Akram's War Page 13

  Adrian and I bent over a leaflet rack next to the door, thumbing through brochures. I picked up one with a picture of a dagger on the front. ‘What’s happening?’ I whispered. ‘I thought you were enlisting?’

  ‘I dare you,’ he said.

  ‘What would my dad say?’

  ‘Thought you had left him.’ For a brief moment his jaw slackened as though he himself was unsure, and then he continued, ‘You owe me!’

  The sergeant major wrote very slowly as he took down our particulars – names, age and addresses – and afterwards he tapped the nib of his pen on the paper as though he had to think about the details it listed. He squeezed his chin, looked at me, back at the paper and again at me. Adrian and I sat in chairs facing him across the desk.

  ‘What are ye, son? Are ye a Hindoo?’

  ‘He’s a Muslim,’ said Adrian, his eyes flicking to the name badge on the desk, ‘Recruiting Sergeant Major Mackay, a Muslim, no law against that.’

  The sergeant major peered over his glasses. ‘Are ye sure about this?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Have ye talked it over with yer family?’ He clicked the pen against his teeth.

  ‘He’s old enough, isn’t he?’ Adrian said.

  The sergeant major stared again at the paperwork as though perplexed, then back at us through narrowed eyes. ‘Ye’re both seventeen, so ye dinnae need parental consent.’

  Adrian settled back in his chair and grinned. ‘That’s what I thought!’

  ‘In the army ye lads could learn a trade. We have cooks, drivers, engin­eers and medics, even bricklayers. Almost everything ye have on Civvy Street, we have an equivalent in the army.’

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘Ah myself first enlisted in the Army Intelligence Corps,’ the sergeant major said proudly. ‘Ye’ll need a trade when ye’re back. . .’

  ‘Sir, Sergeant Major Mackay, with respect, we want to be soldiers,’ said Adrian.

  ‘Rough and tumble, hey? Ah got caught by that wee bug too.’ He pointed to the para badge sewn onto his breast. ‘Well, let’s have a wee look. . .’ He thumbed through a Rolodex next to a large green telephone on his desk. I looked at Adrian excitedly, wondering if he was thinking what I was thinking – that the sergeant major was about to call someone up and send us over there and then.

  ‘So a Muslim, hey?’ He seemed defeated by the idea and continued to flick through the cards on his Rolodex, his brow visibly reddening. A solitary bead of sweat trickled down it.

  I spoke up. ‘Sergeant Major Mackay, my grandfather fought in the Second World War, in the Indian army, but he was fighting for the British.’

  ‘Muslims, Pakis, they’re everywhere, and they’re as English as we are,’ Adrian added.

  ‘Ah, of course.’ The sergeant major relaxed back into his chair. ‘Fine fighting men. Yer grandfather, was he on the Asian Front or in Europe?’

  ‘He was taken prisoner by the Japanese, sir.’

  ‘Terrible, wicked. . .’ He stared at the paperwork on his desk and shook his head. He looked at me again, but now he seemed to inspect me in a kinder manner, as though he was no longer afraid. ‘Strong family history. Very good, lad.’ He turned to Adrian. ‘And ye, chap?’

  ‘BEF, sir. After that POW in France. Escaped, shot and captured, escaped again, then Home Guard on account of shrapnel in one eye.’

  I looked at Adrian. There was no sign of pride on his face; it was as though what he was relating was expected, normal. I was struck suddenly by the thought that it was normal and expected: during the war, fighting had been the duty of all Englishmen. This was the first time I had ever articulated my grandfather’s achievements and suddenly I felt proud that we, the Khans, had been part of the gora war.

  ‘We’ll let him off for that,’ said the sergeant major. Forming a fist with both hands, he put it to his chin and leant forward, speaking slowly. ‘War is the terrible reality of killing another man, and the world we live in calls upon men like us to do that job.’ We leant forward too, our faces inches from his. This was something serious and we were almost part of it.

  The sergeant major took down some further information: the names of our parents, our school, and that of our old headmaster, whom he said he knew and would call for a reference.

