A Week in December Read online

‘But we don’t need to be! We can be part of this world too. Why should we be excluded?’

  ‘Well of course, my dear boy, of course I wish that there were countries in the world – either the so-called “Muslim” states or the Western countries – that were acceptable to a true Muslim. I wish that we didn’t have to live like exiles inside the shell of the family to be righteous. It’s a great sadness. But it may also be a little bit our fault. We’ve had possession of the truth for nearly 1,500 years, but we’ve never developed ways of living, you know, the practical aspects of state and church and politics and law to bring an Islamic society into being. It’s a great sadness, but—’

  ‘But it’s not too late! Don’t give me all this “great sadness”, all this weary old man’s resignation! You say you believe in every word of the Koran, then—’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Then study it more carefully. Follow the Prophet’s example by taking the good news to the jahili world.’

  ‘But I like America!’ said Knocker. ‘I like its movies and its TV. What was that one with the pretty girl from the TV series? Never mind. I admire its science and its ... Its friendliness! When I went there on my way to and from Mexico, the people were so kind to me. In New York and Colorado and Los Angeles. They were welcoming and generous to a stranger with brown skin and a funny accent. I don’t have to get drunk or grow fat on their junk food or watch their pornography, but I do—’

  ‘America is the enemy. Just as the Persians and Byzantines were to the Prophet. We should be liberating them.’

  ‘And how will you liberate them?’ said Knocker. ‘Fly another plane into a building? Kill all their politicians, break their army, then say, “Now we will create God’s true Islamic society from California to New York – though we haven’t yet worked out how to do it in practice because we’ve never done it before”?’

  ‘You’re talking like a kafir.’

  Knocker had regained his calm after throwing Milestones across the room. He knew that what he said to Hassan now could be important, and he was careful not to raise his voice. ‘I’ve read very little, it’s true, but one thing I know is that whenever Islam has meddled in politics, it’s made a fool of itself. Those Muslim states who took sides backed the Germans in the First World War and the Nazis in the Second. Afterwards they allied themselves to the Soviet atheists. We’re not good at national politics.’

  ‘That’s bullshit, and you know it. In Afghanistan we defeated the Soviets. We won the Cold War! America claims it won, but it didn’t. The Afghans won. That was the hard part. Now taking on America is easier. Look at their cretinous leader.’

  ‘But I repeat, my dear Hassan. How will you do it? Even if someone could conquer America, which they can’t, what would you do with it? You don’t even have a blueprint for a modern country. The idea that we can set up a perfect state is ridiculous. That time has gone. Be gentle, be accepting. Say your prayers. We are going to heaven, but we must be patient on this earth. That’s why I called you Hassan, not Hussein – after the quiet one of the Prophet’s grandsons, not the troublemaker.’

  Hassan stood up and walked round the room. ‘Listen, Dad, I don’t think either of us must say things we regret tomorrow. But the fact is that almost the entire Muslim world lives in poverty and tyranny. And that is simply because America through what it calls “globalisation” oppresses us and supports the awful governments in the “Muslim” states. We just can’t allow our own people to be treated as the wretched of the earth.’

  Knocker sighed. ‘I’m sure it’s true that people in the Middle East are repressed by their governments – and I’ve always supported the Palestinians. But that wasn’t an Islamic war, a jihad or anything. It was a battle for the land that had been taken from them. And quite a lot of the PLO leaders were Christians anyway.’

  ‘You really haven’t understood at all, have you?’ said Hassan, his voice rising again. ‘All your wittering about politics. I’m not interested in British politics or any other nationalist politics. We have on offer a politics that is made by God. It’s staring us in the face.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk any more,’ said Knocker and got up stiffly from the bed. ‘Tomorrow is the biggest day of my life. Please don’t spoil it for me.’

  Hassan looked for a moment at the closed door. He had been on the verge of saying things he would have regretted. Thank God the old fool had gone to bed. As so often, he felt the need for purer air, and he went downstairs. His mother was reading in the sitting room.

  ‘Can I borrow your car, Mum?’

  ‘Of course. You won’t be back late, will you? It’s a—’

  ‘Big day tomorrow. I know.’

