusiasm, ‘the classics! Virgil. Homer. Horace. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Longfellow.’

  He was heading back towards the school. Just to the right of the back door Robert noticed four or five battered wooden desks, piled crazily on top of one another. Malik waved at them. He seemed to feel that they spoke for themselves. As they went back into the hall, he said, ‘Do you have a blue?’

  A blue what? thought Robert.

  Malik’s eyes narrowed.

  Robert considered a moment, then said swiftly, ‘Cricket. Rugby football.’

  ‘Well, Wilson,’ said Mr Malik, ‘we will take up references, of course. But I think we may well find ourselves working together at the beginning of the first term. I like the cut of your jib!’

  ‘Well, Mr Malik,’ said Robert, ‘I like the cut of your jib!’

  ‘Yes indeed,’ said the headmaster – ‘it is not a bad jib!’

  He went, with some solemnity, to a cupboard next to the door leading to the smallest of the classrooms. ‘You will work here,’ he said – ‘with the very small boys.’ From one of the shelves he took a small, leatherbound volume. With some ceremony he handed it to Robert. ‘You will have a copy of this, of course,’ he said, ‘but I offer it as a gift. I will be in touch as regards our terms of employment.’

  He stared deep into Robert’s eyes.

  ‘Payment is on a cash basis,’ he said. ‘I like you, Wilson. I want to work with you!’

  He put his hand on Robert’s arm and pushed his face so close that their noses were almost touching. ‘I think you have a good attitude!’ he said throatily.

  Then he went to the door, flung it open and sent Robert out into the glare of the August afternoon.

  It was not until he was at the door of the Frog and Ferret that Robert looked at his present. It was an edition of the Koran, translated by N. J. Dawood. Slipping it under his jacket, he walked up to the bar and ordered a large whisky.

  2

  He had got it out and was looking at it furtively when Mr Malik walked in and glared fiercely around. Robert shrank behind a pillar, and, to his relief, the headmaster did not appear to have seen him. He watched, as the headmaster strode up to the bar, tapped it imperiously with the edge of a fifty-pence piece, and said, in a loud, clear voice, ‘A pint of Perrier water, if you please!’

  The barman unwound himself from his stool and walked over to his customer. He muttered something, and Malik, addressing his reply to the whole pub, said, ‘A pint. A bottle. Whatever. I am parched!’

  Robert drained his whisky and shrank down into his chair. As soon as Malik turned back to the bar, he would make a run for it. Did he have a peppermint about his person?

  No.

  Malik gave no sign of turning back to the bar. He had the same, grand proprietorial attitude to the Frog and Ferret as he did to the Wimbledon Islamic Day Boys’ Independent School. ‘My mouth,’ he said fruitily to the assembled company, ‘is as dry as a camel’s arse!’

  No one seemed very interested in this. Robert recognized Vera ‘Got All the Things There’ Loomis over in the corner, smacking her lips over a glass of Guinness. Over by the window was Norbert Coveney, the brother of the man who had died in the Rush poisoning case three years ago. He did not seem pleased to see Mr Malik. The barman poured two bottles of Perrier into a pint glass, with almost offensive slowness.

  Malik eyed him hungrily and then, with a theatrical flourish, turned back to the almost deserted pub. ‘Give a poor wog a drink, for Christ’s sake!’

  The inmates of the Frog and Ferret did not respond to this. Although, thought Robert, from the look of them they would not have been much impressed had Malik yanked out his chopper and laid it on the bar as a testament of his good faith. Standing by the door with a pint of porter in his hand was Lewis Wansell, the downwardly mobile dentist, popularly known as ‘Die Screaming in Southfields’. ‘They work all hours,’ he was saying, to no one in particular. ‘They come here and they work all hours. What chance do we have?’

  The headmaster turned his back on the company, applied his lips to the edge of the glass, and sucked up his mineral water.

  Robert rose and started to tiptoe towards the door. ‘Hey,’ said a voice behind him, ‘you forgot your book!’

