A Fistful of Dust

by Nasser Hashmi

  ‘Because I was worried about your health. Anyhow, it seems to have brought me some good luck, so I’ll be eternally grateful on that front. You look better though, I have to say. There was a rumour you’d gone abroad…’

  ‘Yes, I went to Iraq to rescue my grandson and spread cricket in the country.’

  Len laughed and patted me on the shoulder. ‘Course, and I’m Dickie Bird.’ He looked at his watch and walked off.

  ‘What about the police thing? I may have found someone who wants to join up.’

  ‘I’ll tell my daughter, she might pop round.’

  Len always doffed his cap when he was leaving, even to me, but not this time. He tied an elastic band around the batch of leaflets and strode down Edmund Street. His left arm swung for the first time in decades. But as he turned the corner down into Silver Street, I caught sight of Salim’s beige Toyota Carina pulling in. Should I close the door or leave it open? It didn’t matter because by the time I’d made my decision, Salim had already parked up. He got out of the car and fixed his eyes on me with a force I couldn’t recall.

  ‘Where the fuck were you?’ he shouted, from at least 20 yards away. ‘You could have been killed.’

  12.

  I felt embarrassed that Salim had chosen to humiliate me in the street but he had that look of incredulity in his eyes and that meant there was no room for reason: better to let him swing wildly. He looked a bit dishevelled with his overgrown goatee beard, shirt hanging out and the laces on his right Puma trainer dirty and undone. I wondered where he’d been but, as expected, he turned the tables on me and ushered me inside with an uncomfortable arm on my shoulder. A few minutes later, in the corner of the living room, I was forced to come clean on my small, but memorable, adventure. I had expended a lot of energy in my conversations with Len so I reached into my pocket for my wallet and handed Salim the letter Wasim had written to the family. He took it but didn’t move his eyes from my face. He unfolded it and, finally, looked down at its contents. It took him a matter of seconds to absorb the main fact that his son wasn’t where he thought he was. He smacked the letter on his thigh as though he was swatting a fly. He looked up at the ceiling and let out an almighty sigh.

  ‘I called literally hundreds of contacts in Kashmir,’ he said, finally lowering his head to look at me. ‘But all this time, superhero grandad here were running around in Iraq with my son trying not to get shot. Are you sick or what? Have you still got your head screwed on right?’

  I had to swallow before I replied because their simply wasn’t enough saliva to lubricate the vocal cords. The events of the day had caught up with me. I could not afford a long, drawn–out dispute with my son–in–law. It had to be short and, not particularly, sweet.

  ‘Why didn’t you call the police or the local MP?’ I asked. ‘Were you scared they would ask questions of your troubled son and what he was up to?’

  Salim’s lip twitched, a rare sign that he was getting annoyed. He threw the letter back in my direction and walked off towards the kitchen. In a way, I could understand his concern. I was officially sick and had travelled thousands of miles to a foreign country and, yes, could have been killed. It could have been deemed a highly irresponsible act but, on the other hand, who else was going to stand up and be counted in terms of getting to the heart of Wasim’s teenage fantasies? Who else was prepared to put themselves on the line to keep the family unit together? I didn’t see it from anyone in this house. A few seconds later, I could hear the tap running. I got up and headed out of the living room, desperate to get upstairs for a nap. He quickly returned and, curiously, stood in front of me to stop me leaving. He then folded his arms but used one of his hands to rap his knuckles on his forehead. He had an occasional habit of rapping slow, lumbering tunes on it like a confused drummer.

  ‘I shouldn’t have brought the illness into it. Sorry on that score.’ He moved his hand away from his forehead. ‘But you went to Iraq, for fuck’s sake. Even Blair’s shit scared of going there.’ He stepped away from the door so I could get out. ‘I can tell you need a rest, that’s okay. I’ll get your medication if you need it. But you need to tell us everything. Wasim’s my son and if I’m going to knock some sense into the cocky sneak then I need to know the details.’

  ‘Knocking sense into him hasn’t worked so far, has it?’

  He shook his head and opened the door for me. He ushered me through but didn’t say anything. I hadn’t noticed it before but his eyes looked a little bloodshot. Had he been taking drugs? There were so many gangs prowling every street corner that I wouldn’t have been surprised. But I had given up trying to work out Salim and what made him tick. His value system was completely different to mine and he had proved it by being away for so long since Wasim and I had arrived. Granted, he didn’t know we would appear out of the blue but it was obvious there was a pattern of behaviour developing and he wasn’t too enamoured with us for returning and disrupting his lifestyle. There were other factors too: he had never suffered a day’s illness in his life, not even a cold, so it wasn’t surprising he couldn’t relate to my condition. He also sold flimsy mobile phones while I had made real things of use to everyday people: motorway signs and brake pads. There was too much between us for reconciliation now. I had bigger things on my mind.

