After having spinach and lentils for lunch, which Nadia had kindly left for me to warm up, I drove my Proton to the town centre. The rain had eased off and it had turned into a brash and breezy spring day. The bold, white clouds had gobbled up the grimy ones and fragments of clear blue sky were breaking out an alarming rate. As I looked out of the windscreen onto Spotland Road, I almost wanted to stop the car and grab my umpire’s coat from the boot and call for the start of play. It was that kind of zippy, zesty afternoon: a seam bowler would have loved to run in and extracted some joy from the pitch. But I was more distracted by the two teenagers standing outside Lucky Fish Bar, shovelling chips and gravy into their mouths from their mountainous plastic white trays. One was also consuming a can of Fosters while pivoting the tray of chips into his mouth with the other hand. Opposite them, on the other side of Spotland Road, there were three young worshippers on their way to the Golden Mosque, for afternoon prayers. One of them couldn’t control his wavy grey shalwar kameez and nearly took off like an elderly comrade on the seafront. All these wandering boys had one thing in common: they weren’t attending school, college or work. I glanced in the rear–view mirror, out of curiosity, and imagined the chip–eating boys having flasks in their hands while heading down to Turner Brothers for a shift. Equally, I hoped the Muslim boys had somehow morphed into fashion designers with nifty sunglasses, shiny shoes and colourful shirts. Alas, none of it came true and instead I saw the Fosters can flying across the road to the other side – in whose direction, I wasn’t sure.
I got into the town centre and parked my Proton opposite the library. I walked up Yorkshire Street with four targets in mind: money, a new pair of sandals, a couple of books and a shoulder bag. It was a good test for the harsh, rugged terrain of Iraq. I knew Skipton Building Society was right at the top of the slope so getting there and back would give me a good indication of my strength, stamina and quality of breathing. As expected, getting there wasn’t a problem but the trip back down was more challenging: the feet hit the ground hard and I gasped for breath just outside Littlewoods. This may have been more to do with the strenuous task of showing multiple ID to a woman at Skipton Building Society who eventually let me withdraw £30,000 but not without some funny looks and a devastating line. ‘You’re doing well,’ she said, ‘but that’s the saddest face I’ve ever seen’. She was pleasant enough – a short, stumpy woman with long brown hair and an orange hair clip – but her words stung. Had I become so gloomy and sad that other people were now clocking it too? Why didn’t Nadia tell me? Yes, my health was failing and I didn’t have any friends or pastimes to speak of but I prided myself on perking up whenever I was involved in any community interaction. The Skipton woman was wrong. She wound me up so much that I couldn’t wait to get out of the town centre. When I got back in the car again, I examined my face in the rear–view mirror and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t as sad as she was making out. It was the corrosive curse of Turner Brothers.
I needed cheering up so I drove all the way to Newhey and walked into Romida Sports shop for a little treat. After a short, afternoon browse, I bought a white Slazenger sun hat, a Kwik Cricket set with plastic blue wickets, a blue cricket bat and a rubber red ball. As I handed over the money, my mind wandered to the Gunn and Moore cricket bat I’d bought for Wasim which he hardly ever used but ended up as an exhibit in a court case. One of Wasim’s friends had used it to attack a taunting teenager on Lenny Barn and the flashing blade was never seen again. I wondered if the court kept hold of those things. Perhaps, the judge took it home with him and played with it on his lawn.
It had been a productive afternoon and I felt an incredible sense of achievement when I got home: I had bought everything I needed – plus a few goodies – and managed to nip back in before Elisha came back from school. I went straight upstairs into Wasim’s bedroom and got changed. I looked at his Islamic map on the wall and felt a curious sense of envy that he’d already travelled to a country like Iraq at the age of 22. At a similar age, I was drinking lassi from a metal cup in a Faisalabad chapatti hut as I failed to come to terms with the news my father had died of pneumonia after a particularly harsh Kashmiri winter. I travelled home immediately but my mother blamed me for leaving home in the first place. The quest for work always comes at a price. England too, was a difficult decision for her to take but the right one. Now, I had to take another leap of faith – into a different country and a different world. I walked up to the map and slowly took it off the wall. One of the pieces of Blu–Tack was stuck to the back corner of the map and wouldn’t come off so I left it. I folded up the map and put it neatly into my new bag. I got into bed and prepared for my afternoon nap. I felt hopeful and relaxed for the first time in five years. I felt Fareeda was by my side. Goodbye asbestosis; goodbye Turner Brothers.
