A Fistful of Dust

by Nasser Hashmi

  Ayesha sighed and put the tray down on the floor next to me. She looked at Abbie and then bent down by my side. My coughing had been reduced to murmuring levels but I still felt a tingling discomfort across my neck and chest. She kneeled over me and put her hand behind my neck to help me up. I put my hand on her shoulder and eventually got up and looked around. She stroked my back and then reached across to pick up a teacup. She slowly handed it to me and I took it with both hands. I raised it up to my trembling jaw and took a sip. It was the most beautiful cup of tea I’d ever tasted.

  I spent at least an half an hour cleaning myself up in the toilet. I panicked when I realised I only had three clean pairs of Burton checked trunks left and knew I had to use them sparingly if I was to get through the rest of the trip. The thought of asking Ayesha about my washing did cross my mind but I figured I wouldn’t be here much longer so it wasn’t worthwhile. I didn’t feel embarrassed by my incontinence; far from it. It had saved me from a prolonged session with the good doctor and his assistants. If I told them straight that I had asbestosis would it have changed their behaviour? Probably not because the vocal tics and throat–clearing were unusual and could be seen as part of a different kind of illness; more psychological and, in their eyes, demonic.

  Ayesha had helped me to the toilet but now I could hear her soft, measured voice, in the nearby bedroom. She was trying to mediate while Wasim and Abbie argued in a vociferous, unfocused manner. Their disturbing conversation quickened my heart rate and got my bladder aggravated again, which was annoying. So I quickly stuffed the three–pack of Burton underwear back in my bag and did a few windmills of my arms to unstiffen my shoulders. I zipped up my bag and left the toilet. I stood in the corridor for a few minutes and hesitated, listening to Abbie giving Wasim a fearful lecture about ‘teamwork and sacrifice’. But I’d heard enough – these youngsters needed an old head to put them straight – so I walked down the corridor and breezed into the bedroom without giving it a second thought. They stopped talking as soon as I walked in. Ayesha was sat on the bed, Abbie was lying on it and Wasim was standing up a few yards away. Abbie and Ayesha stared at me but Wasim turned his back.

  ‘We’re going home now,’ I said. ‘Come on Wasim.’

  ‘Get him out of my country,’ said Abbie. ‘He’s failed the group.’

  Wasim turned and gave Abbie a fearful, scowling look. ‘You’re the one’s who failed, you twat. She wants to marry me, not you.’

  Abbie sprung up off the bed and headed towards Wasim. He whipped off his keffiyah and gripped it tightly in his hand. Ayesha tried to stop him but he shrugged her off. Abbie stopped a couple of feet away from Wasim and flicked the keffiyah into his face. Wasim flinched but managed to avoid it.

  ‘Stop it, you idiots,’ I said, walking briskly towards the two men. ‘This is not the solution.’

  Abbie laughed and stepped back. He placed the keffiyah round his neck and sat down next to Ayesha who was looking down at the floor. He tried to prop her chin up with his hand but she brushed him off and continued to look down.

  ‘I would get him out of here quickly,’ said Abbie. ‘If the men find out about his dirty intentions, they will not spare him.’

  ‘You’re the dirty bastard,’ said Wasim, aggressively trying to push me away and get at Abbie. ‘And I’m not going anywhere without her.’

  Ayesha tutted and suddenly got up. She headed for the door and walked out of the room.

  ‘He was in the kitchen with her while we were eating,’ said Abbie. ‘Ask him, old man! He was doing all kinds of things.’

  Wasim was incensed and managed to push me away. He launched at Abdullah and pushed him back onto the bed. Both men grappled with each other and Abudullah was nearly pushed off the side of the bed as Wasim gained a slight advantage. I watched on in horror, confused about my next move. I didn’t have the strength to intervene and wondered whether I should chase after Ayesha and bring her back. But then it hit me. I looked down at my bag and unzipped it as fast as my trembling hands would allow. I pulled out the Kwik Cricket bat and held it in my hands to get a good grip. I took a deep breath and looked at the two boys rolling around on the bed. I raised my bat as far back as possible over the shoulders – like the best golfer – and headed towards the idiots with all my might.