  Mr Malik turned round just as Robert got to his table. Robert, wondering whether it was a punishable offence to bring the Koran on to licensed premises – let alone leave it there – scooped up the volume and walked towards his new headmaster. He ducked his head as he did this, widened his eyes, and flung open his arms. This was intended to convey surprise, delight and a dash of Muslim fellow-feeling. As it was, he felt, he gave the impression of having designs on Mr Malik.

  ‘We meet again,’ he said.

  Mr Malik did not smile. He nodded briefly. ‘Indeed.’

  Robert held the Koran up to his face when he got within breathing distance. The sweet, heavy smell of the whisky climbed back up his nostrils.

  ‘I’m always leaving this in pubs,’ he said, waving the sacred book, rather feebly.

  This was not what he had meant to say at all.

  ‘I mean,’ he went on desperately, ‘quite often, in the past . . . I . . . er . . . have left it in pubs. In the hope that people will . . . er . . . pick it up and . . . read it. Rather like the Bible.’

  ‘Do people leave the Bible in pubs?’ said Mr Malik, in tones of some surprise.

  ‘They leave it in hotels,’ said Robert – ‘the Gideons leave it in hotel bedrooms. And I shouldn’t be surprised if they left it in pubs. Or even carried it round and sold it. Like the Salvation Army magazine.’

  The headmaster was looking at him oddly. Why, having made a mistake, was he busy elaborating on it? Then Mr Malik said, ‘Have a drink, Wilson, for God’s sake. We are friends, for God’s sake. Have a pint, my dear man! Have a pint of beer!’

  This offer surprised Robert considerably. As far as he was aware, this was not the kind of thing devout Muslims were supposed to say to each other. Perhaps it was a trap.

  ‘Just a Perrier for me,’ he said, rather primly.

  Malik winked broadly at him. ‘Righteousness,’ he said, ‘does not consist in whether you face towards the East or the West. I myself am having a bottle of Special Brew.’

  Robert coughed. If this was a trap, it was a carefully prepared one. Once you had said you were a Muslim, could they do what they liked with you? Was it a case of one sip of Young’s Special and there you were – being stoned to death in the High Street?

  ‘Just the water please, Headmaster,’ he said. Mr Malik gave a broad and unexpected smile. It gave him the appearance, briefly, of a baby who has just completed a successful belch. ‘Headmaster!’ he said. ‘That is what I am!’

  He snapped his fingers. The barman gave him a contemptuous look and ambled off in the other direction. A small, leathery-faced man was waving a five-pound note at him from the other end of the bar.

  ‘They serve the regulars first . . .’ said Robert.

  ‘They serve the white chaps first,’ said Mr Malik – ‘and who can blame them?’

  The barman finished serving the leathery-faced man. He gave Mr
Malik a measured stare. He looked at the headmaster as if he was an item he was trying to price for a jumble sale. After a while he walked back towards them.

  ‘A Special Brew, a Perrier water and a large Scotch for my friend,’ said Mr Malik.

  Robert gulped.

  ‘Isn’t that what you were drinking, old boy?’ said Malik.

  ‘I was . . .’

  How did he know this? Had he made a special study of infidels’ drinking habits?

  The headmaster was looking up at the mirror above the bar. Robert followed the direction of his gaze. He found himself looking at the reflection of a man in a shabby blue suit, who was peering into the pub from the street. Apart from the fact that he had chosen not to wear a tea towel on his head, he bore a sensationally close resemblance to Yasser Arafat. Behind him, in a slightly less shabby blue suit, was a man who looked like a more or less exact replica of Saddam Hussein. Both men had two or three days’ growth of stubble on them, and both were wearing dark glasses. This could explain why they seemed to be having trouble making out what was going on in the interior of the Frog and Ferret.

  Both men seemed to be hobbling slightly. Perhaps, thought Robert, as they pressed their noses to the glass, they had been involved in some industrial accident. They looked as if they had been working together, for years, on the same, grim production line.