3.
I only started thinking about the words about half an hour into the Austrian Airlines flight to Erbil. I had been locked in the toilet for most of that time because my throat–clearing mechanism since take–off from Vienna had failed and become an embarrassing vocal tic. The throat–clearing was a persistent problem and it became one part of the Bermuda Triangle, as I like to put it, with swallowing and hushed breathing making up the other points. If I didn’t swallow enough, I breathed too fast; if I breathed too fast, I couldn’t clear my throat and so on until all three disciplines were so out of synch that there was a ‘trapped’ feeling from which there was no escape. But as I stooped over the tiny sink, with the grinding whirr of the engines popping and piercing my ears, I had second thoughts about the note to Nadia. Was it the right thing to do? Did I choose the right words? I had left the note in a white envelope in her bedroom before walking to the bus station to catch the bus into Manchester. I could have taken a taxi straight to the airport but some drivers knew me so it was better not to take the risk. But it was the tone of the note that was literally hurting my head. Was it too arrogant? Was it too short, too long? Was a search party already out looking for me? Were they on this plane dressed like US air marshals looking for an Al-Qaida operative? I came to the conclusion the words were all wrong: I should have written more. I should have been more upfront with the daughter who’d done so much for me.
Nadia, don’t worry about me. I’ll be back soon – with Wasim.
I poured water over my face and wondered how I’d become so wound up in a matter of minutes. The words were puny compared to the size of the task. I took hours over the note and rewrote it a couple of times. Everything before then had gone so smoothly: the knockdown sale of my Proton to Mushy Khan at his garage in Primrose Street; the nostalgic conversation with the cab driver, Frank, from the bus station to the airport about his daughter’s tour of Afghanistan; the quick, efficient check–in at the airport in Vienna; the short, soothing wait at the airport lounge with its extraordinary giant red flowers painted on the sky–blue walls; the colourful interior of the plane with its yellow, red and white serviettes draped over the back of the dark green seats; and finally and most beautifully, the elegant stewardesses in their all red suits and red shoes adding a touch of style with their snappy neck scarfs. It was all so easy and relaxed, I thought, and I’d be sleeping in my Kurdistan hotel in no time. But as I undid the lock and walked back down the tight aisle, my breathing was reaching a rapid rate and the lack of mucus from my throat was always an indication I was in for a rough ride. I had to get busy and try to do something. So I awkwardly took my seat and reached into my shoulder bag for my Parker pen and hardback A5 notebook. A fresh note to Nadia would keep me occupied as well as purge the guilt I was feeling. I looked around before I opened the notebook and acknowledged the extremely slim man across the aisle who had spoken to me as we boarded. He had dimples, curtain–style hair and was wearing brown corduroy trousers that were slightly too big for him. He told me he was a Kurd and he was going back home after attending the London Kurdish Film Festival. He was a camera operator and decided to stay in London for a few months afterwards to ‘shoot
some cute stuff’. He winked at me while doing a ‘click–click’ sound through the side of his mouth and I nodded in acknowledgement. Somehow, the man’s Polaroid moment loosened my throat and led to an extremely important ball of mucus emptying into the sick bag. I felt so much better. It didn’t help my writing, however. A few minutes later all I had done was click the top of the blue–halved Parker a few times rather than get anything onto the page. I looked up over my seat and saw a stewardess walking down the aisle. I lowered my head, expecting her to walk past, but she stopped right by my side.
‘Entschuldigung…’ she whispered, bending down with surprising agility despite her red tights and her tightly–worn blue neck scarf.
‘Sorry, I speak English…’
‘My apologies,’ she said, smiling and looking over her shoulder as a passenger brushed past her. She looked at me again with a more downbeat expression. ‘Have you taken a drink, sir? The walk back to your seat was a little shaky.’
‘No, I have a condition. I’d rather not go into it.’
‘You have pills?’
I shook my head. I didn’t say anything else because I had a strange thought I could be bundled off the plane and quarantined in some extraordinary rendition procedure where US soldiers poked my lungs with a baseball bat.
The stewardess nodded and stood upright again. ‘I understand sir, if you need help, just give me a call. Don’t be shy.’