  ‘STOP OR I’LL HIT YOU FOR SIX.’

  Abdullah saw me coming from the corner of his eye and pushed Wasim away. Wasim fell onto the floor and his head nearly hit the wall. Abdullah raised his palms but I continued to hold my bat over my head: it was the only follow through of the day that really mattered. I wanted to hit his grinning face but gradually my sense of cordiality and compromise took over and I slowly withdrew the plastic bat. I knew, at that moment, there was only one way to solve all these issues: by stepping outside and being a force for good.

  9.

  Two bloaty pancakes and a cup of extra strong tea gave me stomach cramps in the morning but the food was a necessary sacrifice to get the group indoctrinated. After the greasy breakfast, I stood up and demonstrated a few cover drives in the main room while Wasim delivered the ball underarm. Wasim hadn’t spoken to me since I had threatened carnage with the bat but I didn’t care: I had to do what was best for him and for the wider community irrespective of his stroppy behaviour. Abbie was sat in the room with his five lackeys and, to my surprise, had been more accommodating since my bat–wielding exploits. He hadn’t said anything about his relationship with Ayesha, who had disappeared again after delivering breakfast. Perhaps the subject was too sensitive for him although I suspected he thought the grandfather of his love rival could never be neutral. He obviously didn’t know me well enough: that was my job. But what he did want to talk about was the cricket bat, wickets and ball and why I’d been travelling around with them in my bag. So I told him and he wanted to know more. I tried to teach him to grip the bat – and take guard – but he found it difficult to keep his balance. Instead, he spent most of the time wafting the bat at his friends’ heads, something I didn’t approve of. There was a time and place for that and a peaceful morning akin to net practice wasn’t it. It was true, I hadn’t forgiven him for his ‘exorcism episode’ and never would but this was a time for pragmatism not conflict.

  I recognised early in the day, however, that Wasim wasn’t going to take part. There was plenty of time for that to change back home but the people here didn’t have that luxury so they needed to be schooled immediately. So I strode out of the back entrance with the bat, ball and wickets at a few minutes past seven ahead of five lazy men and an enthusiastic Abbie. I envied those professional umpires with their light meters because a fuzzy, early morning haze was covering the black hills in the distance and all my blurry eyes could see was a dilapidated shed, a ditch and the sandy green fields. But there was nothing to worry about: the light was good enough for everyone to have a knock. We walked past a rolled–up rug resting vertically against the shed and took a small, two–foot jump over the ditch. As I stepped over it, I realised there was all manner of stuff lying in the dirty, C–shaped eyesore: mud–soaked jewellery, a football, sandals, cans of Pepsi, dinars and even a rifle. It set off a small bout of coughing but it had its beneficial aspect too: it would be the boundary for my imaginary pitch.

  I started counting out the paces from the ditch and rested the blue stumps down when I got to sixty. It was a bare piece of grass on a slight slope but it was good enough for me. I bent down and looked at the three plastic stumps, putting my fingers through the gaps to ensure they were the right distance between one another. I patted them on the top, trying to comfort them without their beloved bails. I smiled as I got up. I turned around and walked 22 paces. I put the other set of stumps down and threw the ball towards Abbie. He crossed his hands awkwardly but couldn’t catch it; he was obviously more nimble with a grenade. Then I spent a few minutes organising the five lackeys in the field: Shami still had his arm in a sling so I put him at slip where the ball was unlikely to go when I was batting; Saad was a
t point; Amir at extra cover; Hashim at square leg and Rahul at mid on. I examined the field one last time, picked up the bat and strode down the wicket to take guard. I asked Abbie to pick the ball up and prepare to bowl the first delivery to the incoming batsman. He held it in his hand and waited, throwing it up like an apple. I had shown him how to bowl overarm and he obliged by sending down a delivery which could only be described as the slowest, juiciest and easiest I’d ever faced. I took a couple of steps forward, got to the pitch and belted the beauty high over Amir who continued to stand with his arms folded and head tilted. The ball vanished in the ditch and a surge of joy rippled through my body. I stood there with my high follow–through, for at least five seconds, admiring the shot and licking my lips in anticipation for more gifts from the novice bowler. I looked around at the other lackeys and they remained silent and bewildered, as though I had drastically diminished their power with one flash of the blade. I was in charge now: no more blindfolds, bombs and hostage–type situations.

