by Tony Salter
He did remember waking up in the Queen Elizabeth hospital, but had no idea how he’d ended up in Birmingham. They’d told him his liver was failing and he would die within weeks if he didn’t stop drinking. Worse than that, they refused to let him leave for a fortnight.
In amongst the sickness, pain and biting thirst, Hassan had been surprised to discover that he didn’t actually want to die.
‘So. Hassan. How are we doing today?’ Dr Mustafa Zaidi, came from the same region in Pakistan as Hassan’s father and had no difficulty identifying with Hassan’s shame and the fact that he refused to allow the hospital to contact his family.
‘Not great,’ said Hassan. ‘I still can’t stop shivering. It’s getting worse if anything.’
‘It’s going to take a while,’ said Mustafa. ‘You’re a scientist. You must be able to understand what you’ve done to your body?’
Hassan nodded.
‘I had the shakes for over three months,’ said Mustafa.
‘You had a drink problem?’ said Hassan, genuinely surprised. ‘But you look so … so …’
‘Normal and respectable?’ said Mustafa, white teeth shining through his beard.
‘Exactly.’
‘It wasn’t easy,’ said Mustafa. He was standing beside Hassan’s bed looking out of the window. ‘It still isn’t.’ He reached down and took Hassan’s hand. ‘If you have the right help, though … anything is possible.’
Hassan could feel the warmth and strength oozing into his palm and looked up at the short, dumpy man standing beside him. ‘Will you help me?’ he said, eventually.
Luckily for Hassan, guardian angels came in all shapes and sizes and a few days later, Mustafa had agreed to be his personal sponsor at the Muslim Recovery Network. The programme was based at the Birmingham Central Mosque and, with the help of the imam, Mustafa also managed to find Hassan a clerical job there. It wasn’t paid, but came with a small room and three meals a day.
It had continued to be a brutal journey and Hassan had wondered many times if he would have been better off allowing fate to take him. There actually had been times when he’d been tempted to give fate a helping hand, but Mustafa had a knack of turning up exactly when he was really needed and, after six months or so, Hassan had begun to feel human again.
Although the physical withdrawal was a continual torture, at least it had a recognisable shape and Hassan knew what he was fighting against. The religious side of the programme was perversely more challenging, at least to begin with. The Islamic Twelve Steps had their basis in the Koran and, even more than AA, religion was an integral part of every step. Personal willpower was vital, but the magic ingredient was faith; it was only by putting yourself freely and openly into the hands of Allah that a recovering alcoholic could hope to find true recovery and peace.
That was difficult; Hassan had always been a fair weather Muslim at best and, since Mona, had spent a lot more energy cursing Allah than praising him. Luckily, the team of volunteers at the mosque had been blessed with superhuman reserves of patience and continued to match his anger and cynicism with reason and calm faith.
There must have been a moment when he stopped fighting and felt the warmth of true belief fill him, but Hassan couldn’t remember it.
There was a time before and a time after. It was as simple as that.
By the time Hassan approached his twelve-month milestone, he was a different man. As part of the programme, he’d reached out to make amends to all the people he’d harmed during his lost years. A curiously therapeutic process, he’d been humbled by the gracious way that each of them had accepted his apologies and wished him well even though he’d used them so shamefully. There were a few outstanding exceptions; some of his worst offences were still lost in the fug of his memories and he wasn’t quite ready to face his family or Uncle Sami.
The excoriation and evisceration of his grief and despair (not to mention the alcohol) had left him cleansed and fresh, a newborn child ready to begin again. The empty canvas which had once been a weak Bradford boy destined for eternal failure was now being filled by faith and certainty.
He became increasingly involved in the work of the mosque and continued to study his Koran with the singular passion of a newly enlightened convert. He had some good friends amongst the other students and, for the first time, life was simple and good.
When Mustafa wasn’t around for support, Hassan would often turn to Sadiq, who had become his closest friend at the mosque. Sadiq was everything Hassan aspired to be – devout, clean-living, knowledgeable and kind. The fact that he was the Imam’s eldest son probably helped.
Sadiq worked with Hassan in the small administration office and one evening as he was switching off his computer, Hassan looked up to see him standing in front of the desk.
‘You got plans, Hassan?’ Sadiq said.
‘Nah,’ Hassan replied. ‘I’m knackered. I’m just going back to my room.’
‘Me and a few guys get together on a Tuesday night,’ said Sadiq. ‘Why don’t you come?’
Hassan had a sharp vision of a small group sat in a noisy pub, half-full glasses and wet sticky rings on the battered wooden table. He knew how he would be feeling – strong, confident, brave – and lusted after that feeling. A shiver ran through him.
‘Nah. You’re all right,’ he said, through clenched teeth. ‘I’m better off keeping away from temptation. You know.’
Sadiq had laughed and slapped Hassan hard on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s not that sort of thing. We just meet up at a friend’s house, drink tea and talk. Strictly no alcohol.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘You know I don’t drink, don’t you?’
‘Course,’ said Hassan, still recovering from the wave of desire which had flooded through every cell of his body. ‘Talk about what, anyway?’
