This Green and Pleasant Land

by Ayisha Malik

  ‘It’s to serve God and humanity.’

  Bilal took a deep breath.

  ‘It all sounds very noble, doesn’t it?’continued Richard. ‘I don’t know many people who care for it. Depending on your definition of serving humanity, of course.’

  Bilal paused. ‘What did she mean? Asking me to do such a thing?’

  ‘You mean the mosque?’ asked Richard.

  When Bilal had first told Richard about it, it was as if he were giving the punchline to a joke. Now Bilal wondered if the joke was on him.

  He nodded.

  ‘I don’t have that answer,’ Richard replied. He put his mug down and his hands up as if in Christian prayer.

  ‘I feel like … I think that …’ But Bilal wasn’t entirely sure how to turn his liquid feelings into solid words. ‘What if I did build the mosque?’

  There! He’d said it out loud.

  ‘Right,’ said Richard, sitting up and meeting Bilal’s gaze. ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you think it’s absurd? It must be guilt.’

  Bilal waited for Richard to respond.

  ‘It could be,’ came the reply.

  ‘It’s just … it feels like a betrayal. Not to at least try.’

  ‘Betrayal of who?’ asked Richard.

  Wasn’t it obvious that he meant his mum? But as Bilal thought about it, he wondered what else he was betraying.

  ‘She really was extraordinary,’ said Bilal. ‘I know, everyone thinks that about their mum—’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ interrupted Richard. He paused before he added: ‘I’ll admit, though, she was a rare combination of earnestness and defiance.’

  Bilal recalled the disarming way she had smiled and taken Richard’s hand when they first met, shaking it with energy. ‘Pleasing to meet you, Mr Richard Vicar Sahib.’

  The colour had risen to Bilal’s cheeks. ‘Ammi, just call him Richard.’

  Bilal felt his throat constrict.

  He’d always presumed he’d have more time with his mum, but time had its own plans and it rarely filled people in on them.

  ‘She asked me who I am. On her deathbed. For a split second I thought she really didn’t recognise me – her own son … And I didn’t have an answer for her. Do you think I’m mad?’

  ‘I think you’re grieving.’

  They both fell silent.

  ‘And …?’ Bilal asked eventually.

  ‘And that’s quite natural.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘But I’m not sure lying in a makeshift grave is the answer. Not for someone who’s just lost a parent. And you know … it’s best not to be impulsive.’

  Impulsive? It’d been six months since she died.

  Richard cleared his throat. The ticking of the clock seemed to grow louder.

  Bilal tapped a foot on the floor.

  After an uncomfortable moment Richard spoke. ‘Well, I suppose, Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal for his wife.’

  ‘Not exactly the same thing,’ replied Bilal.

  ‘No.’

  Tick tock, tick tock.

  Bilal looked at Richard. ‘You should get one if you can. A wife, that is.’

  Richard gave a small smile and rubbed the back of his neck.

  Bilal disguised his earnestness with the hint of a laugh. ‘Maybe you’re the wrong person to ask about this. A Church of England vicar is hardly going to say, “Yes, of course, build a mosque in our village”.’

  Richard leaned back. He was one of those people blessed with a twinkle in his eye, so it often seemed that while God lived in his heart, irony was alive in his mind. Except there was no twinkle this time.

  ‘I may be,’ replied Richard.

  ‘Oh.’

  Richard had helped Bilal and Mariam settle in with Haaris when they were new to Babbel’s End. He’d included them in email round-ups and village news, proved to people that the Hashams were not just another pair of rich city-dwellers who’d taken to the idea of living in a peaceful village, of which they never intended to be a part.

  ‘Of course,’ said Bilal, looking at his watch. ‘I’d better get going. You have your duties.’

  Richard looked at him and paused. ‘I’ll see you at the next pub quiz?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How are Mariam and Haaris?’ Richard added, following Bilal to the front door. ‘Things okay with his dad?’

  ‘Fine, they’re fine. My aunt’s come to stay.’

  ‘I’ll come over and say my salams.’

  Richard always greeted Mariam with a salam, but just then it sounded forced, somehow disingenuous.