I nodded and she eventually walked away. I felt slighted. I’d never had a drink in my life and she had the audacity to say I’d been tippling when I had asbestosis? I took it as a sign of the times: everyone poked into everyone else’s business. The last time I got on a plane, in 1967, no–one hassled me from Islamabad to Heathrow: I was the one asking all the questions. To be fair, the point about drinking might not have been technically true because I did sit in the Woolpack Inn five years later when Pete Blacker and Colin Shawclough urged me to join them after work – and I did try a half pint of Guinness after a lot of persuading. But I didn’t like it and felt I was being pushed into it. Len also repeatedly tried to get me down to the Owd Betts, in Edenfield Road, after a match but, again, I declined. I never felt part of that world.
I picked up my pen and prepared to start writing again but kept my eye on the nitpicking stewardess who was chatting to a well–dressed gentleman at the front of the plane. If I was slighted by what she’d said how would I cope if insurgents or Americans waved a gun in my face? They wouldn’t think twice about knocking off an old–timer roaming their territory. I had to try to put my illness in perspective because I was going to a place where almost everyone was ill. I looked down at the blank page and decided there was nothing to say. Nadia would do the right thing. I placed the notebook on the empty seat next to me and crossed my hands. Half an hour went by and I eventually fell asleep. I didn’t wake up again until we reached Iraqi Kurdistan.
I looked at my watch as soon as I stepped out of the airport. It was nearly 3pm and there was a sense of exhilaration of being somewhere important even if the low, flat airport building was smaller than I expected. The red, green and white Kurdistani flag flew proudly from the top of the brown and white building while a brash, scorching sun burst through the three colours to compensate for the hazy one trying to break out of the silver blue sky. I stood outside for five minutes not knowing what to do. There were no fleet of taxis waiting to take passengers away and I was getting some strange looks from the security men who may have been Pashmerga soldiers, policemen or just plain security heavies who liked gawping at foreigners. But how did they know I was a foreigner? I thought I blended in well. I could have passed for Kurdish or Iraqi easily – as long as I didn’t open my mouth too much. Eventually, a man in a snappy black suit, embedded sunglasses and an earpiece approached and wanted to see my ID and visa which I provided. He asked me a few questions about the ‘nature’ of my business and then directed me to ‘a free bus’ which would take me to a fleet of taxis in about five minutes. Even though it was nerve–racking, I felt better for the exchange. It gave me confidence that I would blend into the surroundings and not stand out too much – as long as I could keep my coughing under control. Within ten minutes, my luggage was being put in a taxi driver’s boot and I was on my way, hopefully to stay in a luxurious hotel bed for the first time in my life. The taxi driver, called Azaad, was wearing a baggy black t–shirt, dark blue Tacchini tracksuit bottoms and brown sandals but may have regretted his flimsy attire because my Kwik Cricket gear bulged out of the suitcase and grazed his knee. But he shrugged it off admirably and wanted to get going as quick as possible. His white taxi with a dash of orange on its wings had a dent on its bonnet which spoiled it somewhat. I got in the car and Azaad had his car radio on very loud indeed. The fuzzy reception pierced through my head for that mild, sickly feeling that always preceded a migraine. There was a small household generator plonked on the fur–covered back seat and I leaned on it with my elbow. I tried to tell him where I was heading but he raised his hand, asking me to wait. The cheeky bugger, I thought, hadn’t he heard of the ‘customer is always right’ line? To compound matters, he started to move off.
‘I’m going to the Erbil International Hotel,’ I said.
He raised his hand again and listened to the radio more intently.
‘Are you listening?’
There was a pause in the radio broadcast. Azaad turned down the radio and grabbed his t–shirt delicately with his forefinger and thumb, blowing down it for some much–needed air. He then glanced over his shoulder and smiled.
‘It’s my son, sir, I’m sorry, I get very emotional. It’s his first broadcast on Radio Lawan. It’s our first youth radio station in Kurdistan. Where did you say? The International, yes?’
I nodded. I was pleased that he’d turned the radio down because I knew at some stage I would have to make some contact with people who knew their way around. I looked out of the window at the swathes of bare green grass dissected by criss–crossing dirt tracks and was surprised to see the sheer number of scaffolding and high–rise buildings under construction. I had to pinch myself to think I was in Erbil and not Dubai (even though I’d never been there). But there was no point in looking out of the window thinking about the future, now was the time to capitalise on the cabbie’s emotions.
‘I need to go to Baghdad,’ I said. ‘How much do you need?’
