‘I’m following them!’ said Maisie.
‘They’re dangerous!’ whispered Robert.
‘That’s why you have to come too,’ said Maisie. ‘I’m only a woman. I need your strong Muslim arms.’
Robert did not try to contest the authenticity of either of these adjectives. Since her conversion, Maisie had been very assertive about her need to submit. ‘I am low,’ she would sometimes say, especially before breakfast. ‘I am low, low on the ground next to you, Yusuf!’ In these moods, she reminded Robert of his mother. She was particularly fond, especially when asked her opinion on some current controversy, of quoting the words of Muhammad to Abu Said al-Khudri: ‘Isn’t the testimony of a woman worth only half the testimony of a man? That is because of her inferior intelligence.’
‘These guys,’ said Robert, ‘are not messing about!’
They were now halfway down the passage. Rafiq stood in their way. His face wore that same enigmatic smile, but he did not speak. Maisie pushed past him, and, with a little sigh, the older man moved back against the wall.
‘Mr Shah,’ said the engineering master, ‘is not such a nice man as you think!’
‘No?’
Robert didn’t want to talk to the engineering master, but neither did he want to go out after Aziz the janitor, who, in their first conversation in the Frog and Ferret, had made pretty clear not only his low opinion of infidels but also his readiness to use cutlery on other human beings with whom he disagreed.
Perhaps, he thought to himself, this was all part of a plot worked up by Dr Ali. Perhaps Twenty-fourthers hired themselves out on a contract basis to anyone wanting to lean heavily on un-Islamic behaviour.
Maisie had gone before him into the front garden. She turned to Robert and called. ‘I need your strong arms!’ she said. ‘If Hasan is in danger . . .’
As Robert moved forward after her, Rafiq grabbed him, hard, round the waist. ‘Do not do this,’ growled the engineering master, ‘or you will burn in everlasting fire, and hell shall be your couch! The ground will yawn open before you, and the trees will bend to strike at your face.’ He had obviously not allowed his degree course to affect his view of what was and was not possible in the physical world. It was also depressing to realize that yet another member of the staffroom of the Islamic Boys’ Independent Wimbledon Day School was barking mad.
Robert broke free of him.
‘You do not know what goes on at this school,’ said Rafiq. ‘Who do you think watches you day and night? Is not this school damned? Who knows where the little boy is? Who knows what he is?’
‘You tell me,’ said Robert, as he moved after Maisie.
‘His name is Thunder,’ said Rafiq, ‘and he brings curses. What do you know of any of this? What do you know of our secrets?’
The honest answer would have been to say Fuck all, but Robert did not feel inclined to do so. Pulling himself away from the older man, he ran after Maisie, who was now somewhere out in the road. Rafiq followed him, and for a moment Robert thought he was going to hit him, but, instead, he ran across the road and over towards the far side of the Common.
Maisie was screaming something, but he could not hear what it was. He ran, faster and faster, towards the sound of her voice, until the noise of the cricket game faded and the familiar world of traffic and aeroplanes and reassuring English faces crowded out the thought that had been started by Rafiq.
You’re out of your depth, Wilson. You’re in deep, deep trouble. Get out while there’s still time!
16
When he got to the High Street, he saw Hasan and Aziz walking up to the Common. The janitor was still holding the little boy’s hand.
Maisie rounded on Robert. She seemed to have decided that he was responsible for all this. ‘Mr Malik put him in your care!’ she hissed. ‘Do something! Call him back!’
Robert started after the little boy. ‘Hasan!’ he called. ‘I think you should come with me!’
Hasan turned to him, slowly. He reached out his hands towards the sound of Robert’s voice. ‘I must go, Mr Wilson,’ he said. ‘It is the time!’
With which he turned and trotted off beside the janitor.
When they got to the edge of the grass, Aziz turned and leered at Maisie and Robert. He looked, thought Robert, more than usually unappetising. ‘Leave us!’ he said. ‘Go back to the blasphemer Malik! Crawl on your belly to the hypocrites! You are the vomit of the devil, Wilson!’
He was always saying things like this. Robert did not like to think of himself as a snob, but, had he been in charge of the Independent Wimbledon Day Islamic Boys’ School, he would have expected a higher standard of civility from the cleaning staff.
