‘Fella, if I’ve learned one thing over the last few days, it’s that there are no absolutes in life. Nothing is beyond reproach, and to say otherwise is just plain ignorant. We can’t even be sure that this newspaper article is accurate, let alone a story that’s been reinterpreted and refined over two thousand years.’
The young preacher shook his head. ‘The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the true word of God. You need to believe that, my friend, because the world as you know it is beyond hope now. Jesus is your only – and I mean, only – chance of salvation–’
A doughy white sandwich suddenly appeared on the table in front of us. We both looked up to see the moustachioed bulk of the café owner standing over us.
‘That’s the first sensible thing you say all day,’ he rumbled in a thick accent.
‘Excuse me?’ Duncan said in answer to his glare.
‘You say we beyond hope. I say, that is the first sensible thing–’
‘Yes, yes, I know what you said. Do you mean to say that you’ve been listening to our conversation all this time?’
‘Hah!’ The owner waved in the direction of the noisy street. ‘Out there, in here – it hard not to hear what you say, boy.’
Confronted with such familiar animosity, the young preacher regained his fortitude.
‘Well, do you mind?’ he said haughtily. ‘I don’t recall having asked you to join in our conversation.’
‘Don’ get smart with me, huh? You not worried who listen when you stand in street shouting big odds to God. You like little baby, do nothing but cry all day and pump out shit.’
I covered my smiling mouth with the empty cup. For the first time that day I felt my spirits lifting.
‘How much do I owe you, big man?’ I asked, hoping that a change of subject would prevent this from going any further.
‘Two pounds, fifty pence.’
I paid him and looked down at the sandwich. At the sight of the dark meat and oily dough, my guts began to turn. There was no way my body would process that – it was struggling to cope with oxygen. I was almost relieved then, when the café owner railed on Duncan again.
‘What you don’ understand,’ he said, wagging a furry wedge of a finger, ‘is that you part of problem.’
‘Part of …?’ Duncan went to rest his hands on his hips but, realising there was no room, folded them clumsily on the table in front of him. ‘Part of what problem?’
‘Last night, kids come round here, they throw stones.’
‘Children throwing stones?’ Duncan exclaimed and laughed derisively.
I stepped in. ‘Sorry, mate, but how is that his fault?’
‘I tell you, I tell you.’ He waved away my doubts. ‘Last night a bunch of them, they come round here, throw stones, call me terrorist. You know why?’
I shook my head. The preacher remained aloof.
‘’Cause I sell the halal,’ the owner said, and prodded the air above my sandwich.
‘They think ’cause I Muslim, that I terrorist.’
I found it hard to believe that anyone would pick a fight with this guy but then Duncan went and did just that.
‘I fail to see how any of that is my doing. I suggest you take it up with the media before you start on innocent bystanders like me. They are the ones who determine the general public attitude to your…’ he curled his upper lip back, ‘religion.’
I leaned away from the table. What was this kid trying to achieve here? I could only imagine that he was looking to offer himself up as a modern day sacrifice. However, rather than break out his cleaver, the owner simply smiled, turned one of the chairs around, and sat down with his arms folded. His biceps broadened as they pressed against the back of the chair, pushing the nylon of his shirt to tearing point.
He eyed Duncan while he thoughtfully smoothed his thick moustache. Set against his dark, pitted skin, it looked like a scorched strip of bramble in the middle of a burnt out battlefield.
‘You,’ he said at last. ‘You ignorant man. I can see this. But is OK, because I forgive you.’
It was the best possible insult that he could’ve thrown at Duncan. It made him writhe in his seat.
‘I don’t want your–’ Duncan started to say, but the owner turned away before he could finish. Instead he addressed me directly.
‘I come here in nineteen ninety-one,’ he said proudly ‘I come here from Lebanon. Crazy time back then, whole country fall apart. During civil war I lose everything: wife, children, home – all of it… gone. So I say to myself, “Hakim”, I say “Hakim, nothing good can come of this. Is nothing here but memories and bad blood. Is time for change.” So I move to England.’
He wiped an edge of the table and shrugged contemplatively.
‘Life not perfect here, life still hard. But the world not perfect, you know? I not perfect. You not perfect. Understand?’
I made like I did. Hakim nodded and then continued.
‘I learn this young. My book, his book, their book, they say that they divine, that they beyond doubt, but I know that nothing a man touches can ever be so. Christian, Hindu, even Islam is not perfect.’
Duncan muttered something, drawing Hakim’s attention.
‘You know, little man, we have saying in my country. We say, “Is always most ignorant people who cannot admit they do not know.”’
The young preachers eyes flashed. ‘Are you inferring that I am the ignorant party in this conversation?’
‘I am saying your kind are why we have these problems.’
‘My kind? Did you say my kind?’ Duncan was becoming incensed. ‘Just remember, we are not the kind of people who go around killing innocent women and children by blowing ourselves up.’
Again I expected fireworks, but Hakim remained unmoved. He grinned at the preacher.
‘No, your people send missile five hundred miles to do that for you.’
Duncan scowled.
