Orphan of Islam

‘Is he here?’ she demanded, as Fatima opened the door. ‘Or is he back in Pakistan? I’ve got two little kids here who miss their dad. I know you don’t like me. But I’ve a right to know what’s going on.’

Fatima paused. She had no time for this kuffar, this unbeliever, who had brought shame on her. But she felt that she was entitled to an explanation. Maybe if she heard the truth, she would disappear very quickly. She invited Mum to come in and sit down.

‘You should hear this from Ahmed, not me,’ said Fatima. ‘But since he’s not here I may as well tell you – the reason he goes to Pakistan all the time is because of his family.’

‘I know that,’ said Mum. ‘But if he’s so desperate to see his mum and dad, or his brothers, sisters, aunties, cousins, whoever, then why doesn’t he just bring them over here for a visit?’

Fatima smiled. The poor woman was clueless.

‘Not that sort of family,’ she said. ‘Ahmed has a wife in Tajak. He married her before he married you. Oh, they’ve got a few children too.’

I wonder what Mum thought as she wandered in a daze back to the bus station that day, the hems of her badly fitting salwar kameez trousers trailing through puddle-strewn cobbled streets, with two scruffy mixed-race kids crying in the pram. Meanwhile, somewhere hot, somewhere she’d never been invited for now obvious reasons, Dad was enjoying the fruits of his labours with the family he’d kept secret from her.

I was too young to remember the row that took place when Dad finally got home. It must have been one hell of a ding-dong. I imagine Mum screwing her Asian clothes up into a ball and throwing them at him, then telling him to cook his own bloody lentil dhal. It sounds almost comic, like a scene from East Is East, but it must have been awful. However it was conducted and whatever was said, the upshot was that Dad moved out of our house and into Fatima’s, leaving Mum with custody of the pair of us.

Now I believe Fatima acted maliciously by telling Mum the truth about Dad. She wanted to split them up. But in a way Mum had what she wanted – two beautiful children to care for and love as she had never been loved. She didn’t have to fit in with foreign customs anymore or cook funny food. She had a roof over her head and a job. There were people saying, ‘Told you so,’ but she didn’t care. I’d like to think that my first memory of her happened around this point: her smiling face turned towards me and the sun coming out.

‘Mohammed, oh my Mohammed …’ Do I remember her whispering that as she cuddled me protectively to her? Perhaps she did. At any rate, I’d like to think she was happy.

Dad still wanted to see us and would call round at weekends. Mum was still angry with him, but didn’t stop him from visiting. I guess he wouldn’t have taken us much further than the local park or the ice-cream parlour, and up to Hawesmill to see the family. Whether they wanted to see us would have been another matter, but knowing Dad he would’ve made sure that the family connections so important to Muslims were maintained, even if they included the children of an unbeliever.

One Saturday in the early part of 1978, just a few months after Dad and Mum had split up, he called for us as usual. He made sure we were dressed in our best clothes and also had a change of outfit. He explained to Mum that there was a family gathering in Hawesmill because a relative had flown in from Pakistan. We needed a change of clothes, he said, because we’d end up playing in the backyard and would get filthy. Mum packed us a little bag each, kissed us both on the head and saw us to the door. I guess we turned and waved to her as we climbed into the back of the battered old Datsun Dad always borrowed to pick us up. She shut the door, happy that she had a few hours to herself before we returned, tired out, after a long afternoon’s playing with the local kids in Hawesmill.

In the 1970s only lucky little English kids travelled on aeroplanes. Normally a family like ours would’ve been completely out of the international air travel league, but strong ties to Pakistan meant that money was somehow found to make the trip ‘back home’ and see relatives longing to hear stories about the land of opportunity that was giving such a warm welcome to its former ‘colonials’. I expect there was a whip-round in the streets of Hawesmill in the weeks before Dad came to pick us up from Mum’s. Whatever work Dad was doing at the time – shifts in the mill, plus a bit of labouring on the side – wouldn’t have paid for three airline tickets to Islamabad. That said, two of those tickets were one-way only, so maybe there was a discount. I don’t know – I’d just turned three and Jasmine was almost two. Babies, really – and far too young to be removed from their mother without explanation.

From what I can gather, the police were involved. I’d like to think that Mum banged on every door in Hawesmill for answers. She certainly did later on, until it became clear that she wasn’t going to get a straight answer out of anyone up there. But what were the police’s chances of making an arrest? An Asian man takes his mixed-race kids to Pakistan for a holiday and forgets to tell his estranged wife, a white woman who tried to fit in with the funny foreigners but wasn’t welcome – sounds like an open-and-shut case. Perhaps the police thought she had it coming to her, or maybe they did try hard to find us. But the trail would’ve gone cold as soon as we arrived in Islamabad, and I don’t think the law could’ve expected much help in Hawesmill.