‘Listen—’ he began. But, before he had the chance to complete the sentence, a swarm of people came from out of the birch trees and Aziz and Hasan disappeared into them. Most of them were wearing wellingtons. Many of the women had headscarves and, among the men, walking-sticks of the folksier kind were popular. Every single one of them – and there were upwards of seventy or eighty in the group – seemed to have brought at least one dog.
Robert recognized faces he had been trying to avoid for weeks. There was Ron ‘Rescue Dog’ Hitchens, with his three Rottweilers, one of which had recently eaten a Scotch terrier. ‘He’s only being friendly!’ Ron had screamed as Mrs Coates’s dog was consumed. There was the mad Irishman with Fang, his Alsatian, accompanied by Myrtle ‘It’s the Best Exercise’ Freeman and her Dobermann. ‘It’s the Best Exercise!’ was what she yelled at Robert every time the Dobermann came for Badger at about thirty miles an hour with the clearly expressed intention of biting his head off. There was ‘Pooper Scooper’ Watkins, a young woman who insisted not only on picking up her dog’s faeces with a see-through plastic glove, but also on waving it in the faces of passers-by in order to emphasize her ecological soundness. There was Vera ‘How Old is He?’ Jackson, a woman who had told Robert the story of her dog’s operation no less than seventeen times. There was the man from Maple Drive known as ‘Is the Mitsubishi Scratched Yet?’, dragging his Rhodesian Ridgeback, known locally as ‘He Just Wants to Play’. There was Mrs Quigley of the South Wimbledon Neighbourhood Church, with her pug, Martha. There was the German from Maple Drive known as ‘The Nazi who Escaped Justice from Nuremberg’, who, although he did not own any kind of pet, bared his teeth like an Alsatian . . . They were all there.
All of the people he had stopped and engaged in conversation over the last four years. People who had at first seemed so friendly and decent and open and neighbourly, but who, after two or three encounters, had turned into ravingly obsessive lunatics. People who had driven him further and further into the woods that slope down from the Common towards the main road to the south-west. People who had made him skulk behind trees until they had passed. People who had persuaded him that the only safe time to take out the dog was after the hours of darkness, when you were only likely to meet George ‘Let’s Get Rabbits’ Grover.
They were carrying placards and posters. KEEP THE COMMON FREE FOR DOGS! said one. OUR DOGS MUST NOT LIVE IN FEAR! said another. A third read I AM A DOG. I HAVE THE SAME RIGHTS AS YOU!
‘It’s the dog-murdering thing!’ said Maisie. The Wimbledon Dog Murderer – already featured in several national newspapers – had already claimed the lives of six Labradors, eight poodles, a Border collie and fourteen Dobermanns. Although some claimed that his methods – shooting through the head at close range – were ‘humane’, most dog lovers had lobbied their MP and campaigned vigorously in the local press under headlines such as STOP THIS DOG SERIAL KILLER.
There had been profiles of him that suggested that he was a jogger who had been bitten by one of Alex ‘Down Sir’ Snell’s pit bulls. There were some who said he was a man whose children had been savaged by a local hound. And there were some heartless people who maintained that he was a public-spirited individual who should be given as much help as possible in his self-appointed mission.
The dog lobby had clearly fel
t it was time to take action. Aziz and Hasan were caught up in a maze of stout shoes, Sherley’s extendable dog leads and sniffing, quivering red setters, corgis, Jack Russells, Old English Sheepdogs and pugs. Robert thought he saw Gwendolen ‘Good for the Gardens’ Mintoff trying to feed a Dogchoc to the Twenty-fourth Imam. And, when Maisie and he got into the crowd, he was, of course, stopped by almost every individual in it. ‘I didn’t recognize you without the dog!’ some of them said. ‘You’re the chap with the Staffordshire terrier bitch, aren’t you? How are the pups?’ Some, with clearer memories, had long, detailed questions to ask. They remembered things about Badger that Robert had forgotten long ago. They asked about his speed and his fondness for Pedigree Chum Select Cuts, and all expressed interest in his bowel movements.