I watched him blow his cheeks and rub the back of his neck. He looked astonished. I pulled out Wasim’s letter from my trouser pocket and reminded myself about the name of his group. ‘I need to find a group called the…Iraqi Khalifa Brigades. Will you help me? My grandson is with them. As a father, I’m sure you’ll understand…’
I regretted letting it out so early. I felt like a kerb–crawler demanding a service for any price. And worse, my chest became painful every time I felt exasperated or was involved in a feisty exchange of views. So I stopped and chose to stay quiet for a few minutes. The car was slowing down as we approached a checkpoint and I could see Azaad staring at me in his rear–view mirror. His arresting green eyes and coal–black stubble put the wind up me. What did he think of me? Did he think I was a naïve old fart for entering a war zone thinking I could find my grandson with a click of the fingers? I didn’t think I created a great impression. My elbow slipped off the harsh metal generator so I crossed my hands. I watched him as he wound down the window and talked to the guard at the checkpoint. They spoke for a few seconds and then the guard waved us through. Azaad drove off and looked at me intensely again in the rear–view mirror.
‘You’re breathing fast,’ he said. ‘Are you ill? You need a doctor?’
I felt paralysed by the question. I wanted so much to tell him but I didn’t know him well enough at this stage. The doctors, over here, probably had enough on their plate.
‘I’m fine,’ I said, clearing my throat. ‘What about you and your family? Do you have other children?’
He nodded. He was hesitant at first but then said he had a teena
ge girl who he didn’t really want to talk about. He claimed he was only driving taxis because he couldn’t afford to keep his electronics shop running in the town centre: the rent had jumped up from $400 to more than $600 in a year and he had to shut it down (I wondered why he kept talking dollars rather than dinars but later realised dollars were accepted here too). But he didn’t want to talk about his old shop too much. Instead, he wanted to tell me about Sayid’s involvement in Radio Lawan. He was a sound editor and helped build the radio station in just 25 days. It was a joint project with a Swedish radio station. The only down side for Azaad was that his son wanted to go to Stockholm and study there. It was out of the question, said Azaad, he wanted his 22–year–old son to stay in Kurdistan and help build the institutions and infrastructure. Azaad was on a roll and I was happy to let him talk until we got to the hotel. I could feel myself nodding off anyway.
He got to the hotel quicker than I expected. I was pleased that he’d finally warmed to me but I wondered if that was more to do with my condition or age. I looked out of the window and felt energised by the shimmering Erbil International Hotel with its ten–storey steel and glass building plonked on top of a solid brown structure. I knew it had a pool, a sauna, tennis court and a gym. It was a long way from the Seven Sisters in Rochdale, I thought. Azaad kept the engine running and asked if I had any dollars. I didn’t so he asked for 5,000 dinars which I thought was pretty cheap. He got out of the taxi and ran towards the boot. I waited for a moment and eyed up the front entrance of the hotel: it looked intimidating and daunting. There was a class of people going in there I wasn’t used to: suited men in expensive ties, stylish women in scarves, clean–shaven men in flip–flops and shades; I felt underdressed in my blue short–sleeved shirt, white woolly sweater and beige trousers. Would I stand out? Would they laugh at what I was wearing? And when I began coughing and spluttering, what then? Surely they’d gang up on me and have me carted out on the grounds of being a nuisance and a sick old man. I was mulling over these issues when Azaad abruptly flung open the back door. He had a mobile to his ear and stepped back a little, shifting the suitcase away from the door with his foot. I stepped out of the car and prepared for the short walk to the hotel. Azaad raised his hand, ordering me to wait. He carried on talking so I looked around at the people in the streets: the boy in a luminous yellow Barcelona shirt; the ancient man in the tweed blazer and flowing robe; the pale–faced woman smoking with a rolled–up magazine under her arm and the diplomat getting out of his blacked–out limousine followed by his granite–jawed bodyguards. But, in particular, a family, probably from South Korea (I remember watching the 2002 football World Cup) caught my eye. They were dressed in ‘traditional’ Muslim clothing and had their toddler between them taking painfully slow steps. The man was in a brown robe, white hat and black v–neck sweater while the woman was in a light blue jilbab and wore thick– rimmed glasses. Very traditional – but what was the boy wearing? A grey baseball jersey with Detroit splashed across the front and sunglasses which were falling off his nose. It was comforting to discover the generation gap wasn’t solely confined to Rochdale.
A Fistful of Dust Page 4