  * * *

  It was early evening when Wasim rushed into the bedroom with a bulging, wallet–type folder under one arm and a yellow plastic bin in the other. I hadn’t slept at all and was sat up reading Len’s leaflet, bewildered by how quickly my old friend had organised the charity match. I put the leaflet down and watched Wasim place the bin by the side of my bed. It was thoughtful of him because it would save me a trip to the bathroom. Most of the time there was nothing to release from my throat, even if there was an immediate urge from my volcanic stomach, so now I could simply lower my head and spit whatever stuff came out without having to move. Wasim sat down on the other side of the bed and pulled out a thick pile of white paper from the folder. He laid the sheets out neatly on the bed like a pack of cards. His eyes flitted across the pages and he was deep in concentration. He paused and rubbed his chin. He picked out one of the pages and handed it over to me.

  ‘These are mostly from the Observer,’ he said. ‘They’ve shafted a lot of people…’

  He handed me one of the loose pages and it was a story titled ‘Asbestos took my wife away me’. It was pretty self–explanatory and I only decided to read the first couple of paragraphs which told the story of a woman who worked at Turner Brothers for 33 years and had been diagnosed with Mesothelioma. The disease lay dormant for over 30 years and she died in 2002. I did not want to read any more because it was too painful and made me think of Fareeda. She knew of a man in Heath Street in the late 70s who had died of asbestos–related disease, or so his wife claimed, and Fareeda subsequently wanted me to find another job in the town. But I didn’t listen because I was settled and had a decent wage. I figured that so many people worked there, about 3,000 in my time, that I was certain a giant company like that would protect us as much as they could. I handed the page back to Wasim and, although he took it, he wasn’t even looking at me. He was scouring the other pages and handed me another one. His enthusiasm for the cause was admirable. I raised my hand and asked him to stop.

  ‘Nana jee, this is important,’ he said. ‘I won’t ask you to read another one. You can rest after this.’

  ‘No you read it, my eyes hurt…’

  He took the page back off me and read me the whole article which claimed families, of asbestos workers, were also at risk. The article highlighted a case where a woman in her 40s got Mesothelioma from sitting on her father’s knee: he had worked at Turner Brothers and regularly came home for lunch in his asbestos–covered overalls. I looked up at Wasim after he had finished and it was the same kind of expression I had seen many times in Iraq: a blank, stony certainty; a semi–blackmail posture that required immediate acquiescence. He was sure he was doing the right thing and I needed to
go along with it. Now, that my ‘disease’ could hurt the family too I had to join the campaign for justice, anything else would be wrong or, even downright, dangerous. There was an uncomfortable silence between us. It couldn’t wait. I had to change direction completely.

  ‘Do you intend to see your jihadi friends again?’

  Wasim huffed and turned away from me. He got up and walked towards the window. He picked up the Kwik Cricket bat and did a quick slog to long on. He then put it down and walked over to the dumbbells near my bag. He picked one up over his shoulder and slowly raised it head, all the while not taking his eyes off me.

  ‘This is still my bedroom,’ he said.

  ‘…And it’s my disease, why do you want to fight it?’

  He put the dumbbell down and slowly walked towards me. He sat down on my side of the bed, and to my surprise, gently picked up my hand. He examined my index finger and then held my hand tightly.

  ‘There are no brothers like that in this town,’ he said. ‘Amir was from Bolton, Shiraz from Middleton and Liaqat from Cheetham Hill. We used to meet at a house in Glodwick. Some nights we drove down to an imam’s house in Birmingham. I might see them again I might not. I’m not sure. Amir got married and had a kid, Liaqat got a job in Leicester and Shiraz ended up in Kandahar so I just don’t know. All I do know is that Mum cried her eyes out for almost an hour when she spoke to me. I didn’t expect that. It hurt me. I thought she wasn’t affected by what I did. She blamed me for nearly taking you down with me…’

  ‘Was she right to blame you?’

