by Tony Salter
Will was smart enough to know that Hatchet Face would be along soon and kept his conversation with Ramona short; she was already walking back towards the bench and the old geezer. The girl really was gorgeous and images of lost opportunities flicked though Jim’s mind, each frame reminding him that he was getting old. Anything exciting which he hadn’t done or seen already wasn’t going to get done now.
He’d always thought he was cleverer than most and that his life had been rich and full. All this crap everyone banged on about – seize the day, enjoy the moment, be mindful – that was for losers. He’d always done that, anyway. That was who he was. Wasn’t it?
Jim had recently discovered the masochistic pleasure of allowing his thoughts to wallow in muddy puddles of defeatism and was tempted, not for the first time, to simply give up. What would happen if he took that stupid fleece and told Ms Janet Wilson to stick it where the sun don’t shine? What would happen if he just wandered back home, grabbed a beer, switched on the TV and waited for life to decide what was next?
He took one more look at Ramona as she leant over to talk to the old man on the bench. She was so bloody young. So happy and excited about her date. She was alive.
Jim turned away and pretended to look carefully and professionally around the hall. He could feel saliva balling in the back of his throat and his whole body starting to crumple. Was he about to cry? What was wrong with him?
He forced himself to attention and drove back those treacherous sensations. He still had some self-discipline. A casual observer would have seen the strong man, the former soldier, with his confident, commanding posture, but Jim’s eyes glistened in the bright lights and the biting sensation of loss and regret lingered for a long while.
In spite of his end-of-tour paranoia, Jim had got out of Northern Ireland without being shot or blown up. He’d done his twenty years and the long-service pension had been in the bag. That had felt good.
It had felt good, but for the first couple of years afterwards, he’d missed the army more than he’d expected. At the very start, it was great being home with his family. His girls were nine and eleven and Jim was there every day when they came home from school, even if he was going out to work later. Julie seemed to enjoy having him home, he was learning the Knowledge, and the master plan was moving forward. If everything stayed on schedule, he’d been on track to have his taxi licence within two years.
After less than a month, the first cracks had started to show. There were so many things to think about in civvy life. He had choices and options where before there had been either simple, clear orders or the alternative – which was waiting around for orders to be given. Whichever one it was, you’d always be with your mates and you’d mostly have a laugh somewhere along the line.
The worst part of being out was the responsibility. As an experienced sergeant, he’d had a lot of responsibility before, but it was different. In the army, you always had someone to blame if things didn’t work out. You were just following orders, after all. Do what you’re told and, when it doesn’t go according to plan, blame someone else. It made life so much easier, even when doing what you were told involved standing in the cold rain for four hours waiting for some angry Provo to open up at you with an AK-47.
It wasn’t the same back in the real world. It was up to him whether or not he got on his Honda scooter and drove around London with a clipboard. No-one was going to call him in for a bollocking. If he forgot to pay the electric bill, and the power was cut off, he couldn’t laugh and blame the useless logistics people. If he began to realise that his wife was a nag and having kids wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, he couldn’t put in for a transfer.
As he sat in the museum and waited for morning inspection, Jim remembered how he’d felt back then – as though he was on a boat on rough seas, cut loose and with no engine or tiller. All he’d been able to do was to hold on and hope for the best.
Jim had always had a short fuse and was used to telling people what was what. In the months which followed his short honeymoon period, he was like a bear with a sore head whenever he was home and Julie and the girls learned to keep a low profile if they didn’t want their heads bitten off … or worse.
He didn’t care if his family were afraid of him. There was nothing wrong with a bit of respect and it helped to keep them in line. He was proud to be a man with natural authority, able to fulfil the traditional obligations of family head.
It had taken a while, but he’d got back in touch with a few of the boys from the Costa Blanca days and they’d started to get together every Friday for a few beers. None of them apart from him had moved far from home and after twenty years, like a bad penny, he was back as well, just two streets down from the Beehive and across the road from his mum. So much for great dreams.
They usually met in the Beehive which was still owned by Dave Vickers, and a few beers would normally move on to a few more, followed by whisky chasers and a late night lock-in. The Friday night “quick drink after work” would generally wipe out most of Saturday.
One of the guys, Bonehead Bonham, had always been a hanger-on. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but that wasn’t where the name came from. Jim had never managed to find out the true story, he only knew it had something to do with a girl in Spain. Something that had happened the summer after Jim joined the army. It pissed him off that no-one would tell him – even twenty years on – but the more pissed off he was, the funnier it was for the others to keep him in the dark.
The thing about Bonehead was that he had no social skills. None. He would always say the wrong thing at the wrong time and, if they ever got into a spot of bother, it was a sure bet that Bonehead would be somewhere behind it.
One Friday night, about six months after Jim came home, they’d had a few more than usual – it was hot and sticky and they were all thirsty. Jim was telling them army stories. They were mostly true, with a little embellishment to spice things up and make Jim look good.