‘You have this all wrong,’ Hakim said. ‘I not insult your religion. This not about who is right, I don’t care who is right. I don’t give shit who exist: Allah, Buddha, Jesus, Brahma… whoever. But I do know that one of them needs to put in appearance – and soon…’ He tapped the table. ‘…because we in trouble.’
Hakim looked at me, his bushy frown lifted for the first time.
‘See?’ he said to me, pointing a hand in Duncan’s direction. ‘No one agrees. No one can prove that they right. Yet even most intelligent men have this belief – this suicidal passion in that what they saying. Is crazy. Men killing themselves just to prove what great believers they are.’
‘I think you’ll find that was a Muslim,’ Duncan said, lifting the paper.
Hakim clenched his fists, but remained calm.
‘Is true; what they do is not right. Sacred texts of Allah say, is wrong to kill women and children in battle, but this country not so different.’ He unholstered the furry wedge of a finger again and waved it, cocked this time, at the young preacher.
‘You not so different.’
Duncan spluttered at the accusation. ‘What, you think I’m the kind of person who would kill innocent people?’
‘Men like you do anything in God’s name, especially when you so sure that you right.’
‘Bloody hell, mate,’ I said, jumping into the fray, ‘that’s a bit strong, don’t you think?’
Hakim shrugged. ‘Why not? I see it before. All it take is bad luck, bad day, bad woman, who knows, huh?’
‘This is absurd,’ Duncan said, rising from his seat, ‘I’m not prepared to listen to this any further.’
For the first time in the conversation Hakim became truly threatening. He pointed the finger at Duncan and then slowly lowered it.
‘You sit down, boy. I not finished with you. Still have question.’
Duncan sat down. His face was full of worry.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘You have children?’
The young preacher thought about his answer for a second. He looked at me.
Then shook his head.
‘No. Can I go now?’
Hakim ignored him and turned his ascetic face to me.
‘You?’
‘One.’
‘I tell you something,’ he said. ‘In forty years, they ever get chance to make children of their own, then that generation will look back at us, at the damage that we make happen and they will hate us – hate us for what we leave to them. We meant to be civilised animals on this planet but we let assholes like him,’ he gored at Duncan, ‘cause all these problems.’
That was enough and the preacher sprang to his feet.
‘So now I’m responsible for the end of the world, am I?’ he said, sounding like the archetypal martyr. ‘Well, I refuse to entertain any more of this. I demand that you allow me to pass.’ Then, having never once looked either of us in the eye, he held out a spear-like arm to indicate his desired route of exit, lowered his head, and charged forward.
He needn’t have worried about Hakim blocking his way. Having said his piece, the big man moved freely to one side so that, in the end, Duncan looked utterly ridiculous as he sliced past.
I watched him scuttle back down onto the street and then I turned back to finish the dregs of my tea. The rim of the cup was just at my lip when the big man turned his attention to me.
‘What you waiting for, huh?’
‘What?’ I replied, as gauchely as a drunkard.
‘Why you not out there with him?’
‘Him? He’s not with me.’
Hakim stroked his moustache again. ‘You together, I see you. Go after him. Talk him round, huh?’
I was in no shape for an argument and I got to my feet. My knees trembled in protest at the all too short respite, but they settled down once I’d taken a few steps. I left Hakim smoking the remains of a short cigar on the edge of his pitch.
*
Back at the traffic lights, I was grateful to find that neither the church nor the law were anywhere to be seen. They were both still around somewhere, I was sure of that, hidden amongst the sandstorm of shoppers that filled the High Street, but they wouldn’t be bothering me anytime soon.
Mixing in with the throng, I crossed over and headed away from Camden. It was time to make tracks again. Where there were crowds there would always be police and the way I figured it, a moving target is more difficult to hit.
I kept an eye open for an Internet café, but one never materialised and soon I found myself in a plush residential zone. The change was immediate and the contrast stark. Gone were the anorexic, pock marked terraced houses with their shallow front gardens full of discarded rubbish, replaced instead by square slabs of expensive chalk white masonry, protected by moats of luscious privet. Looking ahead, I saw the reason.
Regent’s Park.
As someone raised close to the countryside, I generally dislike cities. I’ve always found the way that city dwellers are drawn to their cordoned, artificial and seasonally enhanced pockets of greenery, slightly pathetic. The hordes of sunbathers crammed onto a postage stamp of lawn, all meditating to ignore the police sirens during the summer; the early morning joggers, who run lap after lap around the same dull, polluted track in the hope that the greenery will blur into somewhere else; but worst of all, the tails that spend hours walking their dogs, desperately trying to convince themselves that they are relaxed, when secretly they dread having to handle those inevitable, moist turds through the polythene bags, which they are so afraid to leave the house without. It’s all a bit sad, really.
No, for me, rural areas are far more honest places. I remember when I was a child, I could lose afternoons in nearby woods or walk for miles through fields without ever seeing another soul. Those moments were always so hopeful, so happy. They showed me how good this place can be. I think because they reminded me that there are more important things in the world than people. I don’t wish to come over all Greenpeace, but we tend to forget that.
However, having seen so many other aspects of my youth diluted in the last twenty-four hours, a park was the slightest of compromises. I crossed over and passed through the black iron gates.