We were taken to Tajak for a ‘holiday’ and put in the care of various ‘aunties’, some related, some not. Dad stayed for a while, a week or two perhaps, then went back to England. The need to earn money must have been overwhelming, because of course he had two families to support, so staying in Pakistan for any length of time wasn’t an option.

Meanwhile Mum made repeated attempts to track us down, without success. She must have been heartbroken, trailing those windswept terrace streets for her two missing children and begging Fatima for news of our whereabouts. What did they tell her – if anything? Many years later, I was told she had been informed by Dad’s family that we’d been killed in a car crash while on holiday in Pakistan, and that we’d been buried there. What a terrible thing to say to a mother, especially when it was a barefaced lie. Mum, poor and isolated from her own friends and family, could do nothing to disprove it. Luckily, she never believed it.

I can’t recall if I met my step-family at this time. It’s probable, given that Tajak is a small place, but being so young, I don’t have any memory of them. What I do remember is the day I was circumcised. Although it isn’t mentioned in the Qu’ran, circumcision (tahara) is a long-established ritual in Islam. It is to do with cleanliness and purification, particularly before prayer, and there was no reason why I would be exempted. Unfortunately for me, Mum had opposed this after my birth and Dad had no choice but to postpone it. Now she wasn’t around he could do what he liked, and one of his first jobs in Tajak was to find somebody suitably qualified to do it.

It goes without saying there was no anaesthetic. Dad would’ve rounded up the village imam, who also served as the village doctor, and a few of the elders, to oversee proceedings. I don’t recall their solemn bearded faces leaning over me as I lay on a scruffy bit of carpet in the village mosque, but I do remember the searing pain as the razor-sharp butcher’s knife cut through my little foreskin and my blood staining the carpet a deep red. Iodine must’ve been applied very quickly, as I remember looking down and seeing my genitals covered all over with a substance the colour of saffron. For days afterwards I suffered burning agony when I tried to pee. If I called out for my mummy at any time during those hazy, fractured few years, it would have been then.

My only other memory from this period is when I tried to shoot the moon. I’d found an old pellet gun in the house where we were staying and had been encouraged to take it outside and learn to use it. Having a gun in Pakistan is no big deal and boys handle weapons from an early age. Seeing an old shotgun propped against the interior wall of a house or an AK47 left in the corner of a mosque while its owner says his prayers isn’t uncommon. So the uncles of the family must’ve been delighted when I picked up the gun and lugged it outside. The moon was an obvious target. I’d never seen such clear skies in my short life; the sheer number and brilliance of the stars in the night sky was mesmerizing, and the moon hung in between them like a gigantic waxy-yellow fruit. I heaved the rifle to my shoulder, assisted by Jasmine, and took careless aim at the sky. No one had told me about recoil, so when I dropped it immediately after it went it off, the butt landed right on Jasmine’s foot, leaving her with a deep cut and a permanent scar.

We didn’t go to school during our time in Pakistan. Our family in England spoke Pashto among themselves, so it’s not as if we knew nothing of the language and couldn’t have managed to some extent in school. But I imagine the Pakistani relatives thought there was little point in sending us; we probably seemed happy enough, playing in the dust beneath the brick and mud walls of the houses or watching the farmers slowly gather in their crops under the vast and cloudless sky. The days were endless and dangers were few. My Pashto was certainly getting better, and after a year or so I could communicate with my cousins. If Dad hadn’t needed to earn money in England, maybe this is where my story would’ve ended. I’d have remained in Pakistan all my life, tending the fields or driving trucks or fixing cars or keeping a shop. In time the memories of Mum would’ve faded, and although I might never have fitted in – the gossip about the boy with the kuffar for a mother was unlikely to disappear – I’d have probably had an arranged marriage with a cousin and spawned a few kids. The opportunities to do anything other than conform would’ve been extremely limited. However, it might have been a much happier existence than the one that was waiting for me.

After spending three years in Pakistan, not knowing who we were or if we really belonged to anyone, we were taken back to England. That’s when my troubles really began.

Chapter Two

We were met at Heathrow by a gaggle of relatives who’d obviously relished the chance of getting out of Hawesmill for the day, even if it was just a boring trip down the M6 to London. What little baggage we had was crammed into the back of an ancient Ford Transit minibus and we were squashed in against our cousins. They sniggered and winked at one another whenever we spoke in fluent accentless Pashto.

I was jammed up against the window. It was December 1981. The minibus’s windscreen wipers waved monotonously the whole journey. It was only late afternoon, but already every headlight was on. England seemed cold, grey and dark. I shivered in my thin salwar kameez, wishing I had a nice parka with fur round the hood, just like my cousins had. The endless sun and long, lazy days seemed far away. The further north we travelled, the darker it got. It was like entering the mouth of a tunnel with no end in sight.

