There is a glazed expression on Grace’s face, but no tears. I stand up, reach across the table and rest her shoulder against mine, cheek to cheek. I tell her that, just like her illness, everything is cyclical, nothing ever really ends. I tell her that when I close my eyes to pray, I see a rainbow of colours streaking across a sky and carved within the blue of it are the words prescribed for the close of each recital. I tell her that I too dread the end, that I feel lost, empty, as though suddenly abandoned by Allah.
Grace slumps back in her chair and nods. ‘Don’t mind me.’
I kiss her on the forehead.
She seems to compose herself quickly. ‘It’s all make-believe, you know.’
‘What is?’
‘A condition of mind.’
Confused, I wait for her to continue.
‘We allow ourselves to believe in stuff we shouldn’t. Sometimes it’s automatic, like when Britney was born and I held her and I said to her, “Me and you, girl, we’re in this together, forever.” It’s the same for you with your Allah.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ I say. ‘Adrian had a phrase for it.’
She leans in and listens intently.
‘No pain. If something was too awful to think about, he’d tense his jaw and tell himself, no pain.’
*
It was the first prayer I had ever led, and sadly, it was soon over. Behind me, Azra and Aunty were getting to their feet. I was still dreamy, winding down, when I heard a loud slow clap and then Azra’s voice, ‘Now you must feel like a real man.’
Burning with fury, I respectfully took leave of Aunty and quickly left the house, stepping into the fresh warm air of the day. I heard the door close behind me, and a second later Azra’s full weight charged into my side. My stick collapsed from underneath me and I nearly fell. Extending her painted toes from beneath her burqa, Azra kicked the stick away, out of my reach. I balanced on one leg.
‘Be a man and walk,’ she said.
The stick lay on the pavement about ten feet away. I stared at her, sweat dripping from my brow, unable to comprehend what she had done.
‘And after that take a hand to your wife for her insolence,’ she went on. ‘But before you beat her, recall that she is not yet your wife. You have not yet made her your wife. A marriage must be consummated, and if your wife won’t bend to it then you must make her. Allah made man and woman and to each their respective strengths.’
I longed to see her face, masked by the black drop of the burqa. ‘Azra, pick up the stick.’ Bearing all my weight, my right leg had begun to hurt. ‘I demand you pass me my stick.’
‘Crawl for it.’
For balance, I lowered my bad leg. The slightest touch of my foot to the ground was immediately followed by a searing pain from the knee up to my spine. My leg jerked reflexively, the movement threatening to topple me over. The sole of my good foot began to burn on the hard tarmac. I looked around; a curtain in a nearby house twitched but other than that there was no one in sight.
I clenched my teeth. ‘I will not crawl.’
‘Crawl for redemption.’
‘What?’
‘We sent them out only to be murdered by the infidel. By you.’
‘I bet you were in love with a Taliban.’
Azra laughed drily. ‘Love. What would you know about that?’ She threw a glance back at the house we had just left. ‘You might fool that old woman, but I know your fate is to burn like the infidels.’ She took in a wide view of the street. ‘The British infidels are born to their lot, but you? You went against your own.’
My face was clammy with perspiration. As the burqa prevented me from seeing the expression on Azra’s face, I decided I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing the anger on mine. With great effort, I relaxed my jaw and put on a nonchalant expression, focusing my thoughts on stiffening the muscles in my supporting leg.
‘What did they offer you to turn against your own?’
I remembered to wriggle my toes the way we would when standing for long periods on parade. Immediately, I felt a slight relief.
‘You murdered the brothers you were born to.’
I closed my eyes, listening to the gentle breeze, the sound of cars in a distant street, the familiar bong of a hammer. I thought of an old soldier’s trick and tuned my nose to the smell of my surroundings. Too often soldiers forgot that the enemy lay under their noses: the aroma of baking flour as chapattis cooked in nearby houses, a faint whiff of spiced oil, tobacco and a wisp of hashish. I smiled inwardly, remembering that out in the field this, mixed often with paraffin fumes, would alert us to a Taliban camp.
No longer able to hold me, my leg buckled and I collapsed painfully to the pavement. Azra shook her head and proceeded slowly down the street, her hips swaying inside the burqa.
I crawled to my stick, then dragged myself up and limped fast and recklessly in the opposite direction, threatening to stumble at any moment. In no time at all I was descending a steep set of steps that led down, as though a new subsurface level had opened up, onto a path alongside the canal. It was quiet down there, almost brighter, as if, unencumbered by buildings, the sun penetrated deeper. Swans and ducks, dappled in sunlight, meandered casually along on the water, occasionally flopping up onto the ground as a brightly painted barge motored lazily in the direction of Netherton Tunnel. The vessel’s engine was a low rumble, background noise, like the sound of wildlife.
I rested on a wooden bench near the abandoned mill. It now had a steel door and a glass window, partly open and protected by a screen of chicken wire. From within I could hear a rhythmic beat, clack, clack, clack, and a voice not unlike a training sergeant’s, issuing admonishments and instructions. I got up and went closer. Through the open door I saw a brother in a Lonsdale vest working a punching bag. Another couple of brothers, their black beards spilling out of protective headgear, sparred viciously.
I turned away from the door and carried on, and where the path ended I scrambled up, at times painfully on my hands and knees. On top of Turner’s Hill the grass was dense and battered constantly by the wind, growing in tall wild clumps. It was darker at the summit, even on a clear day. An electricity pylon marked the highest point and I sat down on a small grassy ridge nearby. It was exposed, and every few seconds the wind changed direction, gusting around me. Before me birds swooped obliquely in and out of view as though carried on the currents. On all sides I was surrounded by hills, hills that were invisible from the town below. There was Clent, Malvern, and further out, the Welsh black mountains. Between the hills were strung factories, tall industrial chimneys, and neat rows of terraces, the older ones with grey slate roofs squeezed tightly together. A knot of spidery orange metal I identified as the playground in Lye Park. The castle sat on a hill at one end of the panorama and at the other, as though diametrically opposed, stood three tower blocks. In the far distance, where Rowley Works once sprawled for miles, was a flash of neon, signalling the entrance to Merry Hill shopping centre. I squinted my eyes against the obvious, the century and a half of labour and industrialization, and obligingly they disappeared into a blurry grey. The scene now before me wasn’t natural — nature had been blunted — but suddenly it seemed ancient and unchanging.
Turning, I was surprised to see Bobby, and I felt bitter at the sight of him, as though Turner’s Hill was a place only I visited. That day he too carried a limp. Down below on the water, Mustafa would be waiting for me as arranged, and probably he had sent up Bobby to keep a sly watch. The fakir Bobby held a long staff in his hand, and he wore long flowing robes in green.