  Adrian handed him the leaflets we had picked up. The sergeant major shuffled cursorily through them, then placed the pile neatly on his desk and slid it back towards us. ‘Army Air Corps?’ He shook his head. ‘Ya gonna need qualifications for that, and the Paras.’ In homage he put his right hand to his left breast. ‘They’re always recruiting, always looking for the right stuff.’ Although he did it very discreetly, I saw him look us up and down. ‘And the guards’ regiments – well, there’s policy and there’s policy, if ye know what ah mean.’ He put a conspiratorial finger to his nose. ‘Not that ah agree with it, a man’s a man and that, so the bard said, ach but there’s no use sending ye along only to be turned down at the outset now, is there, lads?’

  We shook our heads in agreement like small children. Outside there was a sudden downpour.

  ‘Now. . .’ he paused for effect, ‘the Yeomanry are a fine local regiment. They begin their next round of basic training in a fortnight’s time. Ah suppose. . .’ He stopped again.

  I looked over at Adrian.

  Sergeant Major Mackay thought for a moment longer, squeezing his chin. ‘The HQ’s not far from here and they like to recruit locally. Light infantry and reconnaissance.’ He looked us up and down again, more obviously this time. ‘Strong lads like ye, suit ye both to a tee.’

  Yeomanry. It was a fine word. A word that was as old as England. Reconnaissance – I pictured Adrian and me in nuclear uniforms hiding behind a bush then leaping out, guns blazing, the enemy caught entirely by surprise.

  The sergeant major tapped his fingers on the telephone. Suddenly he seemed to remember something. ‘And of course, the Queen’s shilling.’ Shuffling his ample weight on the small fragile chair, he pulled on a key attached to his waist and unlocked the top drawer of the desk. We watched mesmerized as he retrieved a small bundle of banknotes. He counted them out into two piles, one before each of us, then ironed them out with his chubby pink hands.

  ‘A fortnight. They conduct basic training in Catterick, Yorkshire. Ah say, ah could just about squeeze ye in.’

  There was a pause that seemed to last for minutes. The sergeant major bit his lower lip and peered at us, waiting for an answer. I glanced out of the window, suddenly aware of the silence now that the rain had petered out.

  Having shaken hands with the sergeant major, and been told several times farewell and good luck and if only there were more like ye – fit, willing young men – then this wee fair isle would be a better place, I stood by the doorway of the off-licence and felt for the existential weight of the Queen’s shilling in my pocket. With a finger I wrote the word YEOMANRY into the con­densation on the glass frontage.

  Adrian emerged into the street carrying a bottle of blackcurrant cordial and two heavy gold-coloured bottles of cider. ‘I’ve worked it out,’ he said, briefly lifting his purchases above his head. ‘Done the maths on the alcohol-percentage-over-volume-per-penny ratio.’

  I saw that he had also bought a small glass bottle of tomato ketchup. He pushed it into a pocket and offered me an embarrassed grin. ‘Can never get enough of that stuff.’

  Guiltily I patted my own pocket, where my money remained unspent.

  A swan from the canal had lost its way, and at the roundabout traffic was at a standstill. The animal’s neck was caught in one handle of a blue carrier bag, and it thrashed furiously, its frantic efforts to escape only tightening the noose. Safely inside the video rental shop, people peered out, their noses pressed against the glass. The swan’s elegant body twisted and lurched, and feathers flew off as it flapped its great wings. Nervous drivers watched from their car windows.

  ‘Dare you,’ I said.

  Adrian put down the shopping bags and strode across
the road, slipping off his T-shirt. He threw it over the bird’s head, then with one easy flick of his wrist freed it of both plastic bag and T-shirt. He stepped quickly back with a flourish, dangling his T-shirt at the waist like a bullfighter’s cape. A car sounded its horn and Adrian took a deep bow. Behind him the bird lurched at Adrian’s legs but deflected away, just in time, as another car beeped its horn loudly.

  ‘I’d make a better survivor than you,’ Adrian said, returning to the corner and picking up the bags. Behind us, through the video shop window, the civilians looked on, transfixed.