  ‘…Suppose so, I’m not sure. All I know right now is that I want to help you. If I’d known how ill you were I wouldn’t have been so horrible in Iraq. I’m sorry about that…’ He glanced up at the Islamic map on the wall and then moved closer to me. ‘I want you to tell me everything about Turners and what it was like in those days. I know it was difficult for people when they first came here so I’d like to know all about it.’

  I nodded and cleared my throat. A substantial ball of phlegm rocketed up into my mouth. I gestured for him to move aside. I shifted across the bed and lowered my head down into the bin. The release was almost perfect: my throat felt light and clear. I didn’t know where to begin but a freezing January night in 1967 when Cyril Smith was the guest at a reception at the Golden Mosque would be a good place to start. It was the end of Ramzaan and he was welcoming all the new immigrants to Rochdale. He was wearing his Alderman’s necklace and towered above most of the five–foot nothings.

  ‘I was scared of Cyril Smith because I wasn’t sure if he looked like a beast or the King of England…’

  They listened attentively at the dinner table as I retold the Iraq journey from beginning to end. I was on decent form, probably because Wasim had dredged up some long–buried nostalgia from me earlier in the evening and it had made me feel a hundred times better: a wonderful meal of bitter melon, tangy pancakes and sweet orange rice also helped; the only downside was a greenish–looking banana which felt more like biting into a tree than a fruit. Throughout the evening, Nadia shook her head and rolled her eyes a lot but it was more in good humour than outright disapproval. Elisha interrupted with questions like: ‘Did you go to Abu Ghraib’ but she meant well. Wasim stayed silent for the duration. His father was sat next to him most of the time so it wasn’t surprising. Salim did leave the table once to make a call on his mobile but returned within a few minutes to listen to my experiences in the safe house with Abbie and his crew. He obviously didn’t like what he heard. He playfully shoulder–barged Wasim and, when his son didn’t respond, he followed it up with a stronger, harsher push. There was silence in the room but then Salim asked me to continue and merely said he was ‘testing his son to see how hard he was’. After I’d finished (and I was immensely proud of myself for getting to the end without coughing and pausing for breath) a strange thing happened. Salim watched Elisha follow her mother into the kitchen to help her with the dishes and then moved closer, sitting on the chair next to me. He fiddled about with his mobile for a few seconds, pretending to look busy, and then put it down and looked up at me.

  ‘Kudos to you for having the courage to go to Iraq,’ he said. ‘I respect that. You had an adventure down there and brought Wasim back in one piece.’ He offered a handshake and I was so surprised that I took a long time to raise my hand. ‘Sometimes, blokes need to do their own thing…’

  ‘Would you have gone?’

  He picked up a sliced orange and tentatively put it in his mouth. ‘Booking time off work would have been difficult but, yeah, course, although you nicked the letter so that saved me a job.’

  A job? Is that what all this amounted to? He’d been going so well before that point. He wrapped his mouth around the orange slice and slowly tore off the peel with his teeth. Some of the juice dribbled down his chin but he wiped it away with his finger while putting the peel back on the empty plate. He then touched his silver wrist chain and got up from the table. He touched Wasim’s shoulder and then smiled at me.

  ‘I heard you two slept together in Baghdad,’ he said. ‘No room for that kind of behaviour here…’

  He winked and left the room. Wasim glanced at me and but didn’t smile. I was surprised by his expression because the standard set of affairs, when his father had disappeared, was to see his swagger and certainty return after a feeble, head–down, arms–folded period when the two men were together. Not today.

  ‘They wanted to build some new houses at the old Turners site,’ said Wasim, with a firmness that caught me off guard.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know: twats. But they wanted to have a children’s nursery too.’

  I was shocked to hear him swear like that. He had never been so crude in his own home before. Perhaps, he was simply fed up with his father.

  ‘Has it been granted?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not sure but there was a big protest against it.’

  Most of this was news to me. I had been ignorant of what had been going on in the town although there was some mitigation because I had been quite reclusive for months after Fareeda’s death. It didn’t surprise me that developers were looking to build new homes on the site because nowhere was safe. It was a source of deep irritation to me that whole swathes of land, playing fields and old mill sites were being flogged for identikit housing. Nadia was still seething about her former middle school, Redbrook, being demolished. I shared her frustration but, on the other hand, the playing fields were used for the new home for our cricket club. Sadness and loss for one person, an opportunity for another; it was always divisive. Wasn’t there a better way?