  As he drove, Hassan pulled out his mobile phone and, on a whim, called Shahla. Although he disapproved of her and thought that her punishment for apostasy would be eternal, he admitted to himself that she could think clearly. And he enjoyed her company, he thought, at an intellectual level.

  He knew there was hypocrisy in his attitude: Ali in Bradford would have been appalled to see him calling up this atheist girl. But he felt she might clear his mind; she might help him bring certain things into focus.

  ‘Well, it’s a bit unexpected,’ Shahla said, ‘but I wasn’t planning much. Just reading. I thought I might watch a movie on my new little DVD thing later.’

  Hassan held the phone well concealed in his hand, leaning his head against the cold car window as though in fatigue and resignation.

  It had been a long day for him already. In the morning he had delivered, as he had been instructed, all the components for the making of the bombs to ‘the pub’ at Manor House so that Seth and Elton could assemble them. Salim had told him to return the next day, when they’d receive their final briefing from a member of Husam Nar. It would give him time to go to the palace.

  He went round the South Circular, steering with one hand, through Catford and West Norwood. It was late and inhospitable enough for the traffic to be light, and in only half an hour he was pulling into the terrace of railwaymen’s cottages in Clapham.

  ‘Come in. Use me like a hotel. See if I care.’ Shahla’s smile took the sting from her words. She gave Hassan a chaste peck on the cheek and stood aside for him.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ They went up to the first floor and into her flat. ‘I’m going to have wine, but you can have something punitive if you prefer. Black tea? Wheatgrass? Jojoba juice?’

  Hassan smiled. ‘Ordinary tea’s fine. Thanks.’

  They settled either side of the coffee table. The room was small but not cramped. Shahla swung her long legs over the side of the armchair. She was wearing a red dress, woollen tights and leather boots with a kind of sleeveless Afghan sheepskin on top.

  ‘Are you warm enough, Hass?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks. Did I stop you ... Er, you look as though you might be going out?’

  Shahla looked down at herself. ‘What? No, no. I just like to keep up standards. You never know who might call. What’s new from the madrasa? All the girls still in hijab there?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I know. Mock if you like.’

  ‘Will I burn, Hass? Will it be bad?’

  ‘I’m going to Buckingham Palace tomorrow. With my dad.’

  ‘Oh, I love your dad. Do you remember, we met at graduation? Such a nice man. Rather a sexy smile, too, if I remember.’

  Hassan laughed. ‘I’m dreading it. I’ve managed to get out of the lunch, though.’

  ‘Have you got the right clothes?’

  ‘I have a suit. My dad’s got the full penguin thing and my mum’s bought at least three new dresses. Bags, shoes, everything.’

  ‘It’ll be fun. You should be proud of him. Do they give you lunch afterwards in, like, a big garden party?’

  ‘No, no, we all go our different ways. They’re going to lunch in some Lebanese place in Knightsbridge. I’m going ... I’ve got other fish to fry.’

  There was a pause. Hassan drank some tea.

  ‘Are yo
u all right, Hass? You seem a bit tense.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ He wondered how she’d noticed. ‘I had a bit of a row with my dad before I came. Nothing much.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Religion.’

  ‘Well, there’s a surprise.’

  She swung her legs from one side of the armchair, then placed them over the other side. He wished she wouldn’t do that.

  ‘Hass, we’re all a bit concerned that you spend so much time at that mosque. Some of the people there are not very nice.’

  ‘How do you know? You’ve never been there.’

  ‘It has a reputation.’

  ‘Oh yes. And what’s that, its “reputation”?’

  ‘For being Wahhabi.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that?’

  “‘What’s wrong with that?” That’s like saying “What’s wrong with Nazism?”!’

  ‘The Wahhabis were hardly Nazis, they were—’

  ‘They executed a lot of people who didn’t agree with them, they burned a lot of books. They were a nineteenth-century throwback to the Middle Ages who wanted to pretend scientific advance had never taken place.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you could compare them to the Puritans in Christianity, or the Amish, or—’

  ‘The Amish in jackboots,’ said Shahla. ‘Can we agree on that?’