  We walked along the towpath of the canal until we found a hole in a high brick wall big enough for a man to squeeze through. On the other side of the wall was an enormous concrete yard. It was like a parade ground except that the concrete was rent with long gashes as though riven by an earthquake. Surrounding it on three sides were cavernous, four-storey rectangular brick buildings neatly appointed with row upon row of smashed latticed windows. A small steel canopy propped up on stilts projected from part of the wall. Beneath it the ground was dry, and we gathered loose bricks to make seats and settled down, our legs stretched out in front and backs against the oily black wall.

  Adrian opened a bottle of the cider, took a long swig and then topped it up with blackcurrant cordial. ‘God’s own brew, for beginners.’ He pushed it towards me.

  The cordial spread down through the yellow cider until the contents of the bottle were entirely red. I looked at Adrian, who was drinking from the second, unadulterated bottle.

  ‘Dare you,’ he said, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘No pain.’ I picked up the bottle in both hands and put it to my lips.

  ‘Tastes of pop,’ I said.

  Adrian put the ketchup bottle to his mouth and sucked at its turgid contents. ‘I’ve dreamt of this and I’m gonna finish it even if it makes me sick.’

  ‘We don’t sell ketchup in our shop.’

  ‘Made chains here,’ said Adrian, looking around the yard. ‘And the anchor for the Titanic.’

  ‘My mate Maley, his dad worked round about here,’ I said, taking a large gulp from my bottle.

  ‘Wish I had been around then,’ Adrian said, licking the ketchup off his lips.

  ‘Made him go half deaf.’ I nodded thoughtfully, remembering to say a silent Bismillah.

  ‘Imagine how proud you’d be.’ Adrian swept his hand across the view. ‘Took twenty shire horses just to pull the anchor across the yard. God only knows how they loaded it onto a barge.’

  ‘Remember Maley?’ I asked.

  ‘He disappeared in a lorry, right?’

  ‘He’ll never come back.’

  ‘Don’t blame him.’

  ‘I would have gone to visit him but don’t know where he is.’

  ‘Shire horses,’ Adrian said dreamily, ‘solid, done up to the nines in brass.’

  *

  We drank slowly, and as afternoon turned to early evening the sun came out. Behind the wall we could hear birds chirruping out on the canal and ducks as they noisily floated by. A canal barge motored past, and when, a little further ahead, it entered the long tunnel, opera music echoed inside the barrel-vaulted brick walls.

  ‘They do that as they go through Netherton Tunnel. They cut the engine and play grand music from an old gramophone – it’s like being in heaven,’ Adrian said.

  ‘What do you think it’ll be like, the army?’ I was shivering from sitting still so long.

  ‘Beef and gravy, mate.’

  ‘Do you think there’ll be another war?’

  ‘Bring it on.’ He picked up the now half-empty ketchup bottle and flung it across the yard. ‘Don’t sell ketchup, what the fuck do you sell?’ I heard the bottle shatter in the darkening distance. ‘No pain!’ he shouted, wiping the ketchup from his chin and staggering unsteadily to his feet.

  I tried to get up but my legs felt weak, and the slightest tilt of my head brought on nausea. I bent over and vomited.

  ‘Get it all out,’ said Adrian, slapping me on the back. ‘Tickle your tonsils with your fingers, it’ll help.’

  It hurt like fury, and after a long and painful bout of gut cramp and vomiting I rose to my feet, wiping the tears from my eyes. My throat burned. I laughed, bending forward as far as I could to test the returning strength in my legs, and screamed into the uninhabited darkness, ‘No pain!’

  ‘So,’ said Adrian, rubbing his hands together, ‘are you going to show me where that paedo lives?’

  ‘I thought we had a deal. Army over paedo.’

  Adrian grabbed me by the throat. Caught unaware, I was quickly pinned to the wall. ‘I dare you.’

  I wriggled free and shoved him in the chest. As he staggered back I saw his eyes, glazed from the drink but cold and determined.

  ‘Do it again and I’ll. . .’ I said.

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  I rubbed my sore neck. Now we were comrades in arms. Army men fought and died for each other like brothers.

  I took him to a terraced house not dissimilar to the one I had grown up in. It would have been indistinguishable from the others in the row except for the thick, moth-eaten curtains that hung precariously in his front window. They appeared undisturbed, as though never opened. No light emanated from any of the windows.