  Their effect on Mr Malik was profound. He looked like a man who has just opened a packet of cornflakes and been greeted by a Gaboon viper. Ignoring the barman, he reached out for Robert and squeezed his forearm. Without turning his head, he said, grimly, ‘Well, the Wimbledon Dharjees are upon us.’ He carefully knitted a crease into his forehead. ‘And not, I fear, the best type of Dharjee!’

  Robert wondered whether the two men were brothers and this was their surname. Wasn’t a dharjee something you ate, like a bhajji or a samosa?

  Mr Malik started to move away along the bar, keeping his face, as far as possible, away from the visitors.

  ‘Hey!’ called the barman.

  ‘Gentlemen’s lavatory,’ hissed Malik. And before anyone had time to question him further he was gone, moving with surprising speed for a man of his size.

  Just as he left, the two men opened the door and started to hobble their way towards the centre of the room. It was only now that Robert was able to see what was making them limp: both were wearing odd shoes. Robert’s first thought was that this might reflect some kind of financial crisis in the immigrant community in Wimbledon. But then he noticed that each of them, on his right foot, was wearing what looked like a slipper. Not only that. As they moved into the pub they both stopped from time to time and wriggled their right feet anxiously. Did they suffer from some form of verruca, some ghastly mange that affected only the toes of the right feet?

  When they reached the bar, the man without the tea towel on his head pushed up his glasses and peered round. He had small watery eyes. With his glasses on his forehead you got to see more of his nose. Yasser Arafat, Robert decided, was better looking.

  ‘Can I get you anything, gents?’

  Yasser Arafat sneered. The barman sneered back. Then both men came over to where Robert was standing.

  ‘A beer? A glass of wine?’

  Both men ignored the offer of service. This was more or less the reverse of the usual situation in the pub. The barman screwed up his face into a tight ball. With a shock, Robert realized he was trying to smile.

  ‘A soft drink of some kind?’

  Saddam Hussein leaned his elbows on the bar and, looking sideways at Robert, said, ‘I see you know the man called Malik. The big man. We know his business. He teaches here in Wimbledon.’

  His appearance and delivery gave the impression that he had got this information from some oasis a few hundred miles south of Agadir. It suggested, too, that he was not looking for the headmaster of the Wimbledon Islamic Boys’ Day Independent School in order to offer him a low interest mortgage or a new kind of double glazing.

  Robert decided to reply cautiously. ‘Is he,’ he said, ‘a friend of yours?’

  This seemed to amuse Yasser Arafat. ‘Malik,’ he said crisply, ‘is a slug and a blasphemer!’

  His friend leaned his head over his shoulder and cleared his throat loudly. The barman’s mouth dropped a notch and he started to ask, in hostile tones, whether both men breezed into their own living-rooms without buying a drink.

  ‘He is,’ said his companion, ‘excrement.’

  This seemed a little harsh to Robert. There was, he had to admit, something not entirely trustworthy about the headmaster, but to call him ‘excrement’ was, surely, to overstate the case.

  ‘He is,’ said the man without a tea towel on his head, ‘the vomit of a dog!’

  For a moment Robert thought Saddam Hussein was going to spit on the floor. But his eye had been taken by the book, now lying on the counter of the bar. He looked at it suspiciously. ‘What is this?’ he said.

  Robert coughed. ‘It’s the . . . er . . . Koran.’

  They did not seem impressed. Perhaps he had not pronounced the word correctly.

  ‘I haven’t actually . . . er . . . read it yet,’ he went on, brightly, ‘but I intend to in the very near future.’

  He had rather hoped that the book might provide a talkingpoint. But, if anything, its presence seemed to intensify the men’s suspicion of him. He did not feel it prudent to tell them that he had just embraced the Muslim faith, partly because he was not sure that they were Muslims and partly because he was afraid they might ask him what he was doing with a large whisky and a bottle of Special Brew. Robert’s voice died away.

