13.
Nadia drove me to the infirmary for the follow–up appointment with Dr Howarth. I had a chest x–ray first which I felt was unnecessary but Nadia came in with me to provide comfort. She held my shirt and jumper while the radiographer eased my chest up against the plate and my hands onto the rubber handles. A waft of icy air seeped into my ribs as the radiographer got the image she wanted. It was uncomfortable but quick. After that, there was a long wait for Dr Howarth’s consultation which took us past noon, by which time Nadia was extremely hungry. She was ready to head off to the canteen when Dr Howarth eventually appeared, looking even younger and leaner than the last time I’d seen him. We sat down and waited for him to get going but he took an extremely long time to get his papers, files and other correspondence in order. He glanced at Nadia but didn’t look at me.
‘Er Mr Rafeeq,’ he said, still fiddling around with his notes. ‘How are you?’
‘Decent, I suppose.’ I looked over at Nadia and she rested her hand on mine. ‘I mean, I can get from A to B and, obviously, I’ve still got Nadia. While she’s with me, I’ve got nothing to fear.’
Dr Howarth nodded and cleared his throat. He took off his jacket and finally looked me straight in the eye. His sleeves were already rolled up but he pushed them further up.
‘Has your lifestyle changed dramatically recently?’ he asked.
‘Don’t know what you mean…’
‘Smoking…travelling to a polluted environment… that kind of thing?’
I shook my head as Nadia squeezed my hand. ‘Why? What’s the problem?’
There was a pause as Dr Howarth had another roll–the–sleeves–up moment.
‘Well…’ he said. ‘Your x–ray shows the level of fibrosis has progressed dramatically from when we last saw you. The scarring has spread and now covers a substantial area. I’m surprised how quickly it has developed. Have you noticed any difference in your symptoms?’
‘Well, the climate makes a difference. Hot weather seems to soothe my throat and helps my breathing. I now feel colder generally and there’s a bit more mucus but winter’s just round the corner so it’s nothing special.’
‘Hmm…did you go on holiday?’
‘No, I was just speaking generally. The sun softens my lungs. It’s like my Siamese twin. I’m lost without it.’
‘But you mentioned the hot weather. It hasn’t been too warm around here recently.’
‘Don’t you listen?’ interrupted Nadia. ‘He hasn’t been anywhere. Just tell us what the prognosis is and what medication we need…’
‘Okay…I can’t really speculate on how the disease will develop,’ he said. ‘What I can recommend is oxygen therapy at home, if and when Mr Rafeeq requires it, and an increase in the medication he already takes. Perhaps, a dose of antibiotics will also help to reduce the chance of infections. Have you had your flu jab yet?’
‘Er no, I haven’t got round to it…’
‘Call your GP and get it done immediately.’
He had said the same thing to me last time but I had simply forgotten. Nadia would ensure I wouldn’t forget this time, although I still felt it wasn’t wholly necessary. It wasn’t that I was against vaccines; it was more that it would create an extra trip to the doctors and I didn’t have the Proton anymore. I simply didn’t want to be a burden. I wanted Nadia to wrap up but she continued to ask detailed questions of Dr Howarth, particularly about the how the oxygen therapy would work. She was slightly brisk and forceful, I thought, and felt she had the measure of Dr Howarth, perhaps because he was about the same age as her. As she continued to press on minor points (how big are oxygen cylinders?) I had to absorb the harsh reality that the Iraq venture was probably the reason for the dramatic escalation in my symptoms. It was baffling because, in general, the warm weather I encountered over there had actually made me feel better. Was it the placebo effect? Was I simply feeling perkier because I had succeeded in my mission to bring Wasim back home? Perhaps, but if that was the case how did the scarring on my lungs become so bad? Chemical pollution? The rot and sewage of Sadr City? Depleted uranium? Did it matter? Not now because the evidence of deterioration had been laid in front of me. I had paid the price for my trip – some would say, folly – but it was a price worth paying. I had kept the family intact and gone to a part of the world that most people would only see in their news bulletins. I had also taken a great game to a great land. I could take strength from those achievements in the dark, breathless nights that lay ahead.
Wasim now had the bit between his teeth. He had provided me with information about the two main supports groups in the area – the GMAVSG (The Greater Manchester Asbestos Victim Support Group) and Save Spodden Valley – while also filling me in about an annual Action Mesothelioma Day and a special asbestos memorial in the Town Hall. I read most of the smudgy internet printouts in my bed while he called GMAVSG and asked them detailed questions about compensation and other legal matters. I wondered why he had phoned because he had already arranged a visit from his solicitor friend Amjad later that day. But he was on a roll and it was difficult to stop him. There was a manic energy and stop–start focus about him that was mildly infectious – in a good way. Yes, he was overdoing it – he hadn’t shaved since his return, insisted on keeping the keffiyah round his shoulders and ate trashy chicken kebabs while sitting on the bedroom carpet – but he had introduced me to some moving accounts of victims and workers who had suffered similar diseases and I wouldn’t have read them if it wasn’t for his encouragement and idealism. Yet I did wonder where all this was heading: were we going all the way the courts? To number 10 Downing Street? To campaign globally? What was his endgame? Little things didn’t inspire him anymore. He usually wore me out by noon.