  Bilal nodded. ‘Pop by whenever,’ he replied.

  He got into his car and pulled out, watching Richard wave goodbye. A despondency took hold of Bilal as he pressed on the accelerator of his Lexus, hurtling back down Petty Street. He caught view of Shelley emptying her bins. Bilal slowed as she signed for him to stop. For a moment Bilal considered ignoring her and driving past, but his bravery failed him at the last minute. As it so often did. He stopped and wound down his window.

  ‘Somewhere urgent to be?’ said Shelley, adjusting her floral apron.

  ‘Picking up Haaris from Sam’s,’ Bilal lied. ‘Getting the bins ready?’

  ‘You know what I say: never leave things to the last minute,’ she replied. ‘You want to be careful. You won’t mind me saying that Haaris is no saint but Sam Marsh is …’ She paused. Shelley felt it important to give people time to absorb the significance of her words. ‘Well … his parents aren’t exactly disciplinarians.’

  Shelley still hadn’t got over Sam planting a whoopee cushion under her seat at the village fair. Four years ago.

  ‘You’ll mind Tom’s bush on your way?’ she said, clearly realising Bilal’s nod was the only response she was getting out of him today, and pursing her lips.

  ‘It’s an outrage,’ she said. ‘The man listens to no-one.’

  Bilal noticed the blue veins protruding from her bony hands, quite at odds with her otherwise ample figure. Her wrists were the size of a child’s. How would Shelley feel about a mosque?

  ‘It’s a real pain,’ replied Bilal, feeling on side with Shelley for once.

  Why had Richard paused for so long earlier? What had gone through his mind when Bilal said that he felt he should try to build this mosque? He’d fail, of course; Bilal knew that, and even Richard knew it, so why the hesitation about the concept? Was a mosque such a social abomination?

  ‘Copperthwaite waited for fifteen minutes for that cheese factory lorry to pass because of how overgrown the bush is now. His poodle missed its vet appointment,’ continued Shelley.

  ‘Yes, well, I’d better go,’ said Bilal. ‘Or I’ll be late.’

  Shelley went back to dutifully realigning her bins.

  Driving past the village green, Bilal waved to James, who was adjusting the board outside his bookshop, and he wondered: if he were to build a mosque, in all the green downs, where would it be?

  Dear Tom,

  It is in my official capacity as parish council chairwoman, churchwarden and concerned community member that I must insist on the trimming of your bush. It is creating huge problems and has already resulted in Copperthwaite missing Benji’s vet’s appointment. As an owner of several dogs yourself, you must know the distress this caused him.

  I am afraid to tell you that if you do not do something about the bush very soon, my hand will be forced to make an official complaint to the district council. I do not wish your family to undergo any more grief than it has already experienced this past year and yet, as an elected parish member, I must think of the wider community’s needs.

  Yours respectfully,

  Shelley Hawking

  Driving to Evergreen General Hospital, Richard waved to Tom, who was walking his dogs. Tom – who suffered from the trifecta of age, a bad temper and tragedy – was dressed in his flat cap and red trousers. He looked at Richard, his shoulders hunched, before grinning and sticking up his middle finger.

>   ‘Thanks, Tom,’ Richard mumbled as he watched him through his rear-view mirror. ‘God give you strength,’ he added with a tired smile. ‘And us too, while He’s at it.’

  The skies were clear and blue as he drove down Coowood Lane, taking in the big oak tree that stood, majestic, against the bright day. There was a pebbled path through the fields, past the lavender, that led to the green next to St Paul’s church, and an image of a minaret dome came to him. He tried to shake it from his mind and instead wished autumn would arrive. The different seasons reminded Richard that there was no such thing as consistency, which was a good thing. Consistency was often apathy’s predecessor.

  Richard reached Evergreen fifteen minutes later to discover Mrs Jones dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.

  ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t here,’ he said, thinking the worst had happened and her grandfather had died. The day had started off with far too many failures.

  ‘Oh, no, he’s still alive,’ she replied, blowing her nose.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It’s just the waiting, Reverend. He was meant to have gone six weeks ago. I’ve barely slept three hours every night and the other day I accidentally gave Amy the dog food for her school lunch.’