‘This and that,’ said Sadiq. ‘What’s going on in the world. What’s going on round here.’
Hassan had never cared much for politics; he could see how the world was full of injustice, but had always known deep down that nothing he said or did would ever change that. His father was a stupid man who believed he was an important figure supporting his community. Hassan wasn’t stupid and, by his early teens, had spotted that for the bullshit it certainly was.
That was the old Hassan, though. He was leaving him behind and the new Hassan was different.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Sounds all right. What time are you off?’
‘Grab your coat and we’ll go straight away,’ said Sadiq. ‘I’ll lock up.’
Was that conversation with Sadiq the real catalyst which had set his feet on the road to South Kensington? It was part of it, of course, but he wouldn’t have even met Sadiq without Mona. Whichever way he looked at his life, she was there at the start of everything.
As he walked across the huge hall, towards the dinosaur, Hassan reached around to the back pocket of his jeans and slipped his fingers inside. He could feel the folded photograph smooth under his fingers.
Mona had been there at the start of everything, and she would be there at the end.
Shuna
‘I’m not allowed to be near you.’ The taxi driver took a step backwards. ‘I can’t have any more trouble with the law.’
‘I think it’s OK if it’s me walking up to you,’ said Shuna. ‘Rather than the other way around.’ As she got closer to him, she had the sensation of pushing through a soft, permeable membrane until, with a final step, she slipped inside a massive bubble leaving the two of them isolated in space and time.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, no sign of the aggressive ex-soldier as he flinched and shifted his gaze from side to side, focusing everywhere but on Shuna’s face. ‘There’s been too much grief all round. And anyway I’m not allowed to talk when I’m on duty.’ His face hardened. ‘Do you want me to lose this job too?’
Shuna felt the bitterness and resentment like slaps. ‘No. Of course not,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want you to lose the last one either. I still don’t
know how things got so blown up out of all proportion.’ She moved closer. ‘It wasn’t what I intended.’
‘But I did end up losing my license, didn’t I?’ he said, looking at Shuna for the first time. He pulled at the sleeve of his ridiculous purple fleece. ‘I lost it and now look at me. I suppose you came here to gloat?’
‘No. That’s not it at all. I came to apologise. I know it won’t help, but I wanted you to know that I’m sorry for everything that happened.’ Shuna could feel her eyes prickling and the roughness in her throat; for a brief, crazy instant she thought about kneeling down in supplication. ‘I wish more than anything that we could just rewind the clocks and make it all go away.’
It was silent inside the bubble and the two of them stood face to face, close enough to reach out and touch each other, but separated by an unbridgeable gulf. Shuna looked at his crumpled figure and couldn’t see the obnoxious, aggressive taxi driver anywhere. This was simply an ordinary man; a sad old man, called Jim.
Eventually he spoke, his voice cracking and the strain visible on his face.
‘I know it wasn’t really your fault,’ he said, bending his head forwards. ‘I shouldn’t have done what I done. Not before and not after.’
Shuna understood that she should stay silent. There was something about the expression on his face. It was hurting him to say the words but, at the same time, she could see that he needed to rid himself of them, to squeeze and spit out the rot which had built up inside him.
‘At the airport, that was just me – the old me – up to my usual tricks. I didn’t mean anything by it. I was knackered after a long day and all I wanted was a good fare back to London, a couple of whiskies and my bed. Your stupid airport hotel detour was going to add at least an hour onto that.’ He scratched his chin and looked up at Shuna. ‘Should you have made a big deal out of it? Probably not. That was unnecessarily arsey of you. But I started it and rules are rules.’
Shuna could see his eyes losing focus as he stared past her, over her shoulder and into the distance.
‘No. The real problem came after,’ he said. ‘At the tribunal.’ A small smile played at the corners of his mouth and Shuna suspected that he was thinking back to that day. She hadn’t forgotten it and could still remember how disappointed with herself she had been when she saw the consequences of her spoilt vindictiveness.
Jim continued, the smile enduring and an unexpected tenderness coming into his voice. ‘I don’t know how to say any of this,’ he said, eyes and attention back to the present moment. ‘It’s not the sort of thing that blokes like me talk about … Or even think about, to be fair.’ He cleared his throat with a short cough. ‘When I saw you at the tribunal, it was as though you were something from a book or a film. I remember thinking you were like a lioness, proud and confident, queen of everything.’
He stopped talking and stood there, looking at the floor and furrowing his forehead as though he was in physical pain.
Shuna waited a few more seconds before speaking. ‘Go on,’ she said, her voice not much more than a whisper.
He coughed again. ‘I suppose I sound like a right plonker, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. I tried for months. I worked extra long shifts – fourteen, sixteen hours until I was almost too tired to walk to my bed. Even then, as soon as my head hit the pillow, the dreams would start. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, waking or sleeping. It wasn’t that I fancied you. You know? Like that?’ He looked at Shuna carefully to make sure she understood. ‘Although I’m not saying you’re not tasty. No. It was something else, and it was driving me nuts.’