  ‘This is the Koran?’ said the man who looked like Yasser Arafat.

  ‘It is indeed!’ These men, Robert decided, could not possibly be Muslims. Muslims would, surely, have felt the need to express some enthusiasm at finding an English punter leafing through it. ‘And from everything I hear it’s quite a book. It’s had enormous . . . er . . . influence . . .’

  It was fairly obvious that he was telling them nothing new. In fact they were looking at Robert, as people tended to do, as if he had some satirical intent.

  The man without a tea towel on his head reached forward and touched the book with his index finger. He withdrew it very quickly, as if the volume carried some electrical charge. ‘I have learned this book by heart,’ he said.

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Robert, ‘why did you do that?’

  This was obviously the wrong thing to say.

  ‘He carries it in his heart,’ replied the second man, ‘and he speaks its truth to all who will listen. To those who will not listen he does not speak.’

  ‘Very sensible,’ said Robert.

  ‘He cuts them as he would slit the throat of a chicken.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Robert, ‘fair enough!’

  Malik seemed to be spending a long time in the lavatory.

  The barman seemed now almost pathetically anxious to please the new arrivals. He was rubbing his hands and smirking. It was clear to Robert that the best way of getting service out of him was to look as if you were about to gob on the floor. He seemed to be trying, not at all successfully, to attract their attention.

  ‘This is what one day will be done to Malik and those he serves!’ said Saddam Hussein. ‘He will be dragged in the dust and he will be pierced with knives. This will happen to those who serve him also.’

  Perhaps, thought Robert, these men were from the Merton Education Authority. There was a clattering sound from out by the gentlemen’s lavatory.

  ‘You know him?’ said the man without a tea towel on his head.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t. Not know exactly . . .’ said Robert.

  ‘I think you do,’ said Saddam Hussein. ‘I think you will be a teacher at the Islamic School. I think you are Wilson. I think you live in Wimbledon Park Road. I think you are a hypocrite Muslim!’

  News certainly travelled fast, thought Robert. He had only sent the application in on Monday. How could they
possibly know these things?

  ‘We have read your application,’ went on Saddam, ‘and we know about your sports abilities. But we do not think you write like a true believer!’

  ‘It will be a school for pigs and blasphemers,’ went on his friend, ‘and all who teach in it will die.’

  ‘We are all going to die,’ said Robert, as cheerfully as he could.

  ‘Tell your friend,’ said Saddam Hussein, ‘that we are watching him. And we will watch you also.’

  ‘OK,’ said Robert.

  ‘And tell him,’ the man went on, ‘that we have something that will make him and his friends ashamed to face the daylight. Something that, when our people read it, will make him and his friends crawl through the dung!’

  Robert tried to keep very still. The man’s face was now pressed closely into his. He smelt sweet and musky. I should probably investigate alternative ways of making a living as soon as possible, thought Robert.

  ‘When the time comes,’ the man was saying, ‘we shall distribute this among our people. They will read and understand. And then, when the time of his Occultation is over, the Imam will come to us.’

  The man who should have had the tea towel on his head was rummaging in his jacket pocket. It occurred to Robert that he might be looking for a gun.

  Eventually the man pulled out a small parcel and set it on the bar, a few inches from Robert’s copy of the Koran. He looked into Robert’s eyes. ‘When you see Malik, give him this box. Let him read and understand that he will die. And that all who serve him will die. And that the staff and pupils of the Wimbledon Islamic Independent Boys’ Day School will burn in hell-fire when the day comes. And we know the day, my friend! It is coming!’

  Robert was about to protest, once again, that he had only just met Mr Malik. But these men seemed worryingly well informed about aspects of his life about which even he was vague.

  The first man made a complex, guttural sound and pushed the box towards him. Robert picked it up. It was wrapped in green paper. ‘If I see him,’ he said, ‘I’ll do that.’