Amjad arrived in the afternoon with a mobile at his ear and an open file in his hands. He was a tall man with an awkward gait and a serious–looking gaze. He was smartly dressed in a crimson v–neck sweater, beige scarf, suit jacket and jeans. He surprised me by being extremely liberal in his views, the exact opposite of Wasim, and the two men exchanged feisty banter about the perils or otherwise of a secular society. I had never met Amjad before but he did a lot of work for the community on visa applications for young spouses who wanted to join their husbands and wives in the UK. His speciality, however, was personal injury claims – and that’s how Wasim had originally met him. Wasim had suffered a slight accident in his father’s car just days after passing his test but Amjad wisely told him not to put in a claim. Instead, he helped him find an extremely low–cost garage which fixed the car so no–one at home would notice. To my knowledge, no–one ever has, apart from me, of course.
Nadia made tea for him and then joined us in the more formal setting of the front room, which had been cleared of Wasim’s messy bedtime arrangements. Amjad explained the ins and outs of trying to get compensation for my disease and I listened attentively for no more than five minutes. Mrs Gleeson had been walking her dog Ena past the window and I couldn’t help but notice her peering in while Ena was distracted by a family getting out of a car. Mrs Gleeson moved on quickly but it was enough for me to miss a big chunk of Amjad’s monologue: the only detail I absorbed was that if I wanted to put in a claim for personal injury I had to do it within three years of diagnosis. The rest was as clear as mud. Finally, after a lot of detail about certain Acts and Government legislation, he began to ask detailed questions about my condition and my former employer. The first one was the exact date I started and left Turner Brothers. As an opening question, it was reasonable but it hurt my head and increased the phlegm at the back of my throat. If this was a taste of things to come then I wanted to bail out now. It was such a long time ago, that I only knew which month I started, not the exact date. Amjad had these searching eyes as he waited patiently but my answers were always too vague to be inducted into the fresh legal file he was compiling for me. Inevitably, the question of a face mask arose again. Was I wearing one? No, for the umpteenth time, because I worked in th
e rubber department and asbestos fibres did not fizz up into the atmosphere; therefore no mask was needed. Nadia kindly interjected on my behalf on occasions when I found the going a little rough and regularly asked Amjad to slow down. It was an endless, repetitive and exhausting interrogation. But he saved his most niggly question when I thought it had all been wrapped up. He asked if I’d been anywhere recently because that could affect a definitive diagnosis. Unsurprisingly, he knew of my trip abroad (although not where) and felt it could affect my case. How that was possible, I wasn’t sure, because I had been diagnosed officially before my trip to Iraq but, on the other hand, I did understand that the waters could be muddied. I didn’t answer the question and thanked Amjad for taking the time to come round to my house. I had been naïve. I had expected some sort of facility to already be in place to compensate victims in the town. That wasn’t the case. Most of them had to battle hard to get what they deserved and some of them had been treated with indifference, or even contempt, simply to get acknowledgement of their condition. I knew some of these people or, at least their families, would be at the forthcoming charity match. I had no intention of going.
The oxygen cylinders arrived early next morning. Nadia asked me if I wanted to get ‘hooked up’ straight away but I couldn’t stand the sight of the ugly things and told her I wanted to get rid immediately. She had a deep conversation with the engineer who demonstrated how to use them while I lay in my bed comparing the Islamic map on the wall to the cylinders. It was like being a victim of chemical warfare.
Nadia didn’t leave at the time I expected. She was still in the house by noon. I asked her if anything was up or if she just had a free morning. She said she was fine and went downstairs to make lunch – a warm, tender concoction of potato pancakes, yoghurt and zesty aubergines. She came back upstairs and we talked about Fareeda’s love of fat cushions among other things. I desperately wanted to stay awake but the heavy lunch rolled me over before 2pm. When I woke up, she was gone but Wasim was a few feet away taking pictures of the oxygen cylinders with his mobile phone. There was a laptop on the floor and pieces of paper strewn all over the carpet.
‘I’m driving down to the old Turners site in a few minutes, nana jee,’ he said. ‘Wanna come? I’ve started up a new website. It’s going to raise money for a dedicated care facility for asbestos sufferers. Raise money the same way we do for a mosque. That’s why it’ll work. Door to door fundraising. It’s going to be massive.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Ages. Even Mum thinks it’s a good idea.’
He finished taking the pictures and smiled as he scrolled through the images on his phone. His offer was enticing because I wanted to get out of this pokey bedroom and get some air – but the kind of contaminated air that may be swirling around the old Turners site wasn’t quite what I had in mind. Was he thinking straight? Why take me up there now?