  Adrian knocked on the door and waited for a minute.

  ‘No one’s home,’ he said disappointedly. ‘Let’s go back to mine.’

  I could have simply agreed with him and we would have moved on, but we were now in an unshakeable pact. ‘He’s in, all right.’

  ‘Smash a window then, he’s bound to come out.’

  ‘What, like your old man Chav Hartley?’

  ‘What then, what are we going to do?’ Adrian hopped from one foot to the other in excitement.

  Indicating for him to stand back against the wall where he couldn’t be seen, I knocked on the door. There was no movement inside. I pushed open the flap on the letterbox and spoke into it. ‘Assalamualaikum, brother, it’s Akram from Khan’s shop. My dad sent me round to deliver dates to the brothers ready for Ramadan.’ Conscious that my words were slurred, I spoke slowly, trying to focus on only one word at a time.

  The hallway light came on and the door was unbolted from within several times.

  ‘You got good security here, bruv,’ I shouted to be heard through the door.

  The door opened part way and on the other side stood Bobby, his eyes adjusting to the outside light.

  I sneered. ‘You’re not fucking levitating now.’

  A flash of panic crossed Bobby’s face and he took half a step back. As he did so the swish of his long velvet dressing gown swept up a cloud of dust.

  I kicked the door fully open and it struck him in the face, knocking his glasses to the floor. I stepped into the hallway and felt the glasses crush beneath my shoe. Adrian leapt in after me, then bolted the door behind him.

  Seeing Adrian, Bobby turned and shuffled away with no apparent urgency, along the hallway and into a darkened living room. We followed. In the background a radio was quietly playing a naath. A two-bar electric fire glowed orange, its illumination reaching only the surrounding mustard-coloured tiles on the hearth. Above the mantel was a stack of mouldy sliced white bread about ten deep. A single tatty chair sat in the centre of the room, a packet of cigarettes, a box of matches and a lighter resting on its padded arm.

  Adrian and I stood guard by the door. Bobby fumbled about on the chair like a blind man. He found his cigarettes, took one out and rapped it against the thumbnail of his other hand. He put it between his lips and with a shaky fist nursed a head wound caused by the door.

  ‘It’s definitely him,’ I said to Adrian. I took the matches from the armrest and lit one. I could see the flame’s reflective flicker in Adrian’s eyes. Turning, I extended the match towards Bobby.

  ‘Let’s brand him,’ said Adrian, twitching like a greyhound, ‘just say you dare me.’

  ‘Brother Bobby.’ I placed my index finger on the cen
tre of my forehead. ‘Brother Bobby, my friend here says you owe him a pound.’

  *

  It strikes me as a unique failure that I can climb out of the beds of two women in the course of the same night and remain a virgin. Slowly, and as silently as possible, I reach for my stick, negotiate the door to the landing, and descend the stairs one at a time.

  In the kitchen, I shiver in the cold atmosphere. It smells synthetic, of disinfectant and lavender and cold steel. The English don’t warm their houses as much as we do. I note they use mugs, none of which appear to match, and have an ample supply of spoons and tea. They leave themselves small Post-it notes as mundane reminders: pay the milkman; cheese in the fridge (where else would it be?); call the social worker at 9; and, more curious for Grace, see dentist. Is that new since she met me? It is a self-indulgent idea that somehow, in the short space of time between my leaving and returning, she changed her mind about the missing tooth.

  The English are not entirely private about their correspondence. Attached magnetically to the refrigerator are reminder bills for electricity and water, and a magistrate summons for monies owed to the Inland Revenue. A paragraph details her alleged crime and describes her work as Other Self-Employed. Do they really expect Grace to itemize expenses and keep receipts? It adds another layer to the complexity of the English: the sparse, neat, freezing kitchen and Her Majesty collecting from places like this earnings such as Other. What I find more interesting is her name, Miss Grace G. Booth, followed by her address. A discrete square of print in the top right-hand corner of the letter, a dense chunk of type making Grace official. She suddenly seems somehow more substantial, part of a larger world, in a way that elevates her to something greater than what she personally declares.