  It was typical – death either came too fast, or not fast enough, and either way there was guilt attached to it. Richard said what he could to reassure Mrs Jones.

  ‘We don’t know what we’d have done without you these past few months. Do we, Fred?’

  Fred, her husband, seemed to have only just noticed Richard.

  ‘A beacon, that’s what you are,’ added Mrs Jones, beaming at him through tired eyes.

  Richard tried to smother his discomfort by bestowing words of comfort. But as he did so he had a creeping, and then overwhelming feeling that he was a fraud.

  To any onlooker he must’ve appeared to be a kind, strong and thoughtful figure. His curacy in Edinburgh had been followed by two years working with inner-city children because he thought he’d been made for life’s grit. Except he’d underestimated the emotional toll of failing to fix people. It was one particular boy – Saleem, aged fourteen – who ended up being stabbed in a gang fight that sent Richard into a depression that was not fitting for a man of faith. Saleem’s face, with his light brown eyes and olive complexion, friendly smile and sharp tongue, would still come to Richard in his dreams.

  Richard’s diminishing faith had led the deacon to send him to Babbel’s End fifteen years ago, and it was in this community that Richard began to rediscover a world that wasn’t always as hard-edged – its troubles more aligned with his capacity to cope. Yes, to people like the Joneses he was the open-minded vicar who ran marathons in Sudan, went canoeing with underprivileged children, took part in anti-austerity protests (much to the dismay of the village), and yet Bilal’s mosque had become a snag in the picture of him that had been woven by the community – maybe even by himself.

  Richard left Mrs Jones and sat behind the wheel of his Volkswagen and looked up at the clear, blue sky, scrutinising his intentions. Then he turned on his CD player and closed his eyes, listening to ‘Blessed Assurance’, the need for which he felt more than usual.

  He got to the gym and programmed his forty-five minute run on the treadmill, increasing the incline. For the past fifteen years he had, quite literally, sweated out his Sunday sermons.

  What is faith?

  Richard wished he’d said something positive to Bilal. The problem was that he couldn’t separate the friend from the vicar, like church and state. He wasn’t in the habit of lying to people or himself, but the truth was he hadn’t liked the mosque idea. Most surprising was his own reflexive emotion, unable to distinguish between his gut reaction and what might just be years of conditioning. After all, it was only recently that the church allowed female and gay priests. Just because one was unaccustomed to something didn’t make it unnatural.

  ‘Yo, wassup, Richy-rich?’

  A scrawny five-foot-ten teenager in a white vest and black jogging bottoms bopped up to his treadmill. He grasped Richard’s hand, before, as usual, ending the handshake with a fist bump. The sun shone through the windows on a spray of tiny pimples on Gerald’s forehead, which clustered at his shaved hairline. Richard often felt that Gerald’s mum must’ve been an optimist when she named him. A Gerald could never be taken seriously in a street fight or gang. You wouldn’t buy drugs from a Gerald. Yet he knew, not three streets over from where Richard lived, people used to.

  Gerald’s conviction for carrying marijuana had led his mum to march over to Richard’s, who had spoken to Margaret, who had then employed Gerald to work in her farmyard on weekends. One more offence, they’d warned him, and he’d get thrown in prison.

  ‘You doin’ weights later?’

  ‘Of course. How are you?’ Richard asked, watching Gerald closely. ‘Getting on at Margaret’s?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Gerald laughed. ‘She’s a joker. But like …’ Gerald shrugged. ‘It’s still fucked up, isn’t it?’

  Richard raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Sorry. But like my nan says – you’ve got to move on, don’t you?’

  ‘Wise woman,’ said Richard.

  He couldn’t help but think that what Gerald had gone through – and not just with Tom’s grandson, Teddy – was fucked up. Faith is looking fucked up things in the eye and saying you will still keep that faith. At least that was a variant of what he told Gerald’s nan whenever she came to Richard, half despairing, half resigned about the company Gerald kept.

  Gerald eyed Richard appraisingly. ‘Looking good. For an old man.’ He laughed, revealing a gold tooth.