‘… So that was why we never made it back home until Boxing Day,’ Jim said, bringing the story to an end. ‘But, if you’d seen Janie and Conchita, I’d give you ten to one you’d have done the same.’
He winked and everyone around the table snorted their approval.
‘Must’ve been tough for Julie and the girls though?’ said Bonehead.
Where had that come from? ‘Yeah, well,’ said Jim, spreading his arms wide like Tony Soprano. ‘Wadd’ya gonna do?’
Everyone laughed and Jim finished his pint in one gulp. Telling stories was thirsty work.
‘Is that why she took up with that bloke, then?’ said Bonehead.
‘What?’ Jim had instantly sobered up ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘He’s just talking bollocks,’ said Phil, Jim’s oldest mate. ‘Aren’t you, Bonehead? Piss-talk bollocks.’
Jim remembered that Bonehead’s eyes had been flicking from side to side as he tried to understand what was going on.
‘Shut it, Phil,’ Jim had said. ‘I wasn’t fucking asking you, was I?’ He’d then taken hold of Bonehead’s chin, twisting his face around and staring into his eyes. ‘Go on then,’ he’d snarled. ‘If you’ve got something to say, fucking say it.’
Jim would love to have been able to wipe out all memories of the year and a half that followed and it wasn’t really until he got his black cab license that life began to get back on track.
Being a Knowledge boy and riding the runs through central London was hard work and you didn’t have any status. You were a nobody and over half of the boys never lasted the distance.
It was only once you passed the final exam and got your license that you became worth something; Jim desperately needed to patch together his ego and self-esteem, which was a big part of what drove him forward day after day.
It had taken him more than two years and he’d sometimes thought his head was going to explode, but the day of his twelfth and final appearance, navigating yet another random route with a Black Cab
examiner, was the best day of his life.
He’d stood on the pavement outside the Drury Lane Theatre looking at the examiner who was still making notes on his clipboard. Hordes of strangers were pushing past them as though the two men weren’t there and, despite the traffic, Jim could hear the sound of the pen scratching his future into the paper. After an age, the examiner had looked up at him with a cheeky grin and held out his hand.
‘Well done, my son,’ he said. ‘You did it. You’re one of us now.’
Uncle Don had retired years earlier but, when Jim went to visit him together with his spanking new license, there had been no need for words. It was the end of a long journey which had started when Jim was a six-year-old and at last he was out there keeping the Pritchard traditions alive. He could see how proud Don was and knew that, just like Jim, he was wishing Jim’s father could have been there.
Things hadn’t improved much at home but it didn’t seem to matter so much. Every day, Jim would get in his shining cab, tuck his thermos carefully into its holder and set off for another fourteen hour shift. He knew exactly what he was doing, everyone loved a London Cabbie and all of them looked out for each other.
It was almost like being back in the Army.
Hassan
The only cars moving along the tree-lined street were taxis. London’s famous black cabs were prowling up and down, hunting for gullible tourists probably. Hassan wasn’t one of them; he couldn’t quite imagine what it would be like to stretch out an arm and jump in the back of a cab whenever you wanted. Money might not make people happy, but it could definitely make life easier.
There were a few other cars in between, but it was the parked cars which caught his eye. They were all top-end, expensive models, RangeRovers, BMWs, Mercedes … three DB9s in the space of a hundred metres.
Hassan had always liked cars. He liked their sleekness and the almost miraculous precision of their engineering. So many tiny perfect parts fitting together exactly as they were supposed to. It was easy to admire them, even to lust after them, but they were also glaring symbols of waste, pollution and inequality. How much money was sitting on this single street? And who needed a RangeRover in central London?
He was impatient to find a spot to pray and the green of Hyde Park up ahead was a welcome sight. He glanced at his watch, hoisted his bag onto his other shoulder and stepped forward.
As he got closer to Hyde Park, he was reminded of home, of the day after he’d found out about Oxford.
He’d managed to avoid his dad; he told his mother to say he was in a special study group for top students, but the reality was that he spent the entire time walking around Peel Park, pacing aggressively up and down, desperately trying to decide what to do.
Hassan hadn’t needed long to find out exactly how much a four-year biochemistry degree was going to cost him. It was all there on the web in black and white and with lots of zeros.
What had surprised him was that he could borrow almost all of it, although the thought of having a debt like that had him sweating bucketloads whenever he imagined it. The maximum loan would add up to more than their house was worth and the chances of ever paying it back were vanishingly small.
There was no-one to talk to who would understand. With each angry step, he felt more lonely than ever.
He’d got his place at Oxford through luck, a clerical error, or some sort of misplaced positive discrimination. They didn’t want someone like him there. He’d read the books and seen the films. It wasn’t exactly racism but, if you had brown skin you needed at least to balance it with a proper public school accent or to be some president’s son. Most of all, you needed money and the lazy, drawling confidence that came with it.