I was panting hard at this point. Walking was a real effort, and there was an iceberg wedged between my shoulder blades, keeping me in a constant, trembling state. I fought it, but in the end the seizing cold ground my muscles to a halt. I found a bench, just inside the park, and sank onto it.
Directly opposite me was a busy playground. The boundless delight in the children’s voices was infectious and they were so animated, like little overcharged dynamos, compelled to move around for fear of exploding. I folded my arms around a cigarette and basked in their energy. With a bit of luck some of it might rub off on me.
After I’d crushed three dog ends underfoot I noticed that the parents escorting the children to and fro were predominantly men, and those women who were present seemed uncomfortable to be there.
Then I realised the depressing truth: it was Saturday morning, the axis on which divorced fathers’ world turned. The one time during the week these poor sods had to impart any influence into their future selves. There were no bedtime stories for them, no breakfast table conversations, or impromptu flashes of mutual discovery. All they had was this half day each week to shape their bloodline.
I saw the brave but pained expression with which they pushed, rocked and encouraged, and felt my heart tighten.
How would Amelie react to my disappearance? Badly at first. Any child would. It would be the first time in her life that she truly experienced loss, but I was sure she would bounce back better than most – she was, after all, her mother’s daughter. No, more than that, she was her protégé.
To be frank, in the last six months, the influence that Katharine exerted over Amelie had troubled me. The two of them dressed the same, talked the same (usually down to me) and whenever life failed to deliver what she had very explicitly expected, Amelie would react by exhibiting many of Katherine’s most loathsome characteristics. Disappointment would inevitably lead to jealousy, jealousy to shame, which in turn would lead to blame. And that path always seemed to lead to me.
No, Amelie would be fine. If she remained true to her role model, then obstinacy and cold-blooded practicality would be her response. With the imminent life insurance pay out, I was sure the two of them would soon be back on track. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that the Shill household would ultimately thrive without the influence of their wayward and underachieving father. Give it a year and Amelie would no doubt even have someone else to call Daddy.
What? Was I in any doubt that Katharine would remarry?
None whatsoever. She was a damn good-looking woman. She wouldn’t give the grass a chance to tickle her feet. I’d give her six months before she was laying picture frames facedown in the early hours of the morning.
Perhaps when she was much older Amelie would realise the significance of her father’s tragic death and recognise the effect it had had on her life. She might even seek to understand what kind of man I really was. In that case, I would rather she suffered the gaping, niggling pain of a missing person, than the ignominy of knowing that her father was a murderer.
As if to mirror my dark thoughts, the serenity of my morning was shattered when the full belly of the sky began to grumble. A few seconds later and black spots of rain began blotting the pavement. In the bin alongside me, empty crisp wrappers crackled like a kindling fire.
All at once, the playground let out a collective scream and the fathers, unprepared and out of practice for such a disaster, struggled to put the children back together before racing for the shelter of their nearby cars.
Me? I wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t have the energy to find another seat that was this dry, and with a bit of luck it would just be a shower. I flipped my collar up. Reached for another cigarette.
Why had I given that whiskey away?
‘I cannot fucking believe it,’ I heard someone off to my right say. ‘London’s under attack
and ‘ere we are walkin’ around a zoo!’
I turned to see two soldiers walking towards me. Wearing their dark uniforms and helmets it was hard to distinguish their features, but as they drew nearer I saw that there was at least twenty years between them. It was the youngster who was protesting. He had an elaborate green and black camouflage on his face that must’ve taken him some time to apply.
‘What kind of terrorist is going to target a fuckin’ panda?’ he persisted.
From the frown on his companion’s face, this was not the first time he had heard the complaint.
‘Just give it a rest, Soames, would you? I’m sick of hearing it. Have another fag and try to enjoy the surroundings.’ Then he swept his arm out, as if he were drawing back a curtain and revealing the glories of nature to the youngster for the first time. As he did so his eyes fell on me.
‘I’d love to,’ Soames replied, ‘only I smoked the last one ten minutes–’
An arm fell across the young soldier’s midriff, cutting him short. At first he glowered at the intrusion, but once he saw his companion’s expression he knew that something was wrong. He traced his line of sight to me.
‘Bloody hell,’ Soames said, his eyes widening. ‘It’s ‘im.’
Panic kicked me in the balls.
‘It wasn’t me,’ I yelped, fighting to get back to my feet, but one by one my muscles gave out, sending me collapsing back to the bench in slow motion. Realising I was stranded, I raised my hands in submission.
‘I–I didn’t do it.’
The two soldiers looked baffled
‘Yeah, we know you didn’t,’ the older man replied. ‘We saw. It was that big Arab and his mate.’
‘Big Arab?’
Suddenly it became clear. These were the two soldiers who had helped me up after my fight with Darwish in Hyde Park! I slid down the bench, making no effort to hide my relief.
‘Yeah,’ the younger one piped up, ‘the way they dragged that girl away was fuckin’ disgraceful. If you need any witnesses for the police, we’re your men. Me and Clarkie’ll take that fuckin’ sand nigger out for fun, won’t we, Clarkie, eh?’
Felix Shill Deserves to Die Page 24