‘It has been demolished, you do know that?’
‘Course, but I just want to see what kind of shithole it really is now. If they want to build houses on it, then they’ll have to take on the whole community.’
He hadn’t looked at me once. He finished looking at his photos and bent down to fiddle with his laptop. He eventually glanced up at me after a longer–than–usual silence.
‘Oh I get you,’ he said. ‘Look, nana jee you don’t have to come. I’ll take you down town, instead, if you like. I’ve got dad’s car for the day. I want to get full use.’
I couldn’t refuse. I wanted to buy a thicker hat for my head which was becoming colder by the day. I slowly got out of bed and could see Wasim rummaging through his pile of clothes bunched up in the corner. He pulled out his keffiyah and looked over his shoulder.
‘Do you want to wear this on your head?’ he said, with a devilish smile. ‘I have no use for it now.’
‘Just get the car started, lad. Don’t push your luck.’
Wasim drove down Spotland Road but could not control his father’s squeaky windscreen wipers. He had them either too fast or too slow and they were practically useless as the sheets of rain swirled across from the west, as though the Falinge flats were ejecting all their mess in our direction. I was told by Len recently that Falinge was the ‘sicknote capital of the country’. Len was better read than me so I tended to believe most of what he said, although in this case I recall he’d read it in some national newspaper. Not the straightest of bats, at the best of times. But what if it were true?
I mulled this over as I looked out of the window to absorb the toffee and grey low–rise blocks. Why were so many people on benefits? Had Turners polluted the whole area? How did the Highland Laddie pub end up next to Coral’s the bookmakers? I remembered being invited for a warm, evening drink one snowy night in the late Sixties by Mrs Lorna Vozniak. She lived in the Featherstone block but had just made her daily check on her elderly mother in Mitchell Street who was suffering from arthritis. She walked past me to return home but noticed I was almost at a standstill, shivering and struggling to get my flask open so I could desperately sup my milk tea. I had just returned from a punishing shift and had no power in my hands. She asked me if I needed any help but I mumbled that I was fine; my English was not great at this stage but it was passable. Amazingly, she then grabbed my frozen hand and examined it.
‘You’ll be a mannequin if you stay here any longer,’ she said. ‘Come on, my flat’s a couple of minutes away. Get a brew inside you and you’ll be rolling again.’
I have to admit it did cross my mind about what people would say if they saw a foreign–looking man going into a flat with a middle–aged lady but the irrational fear of pneumonia and hospital wards won the day – and besides Fareeda wasn’t even in the country yet. So the two of us went back to her low–rise flat and spent a cosy couple of hours talking mostly about her mother’s claim that she was a neighbour of Albert Tatlock, who I had never heard of. I did not have a TV so I only found out he was a character in Coronation Street about 12 years later. I still don’t know his real name. She also made me a lavishly–buttered crumpet to go with my blisteringly strong cup of tea. She apologised because, as a dinnerlady at Oakenrod School, she was used to toning down the food she prepared for children and, at home, she could let her hair down as it were. She told me she would never marry again because her first husband – a soldier from Castleton – had left her during the war for a nurse who was treating him. It was the only time her exuberance and effervescence was checked. She went to make a pot of cauliflower soup and sweet pastry flan and insisted I take it with me. I couldn’t refuse and, as she slipped the food neatly into my tartan drawstring bag, she casually mentioned the subject of a multi–million pound development in Ashfield Valley – a scheme that would see more than a thousand modern flats built with central heating, garages and a play area. Some of her friends were ready to move out of Falinge and into the new, dynamic enterprise which was based on a Swedish model. She would not be moving. Never. She loved her home – and job – so much, no amount of glittering inducements would be enough to shift her out of her ‘pride and joy’. We said our farewells and I never saw her again. I later read that the Ashfield Valley project, after a promising beginning, had turned sour with problems of crime, vandalism and anti–social behaviour. Most of the 26 blocks had been demolished by 1992 and the rest were refurbished for a new retail and business development: Sandbrook Park. Nadia told me she quite liked the Odeon cinema and had watched Billy Elliot there. She wasn’t too keen on the fast food places, however. I wondered if Lorna was still alive and, if so, whether she still lived in the Featherstone block. She showed good judgment in not moving to Ashfield Valley but what would she think of the deprivation in Falinge today? It wasn’t long before I was jolted away from my misty–eyed nostalgia.
‘FUCKING GET A MOVE ON, YOU TWAT!’ shouted Wasim.
My head swung away from the Falinge flats and up ahead at a learner driver, in a Fiesta, who was crawling along ahead of Wasim. There had been a minor accide
nt on the corner of Holland Street but the traffic was now moving at a decent pace, except for the ultra–cautious Fiesta. Two policemen were at the scene taking some details – one of them was smiling and joking with the driver perceived to be at fault.
A Fistful of Dust Page 17