It wasn’t only the books and the films. He’d seen it with his own eyes when he went for his interviews. Of course they were all smiles and praise for his grades, but it was obvious what they really thought of him and the lunch with his fellow applicants had been the icing on the cake. It was rugby league versus rugby union and Hassan wasn’t even interested in rugby league.
They didn’t want some working class Muslim boy with a shop assistant for a father and a broad Yorkshire accent. He wouldn’t last a week.
Hassan had always been lonely at home, but it was a familiar loneliness and he did have a few friends, even if they were all misfits like him.
Why exchange that for the slow, drip-drip-dripping of inevitable failure? The sneering disdain of all of those rich, entitled bastards and the agony of realising, lecture-by-lecture that he didn’t really understand his subject, the final proof that, in their world, he wasn’t quite good enough.
Not only failure, but a failure that came packaged with a life-crippling debt and the humiliation and shame of having let everybody down. He would have nowhere to go but, at the same time, nowhere else to go.
Oxford University wasn’t for the likes of Hassan and he would tell his father that. There would be shouting and maybe a slap or two, but it would pass. He would find himself a job somewhere local and life would go back to normal.
‘What?’
‘I’ve decided not to go.’
‘What do you mean decided not to go?’ Hassan’s father’s face was dark at the best of times, but the storm clouds building behind his cheeks and forehead had been pulsing coal black under the fluorescent lighting. His mother was backed into the corner by the fridge, building a wall of silence and insignificance around herself.
‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ said Hassan, feeling his reserves of determination instantly melt away. ‘I spent all day yesterday thinking about it and I don’t think I should go to Oxford. It’s too much money.’
‘So you’re just going to tell your father how things are? Is that it?’
‘No … Yes … I just think it’s for the best.’ Hassan watched as his father stood and stepped around the table, his chair balancing on two legs for two or three long seconds before clattering to the floor. He stood still as the big man moved towards him, not out of bravery, but hypnotised as if by a cobra.
His father stopped when his face was only inches away and Hassan felt the fingers prodding into his chest, punctuating every word his father spoke. ‘Well … we’ll … see … about … that.’
They stood like statues while the real world continued as normal. Babies were born, people died. None of these things mattered in their private bubble. Hassan waited for the first slap to land.
But it never came. He’d completely misjudged the situation yet again.
His father’s face miraculously transformed as though nothing had happened. The dark clouds disappeared and a big smile appeared on his face. He put his arm around Hassan’s shoulders and turned him towards the living room door. ‘It’s good to see you’re becoming a man at last,’ he said in his rich, booming voice. ‘Now let’s go and have a man-to-man talk about this whole Oxford business.’
He led Hassan through the door and closed it behind them.
Hyde Park was huge.
Hassan walked along the curving path and through the looming shrubs, green leaves dark as a stagnant pond, and emerged into the countryside. London was gone and he could see nothing but soaring trees and grass in all directions. There were more people and dogs than would be found in the average wood – and most weren’t exactly dressed for a pub walk – but even those human reminders were swallowed up by the size of the place.
It wasn’t as though he was a country boy, but London was so big and the weight of millions of strangers had been pressing down, squeezing his chest and lungs, since the morning. Being in this open space was a release and he found himself able to breathe again.
Hassan looked at his watch. He still had half an hour.
He unrolled his prayer mat under a massive oak, smiling as he reflected that his eighteen-year-old self would have found that more shocking than anything else that had happened in his life.
He was a scientist. He’d been a scientist since before he even knew what science was and that knowledge and minds
et was completely incompatible with religion.
It had been easier for the great minds of the past to reconcile belief in God with rational thought; they were just beginning to discover the secrets of the world and of the universe. But so many mysteries had been uncovered since then. The answers and explanations were exposed and open for everyone to see.
It wasn’t only evolution and quantum physics; every branch of scientific study continued to dig into areas of existence which were once the exclusive preserves of whichever God you happened to believe in. Religious philosophy had been pushed further and further back on its heels. There was no longer a place for a theological debate which could logically justify either God or organised religion.
All that was left was faith. Faith was the trump card which the beleaguered imams, rabbis, priests and vicars pulled out when nothing else was left to them. If you had faith, everything was clear and there was no need for pointless discussions about the sex of the angels, or the origin of everything. It was simple. You only had to believe.
It was a cheap argument and Hassan had never been tempted to try too hard. He’d gone through the motions like most of his friends – in Islam apostasy came with a big price tag – but praying was no different from cleaning his teeth or attending assembly at school. Just another routine thing which you simply didn’t bother to question.
Until, one winter morning, faith had turned up on the doorstep unexpected and uninvited. Hassan chose to romanticise the memories – reality had been more gritty – but that was how it felt when he looked back.
First of all, his world had imploded and he’d fallen into a deep, black hole, barely able to see the small circle of light far above, which was shrinking day by day as he sank deeper and deeper down. He had started to believe that he would never find his way out and, in his rare moments of lucidity, he’d decided that it was probably for the best.