  Amir finally ran to the ditch to retrieve the ball after being ordered by Abbie. The dear leader sent down another present – the longest of long–hops – and I launched it in to the ditch again. I did the same for another seven deliveries, missing only the fifth because it was a full toss that surprised me. But that was when, through the corner of the eye, I spotted someone in the distance standing by the shed, resting their elbow against the rolled–up rug. It was nice to have a spectator but when I realised that person was Wasim it became a distraction rather than an inspiration. More balls came down from Abbie but now the concentration was gone. I must have missed three of the next five and on the sixth I skied it and, to my amazement, Abbie ran about 15 yards to pouch it with ease. By that time, my chest has tightened up, the cough had returned and my dancing feet had turned to nougat. There was no need for the elements to intervene and stop play.

  I handed the bat over to Abbie and shuffled across to the bowler’s mark extremely slowly. I could see Wasim walking towards the group and, in a way, I was thankful because it might mean play would have to stop. I knew I couldn’t persuade Abbie to stop now – he was ready for a bat and couldn’t wait to crack the ball to Basra – so my grandson may have to do something worthwhile for once.

  Abbie took guard and I rolled my arm over as best as I could. He missed the ball, flailing wildly at thin air, looking very ugly and ungainly in his foot movement and follow through. But that didn’t deter him. He simply ran behind him to retrieve the ball and, instead of lobbing it back to me, threw it up a few inches and smacked it as hard as he could to the legside. He grinned with pleasure and ordered Hashim to retrieve it as fast as he could. Luckily for me, Wasim had got over the ditch and was now just a few yards away. He stopped in the cover point area. Abbie eventually turned around and was surprised to see Wasim standing there with his hands on his hips.

  ‘Jerry’s here,’ said Wasim.

  ‘Bring him out,’ said Abbie.

  ‘But he wants to talk alone.’

  ‘Tell him it’s out here or nowhere.’

  Who was Jerry? It wasn’t my main concern because a short, but relatively mild, coughing spree had begun. Wasim glanced at me but I couldn’t shift my face to provide any sort of expression so he turned around and walked back towards the house. Abbie watched Hashim throw the ball back to me and took guard again. I cleared my throat and gathered myself but this time I could only manage an underarm ball. Abbie gave it the proper treatment, of course, by whacking it past Rahul at mid on. I managed a further three, excruciating deliveries when I spotted Wasim over the ditch returning with another man by his side. I felt a massive sense of relief and raised my hand to Abbie to tell him I needed a break. He looked disappointed but I didn’t care: I needed to sit down immediately. So I dropped the ball and sat down cross legged behind the stumps. Eventually, Wasim and the mysterious man reached the playing strip and it was obvious that the man with Wasim was not an Iraqi. Even more startling was the fact he was wearing a black bandana, beige t–shirt and army bottoms. He got closer and I wondered whether my eyes were deceiving me. He had to be an American soldier – but what the hell was he doing here?

  I sat behind the stumps for half an hour but couldn’t concentrate. Jerry joined in the game as much as he could and actually hit some monstrous sixes over long off which he put down to his love of the Cleveland Indians. He didn’t say much else but my brain was swirling with paranoid fantasies and outright fear. Was Jerry in league with these jihadis? Who were we fighting at Shami’s house yesterday? The answer was so obvious that I hadn’t asked the question: surely they were American soldiers. If not, who?

  Wasim had joined in too, after some initial reluctance. He was in a surly, uncommunicative mood so I let him be. He spent most of the time chasing after the ball anyway which didn’t improve matters: the snail–like manner of his pursuits in the field illustrated what he thought about the process.