  ‘It’s hardly a tiny sect, though,’ said Hassan. ‘It’s the mainstream religious denomination of the richest and most powerful Islamic country in the world, Saudi Arabia.’

  ‘But that’s exactly the problem, you great twit!’ said Shahla. ‘Tyrannical Saudi kings and the American billions from drilling Saudi oil are sustaining a violent Flat Earth religion from the Stone Age.’

  ‘But they have Mecca and Medina in their country, and—’

  ‘I know,’ said Shahla. ‘They have the two holy places and they have the oil money. In some Muslim countries, the Wahhabis are the only people with money to set up schools. Islam is Wahabbism to those children. That’s as though all Christian kids went to schools run by the IRA or the Ku Klux Klan – because there was nothing else.’

  Hassan was taken aback by her vehemence. ‘I think you’re exaggerating.’

  ‘Quite the opposite. It’s actually more bizarre than that. Because the money behind the Saudis and Wahhabism is American. It’s as though the British government had paid the IRA to educate British children.’

  Hassan stood up. ‘My mosque is perfectly respectable.’

  Shahla also got to her feet, where she was a little taller than Hassan. ‘I’m sorry, Hass. Don’t go. Sit down. I’ll make some more tea. It’s just that your friends are worried. Did you know that?’

  Part angry, part wanting to stay, Hassan sat slowly down again. He heard Shahla in the small kitchen, moving swiftly, as though she wanted to be back before he changed his mind. He had almost forgotten how irritatingly knowledgeable she was, even on ‘his’ subject. She came back with more tea for him and sat down opposite, this time with her feet on the floor.

  ‘Shall we watch that movie I mentioned?’ she said. ‘I’ve bought this tiny DVD player for only £25. It’s like a CD thing. Look. You just stick it on the back of the telly.’

  ‘OK,’ said Hassan.

  ‘But promise me you’re not getting in above your head,’ said Shahla.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘I know how much it hurts,’ said Shahla. ‘But I’m sure there is a future for true Islam, but in a quiet, religious way. Modernisation will come. People will have more choice and will live more individual lives and that will secularise them. They can still be devout in private, but they’ll live their lives in smaller units. Fragmented. Atomised.’

  ‘I can’t bear that!’ said Hassan. ‘When you think of the glory of the Islamic empire, all different colours and races of people bound together by this great faith. Now everyone just broken up – “atomised”, as you say, with their own silly little earpiece and ringtone and text message.’

  ‘I know,’ said Shahla. ‘There’s nothing grand about the modern world, is there? “Consumer choice”. It’s so small. The Internet just underlines that. It makes the triviality of living instantly available.’

  ‘God, yes,’ said Hassan. ‘Blogs.’

  ‘YourPlace.’

  ‘Aaaagh.’

  ‘And, really, Hass, it can never happen. A revolution. The best Islamist model that I have read about—’

  ‘In your now very advanced studies.’

  ‘Indeed. My very advanced studies ... Islamism can’t generate political systems with inbuilt democratic checks. It relies on good men to rule justly. But it’s a vicious circle, because good men can only become good in a society that’s already Islamic.’

  ‘I like that idealism, though,’ said Hassan. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do. But somewhere in the last 1,500 years you guys forgot to get your hands dirty. To invent a polity. And it’s too late now.’

  Hassan bit his lip. ‘Shall we watch that film then?’

  Shahla laughed. ‘OK. It’s what you’d call kafir nonsense – some sort of romcom, I’m ashamed to say, with Tom Gritt and Evelina Belle.’

  ‘Perfect in our atomised modern world,’ said Hassan. ‘We don’t even have to go to the cinema. Are you sure you don’t mind sharing the sound with me? Wouldn’t you rather have your own individual headset?’

  ‘Don’t! You’ll make me cry.’

  Shahla put the disc into the small player behind the television. ‘You sure it’s not too late? It won’t be over till about one o’clock.’

  ‘It’s OK. I’ll drive back then.’

  ‘Fine.’

  Hassan had a moment of embarrassment, as though the idea of his staying had been broached and he had somehow ... ‘Of course. If that’s OK by you, Shahla. If you don’t have an early start tomorrow—’

  ‘No, no. No meetings with the Queen for me. Here we go. Scene selection? No thanks. Play.’