Shuna didn’t know what to think. She hadn’t seen this coming at all. None of the guys she knew were open with their emotions and she certainly hadn’t expected anything so candid from Jim Pritchard. From the look on his face, the rawness of the confession was equally surprising to him.
‘About three months before I picked you up that last time,’ Jim continued. ‘I thought it might help if I saw you from time-to-time to help get it out of my system. That’s when I started working your area. Most days, but only for an hour or two. It worked. Even if I just caught a glimpse of you, it made me feel more peaceful and then everything was OK.’
‘But what about the photos?’ said Shuna.
‘Oh. That was nothing,’ said Jim. ‘Wildlife photography’s my hobby, and I kept my cameras in the cab. I started taking photos of people while I was hanging around waiting for you to show up.’
‘So they weren’t only photos of me?’
‘Nah. Course not. I wanted to try to capture how different people moved, just like with animals and birds. It passed the time, and I started to enjoy it after a while.’
Shuna began to feel that the ground under her feet was less solid with every word that came out of his mouth. It was as though she was standing on a thin, hard crust which covered a dark and sucking swamp. If she moved, it would break and she would be dragged down.
‘And the taxi?’ she said. ‘How do you explain kidnapping me in your taxi?’
Jim actually hit himself on the forehead with the flat of his hand like a bad actor in a school play. ‘I didn’t kidnap you,’ he said. ‘I only wanted to talk to you, but then you panicked so quickly and I didn’t know what to do. Honest. All I wanted to do was talk.’
Shuna didn’t know how to respond. She couldn’t help feeling sympathy for this surprisingly vulnerable old man. He was clearly miserable and hated what he’d become. On the other hand, the matter-of-fact way he described his strange obsession and the months he’d spent stalking her was much more disturbing than anything she’d heard during the trial. The prosecution had painted him as a resentful, vengeful bitter man and it had been easy enough to turn her fear into anger back then. But after his explanation, the intrusion, the violation, felt much deeper than before.
She looked for her girls. Anna was sitting next to an elderly couple across the hall; she looked so tiny and helpless with her legs dangling from the massive old wooden bench. Zoe was standing next to the dinosaur talking to a young man. How had she managed to meet someone in five minutes? Shuna sighed. That girl really was going to be trouble.
She turned back to Jim. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But I’m running late. We’re meeting my husband in a quarter of an hour and it’s quite a walk.’
Jim shrugged. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Shuna continued, ‘I don’t quite know what to think about what you’ve just told me, but could we maybe talk again?’
‘Why?’ said Jim. ‘What’s the point?’
Dan
Rachel was sitting, hunched forward, misery and confusion painting dark shadows on her face. Dan looked at her and smiled. Their story wasn’t quite over and Rosa could wait a month or two longer.
He’d been almost sure about his decision, but the last hour spent sitting and thinking had allowed him to clarify everything in his mind. Funnily enough, it had been that Spanish girl, Ramona, who had helped to push him off the fence. She had been so alive, brim-full of hope and dreams. And fun. She’d reminded him that, when it came to the final reckoning, most people couldn’t claim to have made such a huge difference to the world, anyway.
Human nature seemed to have evolved one evolutionary skill which dominated all others – the ability to believe that one’s own life, and the goals and results of that life, actually mattered. For a very few, it might be true – although the value of progress could always be questioned – but, for the vast majority, the result of all of that effort and striving seemed to count for very little.
As he’d moved around and got older, Dan had come to the conclusion that most achievements either didn’t matter, or could probably have been achieved by some other worker ant. What was it that Flaubert had said? ‘Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.’.
It was fine to have a genetically imposed drive which tricked people into doing whatever possible to refine and improve the species, but bacteria did that as wel
l. There had to be something else to take away from a life lived.
That was where Ramona’s youth and positive passion had come in to the equation. Would it be so bad to measure a life in terms of happy experiences, of honest joy and laughter? If he met his Rosa again in some uncertain hereafter, would she want to hear about his research, his loneliness and misery or would she rather listen to a few, simple stories about the good times in between.
‘Rachel?’
‘What?’
‘It’s not so bad, you know?’ he said, resting one hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m seventy-eight, I’ve had a good life and we still have a little time.’
‘But one or two months,’ she said. ‘Is there nothing they can do?’
‘Maybe,’ Dan said. ‘With aggressive treatment, they might be able to stretch things out for another month or so.’
‘Well …’
‘But I’ve decided that I won’t do it,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to spend my last days dipping in and out of hospital and feeling sick the whole time. What’s the point in that?’
‘But you need to fight. You hear all these stories of miracle cures. Why shouldn’t you be one of them? You can’t just give up.’
‘I’m not giving up. I’ve looked at all my options and I’ve made some decisions that I think will be best for me … and for us. I have a plan.’
He could see her face twisting as she fought with her conflicting emotions. He had come to know her so well over the years. She was a dogged fighter and believed that almost anything could be overcome with willpower alone. Giving up was an alien concept for Rachel. But, at the same time, she had a deep respect for individual liberty and free will and, her rational reasonable calm self won the battle as it always did. ‘I’m listening,’ she said. ‘Tell me your plan.’