  Wasim got up and said he was going to set up his airbed in the front room because he was extremely tired and wanted to have an early night. He asked me to come in with him and, because I felt slightly guilty about sleeping in his bed, I agreed. I hadn’t been in the front room since I’d returned but I could see it was a bit awkward fitting any sort of bed in there because of the computer, the three piece suite, the Sanyo stereo system and the sturdy wooden coffee table. But he had made the best of it. The table was resting on one of the armchairs which had been pushed right back towards the window to provide more room. The stereo system was also perched awkwardly on another armchair and looked as though it could fall onto the carpet at any minute. Admittedly, it was a bit of a squeeze. It was hardly a hovel but I wondered how long Wasim would have to sleep there. He unrolled the silver blue Aerobed, which was lying haphazardly near the Sanyo stereo, and then plugged it in. He pressed a button on it and the flimsy piece of kit began to puff up nicely into a solid mattress. He covered it with a nice blue bedsheet and then threw down a pillow and a thin–looking brown duvet. The bed was ready. He sat down on it, cross–legged and folded his arms. He looked straight ahead as I sat down on the empty armchair.

  ‘Ayesha’s dead,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘I tried to call her yesterday, again and again, but couldn’t get a line. In the end, her sister picked up and said she was
killed in that attack on the safe house.’ He drew back his knees and pushed them up to chest. He ran his palms down his face and then put his arms round his knees. ‘It’s over now. I won’t talk about it again. It was stupid…’

  ‘You can still get a line?’

  ‘Sometimes…it’s expensive but we’ve got our ways.’

  ‘I don’t get it. She was killed in the same attack? I thought she wasn’t there.’

  ‘Her sister said she was. I don’t care anymore. She was messing me around anyway.’ He looked to his left and grabbed his Puma holdall. He unzipped it and picked out a leaflet and a couple of books. ‘The books are really for me but I got this leaflet off the web.’

  He had shrugged off a woman’s death – one that he supposedly loved – as though it was a minor detail in a now–forgotten frenzy of romance, self–discovery and fundamentalism. It was hard for me to take in. I wanted to ask a few more questions about Ayesha but realised that side of Wasim’s life was now drawing to a close so it was pointless. Moreover, I was afraid of his reaction because he did genuinely seem to love her. Best not to rock the boat; he had been extremely well–behaved since his return.

  He moved across the airbed on his knees and handed me the leaflet. It was about International Memorial Workers Day at the Town Hall and I looked down at the date which read April 28 2006. I realised it was another thing I’d missed. Was there any point in pursuing claims or joining a campaign? I’d obviously missed it all. I read some of the information on the leaflet and it made me feel extremely unpleasant and breathless. A hundred thousand asbestos–related deaths worldwide and 5,000,000 may die from exposure, it claimed. Who cared if it was true? I wanted to hand it back instantly and head upstairs but some of the pictures on the leaflet caught my attention. They were quite small, not much bigger than a postage stamp, but they included images of asbestos–related victims and I couldn’t help but have instant solidarity with them. The workers may have been from a different era but they were looking straight at me as though they knew what I was going through. There was an intimacy that only we would share. I thought I had blurred vision for a moment but I realised it was my eyes moistening. I looked at the other images: workers on the factory floor, street protests, shipyards, dumping sites and, finally and most chillingly, Turner Brothers itself. It resembled a giant ice cube tray on its side because of its multiple dark windows and oblong shape but still had an indestructible and imperious look about it. The red–brick chimney shot up into the sky like an erect elephant trunk; powerful and ominous. It had a faded grandeur; a holy, haunted relic that made it feel like part of another century, located thousands of miles away somewhere far away. But it wasn’t: it was on our doorstep less than half a mile away up Rooley Moor Road. I could visit the derelict site at any time but why would I want to? Part of my flickering soul was hiding somewhere behind the factory gates but many bodies had already been thrown over the gate and dumped around the town in the name of profit and progress. I could not face the ghostly presence again: the factory may have been long gone but its poisonous legacy wasn’t. I looked at the images of the sick workers again and found it hard to take my eyes off them. I shuddered at the prospect of more victims – and families – continuing to suffer in the town. Yes, the factory had given me the chance to build a future for me and my family but was it worth it to be poisoned by its so–called magic mineral? I thought about the likes of Paul and Wasim who were scrambling around trying to find jobs and wondered if I was being too harsh on my former employer. But no, the leaflet had hardened my stance. The images of sick, dying workers had made a powerful, searing impact on me that no amount of words could ever manage. I usually wasn’t taken in by that kind of propaganda but the ultimate message was raw, painful and truthful. There was a killer in our midst – and I had a duty to warn others.