‘Where’s our house?’ I asked Dad. ‘Where are we going to live? Will Mum be there?’

Dad, sitting in the front passenger seat, turned round and exchanged a glance with Fatima, who was in the aisle seat opposite mine, her two youngest children curled up on her lap. She nodded, then stared at me wordlessly.

‘You’re going to live with Aunty Fatima for a while,’ Dad said. ‘Just while I get sorted out. It won’t be long before we have our own house. Aunty will look after you until then.’

‘But where will you be?’

‘I’m busy, Mohammed,’ Dad said. ‘You’ll both have to be patient. I’ll be around, off and on. You’ll be fine.’

‘So when will we see Mum?’

‘That’s enough questions!’ shouted Fatima, sitting upright and glaring at me. ‘We don’t know where she’s gone. So stop asking. You’ll be fine with us. Now go to sleep.’

Fatima turned away and pulled her two children closer to her. I traced my finger over the steamed-up window and made a small square that I could see out of. I felt very uncomfortable. Fatima had snapped at me just because I’d asked about Mum. It seemed clear that she wasn’t to be mentioned in her presence. But why? Adults were stupid, always telling you not to say this, not to do that. I drew a circle on the window and put in two dots for eyes and a straight line for a nose. I sneaked a look at Fatima, then drew a sad mouth. Already I hated her.

The Transit began a slow crawl from the town centre up to Hawesmill. My memories of this place were few; compared to the spacious compounds in Tajak and the vast fertile plains of the Indus Valley, Hawesmill looked small, cold and mean. Every house was the same. One street was no different from the next. The van bumped and slid over greasy cobbles before stopping outside a house three-quarters of the way up a long terrace row.

‘Here we are, kids,’ said Dad, smiling. ‘97 Nile Street. Welcome home. Come on, let’s get your stuff in.’

Dad grabbed our bags and gave a few notes to the driver. We stood shivering on the pavement. Snow was falling. I’d never seen white stuff dropping from the sky before and I was rooted to the spot with amazement.

Fatima was busy with her girls, Majeeda, who was 12, and Maisa, aged seven. Her nine-year-old boy, Tamam, banged on the door and shouted through the letterbox. Fatima pulled him away sharply, clipping him on his ear before rummaging in her bag for a key. Tamam winced and stared up at her like a beaten dog. Then he caught me looking at him and pulled his face into a snarl.

Fatima opened the door and pushed us all inside. We crowded into a narrow lobby, tripping over coats, bags and shoes. Tamam and Maisa bustled past Jasmine and me. Tamam gave me an extra shove as he passed.

‘Ayesha! Ayesha!’ Fatima yelled up the stairs. ‘Ayesha, come down now! Have you made the dinner? I can’t smell anything. Get down these stairs now!’

A teenage girl stuck her head round the top of the bannister rail and caught my eye. She winked and smiled. She plodded slowly downstairs, even as her mother screeched at her.

‘Hurry up, girl,’ Fatima said, ‘we’re all starving. I hope you’ve made something. Where’s your father?’

‘At the shop,’ she replied. ‘Where else? So … these are the little village kids. Haven’t they grown up? They’re really brown, too. You’d never think their mum was …’

‘Shut up!’ said Fatima fiercely. ‘Where’s the dinner?’

‘Made ages ago,’ came the surly reply. ‘It’s gone cold.’

‘Put the stove on then,’ Fatima said. ‘And leave a plate aside for your father. He’ll want something when he comes in.’

Ayesha took our hands and led us into the kitchen. ‘What’ve they been feeding you out there?’ she said. ‘Goat and more goat, I reckon. Come on, I’ve made some mincemeat with potatoes and peas. That’ll warm you up. Do you want a chapati while you’re waiting?’

We nodded, still trying to get used to the sound of Pashto underpinned by flat Lancashire vowels. Ayesha lit the hob and placed the cooking pot on top, then started singing in English.

‘Da da, da da, da da, da-da, tainted love, woah-oh, tainted love!’ She danced around the tiny kitchen, banging a spatula on the work surface to the rhythm of the song. We looked at her, wide-eyed in amazement. We hadn’t heard any music at all in Pakistan. No one ever sang or danced like this.

‘Guess what?’ Ayesha whispered. ‘I’ve got a radio in my bedroom. It’s true – Parveen in Alma Street lent it me. It’s got an earphone so no one knows you’re listening. I like the charts on a Sunday night. Do you like them too? What’s your favourite song? I like Soft Cell, Duran Duran, the Human League – all of them. You can have a listen if you want.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, not knowing what I’d agreed to.

‘It’s OK. Just don’t tell Mum. I’ll get done if she finds out …’