  Richard felt suddenly fond of him, followed by an acute sense of depression that the average Geralds of the world would never make it out of their cyclical poverty. In light of so much inequality, what harm was a mosque? Richard corrected himself – a place where the faithful gathered couldn’t be called harmful. Allah or God, it all amounted to the same thing. There was the whole Jesus not being the son of God contention, but who could see eye-to-eye about anything nowadays? And if someone had wanted to build a synagogue, how would he feel about that?

  ‘Meet me afterwards by the weights and we’ll see who’s old, son,’ replied Richard.

  Gerald flexed his muscles and beat his chest. ‘Yes, sir!’

  He walked over to his friend, Dan, at the dumbells, who looked as bored by the world as Gerald seemed excited by it. Whereas Gerald fidgeted, jumping from one foot to the other, Dan remained still. Unmoved even by his numerous convictions at the ripe age of seventeen. Richard heard he was still on parole and wondered what might become of him. How could quiet, unassuming Bruce Barnes be the father of an angry boy who carried himself with the assurance of having either too much money or far too good looks. Dan’s case was the latter and it was a mercy that he wasn’t born with both.

  Richard’s thoughts wandered towards Anne Lark. They always did whenever he saw Gerald. Sometimes when he was driving too. Now and again when he was making himself a cup of tea, of course. Often when he was talking to a prison warden or inmate during one of his visits. Richard mourned the way Anne’s life had been labelled a tragedy since she was abandoned by her mother when still a baby – though she never let that define her.

  Until she lost her son, Teddy.

  The loss of that bright and thoughtful sixteen-year-old boy reminded Richard of Saleem, and he realised that failure didn’t concern itself with geography.

  Only this time he didn’t think of his own grief – he had to think of Anne’s. Despite the fact that they no longer talked and laughed together, despite the fact that this turn in their relationship rattled him still, he would persevere.

  The news had come to him, nearly a year ago now, via Shelley, knocking on his door repeatedly.

  ‘Teddy’s dead,’ she’d said, pale-faced, declaring it out loud as if to herself.

  ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘Gerald found him in Daniel’s car. The two had left him
in there. He said he’d been feeling dizzy and was acting strange.’

  ‘Who had?’

  ‘Teddy.’ She looked up at Richard, confused, her mousy, grey hair sticking out underneath her navy cloche hat. She was wringing her gloved hands together. ‘They came back and he was unconscious. They said they took him to the hospital as fast as they could but …’

  ‘Shelley …’

  ‘Anne and Tom are there now.’

  Richard had grabbed his coat, jumped in his car and sped towards Evergreen Hospital, leaving Shelley behind. The hills were covered with a frosting of snow, the sky a muted blue.

  ‘It can’t be,’ he’d said to himself. ‘It just can’t be.’

  When he saw Anne, sitting in the orange chair in the waiting room, he knew it was. She’d looked up at him as if she hardly knew who he was, and when he’d gone to hold her she was limp in his arms.

  He would call in on her on his way home today even though she wouldn’t want to see him. As for tomorrow, he’d begin his sermon with a reading from Numbers, verse 13. Or perhaps he’d choose something from Revelations? He picked up speed and tried not to think of just how few people would turn up to Sunday service at St Paul’s. Richard wasn’t fond of feelings of despair, but what did people believe in now?

  He noticed Gerald lifting weights, Dan looming over him in his Nike T-shirt with his floppy blond hair, pushing him harder, as Richard’s treadmill picked up more pace. His mind flurried. He tried to focus, come up with something profound, when he caught his reflection in the walled mirror. His hair had greyed considerably in the last year, his jawline, for which he’d always been complimented, had begun to sag. He smiled at the glory of God – how each day passes without rupture, until you wake up and don’t even recognise yourself in the mirror.

  Where does your essence lie but in the actions of your past and present, and what is your body but a betrayal of all of it …?

  He felt himself break into a sweat. The treadmill picked up momentum as Richard was encased in his faithful fog.

  Dearest Shelley Hawking, esteemed leader of our humble village,

  I have received your letter and am in admiration of your service to the community, which, I’m sure, is infinitely grateful for your selfless dedication.