By the time Maisie and he got clear of the crowd, Aziz and Hasan were almost at the other side of the Common. Robert waved and shouted, but the little boy did not turn his head. He trotted obediently along beside Aziz. Even at this distance you could see that huge red mark across his cheek.
The two stopped outside a large house not unlike Mr Shah’s. Aziz looked round, as if to check whether he was being followed. When he saw Robert, he picked up the little boy and ran towards the house. There was a high stone wall, a pair of wrought-iron gates and the kind of silence that suggested the sort of owners who could enforce their privacy.
The sky had darkened suddenly. Robert felt a drop of rain on his face. An April shower. ‘What do we do now?’ he said.
‘We ring the doorbell,’ said Maisie, ‘and ask them what the hell they think they’re doing with Hasan.’
‘This isn’t that easy, Maisie,’ said Robert. ‘We are talking about the Occultation of the Twenty-fourth Imam of the Wimbledon Dharjees! This is major-league stuff!’
‘You talk as if you believe that rubbish!’ said Maisie.
The two of them sat together on the damp grass. What had Mr Malik said the manuscript contained? A prophecy of some kind. And if Hasan was just an ordinary little boy, why did he have such an alarmingly high success rate in the prophetic-dreams department?
From behind, he heard a cough. Robert turned to see his mother and father peering down at him anxiously. What were they doing out here? Why didn’t they have jobs like other people?
‘Well, Yusuf,’ said his mother, brightly, ‘this is nice for you!’
Robert felt his mouth tighten. ‘What’s nice?’
Mrs Wilson flushed. ‘Being out here,’ she said – ‘in the fresh air. With Ai’sha!’
She was almost the only person who regularly used their Islamic names. It wouldn’t be long, thought Robert grimly, before she, too, was climbing into a large, black linen bag.
She tapped him, playfully, on the shoulder. ‘Couple of lovebirds!’ she said.
Mr Wilson, anxious not to be left out of things, slapped Robert heartily on the back. ‘I wish I had your faith,’ he said – ‘I really do!’
Maisie looked up at him, skilled, as ever, in the ways of dutiful daughters. ‘You will believe, Mr Wilson,’ she said. ‘I know it. It must be!’ She was always saying things like that these days.
Robert drew into himself and waited for his parents to go away. His mother was making small, agitated noises, while Mr Wilson senior was beginning to edge away across the grass. They were probably on their way to the pub.
‘Don’t you like me using your Islamic name?’ said Mrs Wilson.
‘It’s not that,’ said Robert. ‘I think I don’t like the Islamic name. I think I’m going to change it. I think I’m going to call myself Omar.’
Mrs Wilson kissed him, lightly, on the top of the head. ‘Omar Bobkins Wilson,’ she said – ‘I like that!’ And, with a nod and a wink to Maisie, she followed her husband.
When they had gone, Maisie started to pick at the grass with her fingers. She pulled out a stalk and wound it round her hand, watching it cut into her flesh.
‘I sometimes wonder,’ she went on, ‘whether you’re sincere about being a Muslim.’
Robert looked over his shoulder. There was, as far as he could see, no one else on the Common. ‘I’m completely sincere about it,’ he said.
Of course, the only way out of his troubles would be to confess to someone that he was passing himself off as a Muslim for the purposes of financial gain. That would be the sincere thing to do. Would they shake hands and agree to forget the whole thing were he to do so? He did not think so.
‘I think,’ Maisie said, ‘you have to ask yourself some hard questions. Otherwise there’s no future for us. What do you really hold dear, Robert? Are you Robert or are you Yusuf or are you Omar? What drives you forward?’
The desire to stay alive was what Robert wanted to say, but didn’t. Staying alive seemed to be pretty low on the average Muslim’s list of priorities.
He got to his feet. ‘Let’s go, then,’ he said. ‘We’ll just bang on the door and see what happens.’
Maisie got up too. ‘I’m changing, you see,’ she said. ‘Becoming a Muslim was a tremendous step for me. It’s altered me in ways I can’t even describe.’
‘It’s altered me too,’ said Robert. ‘Things have really sort of speeded up since I became a Muslim. It’s very exciting.’