  It took a long time to get Jerry out – and even then he wanted to carry on. Abbie finally knocked over his stumps but the newly–converted cricket–lover simply looked over his shoulder, picked up the fallen set of blue stumps and stood them upright again. He merrily took guard again so I was forced to raise my finger to give him out. He didn’t understand that part of the game but after a sketchy explanation from me, he handed his bat over to Shami who couldn’t wait to have a hit despite his arm being in a sling. After that, Abbie and Jerry strolled off for a chat – Abbie kept fiddling with the back of Jerry’s bandana and there was an intimacy between the two men that I hadn’t expected. The game carried on but I wasn’t paying attention: I was watching the two men in the long leg area chatting and smiling. What were they talking about? Weapons? Sectarianism? Occupation? Or was Jerry another man after the affections of Ayesha? After a short discussion of about ten minutes or so, they both headed back towards the house. Abbie waved at me as he walked off the pitch and encouraged me to continue playing. But the thrill was gone and it had been replaced by a deep feeling of unease and uncertainty. Wasim stopped playing too and followed the men back to the house. This infuriated me on two levels because, firstly, I wanted his help in getting back to the house and, secondly, he’d turned his back while a bowler – Hashim – was in the middle of his run–up. Granted, he wasn’t much of a bowler, in fact, he threw it, but that wasn’t the point: a field change couldn’t be made in the middle of a delivery stride. So I politely asked Hashim to collect the cricketing equipment while I, as fast as my stodgy lungs would allow, awkwardly jogged after my grandson to ask him what he was playing at. I finally caught up with him over the other side of the ditch and decided the time was right to give him some home truths – or find some out anyway.

  ‘Who’s Jerry?’ I asked.

  Wasim ignored me and carried on walking to the house. He reached the shed and punched the rolled–up rug with his left hand. This made him walk even faster and I found it difficult to keep up. He went into the house and sneaked into a room I’d never been in before. It was only a few feet away from a back entrance and had a pale yellow door which opened so easily that it could slam you in the face if you didn’t hold it. Luckily, I saw how Wasim attacked it and acted accordingly. I walked into the tight, narrow kitchen and suddenly realised why I’d seen so little of my grandson during my stay at Khalifa HQ. There he was sat on a small red stool by the ancient fridge watching Ayesha sprinkling coriander into a simmering pot. Ayesha had taken her hijab off, perhaps because of the heat, and she kept pushing her straggly, zig–zag hair back over her shoulders so it didn’t interfere with the overflowing pieces of lamb in the pot. She offered a glance of acknowledgement as I waited by the door but that was it; my snarling grandson didn’t even manage that. He folded his arms and gawped at Ayesha like a good little servant boy awaiting instructions for his next errand.

  ‘Final time, lad,’ I said. ‘Who’s Jerry?’

  ‘Jerry is not my business,’ said Ayesha, unexpectedly. ‘Abdullah does many things…and I do mine.’r />
  The assurance of her response threw me off course. I watched her closely as she stirred the pot and rubbed her eye, blinking furiously as she tried to get rid of the tiny splashes of water escaping from the pot. I knew I would have to wait for the exact moment to pop my next question: she had already intimidated me with her first answer. But then something struck me. As I watched her putting one hand on her hip and stirring with the other, a thrilling fantasy popped into my head. Wouldn’t it be great to bring this woman back to England to cook for me and look after me while Nadia and Salim were out earning a living? Nadia simply couldn’t do those things anymore because her career was more important so surely a sick old man – who had his given his life for town and community – had a right to explore these possibilities? It was an intoxicating and captivating thought and would have to be asked with all the delicacy of an umpire probing a bowler about picking the seam. As it happened, the thought was obliterated as a cold and brutal revelation sent my head into another tailspin.

  ‘I hope you’re better now,’ said Ayesha. ‘I know they look after you better in England. Everything is free. Wasim is taking me and I will see it.’

  I looked at Wasim with disdain. So this is what Mister Martyr had been planning? Not content with taking on the Americans, the British and the Shias, he now wanted to take an Iraqi bride back with him to England and show her the wonders of rain–swept Rochdale where both grandfather and newly–wed granddaughter could do the Asbo dance in front of the derelict Turner Brothers site. Was he mad? How would he pull this off? There was not a cat in hell’s chance of it happening.

  ‘We’re getting married on the first the day of Ramzaan,’ said Wasim, without looking at me. ‘Nobody can stop us. Her mother’s met me and she’s happy about it.’