strength. He understood that sometimes not to act is a man’s greatest triumph. He was a Hindu. I am a Muslim. My friend here is-’
‘A Roman Catholic,’ said Poppy shakily. ‘Lapsed.’
‘And you are?’ began Samad.
Mad Mary said
‘What I am trying to say…’
Samad looked at the small group of Methodists who, hearing the noise, had begun to gather nervously at the door of St Andrew’s. He grew confident. There had always been a manque preacher in Samad. A know-it-all, a walker-and-a-talker. With a small audience and a lot of fresh air he had always been able to convince himself that all the knowledge in the universe, all the knowledge on walls, was his.
‘I am trying to say that life is a broad church, is it not?’ He pointed to the ugly red-brick building full of its quivering believers. ‘With wide aisles.’ He pointed to the smelly bustle of black, white, brown and yellow shuffling up and down the high street. To the albino woman who stood outside the Cash and Carry, selling daisies picked from the churchyard. ‘Which my friend and I would like to continue walking along if it is all right with you. Believe me, I understand your concerns,’ said Samad, taking his inspiration now from that other great North London street-preacher, Ken Livingstone, ‘I am having difficulties myself – we are all having difficulties in this country, this country which is new to us and old to us all at the same time. We are divided people, aren’t we.’
And here Samad did what no one had done to Mad Mary for well over fifteen years: he touched her. Very lightly, on the shoulder.
‘We are split people. For myself, half of me wishes to sit quietly with my legs crossed, letting the things that are beyond my control wash over me. But the other half wants to fight the holy war. Jihad! And certainly we could argue this out in the street, but I think, in the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution – it is not my solution. So I do not know what it is you would like me to say. Truth and firmness is one suggestion, though there are many other people you can ask if that answer does not satisfy. Personally, my hope lies in the last days. The prophet Muhammad – peace be upon Him! – tells us that on the Day of Resurrection everyone will be struck unconscious. Deaf and dumb. No chit-chat. Tongueless. And what a
Samad took Poppy firmly by the hand and walked on, while Mad Mary stood dumbstruck only briefly before rushing to the church door and spraying saliva upon the congregation.
Poppy wiped away a frightened tear and sighed.
She said, ‘Calm in a crisis. Impressive.’
Samad, increasingly given to visions, saw that great-grandfather of his, Mangal Pande, flailing with a musket; fighting against the new, holding on to tradition.
‘It runs in the family,’ he said.
Later, Samad and Poppy walked up through Harlesden, around Dollis Hill, and then, when it seemed they were hovering too near to Willesden, Samad waited till the sun went down, bought a box of sticky Indian sweets and turned into Roundwood Park; admired the last of the flowers. He talked and talked, the kind of talking you do to stave off the inevitable physical desire, the kind of talking that only increases it. He told her about Delhi circa 1942, she told him about St Albans circa 1972. She complained about a long list of entirely unsuitable boyfriends, and Samad, not able to criticize Alsana or even mention her name, spoke of his children: fear of Millat’s passion for obscenities and a noisy TV show about an A-team; worries about whether Magid got enough direct sunlight. What was the country doing to his sons, he wanted to know, what was it doing?
‘I like you,’ she said finally. ‘A lot. You’re very funny. Do you know that you’re funny?’
Samad smiled and shook his head. ‘I have never thought of myself as a great comic wit.’
‘No – you
‘What thing?’
‘About camels – when we were walking.’
‘Oh, you mean, “Men are like camels: there is barely one in a hundred that you would trust with your life.” ’
‘Yes!’
‘That’s not comedy, that is the Bukhari, part eight, page one hundred and thirty,’ said Samad. ‘And it is good advice. I have certainly found it to be true.’
‘Well, it’s still funny.’
She sat closer to him on the bench and kissed his ear. ‘Seriously, I like you.’
‘I’m old enough to be your father. I’m married. I am a Muslim.’
‘OK, so Dateline wouldn’t have matched our forms. So what?’
‘What kind of a phrase is this: “So what?” Is that English? That is not English. Only the immigrants can speak the Queen’s English these days.’
Poppy giggled. ‘I still say: So-’
But Samad covered her mouth with his hand, and looked for a moment almost as if he intended to hit her. ‘So
Poppy moved to the other end of the bench and leant forward, her elbows resting on her knees. ‘I know,’ she began slowly, ‘that this is no more than it is. But I won’t be spoken to like that.’
‘I am sorry. It was wrong of me-’
‘Just because you feel guilty, I’ve nothing to feel-’
‘Yes, I’m sorry. I have no-’
‘Because you can go if you-’
Half thoughts. Stick them all together and you have less than you began with.
‘I don’t want to go. I want you.’
Poppy brightened a bit and smiled her half-sad, half-goofy smile.
‘I want to spend the night… with you.’
‘Good,’ she replied. ‘Because I bought this for you while you were next door buying those sugary sweets.’
‘What is it?’
She dived into her handbag, and in the attenuated minute in which she scrabbled through lipsticks and car-keys and spare change, two things happened.
1.1 Samad closed his eyes and heard the words
1.2 Samad opened his eyes and saw quite clearly by the bandstand his two sons, their white teeth biting into two waxy apples, waving, smiling.
And then Poppy resurfaced, triumphant, with a piece of red plastic in her hand.
‘A toothbrush,’ she said.
8
The stranger who wanders into O’Connell’s Pool House at random, hoping for the soft rise and fall of his grandfather’s brogue, perhaps, or seeking to rebound a red ball off the side cushion and into the