If you like being condemned to death and followed around by loonies with slippers on and becoming involved with weird prophecies from the dawn of time, it’s a lot of fun!
Maisie pecked him on the cheek. ‘I don’t want us to lose each other,’ she said. ‘Mr Malik says that a harmonious relationship between man and woman is terribly important. At school, all I learned was that sex was wicked. In Islam it’s different.’
Perhaps, thought Robert, as he trudged after her towards the iron gates, this was a signal for their lovemaking to become more decorous. Guilt was, after all, one of the things that made sex really interesting. One of the most positive things the Catholic Church had done for screwing was trying to stamp it out. She was living the part, he said to himself, and then: no, it’s me that’s living the part. She actually believes this stuff.
Maisie put her shoulder to the gates. They creaked open – one swinging wildly over to the left, while the other ground to a halt on the gravel after a few yards. He stopped, waiting for armed Twenty-fourthers to swarm out of every window, demanding to know why Robert was proposing to barge in on their most secret and important ceremony.
‘Suppose he is an imam!’ said Robert. ‘Oughtn’t we to at least consider whether these people have a right to think he is. I don’t see what harm they’re doing!’
‘They’re evil!’ said Maisie. ‘They are the scum of the earth! They’re—’ her face reddened with fury – ‘intolerant! Do you know why they wear one shoe? It’s to shame the rest of the Dharjees, because they say that Dharjees flout Islamic law!’
She looked like Ronnie Gallagher, the pacifist organizer of the Wimbledon Peace Council, shortly before he put Derek ‘Small Publisher With Big Problems’ Elletson in hospital for suggesting that, under certain circumstances, war might be necessary.
‘They have to be crushed, Bobkins!’
So saying, she marched off down the gravel path, making the kind of crunching noise Robert had thought could only be produced by the BBC sound-effects department.
As they rounded the edge of the building, he could see that behind the house was a vast garden. There was a brick patio over on the left, studded with dwarf cypresses in terracotta tubs. Stretching up to and away from the patio was a vast lawn, smothered with spring flowers – yellow daffodils and a parade of brilliant hyacinths. In the middle of the lawn was a cedar tree, and, attached to one of its branches by a knotted rope, was a child’s swing, idling above the flowers as the rain guttered out and another squall of sunlight came in from the west. There was a terrible quiet about the place.
‘I think,’ said Robert, ‘we should go and get reinforcements. We should go and ask Mr Malik.’
Maisie gave him a contemptuous look and marched up towards the patio. With a
heavy heart, Robert followed her towards the smooth, mysterious features of the house, whose windows, on this side, he could now see, were blacked out from the inside.
17
When they got to the windows, Maisie put her ear to the glass. Robert, who was still looking nervously up and down the garden, stood a little away from the rear wall. But after a while it was clear that she could hear something, and he was unable to resist following her example.
The cloth inside muffled the noise, but when he got close to the window he could make out a human voice. At first he thought it was unfamiliar to him, but then, with a shock, he realized it was Rafiq’s. But there was a quality to it he would not have expected. It was deep and assured.
‘Say,’ said the voice: ‘Who is the Lord of the Heaven and the Earth? Say: Allah. Say: Why have you chosen other gods beside him, who, even to themselves, can do neither harm nor good? Say: Are the blind and seeing alike? Does darkness resemble the light?’
Other voices joined in, in a low growl, but Robert could not hear whether they were repeating what Rafiq had said, or, indeed, whether they were speaking English at all.
He pulled his ear away from the glass. ‘I think we should ring on the doorbell,’ he said, ‘and just ask them, politely, what they’re doing with Hasan. If they’re worshipping him, could they guarantee to us that he . . . you know . . . enjoys being worshipped. Otherwise it may well be a form of child abuse. Worshipping someone without their permission . . .’
Maisie still had her ear pressed to the glass. From inside, the noise of the voices was getting louder. Someone was beating what sounded like a tambourine, and, high above all this, Robert thought he heard a flute. Then, slowly at first, but building to an almost military rhythm, the stamp of feet on wooden boards. Rafiq’s voice was calling something, like a chant, and was answered by the other voices. Robert could not understand it at first, but, after he put his ear back to the window, it resolved itself into two syllables:
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