  Hassan had not intended to like the film, but after fifteen minutes he could no longer stifle his laughter.

  At the start of the evening, Vanessa Veals had put five cubes of ice into a Victorian rummer, poured in vodka till it almost reached the brim and added some fresh mint, a slice of lime and a dribble of grenadine cordial. It was her second ‘proper’ drink since six, and after it she would stick to what she called ‘just wine’. She took it into the sitting room, kicked off her shoes and sat on the sofa, where she fired up the television.

  She lit a cigarette, an American classic with a toasted wheat aroma, and pushed her hand back through her hair, which had been professionally washed and dried that afternoon on Holland Park Avenue. Before abandoning herself to the evening, she ran a check over everyone and everything for which she felt responsible.

  Max, the West Highland White, had had his walk and a solid two hours’ barking at the end of the garden under the neighbours’ window. Bella, her fourteen-year-old daughter, was having a sleepover at Chloë’s or Zoë’s house. She had a sleepover most nights, Vanessa had noticed, but it was probably good for her social skills. Bella’s school reports were not encouraging, but then she was not a particularly clever child. She was a mystery to Vanessa. She didn’t seem to be interested in fashion, for a start. Perhaps that was because she was plump, but Vanessa didn’t think so. She didn’t seem to care about discos or parties or boys or shoes or money or music or whatever they were meant to be interested in. God knows what they did at these ‘sleepovers’, apart from eat fattening food and wear fleecy pyjamas in their sleeping bags. Bella seemed to have come from a different decade; Vanessa had once found her reading about ponies, for heaven’s sake.

  Then Finbar. Well, he was up in his room and she no longer dared go up there. He could make her politest enquiry look like a gross breach of his privacy. Presumably he was masturbating or something, but he was sixteen and therefore legally an adult – or as near as made no difference anyway – so there was nothing she could do about it. He looked very pal
e, it was true, and was as thin as Bella was plump, but what was his mother meant to do: make him go to the gym, eat more potatoes? It was best to leave him to find his own way forwards in life, up there, on his own. It really was a nice room in any event; the best room in the house, John always said.

  And John? Well, guess what, John was working late. And when he came home, he’d work even later. Vanessa knew he had a big trade on. She could tell, because instead of coming to bed at one and lying awake most of the night worrying, he didn’t come to bed until some oriental market had opened or closed – and sometimes not even then: she’d find him at seven, haggard and un shaven with the morning papers in the kitchen, still in last night’s clothes.

  Vanessa lit another cigarette and sighed. She’d married John because he was rich and because she felt he’d make few demands on her. He had happily given up trading on the floor of NYMEX and taken what she considered a more respectable job on the energy desk in the bank’s main building in Wall Street; he told her he’d done it for her, though she already knew him too well to think he would do anything unless there was a financial advantage in it. However, it was a useful fiction for them both: she’d taken the rough trader and made him into a suave creature of charity evenings; he had transformed himself out of pure gallantry and a desire to please his wife.

  What Vanessa hadn’t foreseen was either the narrowness of her husband’s life or the peripheral sliver of it that would be set aside to her. He treated her politely and remembered her birthday and their wedding anniversary with small jeweller’s boxes and silent dinners à deux in places of terrible expense from which she could barely wait to get home. She had believed that she’d like being left to herself, being independent, but had discovered that it made her brutally lonely. Although she did read books and did have friends, her inner resources weren’t great enough to withstand the relentless, remorseless pounding of solitude. It was like the sea; it never stopped.

  John Veals had no interests outside the acquisition of money. He didn’t play golf or tennis. He didn’t support a football team. He threw all colour magazines in the bin. He went to the theatre or the opera once a year if there was a certain and measurable financial advantage in doing so. He never went to the cinema and he thought television was a waste of time. A personal shopper bought his clothes. His idea of dinner was sausages and frozen peas, though he was prepared to sit it out over foie gras and Japanese beef if there was a purpose to the tedium. He disliked alcohol, though kept the cellar well stocked for Vanessa; he had an arrangement with a wine merchant in St James’s to make a fortnightly delivery to the house.